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by W.S. Symonds
Malvern Chase, published in 1881, appeared late in the career of its author. His previous works had been on the geology of Herefordshire, which, together with archaeology and natural history, was of passionate interest to him. The novel, set during the Wars of the Roses, was written with the express aim of "interesting the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in which I have resided … in local history and traditions which had become, like the Dodo, well nigh extinct." Unsurprisingly, the landscape of the area is described vividly and evocatively, but so too are the characters and events of the story, and it is easy to see why it was an instant success.
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It was about eight o'clock in the morning of the first of August that we made our appearance in front of the Keep, and the sun was pouring his rays upon mountain, glade and forest, and the new tower of the church, but just finished. No scene could look more peaceful or more unlikely to become a scene of slaughter and carnage than all around this village church and ancient Norman Keep. The church bell was going for matins, and here and there villagers might be seen wending their way to prayer, and yet, within a few miles, houses and barns had been fired; men killed in attempting to defend their hearths and homes; a poor gardener maimed and ill-treated within sight of the church; a farmer murdered for sheer spite and cruelty because he had no monies in his pouch; one of our principal proprietors of land and wealthiest of gentlemen in jeopardy of his life; and two belted knights turned into robbers! Such was the change which civil war and its consequent lawlessness had brought upon our once peaceful Malvern Chase!
Malvern Chase tells of the love between Hildebrande de Brute and Rosamond Berew, against the backdrop of the stirring events of the Wars of the Roses. Witchcraft, ghosts, treachery, boar-hunting and bull-baiting all add to the excitement. The book opens and closes with hunting scenes: some thirty-five years separate them, and much has happened, but the beauty of the landscape remains, to remind the now aged Hildebrande of all that is past.
Still the old man needs no omen as a signal for his departure from this world to another, the grey hairs, the shrunken form, the feeble gait, and the blood which chills with the first frost, all tell him that death is casting his shadow before him as he advances with swift but noiseless steps. Nor is this all! The companions of his youth are borne to the grave with every passing year, and drop like autumn leaves into their mother earth. But with all this, often, like Will Longland on the Malvern Hills, I have "slumbered in a sleeping" as I rested "under a broad bank by a burnside," and dear old faces have come back, and old familiar voices have been again eloquent, faces which are now dust, and voices which have long been silent.
Page created 2 January 2003 and last updated
3 January 2003
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