SHRINES of BRITAIN'S GLORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20111, 2 April 1928, Page 4

SHRINES of BRITAIN'S GLORY

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BRISTOL

Both the Britons and the Romans established military camps in the vicinity of the site of the present famous manufacturing and seaport city of Bristol on the River Avon, but its recorded history does not commence until the end of the 10th century, when the Saxons founded a small settlement on the spot. This speedily grew into an important seaport town under the Danish rulers of the country, notably during the reign of Canute, when it opened up an extensive woollen trade with Ireland.

In the Domesday Book, which was compiled in 1086, Bristol was ranked as the fourth most important city in Britain, and in the 12th century its port was crowded with ships from all parts of Europe. Later its merchants began a flourishing trade in African slaves, and in the 17th and 18th centuries the ships of Bristol practically the American and West ihuian trade. The loss of the American colonies and the abolition of slavery almost ruined the city, but the development of coal mines in the vicinity and the opening of ncw r docks brought about, a revival of its former prosperity, and it played an important part in the establishment, of steam navigation between Britain and America. One of its earlier charters was granted by Hendy II in 1172 and gave the burgesses the city of Dublin as a colony.

When Robert, Earl of Gloucester, rose in rebellion against King Stephen on behalf of his sister Maude in .1138 he made Bristol his stronghold and held the king a prisoner there for nine months. The city was captured by Prince Rupert in 1645 and became the. Royalist headquarters in the west of England, but two years later it was taken by the Parliamentary army.

One of Bristol’s most cherished memories is its association with the voyages of John Cabot. In 1497 Sabot sailed from the port of Bristol on board the

“Matthew’’ with a crew of only eighteen mon for the purpose of discovering a new sea-route to Asia via the western ocean, and four months later he returned to Bristol with the tidings that he had discovered the mainland of America and had planted the British flag on what is known to-day as Cape Breton Island. In the following year he made another voyage to the New World, during which he discovered Baltin Land and Newfoundland and explored the American coast as far south as Florida. Cabot was the first Governor of the Merchant Adventurers’ Company, which played a prominent part in the development of Bi’itis*. commerce and shipping, ‘and is still a flourishing Bristol corporation. Sir Martin Frobisher’s famous ship “Michael” belonged to Bristol, ami the groat, treasure which he collected on his expedition in 1576 was deposited in the city.

When Henry VIII. robbed the Church of its vast treasures by the suppression of the monasteries throughout England he salved his conscience by founding six new bishoprics, one of which was the Sec of Bristol. Its first cathedral was the chapel of an Augustinian monastery, erected in 1142 on the site of an oak tree beneath which St. Augustine is said to have preached at the end of the 7th century. The Abbey gateway and the Chapter House arc all that, remain of the Norman edifice, and they arc notable for their richly sculptured mouldings and general stateliness. The choir of the present Cathedral dates back to 1306, when it was rebuilt by Abbot Knowle, but the Nave was not erected until 1878. The Nave of the Norman church had fallen into such an advanced state of decay that it had to be demolised soon after the foundation of the bishopric, and for over three centuries the cathedral was without a Nave.

Among the most famous of Bristol’s Bishops were Fletcher, who sought solace in his pipe when he fell from the good graces of Queen Elizabeth on account of his taking a second wife and smoked himself to death; Trelawney, who was immortalised Dy Hawker in his well-known poem—“ And Shall Trelawney Die”; and Butler, the author of the celebrated “Analogy of Religion.” The Church of St. Mary Redcliffo, which is considered to be the finest parish church in Europe, was erected in the middle of the 14th century on the site of two older churches. It contains the grave of Sir William Penn, the captor of Jamaica and the father of tho founder of Pennsylvania, and among its many treasures is a whale’s rib presented, to the church by Cabot in 1497. This is the only surviving relic of the famous mariner’s eventful voyages from Bristol. The uncle of Thomas Chatterton was sexton of the church, and it was in its muniment room that the boy-poet claimed to have found the “ancient” manuscript which he had himself written.

Bristol possesses many interesting literary associations. Robert Southey was born in the city, and he and his friend and brother-poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. were married to two sisters, Edith and Sara Frick er, in the Church of St. Mary, Redcliffo, in 1795, while the Church of St. Peter contains the grave of another poet, Richard Savage, who died in an adjacent prison, where ho was confined for debt, in 1743. David Hume, the historian, worked in Bristol as a lawyer’s clerk in 1734, and Hannah More, the religious writer, was born and also died on the. outskirts of the city, in which she conducted a boarding school for seven years.

The memory of Edward Colston, Bristol’s most, princely benefactor, who died in 1721, is kept green by numerous memorials in the city and by a great annual banquet on November 13, tho anniversary of his birth in 1636.