Tales of Wales. Three Kings, High Treason and Two Good Dinners.

Tales of Wales: Three Kings, High Treason and Two Good Dinners.

Henry V

                                                                         

In a desperate attempt to get away from all this election hysteria Mrs. Sanchez and I took up a generous offer to go on a complimentary fact finding mission to Symonds Yat in the Wye Valley which is in and out of Wales, is very beautiful and is bursting with history- too much to fit into this modest organ- so I have tried to tell you the best bits. If you don't like History and share Alan Bennett's view that it's just one f****** thing after another, I've included some bits about food and terrible cruelty too. There will be a contact number at the end for anyone who is affected by any of the issues raised here and where to get some first rate nosh.

            The River Wye (Afon Gwy) as seen from Symond's Yat Rock a long time ago

Symond's Yat (east) is in England and has no mobile coverage. It's very busy in the summer and you can go over in a 'hand line ferry' to Symond's Yat (west) when the river's not roaring down like it was this week. 
Although the 'Garth Cottage Bed and Breakfast' looked inviting we were booked into The Royal Lodge Hotel (Symond's Yat East. Dogs welcome) which is bigger and does top class nosh. So off we went down the M5, M50, A40, B42219 and a narrow unnamed road down to the ancient riverside settlement of Symonds Yat(east).

We called in at Ross-on-Wye on the way down which is in Gloucestershire (England) and rather cold in January. They have a rare 'corpse cross' there which commemorates 315 plague victims who were buried somewhere nearby (nobody knows where)  in a big pit in 1637, 28 years before the Great Plague of London. The Rossians are very proud of being one step ahead of the Cockeyneys but even prouder that it's where

Edmund II (Ironside)
died from  'a traitor's wounds' 1n 1216. His murderer put a big sharp stake in his latrine and blew the privy candle out just as 'Unlucky Eddy', taken short, sat down in a hurry. Ouch!  Pity he wasn't Edmund Ironarse instead. They managed to remove the stake from his person but left a splinter in his sphincter which festered and he died from septic tank. 
There are some lovely 'riverside walks' in Ross, but Tommy was not impressed by the 'All dogs must be kept on a lead; fine of 600 ducats and a spike up the bum for offenders.' sign so we drove on to Symonds Yat (East), ('a delightful hamlet'.  Shakespeare), booked in at the Royal Lodge Hotel  and set off to walk up to the famous Symonds Yat Rock.
Yat Rock is renowned for its views over the meandering Wye and the peregrine falcons. An elderly man and wife birdwatching team (our only companions up there) looked a bit glum and greeted us thus : 'If you've come to see the peregrine falcons you're out of luck. There's no wind.' They'd been there all day by the look of it. Good job we hadn't come in search of the raptors. We wished them 'Fair winds' and made it back down to The Saracen's Head just in time to be greeted thus: 'If you're expecting any food, we finished at half past two.' Pity. We were. I bought some expensive warm beer (Mrs. Sanchez will only drink it warm) and a packet of crisps for 95p..AND THAT WAS JUST FOR THE CRISPS!

                                     Tommy on Yat Rock looking out for peregrine falcons

With 3 hours to go before tea time we went for a look at Goodrich Castle, just up the road. It's run by English Heritage who charge you £7.10 just to look at the place in the 'summer months'. No charge today! Result.

                                                      Goodrich Castle


The next day, after a full English, we set off for to look for Wales (Cymru) which we found a couple of miles down the A40 where all the signs started being in English and Welsh which is a great idea in my opinion. It must cheer Welsh people up no end when they've been off to England for a holiday or to work in one of our many schools to be greeted on their return by signs which say things like 'camerâu cyflymder'and 'dim parcio' and.......

and this one which only Welsh speakers will find amusing (perhaps).

Believe me, it's a scream.


Monmouth is the birthplace of  Henry V and there's a statue of him set into the wall of the Shire Hall in Agincourt Square. 

                            Henry V
                            
                                                                                 
Henry was born in 1386 or 1387 above a garage in Monmouth Castle. His mother was only 16 years old at the time which would put his father, Henry lV,  on the sex offenders register in modern Wales (perhaps).  His grandad was John Gaunt, a very influential kingmaker, former UKIP member and ancestor of the popular radio broadcaster from Coventry of almost the same name who now entertains the ex pat English community of Southern  Spain  on 'Spectrum FM' (Costa del Sol)' with his witty and bigoted opinions.

Because of his fluency in Welsh and his family connections young Henry was given the job of bashing the Welsh who were revolting in those days. Owain Glyndywr (spelt in many ways) was a particular pest but  was no match for Henry's 'firm but fair' slaughtering tactics.  After a spot of ethnic cleansing he hotfooted it up to Shropshire  to help his father out at the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403), fighting against Harry Hotspur, Bylli the Whyz and Dyspryt Dân where he nearly perished  when an arrow got stuck in his face. Luckily young Henry had access to better doctors than Edmund II (Ironside) and made a quick recovery mainly thanks to honey and alcohol.
When he became king in 1413, one of the first things Henry  did was to have a go at the French for helping the Welsh. The French king, Charles VI , had mental issues and  thought he was made of glass most of of the time. He tried to buy off Henry with empty promises but Henry saw through him and gave the French a good biffing at Agincourt where he had all the French prisoners killed. He died of dysentry or toxic megacolon in France when he was 35 or 36, not much older than Unlucky Eddie Ironside or, indeed, Charles Rolls (see below)

Moral: Uneasy sits on the head that bears the crown. (Henry IV Part 2 -adapted) and don't be born in Monmouth if you want to live to  draw your pension.

If you try to take a photo of Henry V, this big bronze statue in front of Shire Hall gets in the way.

It's the Honourable Charles Stewart Rolls, third son of Baron Lllangattock, and better known as one half of the best selling duo Rolls and Royce. Yes, he was born in Monmouth and that's an aeroplane he's holding. 

             'Poshboy' Charlie Rolls showing off his new car to HRH The Duke of York 

Not  content with being a (posh) household name for cars he was the first person to fly to France and back without stopping. Who can blame him? Quite a contrast to his fellow townsman Henry V who couldn't keep out of the place. 
He was even younger than Henry  when he died, aged 32, after his plane crashed near Bournemouth.  His last achievement was to be the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident with a powered aircaft. Well done Charlie!


The lady in the tourist information room inside Shire Hall couldn't have been more helpful and charming when I asked her about John Frost.
The story goes that he was the last man in England to be condemned to death by being 'hanged, drawn and quartered'. And in 1840!
WARNING!
Readers of a delicate or nervous disposition should think twice before reading on (possibly good advice anyway).

                    John Frost at his trial

John Frost was a Chartist from Newport, about 26 miles from Monmouth. The Chartists wanted what we would consider today to be modest reforms ; universal male suffrage, voting by secret ballot, annual elections, payment of MPs., equal constituencies and no property qualification to be an MP. They believed in 'direct action' and the Welsh branches were the most militant. When about 3000 men marched into Newport they were fired on by  soldiers hiding in a pub and 22 were killed. Frost and other leaders were arrested, charged with high  treason and found guilty at Monmouth Assizes. High Treason still carried a penalty of death by hanging drawing and quartering. You can go in and see the courtroom and the holding cells in Monmouth's fine 18th. century Shire Hall.(free). Here's what traitors had coming to them.

Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces).

Even in times when a man could be hanged for stealing a pair of trousers this seemed a bit harsh and  Queen Victoria had only been on the throne for 3 years and was just about to marry Prince Albert  and so wanted to create a good impression. The judge let them off with a trip to Tasmania and Queen Vic. gave medals to the murdering soldiers and a knighthood to their commander. Happy days.

The Chartists were mainly men; they were only asking for votes for men after all. This did not stop hundreds of misguided women from joining up. They must have misread one of the demands as 'universal male suffering' . Dyslexia was not invented for another 100 years.

Monmouth is full of history and shops and is where I had my first pint of bitter when I was stationed there for a weekend in 1962 but I can't talk about that. We had a nice cup of coffee (Earl Grey tea for Mrs. Sanchez as they don't serve warm beer) in Waitrose's fine cafe and headed north to Hay-on-Wye.

                               Hay Castle and Bookshop

You can't move for castles round here. Hay-on-Wye has two. We passed two more on the way to Hay (Skenfrith and Grosmont),just missed White Castle and forgot all about Raglan Castle where the jumpers are made. You get some idea of why they built so many of them as the B4347 winds in and out of Wales and England. They mustn't have known if they were coming or going back in the old days. We weren't too sure either as the road got narrower and the the sky darkened over the Black Mountains to our left. 

Hay-on-Wye ( Y Gelli Gandryll) used to be in Brecknockshire,which was my second favourite county name. It's now in Powys  so it's in Wales, is twinned with Timbuctu and  has a Hereford (in England) postcode. Who says the Welsh don't have a sense of humour?
One of Wales's best comedians is Richard George William Pitt Booth MBE., a local bibliophile (it's legal in Wales) and secondhand bookshop owner. In 1977 he declared himself 'King of Hay', named his horse (they all have horses round here) Prime Minister of the 'Independent Kingdom of Hay', issued passports and created 21 new hereditary peers. He was deposed and ritually beheaded in Hay's Old Butter Market in 2007 for joining the Socialist Labour Party.

                  King Richard Coeur de Livre (self styled)

                         King Dick (aged 71) meets his end.

During the days when no-one had heard of Hay-on-Wye, iPhones or quantitative easing King Dick had the original idea of importing secondhand books from the USA and wearing his glasses on a slant. He sent a gang of strong lads from the Hay Bodybuilders' Club  to buy up all the stocks of the hundreds of American libraries which were closing down in their thousands from lack of readers. There are now more than two dozen secondhand bookshops in Hay, all selling copies of Dr.Seuss, Moby Dick, Uncle Tom's Cabin and other classic American titles. I bought a rare copy of George Borrow's 'Zincalí' for £3.00. A bargain. Hay attracts over 500,000 visitors a year which has brought untold riches to it's booksellers and pub owners. How ungrateful of them to behead the king!

If you're still awake or recovering from the gruesome details of cruel and unusual punishment here's something a bit more palatable.
The food at The Royal Lodge Hotel in Symonds Yat (east) ( 01600 890 238) is fantastic. We had two dinners there. The Pan Fried Duck is superb and I had it both nights.

Caminito del Rey watchers may like these two films. and it has its own facebook  page.

Don't forget. It's free for the first month.

January 25th. 2015