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BYGONE SUSSEX. |
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full of life and—let us hope—of sincere penitence for misspent lives, were still for evermore.
The present mansion known as the Friary, at Winchelsea, only dates from the second decade of the present century, but in the grounds is the choir of a ruined house of the Friars Minors. These Franciscan monks had a place in Winchelsea soon after the establishment of the order in England in 1220, and when the old town was ruined, a fresh site was selected on the hill where the new town was to be built. The apse and ruined arch are very picturesque. Though the temporary home of the Westons has disappeared, the ancient burial ground remains, and here fancy may act over again the solemn scene when the unhappy Clarisse de Saverne was committed to the earth. And up this garden wall Denis would clamber to see little Agnes, and to be endangered by brickbats from his enemy, Joseph Weston. Denis walked round by the Friary from Rye that he might have a glimpse of Agnes' "little twinkling window in a gable of the Priory House, where the light used to be popped out at nine o'clock." Writing years after, in the midst of his happy home, Denis says, " T'other day when we took over the King of France to Calais (His |
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