"Lord Derwentwater rode away
Well mounted on his dapple gray."
And in the touching verses well known as "Derwentwater's Farewell," his
"own gray steed" is one of the earthly objects of his regard to which
he is supposed to bid adieu.
Of the house on Lord's Island, itself, only some low walls now remain.
A few relics of the mansion are preserved in the neighbourhood. The
ponderous lock and key of the outer door, the former weighing eleven
pounds, are preserved in Crosthwaite's museum. The door itself, which
was of oak studded with knobs and rivets, was sold to a person named
Wilson, of Under Mozzer, a place thirteen miles from Keswick. A bell,
probably the dinner bell of the mansion, is in the town hall of
Keswick, and is of fine tone. A fine old carved chair is preserved in
the Radcliffe Room at Corby Castle, and known as "My Lady's Chair."
In Crosthwaite's museum is preserved another ancient one of oak,
which came from Lord Derwentwater's house, and has the Radcliffe arms
carved upon it. And a stately and most elaborately carved oak bedstead
which belonged to Lord Derwentwater was purchased at the sale of the
contents of his house on Lord's Island, by an ancestor of Mr. Wood, of
Cockermouth, in whose family it has remained, highly valued, ever since
1716.
Many articles of furniture, some family portraits, and other property,
that once belonged to Dilston Hall, still linger in the vicinity of
that place, where they are greatly treasured.
The Northumbrian and Cumbrian peasantry believed that miraculous
appearances marked the fatal day on which the Earl of Derwentwater was
beheaded. It was affirmed that the "Divel's Water" acquired a crimson
hue, as if his fair domains were sprinkled with the blood of their
gallant possessor; and that at night the sky glowed ominously with
ensanguined streams. "The red streamers of the north" are recorded
to have been seen for the first time in that part of England, on
the night of the fatal 24th of February, 1716; and in the meteor's
fiery hue, the astonished spectators beheld a dreadful omen of the
vengeance of heaven. The phenomenon has ever since been known as "Lord
Derwentwater's Lights." On the 18th of October, 1848, a magnificent
and very remarkable display of aurora borealis was witnessed in the
northern counties. The crimson streamers rose and spread from the
horizon in the form of an expanded fan, and the peasantry in Cumberland
and elsewhere said at the time, that nothing like that display had been
seen since the appearance of "Lord Derwentwater's Lights," in February,
1716, which may therefore be presumed to have been of a crimson or rosy
hue.