CHAPTER 16
It was midday when I arrived in Tewkesbury, driving up from the Forest of Dean. My first port of call was the abbey, which, these days, is actually not a monastery at all but rather the local parish church. It turned out to be an exceptionally beautiful building, not least because it survived the Reformation relatively intact. The reason for this was all around me: royal connections. Clearly, it was also not without reason that it is known as the Westminster of the West of England; the church was filled with the tombs of earls and dukes, some of whom were of royal blood. As we have seen, the original monastery was founded by Sir Robert Fitzhammon, the same Earl of Gloucester, who, in 1092, seized the Vale of Glamorgan. However, the church building we see today was only begun by him. It was mostly constructed by his successor, Robert the Consul, who, in 1107, became Lord of Glamorgan and Earl of Gloucester by right of his marriage to Fitzhammon’s daughter Mabel. In 1121, however, he was awarded the Gloucester title in his own right. This was done by order of Henry I, who was, of course, his natural father.
During the course of the next 400 years, Tewkesbury Abbey was added to and further beautified by a succession of Earls, Countesses and Dukes of Gloucester. Among their number were four Earls of Clare and several members of the family, including Lady Isabella Despencer, who, uniquely one suspects, married two earls with the same name. The first of these was Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Worcester, while the second was Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, also his cousin.* (Map 4)
Map 4: The Severn and Avon rivers
All this building work ended abruptly with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. Then, had the local people of Tewkesbury not stepped in, the abbey, like so many others, would have been destroyed. However, they insisted that it was their parish church as well as being a home for monks. Accordingly, for the price of its lead roof and its bells, they were allowed to buy it back. Thus it was that this magnificent, medieval church was able to survive, more or less intact, until the present time.
As I walked around, my attention was drawn to a tomb surmounted by an elaborate canopy. A caption attached to it informed me that it commemorated a certain Sir Guy de Brien, the second husband of Elizabeth Montacute, Countess of Gloucester. She had died in 1359 and was buried with her first husband, Sir Hugh le Despencer (the son of the more famous Hugh le Despencer the younger, who was executed in Hereford in 1326). Sir Guy de Brien died in 1390, and his tomb was placed opposite theirs on the other side of an aisle. My guidebook informs me that he was one of the earliest Knights of the Garter; in fact, he is listed as number 57 in that august order, being invited to join by the founder himself, Edward III. This was hardly surprising, as Sir Guy had shown great valour at the Battle of Crécy, where he acted as Standard Bearer to the King himself.
Sir Guy’s tomb was certainly special, but what drew my attention was the coat of arms depicted on his shield: or, three piles azure conjoined at the point. When I saw these arms, my heart nearly missed a beat, for they clearly represented something I was very familiar with: the symbol of Awen, which is drawn either as \|/ or /|\ and is associated in Wales with ‘Bardism’, a pre-Christian, poetic philosophy that is closely connected to what is generally referred to as Druidism. The Awen symbol represents one of the deepest secrets of ancient British mysticism, going back to long before the Roman invasions. A dictionary translation of the Welsh word Awen is ‘poesy’ or ‘the muse’; however, this is a superficial rendering. Actually, Awen or ‘Ave’ is the name of the ancient British goddess of inspiration, the equivalent of the Greeks’ Athena or the Romans’ Minerva.
According to the teachings of Bardism, the symbol of Awen derives from three shadows cast by a standing stone: one at dawn, one at midday and the last at sunset. In Medieval times (and probably long before), a ‘Gorsedd’ – that is, a formal gathering of the bards – could only be held during the hours of daylight. This was because the ancient Britons, like the ancient Egyptians, believed that the sun was the ‘eye of God’. It followed, therefore, that if the sun was not visible in the sky, then God was not watching and any proceedings were invalid. In practice, the Gorsedd had to be held between the times of the first and last shadows cast by the ‘Station Stone’, ie the period represented by the Awen symbol.
It struck me as interesting that on the arms of Sir Guy, the ‘piles’ (flat-pointed wedges) were blue, while the background to the shield was yellow. This suggested that they were intended to represent the three shadows cast by a pillar on a sunny day: the blue piles symbolizing the shadows, while the yellow background represented sunlight. This being so, it suggested that Sir Guy must also have had some knowledge of bardic traditions.
Later, I decided to investigate this, and quickly discovered that the de Brien family (also called Bryan or Brionne) had large land holdings throughout the southwest of England, including Hazelbury Bryan in Dorset. However, Sir Guy himself had been Lord of Laugharne, a district in what is now Carmarthenshire in South Wales. This was interesting from an esoteric point of view, for I now suspected that his adoption of the Awen symbol on his arms could have come about following contact with the remnants of an earlier tradition of Welsh Bardism. This raised a further question, though: what was so special about Laugharne? Why should secret, bardic knowledge have been preserved there?
I found the answer in an old book entitled Iolo Manuscripts. This was first published in 1848 and gets its name from ‘Iolo Morganwg’ (pronounced Yolo Morganoog), the bardic name of an old stonemason and antiquarian called Edward Williams. When not plying his trade, he spent much of his time walking round Wales, searching the libraries of gentlefolk for old manuscripts in the Welsh language. These, with the owner’s permission, he would then copy into his notebooks, his intention being to publish them at some future date. Unfortunately, as this work had not been completed when Iolo died (in 1826), it was left to his son, Taliesin Williams, and some friends from the ‘Honourable Society of Cymmrodarion’ (a London-based group of Welsh antiquarians) to publish the work. They did so in 1848, providing copies of the original Welsh texts along with their English translations and copious notes. It was this book that I now consulted.
On seeing the arms of Sir Guy de Brien and noting the connection with Laugharne Castle, I remembered a text that I had read in one of the Iolo Manuscripts: that Laugharne – known anciently as Aberllychwr – had links with the most famous bard of the Dark Ages, Taliesin. I checked the book and found the following:
‘Taliesin, the son of Henwg [viz pronounced Henoog], was taken by the wild Irish, who unjustly occupied Gower, but while onboard ship, on his way to Ireland, he saw a skin coracle, quite empty, on the surface of the sea, and it came closely to the side of the ship; whereupon Taliesin, taking a skin-covered spar in his hand, leapt into it, and rowed towards land, until he stuck on a pole in the weir of Gwyddno Garanhir; when a young chieftain, named Elphin, seeing him so entangled, delivered him from his peril. This Elphin was taken for the son of Gwyddno; although, in reality, he was the son of Elviri, his daughter, but by whom was then quite unknown: it was, however, afterwards discovered that Urien Rheged, King of Gower and Aberllychwr, was the father, who introduced him to the court of Arthur, at Caerlleon upon Usk; where his [Taliesin’s] feats, learning and endowment, were found to be so superior, that he was created a golden-tongued Knight of the Round Table. After the death of Arthur, Taliesin became chief Bard to Urien Rheged, at Aberllychwr in Rheged.’
This passage contains a number of interesting things. Firstly, it confirms that Caerleon-upon-Usk was the site of Arthur’s court. This should come as no surprise, for we have already identified this town as the most likely candidate for being the Camelot of legend. Taliesin is a well-known and indeed famous bard of the late 6th century. Many of his poems have survived, and some of these are even dedicated to Urien Rheged. That after Arthur’s death he should go to the court of Urien makes sense in the light of several other notices in the Iolo Manuscripts. According to these, the story of Urien is that he was originally the ruler of a district called Rheged, more or less contiguous with today’s county of Cumbria in the north of England. Perhaps it was for this reason that the same name, Rheged, was also applied to this territory he is said to have conquered between the rivers Tawy and Towey in South Wales. How it came into Urien’s possession is explained in another of the Iolo Mss documents:
‘Gylmore Rechdyr, King of Ireland, came to Wales in the time of Constantine the Blessed [c.AD 420-30], and unjustly seized that part of Glamorgan which is bounded by the Tawy and Towey, including the Cantred of Gower [a peninsular near Swansea] and Loughor, and the three Commots, namely, Kidwely, Carnwyllion and Iscennen [three ‘hundreds’ or municipal divisions of southern Carmarthenshire]; which country he arbitrarily subdued, and it continued under usurpation to the time of King Arthur [6th century], who sent a redoubtable prince of the Round Table, being a person of astonishing prowess, called Urien, the son of Cynvarch, the son of Meirchion Gul, the son of Ceneu, the son of Coel Godebog, and with him ten thousand men of daring onset and stout hearts, to recover these districts from the usurping chieftain, Gilmore the Irishman. Urien put him and his forces to flight, killing them unsparingly … After Urien had reconquered Gower and the Three Commots, he was anointed King of that country, which was thereupon called Rheged.’
Loughor or Aberllychwr is the place we now know as Laugharne, which, coincidentally, was also the birthplace of that modern bard Dylan Thomas. Taliesin would have known all about the Awen symbol, so I reasoned that the fact that, in his day, Loughor/Laugharne was associated with a bardic chair could well be the reason that Sir Guy adopted the Awen symbol for his arms. By doing so, he was identifying his house with the ancient legends and traditions associated with Urien Rheged.
Sir Guy’s effigy lay between the aisle and a small chapel dedicated to St Margaret. This chapel too was interesting from an esoteric point of view. Attached to one wall was a relatively large sculpture of a pelican feeding its young with its own blood. This is, of course, a Christian symbol of self-sacrifice – on one level it represents Jesus Christ shedding his blood in order to feed those who follow him. However, there are other, more esoteric, meanings to this symbol. By chance, I was accompanied on my visit to Tewkesbury by a friend who is a Freemason. He informed me that the pelican is a prominent Masonic symbol relating to the degree of Rose Croix or ‘Rosy-cross’. He also told me that Tewkesbury Abbey itself has strong Masonic connections: indeed, it is used for provincial Masonic services and gatherings of ‘Mark Masons’.
On returning home, I looked up Rose Croix on the Internet. I discovered that it is the 18th degree of ‘Scottish Rite’, which claims to be the oldest form of Freemasonry. This degree, it seemed, was one of the most important of the 33 degrees that make up the Scottish Rite. Those who hold it are termed ‘Prince Knight of the Rose Cross’, and such gentlemen are permitted to wear a particular type of jewel of which I found example pictures. These featured a pelican feeding its young on one side, with an eagle on the other. Above the pelican is a cross and, rising from this, a rose.
I told another Masonic friend of mine about this, and he referred me to two pictures of Queen Elizabeth I, the Phoenix and the Pelican Portraits, which he thought I might find interesting, too. These portraits, both attributed to Nicholas Hilliard, are thought to have been painted by him in 1575, when Elizabeth was 42 and had already reigned as Queen for 16 years. Today, the Pelican Portrait is in the National Gallery in London, while the Phoenix Portrait is not far away, in the Tate Britain Gallery. The two portraits, which appear to be mirror images of one another, get their names from the pendant jewels the Queen is wearing: in one a phoenix and in the other a pelican.
There is much interesting symbolism in these pictures, but what struck me was the way that their being mirror images of one another seems a curious echo of the Masonic jewel showing a pelican on one side and a phoenix on the other. Substitute eagle for phoenix (as is commonly done) and there seems to be a congruency of images. This is not to suggest, of course, that Elizabeth was a Freemason or had attained the Rose Croix degree of Scottish Rite; however, it does imply that there might be some sort of a connection between the symbolism of this degree and some secret ‘Rosicrucian’ knowledge of which the Queen herself was an initiate. A possible further connection could be read into the fact that, in the Phoenix Portrait, she delicately holds a red rose in her right hand, while, in the Pelican Portrait, the design of her blouse or dress top, possibly made from fine silk, is decorated with meandering rose branches and flowers. This implied connection between Queen Elizabeth I and some secret group or doctrine connected with rose symbolism was something I would follow up later.
In addition to its remarkable collection of effigy-topped tombs, Tewkesbury Abbey also boasts one of the best collections of stained-glass windows in England, many of these too going back to the Middle Ages. As well as scenes taken from the Bible, they depicted imaginary likenesses of such Earls of Gloucester as Sir Robert Fitzhammon, Hugh (the younger) le Despencer and the four Earls of Clare, who were also Earls of Gloucester.
I was familiar with the names and arms of these lords from studying a book that was probably written in about 1525, The Founders’ and Benefectors’ Book of Tewkesbury Abbey. This attractive book, written in Latin, is illustrated throughout with pictures of the various earls and their wives along with their arms. The last benefactor listed is George, Duke of Clarence, the younger brother of Edward IV and Richard III. He was murdered in the Tower of London in 1478, and legend has it that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. More likely, his body was simply immersed in a barrel of wine to keep it in a good state of preservation while being transported from London to Tewkesbury for burial. The book was unfinished, leaving out the fact that, following his death, the Dukedom of Clarence passed to the crown. No mention is made either of Richard III, who was Duke of Gloucester before he became King. He was not buried at Tewkesbury and, unlike George, doesn’t seem to have been a significant benefactor of the abbey. This suggests that the book was probably commissioned by the Duke of Clarence and abandoned after his death. Interestingly, at that time the Clarenceux King of Arms, today one of the most senior heralds based at the Royal College of Arms in London, would have been Clarence’s family herald. It is very likely, then, that the book was put together under the guidance of Duke George’s chief herald who would have had access to all the archives of Tewkesbury Abbey.
The Abbey church, however, was not just a mausoleum for the rich and famous. Sitting as it does at the confluence of two major rivers, the Warwickshire Avon and the River Severn, it was strategically placed and consequently played an important role in that epic struggle of the 15th century known to history as the Wars of the Roses. Indeed, in 1471, one of the last battles of that bloody war was fought just outside Twekesbury Abbey. As a result of this battle, the Yorkists achieved total victory for a time and peace returned to England until 1483. In my quest for the real meaning of Rosicrucianism, it was this epic struggle, symbolized by red and white roses, that I would investigate next.
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* See Chart 6: The Despencer Lords of Glamorgan, page 229