Lord Byron and Newstead Abbey
From The Red Pill
Of Warriors, Monks, and Dames the cloister’d tomb, Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide..
Yes! in thy gloomy cells and shades profound, The monk abjur’d a world, he ne’er could view;
Or blood-stain’d Guilt repenting, solace found, Or Innocence, from stern Oppression, flew.
A Monarch bade thee from that wild arise, Where Sherwood’s outlaws, once, were wont to prowl;
And Superstition’s crimes, of various dyes, Sought shelter in the Priest’s protecting cowl.
The Ancestral Seat of the Byrons and the Abbots Curse
The Byron Family who had come to England with William the Conqueror, would retain Newstead Abbey until George Gordon Noel Byron the 6th Lord Byron of Rochdale was forced to sell in in 1818.
Once the *supposed home of Friar Tuck of the Sherwood Forest of lore, Newstead Abbey was now said to be under a curse. It is told that the Abbot as he departed having been forced from his cell, placed an evil prayer upon the spring, the property and all who dwelt there dooming the usurpers of that ancient monastic house.
Murder and Madness
The property with title was inherited by William Byron, 5th Baron Byron in 1736 at the age of sixteen. The Baron went on to marry an heiress and hold such prestigious positions as Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge of Freemasons and Master of the Royal Staghounds until 1765 when he committed his first murder and slew his cousin and kinsmen William Chaworth in a duel in a London tavern during a quarrel. Sent to The Tower he was later tried before the House of Peers, he was found guilty of manslaughter under the statute of Edward VI. After paying a mere fine using a legal loophole called "Benefit of Clergy" he returned home to Newstead, there he mounted the sword with which he'd slain Chaworth on his bedroom wall. It would not be long later when he shot and killed his coachman in an arguement and threw the corpse into the coach which landed on his wife. He then took up the reins and handled the carriage himself.
When the Barons son defied him by marrying his cousin and twarting his desire for him to marry well and ease the family debts, the Baron set about the ruin of his own house. Meaning to leave his son nothing but debt he allowed the Abbey to become a ruin, cleared enormous tracks timber in Sherwood Forest, killed an estimated 2000 dear and illegally leased coalmines in Rochdale ensuring a lingering financial hardship on the next generation of Byrons.
The Baron dammed up the River Leen that ran through the lakes, cutting off water power down in the cotton mills of Linby and Papplewick. Due to the Barons work those mills became the first in England to use the steam engine. Impoverished children out of London and from surrounding towns were forced into the mills and subjected to hard labor under conditions so miserable most did not survive. In Linby Churchyard can be seen 163 graves of these child victims.
The spiteful Baron for seemingly no reason at all once evicted a miller, in return the miller broke the dam holding back the lake and the Baron was legally obliged to pay thousands of pounds in damages.
The Baron apparently much devoted to pleasure, as it is told that wild orgies which lasted days were conducted at Newstead Abbey during his time was also a man given entirely over to fits and follies. That he threw his wife in the lake is a good example of one, and he that when he dinned it was with two loaded pistols upon the table of the other. It would be one of those very follies that would fulfill what was said to have been a prophesy made by Old Mother Shipton who also known as "the Yorkshire Sybil", had predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666. Washington Irving would record it thus, "The lake has inherited its share of the traditions and fables connected with everything in and about the Abbey. It was a petty Mediterranean sea on which the "wicked old Lord" used to gratify his nautical tastes and humors. He had his mimic castles and fortresses along its shores, and his mimic fleets upon its waters, and used to get up mimic sea-fights. The remains of his petty fortifications still awaken the curious inquiries of visitors. In one of his vagaries, he caused a large vessel to be brought on wheels from the sea-coast and launched in the lake. The country people were surprised to see a ship thus sailing over dry land. They called to mind a saying of Old Mother Shipton, the famous prophet of the vulgar, that whenever a ship freighted with ling should cross Sherwood Forest, Newstead would pass out of the Byron family. The country people, who detested the old Lord, were anxious to verify the prophecy. Ling, in the dialect of Nottingham, is the name for heather; with this plant they heaped the fated bark as it passed, so that it arrived full freighted at Newstead."
In an unexpected turn of events the Baron outlived not only his son but his grandson, both title and property went to his great-nephew, George Gordon Byron whom he had nick-named "the lame brat". When the man known as "the Wicked Lord" and "the Devil Byron" died at the age of seventy-nine, it is said that great swams of crickets left the estate.
Lord George Gordon Byron
George came to his title when he was but ten years old. Coming from Aberdeen the Byron family finds Newstead Abbey uninhabitable, and so are obliged to make their residence in Nottingham, later he would be educated at Trinity College in Cambridge.
Byron went on to become famous in his own time for his world travels and poetry, then notorious for the many scandals of his life which included incest, sodomy and bisexuality. In Byrons years at Trinity he kept two mistresses, was known for his nightly romps with prostitutes and was said to have fallen in love with a choirboy named John Edleston. Eventually he would find himself forced by scandal into exile in Europe as the result of his seperation from his wife who complained of his cruelties towards her, of his "indecent behavior" and further, accused him of having a carnal love of his sister Augusta Leigh with whom he may fathered a daughter named Medora. Byron's many vices would eventually ruin his health, in particular laudanum, a derivative of opium. He was unconventional, brilliant, extravagant and famously according to one of his lovers, "mad, bad and dangerous to know". After Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was published in 1812 Byron remarked, "I awoke and found myself famous“.
Byron at Newstead
From which, unlike a living head, Whatever flows is never dull.
I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee; I died: let earth my bones resign:
Fill up—thou canst not injure me; The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
-Lord Byron
What had once been an elegant home on a landscaped estate with a hint of whimsy, was now a decaying
Newstead Abbey would become the scene of much revelry and many an outrageous affair hosted by Byron, the wild young lord who drank from a skull goblet with a gold rim was a scandal and cultivating his reputation for wickedness. The grisly relic found by Byron which he believed was "a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly friar or monk of the Abbey about the time it was dismonasteried," was polished, inscribed with Byrons poem "Lines Inscribed Upon A Cup Formed From A Skull", and mounted on a silver stem. In the late 19th century the skull goblet was much loathed by a very Christian lady of the Webb family who then owned the Abbey, at her request the family's minister, gave it a Christian burial in a secret location somewhere on the estate.
The End of the Byrons at Newstead
Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
Have choked up the rose which once bloomed in the way.
"Of the mail-covered barons who, proudly, to battle
Led thy vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain,
The escutcheon and shield, which with every wind rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain."
Lines on leaving Newstead Abbey.
-Washington Irving
Although once Byron had written, "Come what may, Newstead and I stand or fall together. I have now lived on the spot. I have fixed my heart upon it, and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within me which will enable me to support difficulties: could I obtain in exchange for Newstead Abbey, the first fortune in the country, I would reject the proposition," he was eventually forced to sell the Abbey due to his financial woes. Today Newstead Abbey belongs to Nottingham City Council. The house, Spanish Gardens and a museum of Byron memorabilia which includes manuscripts, letters and first editions of his works, are open to the public. Relics of the explorer Dr. David Livingstone are also displayed. Although a ruin, the gorgeous West Front still stands as well as the foundations of the cloisters.
Features
- the Spanish Gardens
- 300 acres of historic parkland
- formal, walled gardens
- a fishpond delivered by a waterfall from the River Leen
- walled gardens, terraces and forest enshrouded walks
- Peacocks and deer freely roam the estate
- two small-scale forts by the lake built and used the William Byron, 5th Baron Byron to stage make-believe naval battles, involving a miniature fleet of boats and a 20-gun ship.
- Robin Hood Way and Sherwood Forest
- Boatswains memorial
Preserved
- the lodgings of Edward II and Herny VII
- a tapestry room Charles II once stayed in
- Lord Byron's bedroom
The Death of Lord Byron
He died among strangers, in a foreign land, without a kindred hand to close his eyes; yet he did not die unwept. With all his faults and errors, and passions and caprices, he had the gift of attaching his humble dependents warmly to him. One of them, a poor Greek, accompanied his remains to England, and followed them to the grave. I am told that, during the ceremony, he stood holding on by a pew in an agony of grief, and when all was over, seemed as if he would have gone down into the tomb with the body of his master.--A nature that could inspire such attachments, must have been generous and beneficent. -Washington Irving
London, May 6 - A century and a half after his death, Lord Byron has at last become spiritually acceptable in his homeland. He is to have a plaque in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. This quiet revolution has been carried out by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Rev. Eric Abbott. After private approaches, he approved a petition by the Poetry Society for a Byron memorial in the Abbey.
Three similar requests had been turned down. The last attempt was in 1924, when the Dean of the day, Bishop Herbert E. Ryle wrote: "Byron, partly by his own openly dissolute life and partly by the influence of licentious verse, earned a worldwide reputation for immorality among English-speaking people. A man who outraged the laws of our Divine Lord, and whose treatment of women violated the Christian principles of purity and honor, should not be commemorated in Westminster Abbey."
An answering letter in Byron's behalf was sent to The Times of London by a group including Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and three former Prime Ministers - Balfour, Asquith, and Lloyd George. But the established church was unmoved.
A Change in Standards? No official reason was given for the present dean's attitude, but no one would consider Byron's poetry licentious by contemporary standards, and perhaps the Church of England is more charitable now towards eccentric behavior.
-At Last Lord Byron Gets Place in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey by Anthony Lewis, London correspondent for the NY Times
Byrons body was returned to England accompanied by a descendant of his beloved Boatswain. On July 12th of 1824 doleful London crowds gathered to watch his funeral hearse led by darkly plummed black horses pass, 47 coachs representing Englands great families followed all empty, shunned still. Then laid to rest, the poet's body now occupies the Byron family vault at Hucknall's St. Mary Magdalene Church not far from Newstead Abbey. Sometime after his death the Executors of his Will, keepers of his memory, gathered together and burned the manuscript of his memoirs.
On the fifteenth day June in 1938, one hundred and fourteen years after Byron was laid to rest his tomb was opened by permission of the Home Office. The Canon Barber who was present wrote, "Reverently, very reverently, I raised the lid, and before my eyes lay the embalmed body of Byron in as perfect condition as when it was placed in the coffin one hundred and fourteen years ago. His features and hair easily recognisable from the portraits with which I was so familiar. The serene, almost happy expression on his face made a profound impression on me. The feet and ankles were uncovered, and I was able to establish the fact that his lameness had been that of his right foot. But enough ~ I gently lowered the lid of the coffin ~ and as I did so, breathed a prayer for the peace of his soul."
Disclosed publicly at autopsy:
- "sexual organ of quite abnormal development."
The condition of the body of Byron as noted by Arnold Houldsworth:
- head, torso and limbs, No decomposition
- forearms, hands, lower shins, ankles and feet, skeletonised
- right foot, separated from the leg (club)
- hair of his head grey, intact
- head, body and limbs, intact
- a hole in his breast, another in back of his skull
The Roller
Colonel Thomas Wildman, was an old friend of Lord Byrons with whom he'd gone to school and the person Byron had sold the Abbey to. He was awakened one night by the sound of what he thought a carriage, opening the window he heard what he described as a giant roller being dragged over the gravel in the front of the house but saw nothing. The following day he inquired of the gardener as to why he had worked through the night who claimed that he had not. It was discovered that the roller which had been chained and took two men to handle, had been inexplicably moved in the night to the other side of the grounds and locked to gatepost.
Little Sir John with the Great Beard
In 1576 "Little Sir John with the Great Beard", the son of Sir John Byron of Colewycke was the first to inherit Newstead Abbey, illegitimate he inherited by Deed of Grant . Sir John who died only a few hours after his wife, soon returned. The household staff soon began to refuse to enter the library as Sir John would be there, once in broad daylight, at ease before the fire in the chimney-piece, reading from a great black book and smoking his pipe.
Little Sir John haunted also at midnight, when he sometimes descended from the frame of his ancient portrait which hangs above the entrance of the great saloon and walked the state apartments.
It is said he made these appearances for six months and then was never seen again.
The White Lady
Sophie Hyatt in life was a great admirer of Byron's, she was a timid, retiring creature who came to live at Weir Mill farmhouse which lies at the border of the haunted wood of Undine. She carried a writing slate everywhere as she was deaf and could not speak. She was known as the ‘Little White Lady of Newstead’ for she always wore white.
Avoiding other people she spent her days reading, writing and wandering the grounds and gardens of Newstead. She walked the Monk's Garden every day and was often seen sitting beneath a tree into which Byron had carved his name or near a certain monument he had raised amidst the chapel ruins.
One day in Nottingham crossing the street in Market Square she was knocked by the horse of a fast traveling cart and died under its wheels, her deafness had kept her from hearing the driver who had shouted a warning.
Sophie it is said, still walks the garden. The path she along which she is most seen is now known as White Lady’s Walk. She has also been seen by visitors to Newstead emerging from a wall, crossing the room and disappearing through another wall.
A Column of Vapor
Lord Byron saw a strange column of white vapour rise from the floor and then vanish.
The Cavalier
Seeing smoke billowing from under a door, one of the Abbey's staff opened it and saw The Cavalier wearing a sword and feathered hat in a large mirror.
The Rose Lady
No one has ever seen the Rose lady, this phenomena is a scent of roses and lavender that occurs and just as suddenly disapates at the the bottom of a staircase crossed by a passageway.
The Helpful Monk
In the 1930s a doctor hurrying to attend a woman in labor in Newstead village lost his way, at the Abbeys waterfall he asked directions of a black-robed monk. The monk remained silent but raised his arm and pointed the doctor the right way. There have not been any monks at Newstead Abbey since the fifteen hundreds when the property was bought by Sir John Byron of Colewycke.
The Newstead Lectern and the Sunken Treasure of Eagle Pond
Nor spill their blood that range the wood to follow hawk and hound,
"My chiefest spite to clergy is, who in these days bear sway;
With friars and monks with their fine spunks, I make my chiefest prey."
- Old Ballad of Robin Hood
Around about 1740 during the days of the Wicked Lord Byron, a treasure was brought up from a lake at Newstead east of the Abbey at the border of Devil's Wood. Concealed in the pond for nigh unto two hundred years, was a great *brass lectern in the traditional shape of an eagle with expanded wings and within, a secret. Washington Irving in his musings wrote that, "It had doubtless served as a stand or reading-desk, in the Abbey chapel, to hold a folio Bible or missal." The lake is now known as the Eagle Pond.
The lectern which was still in remarkably good condition, was thereafter sold to a Nottingham antiquities dealer who set about restoring it. The eagle which is perched atop a globe that in turn crests a cylinder, when dislodged from its place by the dealer proved the globe and cynlinder to be hollow. Antiquated parchment deeds granting the legal rights and possession of Newstead Abbey were revealed, all perfectly preserved they bore the royal seals of Edward III and Henry VIII. Other parchments within the lectern casts an unwholesome shadow upon the monks of Newstead, these were indulgences about which Washington Irving said, "One of the parchment scrolls thus discovered, throws rather an awkward light upon the kind of life led by the friars of Newstead. It is an indulgence granted to them for a certain number of months, in which plenary pardon is assured in advance for all kinds of crimes, among which, several of the most gross and sensual are specifically mentioned, and the weakness of the flesh to which they are prone. After inspecting these testimonials of monkish life, in the regions of Sherwood Forest, we cease to wonder at the virtuous indignation of Robin Hood and his outlaw crew, at the sleek sensualists of the cloister."
In the time of Old King Henry the Suppression Act of 1536 was passed and all all monastic holdings became subject to the crown. Priories, land, goods and treasures were plundered across the whole of England. It was during these troubled days when in the dead of night the Abbot and his monks took a boat out onto the pond sinking the lectern and a chest containing the orders treasure to the bottom of it, no doubt in hopes of one day reclaiming them.
Local stories tell that the treasure of Eagle Pond which some say was cursed by the Black Canons, was seen when the waters were low. It proved however to be unreachable because of the soft, sucking mud of the lake shore which almost pulled one man down. Heavy rains caused the pond to rise once more, the chest disappeared beneath the waters and the location was lost. Irving wrote, "The fishing up of this brazen relic, as I have already hinted, has given rise to the tales of treasure lying at the bottom of the lake, thrown in there by the monks when they abandoned the Abbey. The favorite story is, that there is a great iron chest there filled with gold and jewels, and chalices and crucifixes. Nay, that it has been seen, when the water of the lake was unusually low. There were large iron rings at each end, but all attempts to move it were ineffectual; either the gold it contained was too ponderous, or what is more probable, it was secured by one of those magic spells usually laid upon hidden treasure. It remains, therefore, at the bottom of the lake to this day; and it is to be hoped, may one day or other be discovered by the present worthy proprietor."
Nanny Smith
Nanny Smith who had been Lord Byrons housekeeper admitted in her laters years to Washington Irving who visited her, that she had once been distressed by ghostly footfalls coming from the Great Hall.
"They sounded like the tramp of a horse," Nanny said. "I took the light and went to see what it was. I heard the steps come from the lower end of the hall to the fireplace in the centre, where they stopped; but I could see nothing. I returned to my work, and in a little time heard the same noise again. I went again with the light; the footsteps stopped by the fireplace as before; still I could see nothing. I returned to my work, when I heard the steps for a third time. I then went into the hall without a light, but they stopped just the same, by the fireplace, half way up the hall. I thought this rather odd, but returned to my work. When it was finished, I took the light and went through the hall, as that was my way to the kitchen. I heard no more footsteps, and thought no more of the matter, when, on coming to the lower end of the hall, I found the door locked, and then, on one side of the door, I saw the stone coffin with the skull and bones that had been digged up in the cloisters."
When furthered questioned by Irving as to if she believed the footsteps might have had to do with the coffins occupant, Nanny, good skeptic that she was responded with a negative shake of her head
Ghostly Noises
Soft, mournful music is on occation heard to originate from Byron's bedroom, down below in the park visitors have not only heard the sound of an unseen company of horsemen, the eerie noise of a coach they cannot see but also the disembodied voice of a woman who cries out, "Speak to me, my Lord Byron, only speak to me!"
Lord Byron and the Black Monk
souls of the ancient friars still hovering about their sanctified abode. - Washington Irving
Never was a traveller in quest of the romantic in greater luck. I had in sooth, got lodged in another haunted apartment of the Abbey; for in this chamber Lord Byron declared he had more than once been harassed at midnight by a mysterious visitor. A black shapeless form would sit cowering upon his bed, and after gazing at him for a time with glaring eyes, would roll off and disappear. The same uncouth apparition is said to have disturbed the slumbers of a newly married couple that once passed their honeymoon in this apartment. -Washington Irving
It is a curious and a mystical fact, that at the period to which I am alluding, and a very short time, only a little month, before he successfully solicited the hand of Miss Milbanke, being at Newstead, he fancied that he saw the ghost of the monk which is supposed to haunt the abbey, and to make its ominous appearance when misfortune or death impends over the master of the mansion.—The story of the apparition in the sixteenth canto of Don Juan is derived from this family legend, and Norman Abbey, in the thirteenth of the same poem, is a rich and elaborate description of Newstead. After his proposal to Miss Milbanke had been accepted, a considerable time, nearly three months, elapsed before the marriage was completed, in consequence of the embarrassed condition in which, when the necessary settlements were to be made, he found his affairs. This state of things, with the previous unhappy controversy with himself, and anger at the world, was ill-calculated to gladden his nuptials: but, besides these real evils, his mind was awed with gloomy presentiments, a shadow of some advancing misfortune darkened his spirit, and the ceremony was performed with sacrificial feelings, and those dark and chilling circumstances, which he has so touchingly described in The Dream.
-From Chapter 29 of The Life of Lord Byron 1830 by John GaltThis spectre known as the Black Monk of Newstead, Black Friar and also as the Goblin Friar is a harbinger of misfortune and his appearance would often herald a death. It was to the heads of the Byron Family to whom he would make himself known. His identity is unknown but it has been imagined that he may have been one of those unhappy monks after the absolution of the Abbey.
When Byron was a child his mother was told by a fortune teller that in 1815 something terrible would occur, a second seer predicted two marriages for her son. It is said that Lord Byron had many encounters with the Black Monk, most notably before his failed marriage to Annabella Milbanke 1815 after which he maintained a lasting love affair with the Italian Countess Teresa Guccioli while in exile.
The visiting American writer Washington Irving who not only slept the bedroom once belonging to "Little Sir John with the Great Beard", but also in in Byron's room which was known as the "Rook Cell" wrote of the Black Monk, Newstead and its many otherworldly inhabitants at great length in his work, "Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey". The Rook Cell is so named for its location which overlooks the Rookery in a grove near the chapel, to reach it one must climb a high spiral stone staircase into a corridor above the cloisters where tradition says the Black Friar walks. Irving, on one occasion was wakened in the Rook Cell by a noise in the night, he threw open his chamber door an saw something a thing "black and shapeless with glaring eyes". It was no long dead, hideous monk but instead the friendly Newfoundland dog who was named Boatswain after his own ancestor.
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made;
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.
Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,
But thought, like most men, there was nothing in 't
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,
Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint,
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.
And did he see this? or was it a vapour?
Once, twice, thrice pass'd, repass'd- the thing of air,
Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t' other place;
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,
Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base
As stands a statue, stood: he felt his hair
Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;
He tax'd his tongue for words, which were not granted,
To ask the reverend person what he wanted.
The third time, after a still longer pause,
The shadow pass'd away- but where? the hall
Was long, and thus far there was no great cause
To think his vanishing unnatural:
Doors there were many, through which, by the laws
Of physics, bodies whether short or tall
Might come or go; but Juan could not state
Through which the spectre seem'd to evaporate.
He stood- how long he knew not, but it seem'd
An age- expectant, powerless, with his eyes
Strain'd on the spot where first the figure gleam'd;
Then by degrees recall'd his energies,
And would have pass'd the whole off as a dream,
But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
Waking already, and return'd at length
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.
...
Then Henry turn'd to Juan, and address'd
A few words of condolence on his state:
'You look,' quoth he, 'as if you had had your rest
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late.'
'What friar?' said Juan; and he did his best
To put the question with an air sedate,
Or careless; but the effort was not valid
To hinder him from growing still more pallid.
'Oh! have you never heard of the Black Friar?
The spirit of these walls?'- 'In truth not I.'
'Why Fame- but Fame you know 's sometimes a liar-
Tells an odd story, of which by and by:
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer,
Or that our sires had a more gifted eye
For such sights, though the tale is half believed,
The friar of late has not been oft perceived.
Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
Who sitteth by Norman stone,
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air,
And his mass of the days that are gone.
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
Made Norman Church his prey,
And expell'd the friars, one friar still
Would not be driven away.
Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,
To turn church lands to lay,
With sword in hand, and torch to light
Their walls, if they said nay;
A monk remain'd, unchased, unchain'd,
And he did not seem form'd of clay,
For he 's seen in the porch, and he 's seen in the church,
Though he is not seen by day.
And whether for good, or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say;
But still with the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day.
By the marriage-bed of their lords, 't is said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And 't is held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes- but not to grieve.
When an heir is born, he 's heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the "we moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
'T is shadow'd by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.
But beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
He still retains his sway,
For he is yet the church's heir
Whoever may be the lay.
Amundeville is lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night;
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
To question that friar's right.
Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
And he 'll say nought to you;
He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
As o'er the grass the dew.
Then grammercy! for the Black Friar;
Heaven sain him, fair or foul!
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer,
Let ours be for his soul.
-Lord Byron
External Links
- Lord Byron's Family Tree on WorldConnect: Royals, Rebels, Presidents, Paupers, Thinkers, and Thieves
- Byron - Quotes
- "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know": Le Vampyre, the Gothic Novel, and George Gordon, Lord Byron
- Crede Byron
- A Famous Ghost
- International Byron Society
- The Wicked and Mad Lord Byron Clan
- The Body of Lord Byron - Memorial Stone
- Washington Irving
- Byron's Menagerie
- THE PLEASURES OF BEAUPORT, AUTHENTIC AND ECCENTRIC - the Lord Byron Bedroom, with its tattered volumes of Byron's work lined up on the mantle and a mahogany sleigh bed ornamented with carved dolphins, which Sleeper is said to have gotten directly from Newstead Abbey, Byron's home.
- Lord Byron and George Eliot: Embracing National Identity in Daniel Deronda
- Stanley meets Livingston - Livingston at Newstead Abbey
- Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife at Newstead
- Chapters from Family Chests: The Bad Lord Byron
- He was an icon of his age, then he fell from grace and was hounded into exile. Fiona MacCarthy, in her new biography of Byron, reveals that the real reason for his ostracism was his homosexuality
- A brief history of Southwell Minster
Images
- Full-sized color photo of Newstead Abbey: Interior and exterior. Recommended link.
- Full-sized color photo of Sherwood Forest. Recommended link.
- Full screen panoramic views: Old Market Square in Nottingham, Southwell Minster, The Eagle Pond (2 views), Robin Hood Statue at Nottingham Castle, Newstead Abbey, The Japanese Garden at Newstead Abbey
- Lord Bryon Statue in Hyde Park
- Sample of Byron's Handwriting
- Image: a replica of Byrons skull goblet
- Sculpture by Thorvaldsen - Lord Byron (1829)
- Lord Byron's Nottinghamshire
- 19th Century Illustrations of the Works of Lord Byron
- Orbs in Lord Byron's Bedroom
- Image2: Boatswain
Newstead Abbey
- Great Houses of Nottinghamshire: Newstead Abbey
- Newstead Abbey Official Website & Virtual Tour
- Spook Cam: Newstead Abbey
- Virtual Tour
- Images: Newstead Abbey
- Image Search: Newstead Abby
- Newstead Abbey
- Newstead Abbey
- Crede Byron: Newstead
- Great British Gardens: Newstead Abbey
Online Texts
- Sixteenth Canto of Don Juan
- Don Juan - Canto the Thirteenth - Lord Byron
- Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey by Washington Irving - 14 Chapters
- Elegy On Newstead Abbey - Byron
- Don Juan - Byron
- The Life of Lord Byron 1830 by JohnGalt (1779-1839)
- Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
- 96 poems of George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron
- Byron's Poetical Works, Volume 1
- The Zambesi Expedition David Livingstone
Biographies of Famous and Royal Visitors
- Washington Irving
- David Livingston
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Edward I
- Edward II
- King John
- James I
- Charles II
Robin Hood Way
- Search for the Real Robin Hood
- Robin Hood Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood
- Robin Hood Outlaw Legend of Loxley: An illustrated medieval history of Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Loxley around the around the time of Robin Hood and Little John
- Brittannia's Robin Hood Index
- Robin Hood's Stone is marked on John Ogilby's 1675 map of what is now part of the Robin Hood Way. It was very close to Newstead Abbey. A newspaper article claimed it still existed in 1912...
- Chapter 4: How robin Hood met Friar tuck: The boldness and independence of the hermit, Father Tuck, had excited his curiosity, and Robin was eager to put the skill of the fellow to the test. He therefore gave the word to Little John and some dozen or so of the others to follow him in the space of an hour, and then betook his way toward Newstead Abbey, near where he had learned was the "hold" or strong dwelling-place of Father Tuck.
- Explore the Robin Hood Line: 5. Lord Byron's walk
- SherwoodTimes: Richard the Lionheart meets Robin Hood
- BBC - Nottingham - Robin Hood - Tour
- On a road from Larch Farm (A60), near to Newstead Abbey gate entrance, there is a footpath to Fountain Dale where, on a bridge crossing a stream, Robin Hood and Little John fought at their first meeting; in the same area is Friar Tuck's well.
- BBC:The legend of Robin Hood may be something more than old wive's tales, according to archaeologists who have made an "amazing" discovery in Nottingham.
- Footpaths and Rights of way in Papplewick parish.
- Of the death of Robin Hood by Henry Gilbert
