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                      [Illustration: THE NEEDLES]




                             ISLE OF WIGHT

                              PAINTED BY

                           A. HEATON COOPER

                             DESCRIBED BY

                         A. R. HOPE MONCRIEFF

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                                LONDON

                        ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

                                 1908




Contents


CHAPTER                                                             PAGE

   I. THE ISLAND                                                       1

  II. RYDE                                                            19

 III. NEWPORT                                                         33

  IV. THE EAST SIDE                                                   54

   V. THE UNDERCLIFF                                                  77

  VI. THE BACK OF THE ISLAND                                          92

 VII. FRESHWATER AND THE NEEDLES                                     104

VIII. YARMOUTH                                                       119

  IX. COWES                                                          139

   X. THE GATES OF THE ISLAND                                        154




List of Illustrations


1. The Needles                                             _Frontispiece_

                                                             FACING PAGE

2. Ryde--Moonrise                                                     20

3. Newchurch--the Mother Church of Ryde                               24

4. Newport                                                            34

5. Carisbrooke Castle                                                 40

6. Godshill                                                           50

7. Water Meadows of the Yar near Alverstone                           58

8. Sandown Bay                                                        60

9. Shanklin Village--Moonlight after rain                             72

10. Shanklin Chine                                                    74

11. Bonchurch Old Church near Ventnor                                 84

12. The Landslip near Ventnor                                         86

13. The Undercliff near Ventnor                                       90

14. Blackgang Chine                                                   96

15. Shorwell                                                         100

16. Farringford House                                                106

17. Freshwater Bay                                                   112

18. Totland Bay                                                      118

19. Yarmouth                                                         120

20. Shalfleet                                                        124

21. Calbourne                                                        138

22. Yachting at Cowes                                                144

23. Osborne House                                                    148

24. Whippingham Church                                               152

_Map at end of volume_




ISLE OF WIGHT




THE ISLAND


_The_ Island, as its people are in the way of styling it, while not
going so far as to deny existence to the adjacent islands of Great
Britain and Ireland--the Wight, as it is sometimes called by old
writers--has for the first fact in its history that it was not always an
island. It once made a promontory of Dorset, cut off from the mainland
by a channel, whose rush of encountering tides seems still wearing away
the shores so as to broaden a passage of half a dozen miles at the most,
narrowed to about a mile between the long spit of Hurst and the
north-western corner of the Island. It may be that what is now a strait
has been the estuary of a great river, flooding itself into the sea,
which, like Hengist and Horsa, is apt to prove an invading ally
difficult to get rid of. _Wight_ is taken to represent an old British
name for the channel, that, by monkish Latinists, came to be christened
_pelagus solvens_; but the Solent may have had rather some etymological
kinship with the Solway.

The Channel Island, as thus its full style imports, has a natural
history of singular interest to geologists, who find here a wide range
of fossiliferous strata, from the Upper Eocene to the Wealden clay, so
exposed that one scientific authority admiringly declares how it “might
have been cut out by nature for a geological model illustrative of the
principles of stratification.” Perhaps the general reader may thank a
writer for not enlarging on this head; but a few words must be said
about the geological structure that shapes this Island’s scenery,
forming, as it were, a sort of abridged and compressed edition of no
small part of England. It divides itself into three zones, which may be
traced in the same order upon the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. Through the
centre runs a backbone of chalk Downs, a few hundred feet high and an
hour’s walk across at the broadest, narrowing towards either end to
crumble into the sea at the white cliffs of Culver and of the Needles.
To the south of this come beds of sand and marl, through which the chalk
again bulges out in isolated masses on the south coast to top the
highest crests of the Island, resting on such an unstable foundation
that extensive landslips here have thrown the architecture of nature
into picturesque ruin. The north side in general is tamer, a plain of
clays dotted by gravel, better wooded than the rest, though much of its
old timber has gone into the wooden walls of England, once kept in
repair at Portsmouth.

Across these zones of length, the Island is cut into two almost equal
parts by its chief river, the Medina, cleaving the central Downs near
Newport; and through gaps at either end flow two smaller rivers bearing
the same name of Yar, which seems to call Celtic cousinship with the
Garonne of France. For the Medina, as for the Medway, some such
derivation as the _Mid_ stream has been naturally suggested; but with
the fear of Dr Bradley upon me, I would pass lightly over the quaking
bog of place nomenclature. These three rivers have the peculiarity of
flowing almost right across the Island, a course so short that they may
well take their time about it. The other streams are of little
importance, except in the way of scenery. On the north side they form
shallow branching creeks which get from as much as they give to the sea,
that at high tide bears brown sails far inland among trees and hedges.
On the south, wearing their way down through the elevated shore line,
they carve out those abrupt chasms known as Chines, celebrated among the
beauty spots of this coast. The richest valley seems to be that of the
larger Yar, which turns into the sea at the north-east corner. The parts
most rich in natural charms are the south-eastern corner, with its
overgrown landslips, and the fissured chalk cliffs of the western
promontory beyond Freshwater.

All that variety of soil and surface is packed together into a roughly
rhomboidal shape, 23 miles long by 13 or 14 miles at the broadest, about
the size of Greater London, or say 1/36000 part of the habitable globe.
Within its circumference of 60 miles or so, this space of some 96,000
square acres holds a population of 82,000, beside innumerable transient
visitors. A pundit of figures has taken the trouble to calculate that
all the population of the world could find standing room in the Island
on the foot of four to the square yard, if the human race agreed on
spending a Bank Holiday here; but then little room might be left for
donkey-rides or switch-back railways. While we are on the head of
statistics, it may be mentioned that several scores of guide-books to
the Isle of Wight have been published, from Sir Henry Englefield’s noble
folio to the small brochures issued by hotels, these works containing on
an average 206,732 words, mostly superfluous in many cases; that 810,427
picture post-cards or thereabouts pass annually through the post-offices
of the island; that, in ordinary seasons, it sits to 1723 cameras; that
the hotel-bills annually paid in it would, if tacked together, reach
from St Petersburg to Yokohama, or if pasted over one another, make a
pile as high as the new War Office; and that 11.059 per cent. of the
newly married couples of Brixton, Balham, Upper Tooting, etc., are in
each year estimated to spend at least part of their honeymoon here, who
come back to confirm a prevailing belief that in no other part of the
British Isles does the moon shine so sweetly; while, indeed, a not quite
clearly ascertained proportion of them live to assert that the scenery
of the Island and the happiness of the marriage state have alike been
more or less overrated. I give these figures for what they are worth,
along with the unquestioned fact that the Isle of Wight belongs, in a
manner, to the county of Hants, but has a County Council of its own, and
in general maintains a very insular attitude of independence, modelled
on the proud bearing of Great Britain towards mere continental
countries.

Facts and figures somewhat fail one who comes to lecture on the original
population of this Island. The opinion fondly held in a certain section
of “smart” society, that the lawn of the Squadron at Cowes represents
the Garden of Eden, seems to rest upon no critical authority; indeed
Adam and Eve, as owners of no yacht, would not be qualified for
admission to this select enclosure. With some confidence we may state
that the Island was first peopled by aborigines enjoying no protection
against kidnappers and conquerors, who themselves found it difficult in
the long run to blackball undesirable aliens, as Australia and New
Zealand try to do under the protection of fleets steaming forth from the
Solent. There are well-marked indications of invasion by a Belgic tribe
from the mainland, to make this a “free” state, as early prelude to King
Leopold’s civilisation of the Congo. But we may pass lightly over the
Celtic period, with place-names and pit-dwellings as its records, to
come into clearer historic light with Vespasian’s conquest in A.D. 43.

For more than three centuries, with apparently one episode of revolt,
the Romans held Vectis, as they called it; and it has been maintained,
though this goes not unquestioned, that here was their _Ictis_ port, at
which they shipped the tin drawn from the mines of Cornwall. If so, the
island described by Diodorus Siculus was then an island only at high
water. The clearest marks left by Rome are the remains of villas
unearthed at different points, at least one of which indicates a tenant
of luxurious habits and tastes. We can understand how Italian exiles
might prefer this station to one in the bleak wilds of Derbyshire or
Northumberland, as an Anglo-Indian official of to-day thinks himself
lucky to have his compound at Poona or Bangalore, if not at Mahableshwar
or Simla. The Brading villa, indeed, like those of Bignor in Sussex and
Brough in Norfolk, seems rather to have been the settled home of a rich
nobleman, Roman or Romanised British, who had perhaps strong opinions as
to the way in which Rome neglected the wishes and interests of her
colonies. These remains were unearthed only in living memory, so that
writers of a century ago ignore such traces of Roman occupation.

Next came northern pirates, who would be not so much interested in the
mild climate of the Island, as in the creeks and landing-places of its
shores. They, too, have left relics of their occupation, chiefly in the
graves furnished with utensils and ornaments of heathen life. But when
Jutes and Saxons had destroyed the Roman civilisation, they fell under
another influence spread from the Mediterranean. Bishop Wilfred of
Selsey has the credit of planting, or replanting, Christianity in the
Island. It could hardly have taken deep root, when the Danes came to
ravage the monastic settlements. For a time the Cross and the Raven must
have struggled for mastery here like the encountering tides of Solent,
till that new wave of invaders ebbed back or was absorbed into the old
one; then again the Island became overflowed by a fresh storm of
conquest. If we consider from how many races, in three continents, the
Roman soldiery were drawn, and how the northmen must have mixed their
blood with that of a miscellany of captives, it is clear that, when
overrun by a fresh cross-breed between Gauls and Vikings, the population
of our islands, large and small, could in many parts have been no very
pure stock, such as is fondly imagined by the pride of modern
Pan-Celticism and Anglo-Saxondom.

In Norman England, the Wight soon emerges into note. King William
visited it to seize his ambitious brother Odo at Carisbrooke. The
fortress there was enlarged by William Fitz-Osborne, to whom the Island
had been granted, and who salved his conscience for any high-handed acts
of conquest by giving six churches to the Norman Abbey of Lira, the
beginning of a close connection with that continental foundation. His
son lost this lordship through treason; then for two centuries it was in
the hands of the Redvers, Earls of Devon, who grew to be
quasi-independent princes. The last of their line was Isabella de
Fortibus, holding her head high as Lady of the Island till on her
deathbed, her children being dead, she sold her rights to Edward I. for
6000 marks.

Henceforth this dependency was governed for the crown through
lieutenants at first known as Wardens, an office held by great names
like Edward III. in his childhood, the Earl of Salisbury, the Duke of
York, the Duke of Gloucester, Anthony Woodvile, Earl of Rivers; and in
such hands more than once showing a tendency to become hereditary. Their
post was no sinecure, for at this period the Island made a striking
point for French raids that have left their mark on its towns. Not that
the raiding was all on one side. The islanders long remembered ruefully
how Sir Edward Woodvile led the flower of their manhood into France,
when of more than four hundred fighters only one boy escaped to tell the
tale of their destruction, that seems to have been wrought by French
artillery, turning the tables on the English long-bow.

The weak Henry VI. had crowned young Henry Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick,
as “King of the Isle of Wight.” Politic Henry VII., for his part, saw
well to restrain the power and dignity of those Island deputies, now
styled Captains. In the Tudor time, three Captains came to note, Sir
Richard Worsley as carrying out the reformation policy of Henry VIII.,
Sir Edward Horsey, as a doughty soldier of fortune, who is said to have
begun his career with a plot to betray the Island to the French, but on
coming into this office kept a sharp eye both on foreign enemies and on
his private interests, doing a bit of piracy for his own hand, if all
stories be true; then Sir George Carey, who had the anxious task of
defence against the Spanish Armada. When that peril went to pieces, the
Island at last began to enjoy a period of secure prosperity, testified
to by the fact that most of its old houses, mansion or cottage, appear
to date from Elizabeth or James. Yet so late as 1627, soon after the
captaincy of Lord Southampton, Shakespeare’s patron, it got a scare from
a Dutch fleet, taken for Spaniards.

New confusion came with the Civil War, in which the Wight people were
mostly on the parliament’s side, while the leading gentry stood for the
king. The best-known episode of the Island’s history is Charles I.’s
imprisonment at Carisbrooke, which may be passed over here to be dealt
with more fully _in loco._ The Isle of Wight might well back up the
parliament; as then and till the Reform Bill it sent six members, an
over-representation now reduced to one, and formerly, indeed, apt to be
qualified by official interference with freedom of election.

In Charles II.’s “golden age of the coward, the bigot and the slave,”
the governorship of the Island was given to Lord Colepeper, who made
himself obnoxious here, and got a wider field of domination in
Virginia, where also he seems to have been unbeloved. His huge colonial
grants passed by marriage of his daughter to Lord Fairfax, whose eldest
son settled on his American property, said to extend over five million
acres, giving up the English estates to his younger brother. This was
clearly hint for Thackeray’s story of the Virginian Warringtons. Only
the other day the heir of this family, America’s sole peer, became
naturalised afresh in England, after his title had been laid up in
lavender, or tobacco, for several generations. Another personage in _The
Virginians_, General Webb, held the governorship of the Island for a few
years. But now the Captains, or Governors as they came to be styled, had
little to do which could not be done by deputy, while the post was worth
holding by men of high rank, as by the Dukes of Bolton and Montague
under George II., when its salary was £1500 a year.

Under them the Island was happy enough to have little history, though it
had again to be on its guard when Dutch admirals talked of sweeping the
English ships from the Channel. It saw William’s fleet sail by on the
way to Torbay; and two years later it seemed about to have from its
southern cliffs the spectacle of a hundred French sail engaging the
English and Dutch squadrons; but the scene of that encounter was shifted
to Beachy Head, where it ended in a manner not much dwelt upon in our
naval annals. Then the long struggle with Napoleon once more turned this
outpost of England into a camp. In the peaceful days that followed, the
governorship became a mere ceremonial function. The title, held by
Prince Henry of Battenberg, was passed on to his widow, the youngest
daughter of Queen Victoria, whose death at Osborne makes the last date
in this Island chronicle.

An insulated people naturally formed a race apart, speaking a marked
dialect, and cherishing a strong local feeling. Their situation, and the
once pressing need to stand on defence by land and sea, bred a sturdy
race, whose vigour in old days was apt to run to such enterprising ways
of life as piracy, wrecking, and smuggling; but all that may be
forgotten like scandal about Queen Elizabeth. One evil of the islanders
keeping so much to themselves