Patrick Comerford
When I travel on the train between Tamworth and Lichfield, I take familial pleasure in stretching my neck to catch a swift glance of Comberford Hall, in the rich rolling green Staffordshire countryside, surrounding by mature, spreading trees.
I wondered as passed Comberford Hall on a foggy morning yesterday about a curious account by Dean Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) of a visit to Lichfield almost 300 years ago, when he recalls a clandestine wedding he conducted while he was sheltering from the rain beneath the branches of a spreading tree.
Local lore now associates the story with the name of Shire Oak, near Walsall. But I sometimes wonder whether Swift might instead have conducted that hasty wedding near Lichfield, beneath a spreading oak tree between Tamworth and Lichfield.
Or, as he was travelling on from Lichfield to Chester, could Swift’s wedding have taken place beneath one of the spreading trees along Cross in Hand, on the north-west fringes of Lichfield, once the opening stage of the ancient pilgrim route between Lichfield and Chester, a journey of 142 km (88 miles)?
Jonathan Swift never married, despite persistent speculation about whether he secretly married Esther Johnson (‘Stella’) in 1716. He also had an interesting relationship with Esther Vanhomrigh (‘Vanessa’), but they never married either, and she died in 1723.
Three years later, in March 1726, the Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral travelled from Dublin to London to deliver the manuscript of Gulliver’s Travels to his publisher, Benjamin Motte. Motte recognised a best-seller but also realised this was an anti-Whig satire and risked prosecution. Swift may have had the manuscript copied so his handwriting could not be used as evidence in any prosecution.
Motte grudgingly gave Swift only £200, and cut, edited or altered many passages and added other material. He used five printing houses to speed production and to avoid piracy, and the first edition of Gulliver’s Travels was published in two volumes on 28 October 1726. By then Swift was back in Dublin. On the return journey, he travelled on foot or on horse from London back to Chester.
Swift later recounted how he stopped near Lichfield on that return journey and sought shelter from what he described as ‘a summer tempest’ under a large oak by the road. I imagine a Swift looking diminutive beneath the Lichfield oak, like Gulliver in Brobdingnag, the land of giants.
While he was there, a man and a pregnant woman joined him, also seeking shelter from the rain under the same spreading tree. Swift recalled the incident later in a letter to his friend Alexander Pope, and how he engaged the pair in conversation. He found they were on their way to Lichfield to be married, but it was obvious the woman was heavily pregnant and that little time was left for a wedding to take place. Every drop of rain was the loss of yet another fretful moment.
The dean realised no time should be lost. He proposed to save the couple the rest of their journey to Lichfield and offered to marry them there and then. His offer was gladly accepted, the ceremony was performed and as the rains cleared and the skies brightened, the newly-weds were about to set off home. But as they were about to leave, the groom realised they needed a certificate to convince their families that they had been married legally and had a church wedding.
When he asked the dean for paper confirmation of the nuptial legalities, Swift pulled out some crumpled paper and a pen, and wrote wittily:
Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and whore together;
And none but he who rules the thunder
Can put this rogue and whore asunder.
From Lichfield, Swift travelled on to Chester, and from there to Holyhead to board a boat back to Dublin. His Thoughts on various subjects, also published in 1726, Swift mused again on marriage: ‘Matrimony has many children; Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing, &c.’
Swift was back in England one more time in 1727, and again stayed with Alexander Pope. The visit was cut short when Swift received the news that Esther Johnson was dying and rushed back home to be with her. She died on 28 January 1728, though Swift was not present at her death and was too ill to attend her funeral in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He died on 19 October 1745.
The Shire Oak area near Walsall is named after an ancient tree that was said to have been the sole survivor of the original Walsall Wood. The oak stood on the London to Chester road, marking the boundary between Walsall and Shenstone. Local legend there says that this was the oak where Swift had sheltered and had married the couple on their way to Lichfield. All that now remains of that oak is a piece preserved with a plaque at Shire Oak School
The Shire Oak public house stands at the corner of Lichfield Road and Chester Road in Walsall. The Royal Oak off Chester Road closed in 2015 and was abandoned.
Of course, there other oaks and spreading trees near Lichfield with literary credentials. The local history group Lichfield Discovered has asked whether a spectacular ancient oak tree on Cannock Chase, west of Lichfield, inspired JRR Tolkien.
Tolkien spent time at military camps on the Chase during World War I. When he was in Lichfield in September 1915, he met three close schoolfriends at the George Hotel on Bird Street – a gathering that may have inspired his writing about young hobbits contemplating heading off to war.
Lichfield Discovered has also suggested that the ancient oak tree on Cannock Chase inspired the Ents, tree-like creatures led by Treebeard who fought alongside the forces of good in The Lord of the Rings.
In his poem Ghosts, written in Lichfield on 19 December 1940, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) may be referring to the ghost story of the White Lady at the Swan on Bird Street. Larkin refers to Beacon Park when he says ‘this corner of the park was haunted’, and he refers to people in Lichfield who recounted being touched by something
Like a slim wind with an accusing hand –
Cold as this tree I touch.
Trees also feature in Christmas 1940, a poem written by Larkin that same night:
‘High on arched field I stand
Alone: the night is full of stars:
Enormous over tree and farm
The night extends,
And looks down equally to all on earth.
‘So I return their look; and laugh
To see as them my living stars
Flung from east to west across
A windless gulf?
– So much to say that I have never said,
Or ever could.’
The morning fog was a mere memory yesterday afternoon when I went for a walk along Cross Hand Lane behind the Hedgehog after the mid-day Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral. When I was in Tamworth and Lichfield about this time in February last year, I posted photographs on Facebook taken that day of both Comberford Hall and of the spreading trees along Cross in Hand Lane. In reply, the Dublin-born poet and songwriter Frank Callery, who now lives in Kilkenny, shared with me his song ‘The Lichfield Oak’, which he describes as ‘a mock Traditional / Folk song in search of a singer’:
The Lichfield Oak by Frank Callery:
O the Lichfield Oak was tall and grand,
For centuries it made its stand;
And many folk who passed that way
Admired its shade by night and day!
Inclement weather being the scene,
For shelter, there reposed the Dean;
From Chester came an urgent pair
And with the Dean they sheltered there!
The woman, she was big with child,
She told the Dean, in accents mild,
‘In Lichfield soon we must be wed
Before my bundle’s brought to bed!’
‘Ah!’ says the Dean, ‘No time be lost!
I’ll wed you here without the cost!
And save a journey too, no doubt,
When stops the rain, just turn about!’
‘But what about the ‘Cert’? they cried,
‘ ’Tis requisite — they’ll think we’ve lied!’
From out his pocket came the pen,
And this is what he wrote for them:
Chorus:
‘Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and wench together,
And none but he who rules the thunder,
Can put this wench and rogue asunder.’
The Lichfield Oak was strong and straight
A Parson might officiate
For those who wished to jump the broom —
The high road for a honeymoon!
And if a cert be requisite
The Parson’s word is law and writ,
To prove the couple truly wed
And give them licence for the bed.
But the Dean being straighter nor the Oak
His holy writ contained no joke,
With crumpled paper and with pen
He made them ‘man and wife’, Amen!
Chorus:
‘Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and wench together,
And none but he who rules the thunder,
Can put this wench and rogue asunder.
Can put this wench and rogue asunder!’
The Lichfield Oak © Frank Callery, 23 July 2021.
1 comment:
Great blog, Patrick, thank you for the mention, sincerely, Frank
Post a Comment