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Summer Days in Shakespeare Land by Charles G. Harper
The Beginnings of Stratford-on-Avon.
Ninety-five miles from the City of London, in the southern part of Warwickshire, and on the left, or northern bank of the Avon, stands a famous town. Not a town famed in ancient history, nor remarkable in warlike story, nor great in affairs of commerce. It was never a strong place, with menacing castle or defensive town walls with gates closed at night. It stood upon a branch road, in a thinly-peopled forest-district, and in every age the wars and tumults and great social and political movements which constitute what is called "history" have passed it by.
Such is, and has been from the beginning, the town of Stratford-on-Avon, whose very name, although now charged with a special significance as the birthplace of Shakespeare, takes little hold upon the imagination when we omit the distinguishing "on Avon." For there are other Stratfords to be found upon the map of England, as necessarily there must be when we consider the origin of the name, which means merely the ford where the "street"-generally a paved Roman road-crossed a river. And as fords of this kind must have been very numerous along the ancient roads of this country before bridges were built, we can only be astonished that there are not more Stratfords than the five or six that are found in the gazetteers.
The Roman road that came this way was a vicinal route from the Watling Street where Birmingham now stands, through Henley-in-Arden and Alcester, the Roman station of Alauna. Passing over the ford of the Avon, it went to London by way of Ettington, Sunrising Hill, and Banbury. Other Roman roads, the Fosse Way and Ryknield Street, remodelled on the lines of ancient British track-ways, passed east and west of Stratford at an equal distance of six miles.
All the surrounding district north of the Avon was woodland, the great Forest of Arden; and to the south of the river stretched a more low-lying country as far as the foot of the Cotswold Hills, much less thickly wooded. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the Forest of Arden was greatly diminished, these districts owned two distinctive names: the forest being called "the Wooland," and the southward pasture-lands "the Feldon."
The travellers who came this way in early Saxon times, and perhaps even later, came to close grips with the true inwardness of things. They looked death often in the face as they went the lonely road. The wild things in the forest menaced them, floods obscured the fords, lawless men no less fierce than the animals which roamed the tangled brakes lurked and slew. "Now am I in Arden," the wayfarer might have said, anticipating Touchstone, "the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content."
No town or village then existed upon the banks of Avon, and the first mention of Stratford occurs in A.D. 691, when a monastery situated here is named. It was an obscure house, but with extensive and valuable lands which Bishops of Worcester hungered for and finally obtained. The site of this monastery was scarcely that of the existing town of Stratford, but was where the present parish church stands, in what is known as "Old Stratford," which is on the extreme southerly limit of the town. It was thus situated at some little distance from the ford, which was of course exactly where the Clopton Bridge now crosses the river. At that ford there would probably even then have been a hermit, as there was later, charged with the due guidance of travellers, and in receipt of offerings, but of him we know nothing, and next to nothing of the monastery.
The Bishops of Worcester, having thus early obtained a grant of the monastery and its lands, became lords of the manor and so remained for centuries, wielding in their spiritual and manorial functions a very complete authority over the town which gradually arose here. To resist in any way the Church's anointed in matters spiritual or temporal would have been to kick most foolishly against the pricks, for in his one autocratic capacity he could blast your worldly prospects, and in the other he could (or it was confidently believed he could) damn you to all eternity. Thus it may well be supposed that those Right Reverend were more feared than loved.
It was an agricultural and cattle-raising community that first arose here. "Rother Street" still by its name alludes to the olden passage of the cattle, for "rother" is the good Anglo-Saxon word "hroether," for cattle. The word was known to Shakespeare, who wrote, "The pasture lards the rother's sides."
In 1216 the then Bishop of Worcester obtained a charter for a fair, the first of four obtained between that date and 1271. The fairs attracted business, and about 1290 the first market was founded. The town had begun to grow, slowly, it is true, but substantially. At this period also that Guild arose which was originally a religious and charitable fraternity, but eventually developed into surprising issues, founding a grammar-school and becoming a tradesmen's society, whence the incorporation of the town in 1553, and the establishment of a town council derived. Camden, writing about this time, was able to describe it as "proper little mercat towne."
In that era which witnessed the incorporation of the town of Stratford-on-Avon and the birth of Shakespeare the population was some 2000. It is now about 8300; a very moderate increase in three hundred and fifty years, and much below the average rate for towns, by which Stratford might now have had a population of about 16,000.
The incorporation of this little town in the reign of Edward the Sixth was a great event locally. It included the restitution to the people of the place of the buildings and the property of the Guild of Holy Cross which had been confiscated in 1547, when also the inhabitants had been relieved from the yoke of the Bishops of Worcester, whose manor had been taken away from them. It is true that the manorial rights had not been abolished and that the property and its various ancient privileges had only been transferred to other owners, but it was something to the good that the Church no longer possessed these things. These were not arbitrary changes, the whim of this monarch or that, Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth did only what others in their place would and must have done. They were certainly sovereigns with convictions of their own, but their attitude of mind was but the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and they did not so much originate it as be swayed by it. Those statesmen who have been held meanly subservient to them were, after all, men of like convictions. They saw the old order to be outworn and existing institutions ripe for change. It was the age of the Renascence. Everywhere was the new spirit, which was remodelling thought as well as material things. It was the age, above all things, of the new learning. These feelings led the advisers of the young king, Edward the Sixth, to counsel the restitution to the town of the property of the Guild dissolved only six years earlier, with the important provision that the grammar-school was to be re-established and maintained out of its revenues. To this provision we distinctly owe the dramatist, William Shakespeare, who was born at the very time when the educational advantages thus secured to the children of the townsfolk had settled down into smoothly working order. Education cannot produce a Shakespeare, it cannot create genius, but it can give genius that chance in early elementary training without which even the most adaptive minds lose their direction.
The ancient buildings of the Guild, which after its long career as a kind of lay brotherhood for what modern people would style "social service," had attained an unlooked-for development as the town authority, thus provided Stratford with its Grammar School and its first town-hall. In those timbered rooms the scholars received their education, and for eighty years, until 1633, when the first hall built especially for the corporation was opened, the aldermen and councillors met there. Among them was John Shakespeare.
The Smugglers: Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft by Charles G. Harper
THIS, the fifth volume in a series of works purporting to tell the Story of the Great Roads, requires but few forewords; but occasion may be taken to say that perhaps greater care has been exercised than in preceding volumes to collect and put on record those anecdotes and floating traditions of the country, which, the gossip of yesterday, will be the history of to-morrow. These are precisely the things that are neglected by the County Historians at one end of the scale of writers, and the compilers of guide-books at the other; and it is just because this gossip and these local anecdotes are generally passed by and often lost that those which are gathered now will become more valuable as time goes on.
"You're a creepy bastard." His eyes smolder me and his answering grin is nothing short of beautiful. Deadly. "Yet you hunger for me. Tell me, this appetite of yours, does it always tend toward 'creepy bastards'?" **** Widower and ex-boss to the Mafia, Zefiro Della Rocca, has an unhealthy fixation on the woman nextdoor. It began as a coincidence, growing into mere curiosity, and soon, it was an itch he couldn't ignore, like a quick fix of crack for an addict. He didn't know her name, but he knew every inch of her skin, how it flushed when she climaxed, her favourite novel and that every night she contemplated suicide. He didn't want to care, despising his rapt fascination of the woman. She was in love with her abusive husband. She was married, bound by a contract to the Bratva's hitman. She was off-limits. But when Zefiro wanted something, it was with an intensity that bordered on madness. He obsessed, possessed, owned. There'd be bloodshed if he touched her, but the sight of blood always did fascinate him. * When Susanna flees from her husband, she stumbles right into the arms of her devilishly handsome neighbour with a brooding glare. He couldn't stand her, but she needed him, if she was ever going to escape her husband who now wanted her dead. Better the devil you know than the angel you don't. She should have recalled that before hopping into Zefiro's car and letting him whisk her away to Italy. Maybe then, she wouldn't have started an affair with him. He was the only man who touched her right, and the crazy man took no small pains in ensuring he would be the last.
Life was perfect until she met her boyfriend's big brother. There was a forbidden law in the Night Shade Pack that if the head Alpha rejected his mate, he would be stripped of his position. Sophia's life would get connected with the law. She was an Omega who was dating the head Alpha's younger brother. Bryan Morrison, the head Alpha, was not only a cold-blooded man but also a charming business tycoon. His name was enough to cause other packs to tremble. He was known as a ruthless man. What if, by some twist of destiny, Sophia's path were to intertwine with his?
They don't know I'm a girl. They all look at me and see a boy. A prince. Their kind purchase humans like me for their lustful desires. And, when they stormed into our kingdom to buy my sister, I intervened to protect her. I made them take me too. The plan was to escape with my sister whenever we found a chance. How was I to know our prison would be the most fortified place in their kingdom? I was supposed to be on the sidelines. The one they had no real use for. The one they never meant to buy. But then, the most important person in their savage land-their ruthless beast king-took an interest in the "pretty little prince." How do we survive in this brutal kingdom, where everyone hates our kind and shows us no mercy? And how does someone, with a secret like mine, become a lust slave? . AUTHOR'S NOTE. This is a dark romance-dark, mature content. Highly rated 18+ Expect triggers, expect hardcore. If you're a seasoned reader of this genre, looking for something different, prepared to go in blindly not knowing what to expect at every turn, but eager to know more anyway, then dive in! . From the author of the international bestselling book: "The Alpha King's Hated Slave."
On her wedding day, Khloe’s sister connived with her groom, framing her for a crime she didn’t commit. She was sentenced to three years in prison, where she endured much suffering. When Khloe was finally released, her evil sister used their mother to coerce Khloe into an indecent liaison with an elderly man. As fate would have it, Khloe crossed paths with Henrik, the dashing yet ruthless mobster who sought to alter the course of her life. Despite Henrik’s cold exterior, he cherished Khloe like no other. He helped her take retribution from her tormentors and kept her from being bullied again.
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When Zora was sick during the early days of her pregnancy, Ezrah was with his first love, Piper. When Zora got into an accident and called Ezrah, he said he was busy, when in actual fact, he was buying shoes for Piper. Zora lost her baby because of the accident, and throughout her stay at the hospital, Ezrah never showed up. She already knew that he didn't love her, but that was the last straw for the camel's back, and her fragile heart could not take it anymore. When Ezrah arrived home a few days after Zora was discharged from the hospital, he no longer met the woman who always greeted him with a smile and cared for him. Zora stood at the top of the stairs and yelled with a cold expression, "Good news, Ezrah! Our baby died in a car accident. There is nothing between us anymore, so let's get a divorce." The man who claimed not to have any feelings for Zora, being cold and distant towards her, and having asked her for a divorce twice, instantly panicked.