In the West Riding of Yorkshire, not many miles removed from the line of
the great North Road, singularly and somewhat romantically situated on a
vast rocky hill, projecting sternly and abruptly into the lovely valley
of the Nid, stands the old borough town of Knaresborough. As you
approach it from the south, the aspect it presents is singularly wild
and picturesque. A long line of steep limestone crags, running from east
to west, limits the view in front; the river, deep, black and sullen,
wheeling along below their base in many a turbid ripple, until it skirts
their western cape, a huge and perpendicular crag of shaley limestone,
crowned by the massy relics of an old Norman keep, rifted and gray, and
overrun with immemorial ivy, but still majestic in their hoary grandeur.
Beneath the shelter of this formidable keep—which, in its day, before
the levelling force of gunpowder had reduced warfare to a mere matter of
scientific calculation, had been deemed quite impregnable—the
straggling country town climbs the hill-side from the stream’s level,
where the road is carried over a narrow, high-backed bridge of stone, in
one long zigzag street, so perilously slippery and steep that the most
daring riders dismount from their surest horses, whether ascending or
descending, until, the summit gained, it expands into a neat borough,
with market-place, and hostelries, and banks, and churches, all
overlooked, however, and commanded by the old castle; and, in its turn,
overlooking and commanding the wide range of hilly country of which it
occupies the extreme and highest promontory.
Such is the picture it presents to the traveller of the present day, and
singularly beautiful is that picture! The huge gray ruins and the
stained limestone precipices, relieved and set off by the deep emerald
verdure of the wide pastures in the valley, and the dark foliage of the
hanging woods which skirt the margin of the river; the stream itself
here dark and deep and silent, and there flashing like silver in the
sunlight, and brawling noisily about the base of the great castle-rock;
and, more than all, the life and animated bustle of the modern town,
contrasted with the dim memories and solemn silence of those old towers,
which frown upon the noisy thoroughfares of men, most like a grim and
ghastly skeleton, glaring down from the gothic niche of some cathedral
church upon the merry sports of thoughtless childhood. Far different was
the scene which Knaresborough presented toward the middle of the
seventeenth century, Some few weeks later than the fatal field of
Marston, whereon, untimely sacrificed and vainly, by the mad rashness of
Prince Rupert, the flower of England’s loyal chivalry lay weltering in
their gore, for one who neither prized their faith nor sorrowed at their
fall.
Those ruins, shapeless now, and undistinguished from the gray crags
around them, were then a proud and lordly castle; that huge and rifted
pile, that frowns above the lesser fragments, was the square dungeon
keep, with battlemented turrets at each aerial angle, and bartizans for
shot of arquebuss and musquetoon, and embrasures for heaviest ordnance;
while round it swept the massy flankers, with thirteen strong round
towers, well garnished with the lighter cannon of the day, sakers and
culverins and falcons; and without these, still in concentric circles,
half moon and counterscarp and ravelin, glacis and rock-hewn moat—a
mighty fortress for the king, whose banner, hoisted there by the
fugitives from that disastrous field, still waved defiance to his
foemen.
It was a bright October morning with which we have to do; the sun was
pouring a broad flood of light over the fertile vale, with its green
meadowland, its hanging woods, its ruddy cornfields, and its bright
river; over the town and castle, crowded, this with fierce steel-clad
veterans, mustered beneath the royal standard, that with the yeomanry
and burghers, like their more regular comrades, in arms for church and
king against the leaguering hosts of Cromwell; over the camp, the lines,
the outposts of the Puritans, which hemmed the destined town about with,
as it were, a wall of iron. Upon the heights, just to the eastward of
the town, the fierce, enthusiastic Lilburne had fixed his quarters, and
hoisted the broad red cross of the parliament, and thence, on every
side, had drawn his lines about the borough; the bridge and the high
road, on the south side, were kept by a brigade of pikes and two strong
bands of horse arquebusiers; the meadows and the vale were swept by four
full regiments of the far-famed invincibles, the ironsides of Cromwell;
the woods were filled with sharp-shooters, the roads blocked up with
mounds and trenches, and all the north side of the town exposed to a
tremendous fire from fifty wide-mouthed cannon, which, covered from the
castle guns by a projecting hillock, battered the dwellings of the
hapless burghers without remorse or respite. Nor were the besieged
passive in the mean time, or fearful. Bright sheets of flame would leap
out, ever and anon, from the dark castle embrasures, and clouds of
snow-white smoke would swathe the giant keep in their dense vapory
shroud, and with a roar that told the awful tale of civil warfare even
to the distant walls of York, the heavy shot would plunge into the
serried columns of the leaguers, thinning their ranks indeed, and
shaking for a moment their array, but daunting not their fiery courage,
nor damping their enthusiastic zeal. And now, with the long roll of
drums and the soul-stirring flourish of the horn and bugle, from this
point or from that of the beleaguered town, the cavaliers would sally
out on their besiegers. Now by some ford of the swift river, neglected
because thought impassable, a little troop of gentlemen, superbly
mounted on high blooded chargers, fluttering with lace and waving with
tall plumes and blue embroidered scarfs, would dash upon some picquet of
the Puritans, and drive them back, scattered and broken and cut down, to
the main body; and then, forced to retreat in turn, would fall back foot
by foot, firing their petronels and musquetoons from every hedge and
coppice, and charging again and again on their pursuers from every spot
of vantage, till they had gained the river; then they would wheel, throw
in one shattering volley, swim through the eddying waters, and raise
their gallant cheer, “God for King Charles!” in safety. Now it would be
a steadier and sterner effort; a heavy column would rush out, pikemen
and musqueteers and horse in one dense body, bearing the outposts in at
the pike’s point, carrying some redoubt, and then deploying in its
front, until their pioneers and axemen should spike its guns, fill up
its ditches, and level its defences to the ground. Incessant were alarms
and panics, sallies and feints and false attacks on the one hand; and,
on the other, strict watches, stout resistance, guarded and sure
approaches, for Lilburne knew right well the quality of his own
troops—the nature of the force opposed to him. He had experienced often
in the field the fiery and resistless charges of the impetuous
cavaliers; he knew that in the stoutest veterans of the Parliament, none
could be found who, for a single dash, could cope with the high-born and
chivalrous adherents of the King; but he knew also that undisciplined
and fiery gentlemen, how gallant and how desperate soever, would not
endure the tedium of protracted operations, the dull monotony of a long
siege, where passive opposition only can be offered, the lack of wine
and the appliances of mirth, the scarcity of food, the daily sufferings,
the daily waste, the daily growing anguish. He knew, and acted on this
knowledge. Vastly superior in his numbers, he cared not for the loss of
a picquet; he shook not at the defeat of an outpost, the destruction of
a redoubt, or the success of a sally. If evening saw the line of his
circumvallation broken, the morning sun beheld his working parties on
the ground repairing the defences, protected by so powerful masses that
any sally must be fruitless to annoy them, and evening found the lines
again complete, but stronger, nearer, closer than before. Nor was this
all. With his strong cavalry, he kept the country round in constant
terror and excitement; he cut off every convoy, before it well had left
the place from which it started; he surprised every stronghold of the
cavaliers, at miles away from his scene of operations; he took and
garrisoned the loyal house of Ripley; he battered Spofforth Castle, the
old, time-honored dwelling of the Percies; he quelled the risings of the
Langdales, the Vavasours, the Slingsbys and the Stourtons. He indeed
bridled the bold valor of the West Riding, as he had boasted that he
would—bridled it with a curb of iron!
Yet Knaresborough still held out!—castle and town held out, though worn
and wasted with fatigue and famine. Hastily had the brave defenders
thrown themselves into that stronghold, scantily victualled as it was,
expecting succors from without, as it were, every hour, and prepared
desperately to endure the utmost before submission to their hated foes.
Hastily, rashly had they suffered themselves to be hemmed in, without a
hope except to die, and desperately had they borne up against the
tortures which had rewarded that hot rashness. And now the moment had
arrived. For three whole days, the castle and the town had had no food
at all! All stores had, many days since, been exhausted; the very grass
that grew upon the ramparts had been all gathered, all consumed! The
beasts of burthen, the domestic animals, the very vermin, had been
sought eagerly for food—had been devoured greedily—till no more could
be found at all in that most miserable town. There was not one house but
had lost some of its inmates, by that most lingering, most terrible of
deaths, mere famine!—and it was on the youngest, the fairest, the
loveliest, the most beloved, that the dread doom fell first. The streets
were heaped with carcasses, for now the living lacked the strength, the
energy, to bury their own dead! Thrice had the burghers risen against
the castle, to force its commandant, by surrendering to the Puritans, to
free them from that lamentable durance; and thrice had the gray-headed
cavalier, who held that last stronghold for an unthankful monarch—while
the tears streamed hot and heavy down his emaciated cheeks, and his
heart throbbed as if it would burst his bosom, for very pity—ordered
the castle guns to play with grape upon the famished wretches, whose
despair would have forced him from his duty. Three times, repulsed from
the castle by their friends, had that most hapless populace rushed out
to the besieger’s camp, throwing themselves upon the mercy of their
foes, and hoping so to force their way into the open country, and three
times, at pike’s point, had they been driven back into that town of
sepulchres and charnel houses.
It was the third day that no particle of food, except some scraps of
leather, roasted or sodden into soup, had passed the lips of any of the
garrison, on which a sad deputation of the townsmen waited for the
fourth time upon the captain of the castle. They came not now in
turbulence, hoping to _force_ submission, but tearfully and on their
bended knees, to beg that stern old veteran, as they deemed him, that
for the love of God, by all his hopes of Heaven, he would have mercy
_not_ on them, they said, “for we are men, and can endure the utmost,
but for our wives, our perishing wives and children!”
“My friends,” he answered, “I feel for you—God is my judge I do!—and
here, here is my witness that none hath heavier cause to feel than I
have,” and as he spoke, he opened the door of an inner chamber, and
showed to those worn deputies the corpse of a fair, light-haired youth,
stretched on a pallet bed, emaciated beyond all conception—yea!
literally wasted to the bones! “Look there!” he said, “look there! Six
little days ago that famished, cold, dead carcass was the most fair, the
sprightliest, the bravest, the best, the noblest boy in all wide
England! You see him, as he lies there—_my_ boy, my glorious boy!—oh,
God! last pledge of my lost angel, who, dying, left him to my paternal
care, which here is proved forever! Gentlemen, ye are answered; when my
King’s orders reach me to yield up this hold, then will I yield it
up—’till then, please God, I shall maintain it; and so long as my
trusty fellows have boots, and sword belts, and buff jerkins, we shall
not lack a meal. So, my friends, fare ye well.”
To this there was no answer; from this lay no appeal. They went away, as
they had come, despairing; they betook themselves to their inhospitable
homes, to their wan, starving families, and sat them down beside their
fireless hearths, to pray for resignation, and for death to put an end
to tortures which were fast becoming too terrible to bear. So the bright
hours of daylight rolled over them unheeded, and the dark night came
on—that season of repose and quiet, season of respite from all cares,
relief from every wo—yet brought it no repose, no respite to the
mourners of that city! The groans of manly agony, blent with the
wailings of expiring infancy, and the faint sobs of women, suppressing
their own agonies lest they should rend the hearts of others, went up
that livelong night to Heaven; and there were humble prayers breathed
out from penitent Christian bosoms; and there were wild, impatient,
fierce ejaculations, which those who uttered them _called_ prayer; and
there were desperate blasphemies and curses, such as fiends howl out
against the throne of grace, too fearful to be written!
In a low chamber of a lonely dwelling, close to the outposts of the
enemy—looking down, indeed, upon the glacis and the dry moat of the
town—there sat an aged man, shivering above the last expiring embers of
his last brand—it was the last small fragment of the door, that dying
brand! All else, the floor, the furniture, the casements, had been
consumed already. Upon the hearth, beside the embers, there stood a mug
of water, and a large dish, covered with thrice gnawed bones, part of a
horse’s ribs, clean picked and broken, so as to reach the marrow. He was
a tall and stately figure, was that aged man, and he had been strong,
sinewy and vigorous even in his old age; but now his form was bent and
all his limbs contracted; the skin, yellow as parchment, was drawn tight
across his withered brow; his nose was terribly, unnaturally sharpened,
like the nose of a corpse; his eye was dim and lustreless; his ashy lips
were glued together with a thin frothy slaver. Yet he had fought that
morning in a fierce skirmish, which had well-nigh brought in a drove of
cattle, and had been only driven back by a charge of the ironsides, a
troop of which, commanded, too, by his own son, had fallen upon their
flank, and borne them back into the town when confident of victory and
full of high anticipation.
His corslet and buff coat were not yet laid aside; his plumed hat was
cast listlessly beside him on the ground, but his blue baldric still
sustained his rapier, spotted with many blood gouts, and, in the buff
belt round his waist, his pistols, with the hammers down and the pans
black with smoke, showed that he had not removed them since he had
thrust them back into his girdle, just fired in the heat of action.
There he sat, with his hands clenched and his teeth hard set, _silent_,
yet cursing in his heart that recreant son, whom he had never
forgiven—no! never for one moment’s space!—that he had joined the
Parliament against the King, and on whose head he now invoked the direst
of calamities, that, by his too successful charge, he had cut off the
last relief from that sad starving city.
Suddenly a faint sound fell on his ear, as of one clambering up the
glacis. The old man listened, acutely, breathlessly, as though life were
dependant on his sense of hearing!—again it came, clearer and louder,
_nearer_ than before. Sword in hand, on the instant the veteran sprang
to the narrow casement which overlooked the moat and glacis, and there,
scarce three feet from the window, in the steel cap and corslet, the
scarlet cassock and unshapely boots of Cromwell’s Ironsides, stood a
tall, slender figure. The moon, which was dimly wading through the
uncertain clouds, feebly defined the outlines of his form, and half
revealed, as the old man fancied, the shapes and weapons of a score or
two of his fanatical companions in the dark hollow of the moat below
him.
“Treason—to arms—ho! treason!”—shouted the wretched father, at the
utmost pitch of his querulous attenuated voice; but ere he had well
syllabled the words, a faint and well-remembered sound responded to his
high pitched clamor.
“Hist!—Father,”—it said—“Father—it is I—I have brought hither food
and wine, at great risk of my life—approach, quick! quick! and take
them; I will return to-morrow and crave thy blessing!”
“Out on thee! Dog and traitor—die in thy treason, and thy gifts perish
with thee!—Ho! treason! to arms! treason!”
And now the cry reached wakeful ears, and was again repeated and
again—“Ho! treason! to arms! treason!”—and lights were seen flashing
along the ramparts, and trumpets were blown through the streets, and
sentinels were heard continually challenging, and hasty footsteps, and
the clash of arms, drew nearer every moment; and still that aged man,
implacable, and steeled against his son by bitter hate, shouted, “to
arms! to arms!” and called the hue and cry that way with frantic energy.
“I will not be so balked—thou wilt repent this, father,” said the young
man, advancing nearer.
“Pray God I live to see thee hanged; I will repent this never!—approach
me not, or I will rob the hangman of his due, and with mine own hand
slay thee!”
“Thou wilt not, father,” replied the other, as he laid his hand on the
casement, and reaching into the chamber, set down upon the floor a small
rush basket, and a tall flask of wine,—“thou wilt not, father—seeing
that I have risked my life to bring thee meat and wine. I knew not, till
to-day, that thou wert in this lamentable town!”
At first the old man listened, and seemed even somewhat mollified, but
as his son alluded to the situation of the town, all his old rage
returned, and with the words, “die dog!” he lunged full at his heart
with his drawn rapier—the blow took effect, full on the polished
corslet, and glanced off, inflicting a deep wound on his left arm, and
hurling him to the ground.
“Ha! have I slain thee?—Ha! so perish all the enemies of good king
Charles!”
“Praised be God,” replied the Puritan, “praised be God, _that_ sin is
spared to thee—farewell!”
“Ho! guard—this way,” shouted the veteran, now more incensed than ever,
“ho! guard—this way!”
And with their arquebusses lowered, and their slow-matches lighted, a
party of the night-watch rushed in from the street—the ruthless father
pointed them to the figure of his flying son, and a quick volley
followed—another—and another!—and all along the ramparts, from every
battlement and crenelle, the sharp, clear flashes of the random
musquetry streamed out into the midnight darkness—and the loud rattle
of the shots startled the sentinels of Lilburne on their posts, and set
the outposts and picquets on the alert throughout the whole of the
beleaguering hosts.
Escaping from the random volleys, the young man hurried to his quarters;
but ere he reached them, he was met by the grand rounds, interrogated,
seized, dragged to head-quarters, tried for communicating with the enemy
by a drum-head court-martial, and sentenced to be hanged upon the
morrow, between the glacis and the lines—before two hours had passed.
Meantime the old man _fed_—_coolly fed_ on the meat, and quaffed the
wine his child—his betrayed child—had brought to him—then mocked the
throne of mercy with a prayer, and lay down, and slept soundly—while
that same child, watched in a military dungeon, and prayed for mercy to
his soul, which must be with its God, to-morrow.
The morrow dawned, and the accursed gallows stood there erect between
the glacis and the lines—and the death-drums were beating through the
camp—and the Parliamentarians mustered to punishment parade, with their
war weapons trailed, and their grim visages suffused with more than
their accustomed gloom.
The fearful tale was known—at once, almost instinctively it was
revealed—all means were taken, and all methods tried to preserve the
victim son—threats of retaliation—proffers of
terms—entreaties—ransom—bribes—but all were tried in vain.
In the full blaze of noon, before the besieged town, before the
besieging army, before men, angels, God—the son died on the gallows
tree, victim of filial piety—martyr to military discipline—and the old
ruthless man, who had consigned his own child to that fearful doom,
looked on, and strove to smile, and would have braved it out even to the
end—but the offended majesty of nature stood forth in its dread
might!—the fierce revulsion of conflicting passions conquered the
wretched clay!—with the sneer on his lip, and the bold evil words upon
his tongue—he staggered—fell!—they lifted him, but he was dead.
That night, a courier with a white flag paused at the outposts of the
Roundheads. It was a messenger from Charles, licensing his commander to
surrender his good and faithful town of Knaresborough—and the next day
the garrison marched out with colors flying and drums beating, and all
the honors of war granted them,—and filed in their superb array beneath
the gibbet and the corpse of him who died a felon’s death, for succoring
a father at his need!—Ho! the morality of warfare! The glory of the
victor!
* * * * *