In the Border Country Part 3

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 38, 49, and 53 to 58_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The first Earl was slain at Bramham Moor (1408). The second Earl fell fighting for Henry VI. at St. Albans in 1455. The third at Towton (1461), and it was his brother the fourth Earl who comforted himself as he lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464) that he had "saved the bird in his bosom." The fifth Earl was murdered in 1489. The sixth Earl was the lover of Anne Boleyn, maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and had King Henry VIII. for his rival, who in great wrath commanded Cardinal Wolsey to break off the engagement between them. The seventh Earl for espousing the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1572. The eighth Earl in 1585 was found dead in bed with three pistol shots through his breast, whether by suicide or murder. The ninth Earl was imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower on a baseless suspicion of being privy to the Gunpowder Plot. The tenth Earl fought on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and with the death of Josceline, the eleventh Earl, in 1670, the male line of the family came to an end.

The eleventh Earl's only child--an heiress--married the Duke of Somerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth, and Earl of Northumberland, with remainder (having no male issue) to his son-in-law Sir Hugh Smithson, of Stanwick, a Yorkshire knight who in his youth had been an apothecary in Hatton Gardens. Sir Hugh succeeded to the Earldom in 1750, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland.

The seventh Duke succeeded in 1899.

From Alnwick it is fourteen miles to Bamborough, "King Ida's castle, huge and square." No traveller along the great north road between Alnwick and Berwick can fail to be struck with an object so boldly prominent as Bamborough. Far and wide it meets the vision, and is the more conspicuous from the flat character of its surroundings and the very open coast. Its base is an almost perpendicular ma.s.s of basaltic rock overlooking the sea, at a height of 150 feet. Founded in 547, it suffered many a siege, most of all at the hands of the Danes in 933. In the years that followed it was being constantly rebuilt, and as constantly stormed and broken again. As the great bombards left it in the fourth Edward's reign, so it lay dismantled for centuries. In 1720, Lord Crewe, the philanthropic Bishop of Durham, purchased the Castle and bequeathed it for charitable purposes--the reception and care of the poor, etc. In 1894 it was acquired by the late Lord Armstrong, at a cost of a quarter of a million, and fitted up as a convalescent home. The charming village of Bamborough, nestling within easy distance, has some celebrity as a health resort. The church in which St. Aidan died is one of the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace Darling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are easily visible from the sh.o.r.e. There are seventeen in all, forming three distinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It was from the lighthouse on this latter island that the n.o.ble maiden of barely twenty-two descried the wreck of the _Forfarshire_, the 7th September, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. "He that goes out and sees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at the desperate nature of the attempt," crowned by an almost superhuman triumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of retirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from shrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition well-known. "For the s.p.a.ce of seven years," says Reginald of Durham, "Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men through trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a hospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents." Further, we are told how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone church at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to Melrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the Lowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the head-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; pa.s.sing westward to Carlisle in c.u.mberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into Lancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and finally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when

"After many wanderings past, He chose his lordly seat at last Where his Cathedral, huge and vast, Looks down upon the Wear."

"MERRIE CARLISLE"

A glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its founders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old Brigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole lie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The river-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the origin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns--Hawick, Selkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompa.s.sing streams--the Eden, the Caldew, and the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral hills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been aptly called "the city of the waters." Its situation certainly is all but perfect, whilst the picturesqueness and the extensiveness of its surrounding scenery are the admiration of all who see it. Built upon a hill which its walls once enclosed but which would now shut out its most populous suburbs, Carlisle commands a prospect only limited by the lofty mountain chain that encircles the great basin in which c.u.mberland lies. From the summit of the Cathedral or from the Keep of the Castle, the eye sweeps without interruption a vast prepossessing landscape, rich in wood and water and fertile valleys, over which the light and shade are ever gambolling, and the seasons spreading their variegated hues. Southward, across this fair expanse, the majestic Skiddaw rears his n.o.ble crest, and Helvellyn his wedge-like peak, radiant with the first and last rays of the sun.

Saddleback, and the lesser hills, link the apparently unbroken chain with Crossfell and the eastern range; while further to the left the Northumberland fells bound the horizon. Then come the uplands by Bewcastle and the Border and the pastoral Cheviots. Away round to the west, the magnificent belt is terminated by "huge Criffel's h.o.a.ry top"

standing in solemn grandeur above the Solway.

PLATE 10

VIEW OF PRUDHOE-ON-TYNE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 39 and 56_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There are few fairer or wider panoramas in Britain, and none more permeated with the very spirit of romance. What Lockhart said of Sandyknowe is equally true of this singularly fascinating view-point. To whichever hand we turn we may be sure there is "not a field but has its battle, and not a rivulet without its song."

Unlike Melrose, which may claim to be the literary capital of the Border Country, Carlisle is the fighting capital. Its most stirring memories are of raiders and rescues, and its very air is

"full of ballad notes Borne out of long ago."

Despite its Cathedral, Carlisle is really more Scottish than English. A town which proclaimed the Pretender must be Scottish enough. No other English town fills so large a place in Scottish history. And even its present manners and customs, and no little part of its dialect, are coloured with Scottish sentiment and tradition. For which it cannot be a whit the worse! Walk about Carlisle, and one is charmed with the exquisite pleasantness of the place, the sense of comfort and prosperity that reigns in its streets and suburbs, the steady flow of traffic running through it, and the welcome geniality of its inhabitants. What a delightful spot is Stanwix yonder, for instance! And the banks of the Eden have something of those "Eden scenes" about them which Burns claimed for the Jed. That Bridge is not unlike Rennie's at Kelso. The public buildings are worth a more minute examination than the pa.s.sing stranger usually gives. An atmosphere of delicious semi-antiquity is the crowning feature of "Merrie Carlisle," and one feels instinctively that under the inevitable modernity of the place there is an older story written on its stones--

"Old legends, of the monkish page, Traditions of the saint and sage, Tales that have the rime of age, And chronicles of eld."

It is so old a town that one cannot be certain of its origin. The name is apparently British, derived probably from _Caer Lywelydd_, or simply Caer Lywel, "the town or fort of Lywel," but whether this was a tribal, or local, or personal name it would be hazardous to say. By the Romans it was known as _Luguvallium_ or _Luguballia_, possibly "the town or fort by the Wall." This the Saxons abbreviated and altered to _Luel_, the original name, with the prefix _Caer_, hence Caer-Luel, Caerleil, Carleol, Karluil, Karliol, Carliol, Carlile, and Carlisle.

"No English city," says Bishop Creighton, "has a more distinctive character than Carlisle, and none can claim to have borne its character so continuously through the course of English history. Carlisle is still known as 'the Border city,' and though the term 'the Border' has no longer any historical significance, it still denotes a district which has strongly marked peculiarities and retains a vigorous provincial life. There was a time when the western Border was equally important with the Border on the north, when the fortress on the Dee had to be stoutly held against the foe, and when the town which rose among the scrub by the upper Severn was a place of conflict between contending races. But this struggle was not of long duration, and Chester and Shrewsbury ceased to be distinctly Border towns. On the north, however, the contest continued to be stubbornly waged, till it raised up a population inured to warfare, who carried the habits of a predatory life into a time when they were mere survivals of a well-nigh forgotten past.

Of this period of conflict Carlisle is the monument, and of this lawless life it was long the capital. Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could venture to share its glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a town; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time between the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a castle, but less than a town, an accidental growth of circ.u.mstances, scarcely to be cla.s.sed as an element of popular life. Carlisle, on the other hand, traces its origin to times of venerable antiquity, and can claim through all its changes to have carried on in unbroken succession the traditions of an historic life. It was the necessary centre of a large tract of country, and whether its inhabitants were British or English its importance remained the same. It was not merely a military position, but a place of habitation, the habitation of a people who had to trust much to themselves, and who amidst all vicissitudes retained a st.u.r.dy spirit of independence. This is the distinguishing feature of Carlisle; it is 'the Border city.' But though this is its leading characteristic which runs through all its history, it has two other marks of distinction, when compared with other English towns. It is the only town on British soil which bears a purely British name; and it is the only town which has been added to England since the Norman Conquest."

PLATE 11

VIEW OF CARLISLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 44, and 60 to 70_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Briefly, the headlines of Carlisle's history are these. Founded originally by the Britons, it was held by the Romans for close on four centuries. Many Roman remains (coins, medals, altars, etc.) have been unearthed, and Hadrian's big Wall (murus and vallum) is still traceable in several quarters. A sad spoliation by Pict and Scot followed the Roman withdrawal. They scarcely left one stone on another. Then came the Saxon supremacy under the good King Egfrith, with the spiritual oversight under Saint Cuthbert, to whom and his successors at Lindisfarne were bestowed in perpetuity the city with fifteen miles around it. But for Egfrith's death fighting the Picts on the far-off moorland of Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) Carlisle might have risen early and rapidly to a sure place as one of the leading cities in the land. From 685, however, to the Conquest (1066) the place was virtually extinct. It was only then that a new epoch arose for the broken city as for the whole of England. The Conqueror himself is said to have commenced the rebuilding of Carlisle, but the town owes its restoration rather to his son William the Red, who, on his return from Alnwick, after concluding a peace treaty with the King of Scotland in 1092, "observed the pleasantness of its situation, and resolved to raise it from its ruins." The Castle, the Priory, the once ma.s.sive city walls, were all the work of the Rufus regime, completed by Henry I., who gave cathedral dignity to the church at Carlisle. David I., the "Sair Sanct,"

raided Carlisle in 1136, and kept court for a time within its walls, which he heightened. It was at Carlisle that his death took place in 1153. From that date to the 'Forty-five, Carlisle's history is mainly that of a kind of "buffer-state" between the two kingdoms. Few cities recall so many martial memories. It was Edward's base of operations in his Scottish wars. It was besieged by Wallace in 1298, by Bruce in 1315--the year after Bannockburn, and again in 1322. Queen Mary's captivity at Carlisle in 1568; Buccleuch's daring and gallant rescue of Kinmont Willie in 1596, immortalised in the best of the Border ballads; the protracted siege by General Leslie in 1644 during the Parliamentary War; and the Pretender's short-lived triumph--these are the rest of its leading events.

Of the historic Carlisle little is left, the Castle, the Cathedral, and the Guildhall being almost the sole relics of a long and notable past.

Yet how vastly changed the place is from the quiet little Border town of a century ago even! Then it had barely ten thousand inhabitants, now there are over forty thousand. As the county town of c.u.mberland, and next to Newcastle the greatest railway centre in the north of England, its prosperity has grown by leaps and bounds. It is the terminus of no fewer than eight different lines, and its busy, never-at-rest Citadel Station is known all the world over. Gates and walls have long since vanished from "Merrie Carlisle." The streets are wide and airy, and altogether it presents a most comfortable and thriving appearance. At 40, English Street, the chief thoroughfare, Prince Charlie slept for four nights during the '45. And from 79 to 83, Castle Street, the corner building (now a solicitor's office), between Castle Street and the Green-market, Scott led Miss Carpenter to the altar. Carlisle Castle, a huge, irregular reddish-brown stone structure, grim and defiant, with its almost perfect specimen of a Norman Keep, and battlements frowning towards the north, is still a place to see.

But it is the Cathedral which is Carlisle's chief glory. Rising in the centre of the city, high above all other buildings except the factory chimneys, there is an air of importance about it not altogether justifiable. The building is small and not of very great account, the reason being that Carlisle was only erected into a See in 1133, and then out of Durham. The result was that the parish church was promoted to the dignity of a cathedral. Nevertheless, it has several striking features--a delightful Early English choir and magnificent east window, reputed to be unsurpa.s.sed by any other in the kingdom, if indeed in the world. From 1092, the date of the original building, to 1400-19, in Bishop Strickland's time, when the north transept was restored and the central tower rebuilt, and down to the present day, the edifice contains every variety of style, from Norman to Perpendicular, with admirable specimens of nineteenth century work. Of the original Norman minster the only parts remaining are two bays of the nave, the south transept, and the piers of the tower. How long the church remained in its pristine state it is impossible to say. The first alteration was probably the enlargement of the choir, towards the middle and close of the thirteenth century, immediately before the great fire of 1292, the worst the cathedral has experienced in its four burnings. The work of reconstruction after 1292 appears to have been somewhat slow, so slow that little was done till the year 1352, when Bishop Welton and his successor set themselves in earnest to the task. "The king, the city treasury, and the leading families of the neighbourhood contributed towards the restoration, in response to the urgent appeals of the bishops and to the indulgences issued for the remission of forty days'

penance to such laity as should by money, materials, or labour, contribute to the pious work." Towards the close of the reign of Edward III. the renovated pile rose from it ruins. To this period belongs the entire east end, with its grand window, the triforium, the carved capitals of the arches, and the Decorated windows of the clerestory.

The ceiling was painted and gilded and panelled, the intersections glowing with the armorial bearings of the rich donors by whose liberality the work had been carried to completion. The windows were filled with stained gla.s.s, and the nine lights of the east window with figures.

PLATE 12

VIEW OF NAWORTH

CASTLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 39 and 74_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In this state the cathedral appears to have remained till 1392, when another fire occurred, which destroyed the north transept. A lack of funds was again felt, and it was not till the lapse of nine or ten years that the restoration was completed. Only about a century later, however, Carlisle shared the fate of the monastic inst.i.tutions, and was suppressed, and the church shorn of many of its enrichments. The Civil Wars witnessed the worst acts of spoliation, when nearly the whole of the nave, the chapter-house and cloisters were destroyed, the materials being used for guard-house purposes in the city. The reign of the "Puritan patchwork" may then be said to have begun, with plaster part.i.tions here and there in horrifying evidence, the niches emptied of their treasures, and the fine old stained gla.s.s removed from the windows--and all, as was declared, in the spirit of "repairing and beautifying." "A great, wild country church," is its description about this time, "and as it appeared outwardly, so it was inwardly, ne'er beautify'd, nor adorn'd one whit." Not till 1853-57 was a general restoration, costing 15,000, inaugurated. Both internally and externally the edifice underwent a total renovation. Old and crumbled portions were pulled down and rebuilt; other parts were fronted anew; missing ornaments were supplied; ugly doorways were blocked up, and one grand entrance made befitting the church. The renaissance was complete as it was judicious. There was just sufficient of the old left to show the original structure, and sufficient of the new imparted to save the venerable fane from crumbling to pieces. Externally, the east is certainly the finest part of the building, with its unrivalled window--58 feet high and 32-1/2 feet wide, of nine lights, gracefully proportioned, the head filled with the most exquisite tracery-work, comprising no fewer than 263 circles. A uniquely ornamented gable, with a row of crosses on either shoulder, and a large cross at the apex, completes a highly finished centre. On either side stands out, in ma.s.sive relief, a majestic b.u.t.tress, containing full length statues of St. Peter, St. Paul, St James, and St. John, above which are light and elegant pinnacles. These great b.u.t.tresses are flanked by the lesser ones of the aisles, tapering upwards with chastely carved spires--the whole forming an eastern front of great beauty and richness. The main entrance by a new doorway in the south transept is a triumph of the sculptor's skill. The great tower, 112 feet high, has been thoroughly renovated, and much of its former ornamentation restored. Of the interior, the nave is in length 39 feet, and in width about 60 feet. The Scots are said to have destroyed 100 feet of it in 1645, but that is quite uncertain. It has never been rebuilt, and has a serious effect on the general proportions, inducing a feeling of want of balance. Up to 1870 the nave was used as the parish church of St. Mary, and it was here--close by the great Norman columns--that Sir Walter Scott was married to Charlotte Carpenter, on December 24th, 1797. The spot might well be indicated by a small memorial bra.s.s. The richly-decorated choir, in no respect inferior to that of any other English cathedral, is 134 feet long, 71 feet broad, and 75 feet high. The warm red of the sandstone, the blue roof powdered with golden stars, the great east window filled with stained gla.s.s, and the dark oak of the stalls, make up a picture that enforces attention before the architectural details can receive their due admiration.

The Cathedral contains several interesting monuments. Here is the tomb of Archdeacon Paley (1805), author of the "Evidences of Christianity"

and "Horae Paulinae," both written at Carlisle, and the richly-carved pulpit inscribed to his memory. There are tablets to Robert Anderson (1833), the "c.u.mberland Bard;" to John Heysham, M.D. (1834), the statistician, and compiler of the "Carlisle Tables of Mortality;" George Moore (1876), the philanthropist; M. L. Watson (1847), the sculptor; Dean Cranmer (1848), Canon Harcourt (1870), and Dean Close (1882).

Several military monuments are in evidence. One of the windows commemorates the five children of Archbishop Tait (then Dean), who died between March 6th and April 9th, 1856. Rec.u.mbent figures of Bishop Waldegrave (1869), Bishop Harvey Goodwin (1891) and Dean Close are by Acton Adams, Hamo Thorneycroft, R.A., and H. H. Armistead, R.A., respectively. The older altar-tombs and bra.s.ses to Bishop Bell, Bishop Everdon, and Prior Stenhouse, should not be overlooked, and attention may be drawn also to the quaint series of fifth-century paintings from the monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and to the misereres of the stalls.

Scarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate neighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness does it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found some of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too, is all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the Liddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible as a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite Hoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old Waste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the Irthing, the dividing-point betwixt c.u.mberland and Northumberland, the district is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and the historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its memory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., "the Hammer of the Scots," having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle, vowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province, was forced to succ.u.mb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond the Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman Wall. Arthuret has its name from the "Flower of Kings," one of whose twelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong, jester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on the Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river "shouther to shouther," as Lady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had dried themselves. Netherby, the _locale_ of "Young Lochinvar," Lady Heron's song in "Marmion," is in the near neighbourhood. So are Gilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green, that once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once bleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large extent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie Lea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of moss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border history. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circ.u.mference, is not likely to be forgotten--by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of the Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart.