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The diocese placed under its bishop's care was a small one, including no more than the western part of the ancient kingdom of Kent, the dividing line being roughly the course of the Medway, or, more precisely, that of its tributary, the Teise.
A chain had been drawn across the River Medway; some fortifications had been added to Sheerness and Upnore Castle; but all these preparations were unequal to the present necessity. Sheerness was soon taken; nor could it be saved by the valor of Sir Edward Sprague, who defended it.
We had plague, fire, and the Dutch in the Medway, but we had the couplet; and there were also the measures of those more poetic poets, hitherto called somewhat slightingly the Cavalier poets, who matched the wit of the Puritan with a spirit simpler and less mocking. It was against an English fortress, profoundly walled, that some remembered winter storms lately turned their great artillery.
"We'll pay the five, and be glad to," proposed Jack Benson, displaying some money. "More than that, if you play right fair with us, we'll put another five on top of the first, just as a little present to your horses." "You'd better use the young gentlemen right, Jim," advised Medway. "They're good fellows, and they pay well."
The chapel in the White Tower is a remarkable specimen of early Norman architecture. The keep of Rochester Castle, so picturesquely situated on the Medway, was not a mere fortress without domestic convenience. Here we still look upon the remains of sculptured columns and arches. We see where there were spacious fireplaces in the walls, and how each of four floors was served with water by a well.
On either side, the banks of the Medway, covered with cornfields and pastures, with here and there a windmill, or a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it as the thin and half-formed clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun.
Several large men-of-war, with reefed sails and floating pennons, lay at the entrance of the Nore, while a still greater number blotted the waters of the sluggish Medway; still the sun shone over all; and what is it that the sun does not deck with a portion of its own cheerfulness and beauty?
Harry gave him and that he ought not to waste his money, and he said some nonsense about saved money being lost money, and that spending money or giving it away was the only way to save it. Harry takes no trouble and Medway, the new preacher, says, Henry Hatton lifts up your heart, if he only smiles at you." "So he does, mother God bless him!"
The Medway was only able to afford assistance by firing a few raking shots, and suffered no damage except having ten men wounded by an accidental explosion of gunpowder. The masts and sails of the prize were so much damaged that she lost them all in the night; one of the masts in falling sank the Medway's cutter. It was found she had a complement of 493 men, and was armed with 50 guns.
To the westward of Tunbridge, and in the Medway Valley, is Penshurst, celebrated as the home of Sir Philip Sidney a grand, gray old house, built at many periods, begun in the fourteenth century and not completed until a few years ago. It is a pretty English picture within a setting of wooded hills and silver rivers, the pattern from which Sidney drew his description of "Laconia" in Arcadia.
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