THE LAND OF MARMION
Berwick-upon-Tweed, September 8, 1890.--It had long been my wish to
see something of royal Berwick, and our acquaintance has at length
begun. This is a town of sombre gray houses capped with red roofs;
of elaborate, old-fashioned, disused fortifications; of dismantled
military walls; of noble stone bridges and stalwart piers; of breezy
battlement walks, fine sea-views, spacious beaches, castellated
remains, steep streets, broad squares, narrow, winding ways, many
churches, quaint customs, and ancient memories. The present, indeed,
has marred the past in this old town, dissipating the element of
romance and putting no adequate substitute in its place. Yet the
element of romance is here, for such observers as can look on Berwick
through the eyes of the imagination; and even those who can imagine
nothing must at least perceive that its aspect is regal. Viewed, as I
had often viewed it, from the great Border bridge between England and
Scotland, it rises on its graceful promontory,--bathed in sunshine and
darkly bright amid the sparkling silver of the sea,--a veritable ocean
queen. To-day I have walked upon its walls, threaded its principal
streets, crossed its ancient bridge, explored its suburbs, entered
its municipal hall, visited its parish church, and taken long drives
through the country that encircles it; and now at midnight, sitting
in a lonely chamber of the King's Arms and musing upon the past, I
hear not simply the roll of a carriage wheel or the footfall of a
late traveller dying away in the distance, but the music with which
warriors proclaimed their victories and kings and queens kept festival
and state. This has been a pensive day, for in its course I have said
farewell to many lovely and beloved scenes. Edinburgh was never more
beautiful than when she faded in the yellow mist of this autumnal
morning. On Preston battlefield the golden harvest stood in sheaves,
and the meadows glimmered green in the soft sunshine, while over them
the white clouds drifted and the peaceful rooks made wing in happy
indolence and peace. Soon the ruined church of Seton came into view,
with its singular stunted tower and its venerable gray walls couched
deep in trees, and around it the cultivated, many-coloured fields and
the breezy, emerald pastures stretching away to the verge of the sea.
A glimpse, and it is gone. But one sweet picture no sooner vanishes
than its place is filled with another. Yonder, on the hillside, is
the manor-house, with stately battlement and tower, its antique
aspect softened by great masses of clinging ivy. Here, nestled in the
sunny valley, are the little stone cottages, roofed with red tiles
and bright with the adornment of arbutus and hollyhock. All around
are harvest-fields and market-gardens,--the abundant dark green of
potato-patches being gorgeously lit with the intermingled lustre of
millions of wild-flowers, white and gold, over which drift many flights
of doves. Sometimes upon the yellow level of the hayfields a sudden
wave of brilliant poppies seems to break,--dashing itself into scarlet
foam. Timid, startled sheep scurry away into their pastures, as the
swift train flashes by them. A woman standing at her cottage door looks
at it with curious yet regardless gaze. Farms teeming with plenty are
swiftly traversed, their many circular, cone-topped hayricks standing
like towers of amber. Tall, smoking chimneys in the factory villages
flit by and disappear. Everywhere are signs of industry and thrift,
and everywhere also are denotements of the sentiment and taste that
are spontaneous in the nature of this people. Tantallon lies in the
near distance, and speeding toward ancient Dunbar I dream once more
the dreams of boyhood, and can hear the trumpets, and see the pennons,
and catch again the silver gleam of the spears of Marmion. Dunbar is
left behind, and with it the sad memory of Mary Stuart, infatuated
with barbaric Bothwell, and whirled away to shipwreck and ruin,--as so
many great natures have been before and will be again,--upon the black
reefs of human passion. The heedless train is skirting the hills of
Lammermoor now, and speeding through plains of a fertile verdure that
is brilliant and beautiful down to the margin of the ocean. Close by
Cockburnspath is the long, lonely, melancholy beach that well may have
been in Scott's remembrance when he fashioned that weird and tragic
close of the most poetical and pathetic of his novels, while, near at
hand, on its desolate headland, the grim ruin of Fast Castle,--which
is deemed the original of his Wolf's Crag,--frowns darkly on the white
breakers at its surge-beaten base. Edgar of Ravenswood is no longer an
image of fiction, when you look upon that scene of gloomy grandeur and
mystery. But do not look upon it too closely nor too long,--for of
all scenes that are conceived as distinctly weird it may truly be said
that they are more impressive in the imagination than in the actual
prospect. This coast is full of dark ravines, stretching seaward and
thickly shrouded with trees, but in them now and then a glimpse is
caught of a snugly sheltered house, overgrown with flowers, securely
protected from every blast of storm. The rest is open land, which
many dark stone walls partition, and many hawthorn hedges, and many
little white roads, winding away toward the shore: for this is Scottish
sea-side pageantry, and the sunlit ocean makes a silver setting for the
jewelled landscape, all the way to Berwick.
[Illustration: _Tantallon Castle._]
The profit of walking in the footsteps of the past is that you learn
the value of the privilege of life in the present. The men and women
of the past had their opportunity and each improved it after his kind.
These are the same plains in which Wallace and Bruce fought for the
honour, and established the supremacy, of the kingdom of Scotland. The
same sun gilds these plains to-day, the same sweet wind blows over
them, and the same sombre, majestic ocean breaks in solemn murmurs on
their shore. "Hodie mihi, cras tibi,"--as it was written on the altar
skulls in the ancient churches. Yesterday belonged to them; to-day
belongs to us; and well will it be for us if we improve it. In such an
historic town as Berwick the lesson is brought home to a thoughtful
mind with convincing force and significance. So much has happened
here,--and every actor in the great drama is long since dead and gone!
Hither came King John, and slaughtered the people as if they were
sheep, and burnt the city,--himself applying the torch to the house
in which he had slept. Hither came Edward the First, and mercilessly
butchered the inhabitants, men, women, and children, violating even the
sanctuary of the churches. Here, in his victorious days, Sir William
Wallace reigned and prospered; and here, when Menteith's treachery had
wrought his ruin, a fragment of his mutilated body was long displayed
upon the bridge. Here, in the castle, of which only a few fragments now
remain (these being adjacent to the North British railway station),
Edward the First caused to be confined in a wooden cage that intrepid
Countess of Buchan who had crowned Robert Bruce, at Scone. Hither came
Edward the Third, after the battle of Halidon Hill, which lies close
by this place, had finally established the English power in Scotland.
All the princes that fought in the wars of the Roses have been in
Berwick and have wrangled over the possession of it. Richard the Third
doomed it to isolation. Henry the Seventh declared it a neutral state.
By Elizabeth it was fortified,--in that wise sovereign's resolute and
vigorous resistance to the schemes of the Roman Catholic church for
the dominance of her kingdom. John Knox preached here, in a church on
Hide Hill, before he went to Edinburgh to shake the throne with his
tremendous eloquence. The picturesque, unhappy James the Fourth went
from this place to Ford Castle and Lady Heron, and thence to his death,
at Flodden Field. Here it was that Sir John Cope first paused in his
fugitive ride from the fatal field of Preston, and here he was greeted
as affording the only instance in which the first news of a defeat had
been brought by the vanquished General himself. And within sight of
Berwick ramparts are those perilous Farne islands, where, at the wreck
of the steamer Forfarshire, in 1838, the heroism of a woman wrote upon
the historic page of her country, in letters of imperishable glory,
the name of Grace Darling. (There is a monument to her memory, in
Bamborough churchyard.) Imagination, however, has done for this region
what history could never do. Each foot of this ground was known to Sir
Walter Scott, and for every lover of that great author each foot of it
is hallowed. It is the Border Land,--the land of chivalry and song, the
land that he has endeared to all the world,--and you come to it mainly
for his sake.
"Day set on Norhams castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone."
[Illustration: _Norham Castle--in the time of Marmion._]
The village of Norham lies a few miles west of Berwick, upon the south
bank of the Tweed,--a group of cottages clustered around a single long
street. The buildings are low and are mostly roofed with dark slate or
red tiles. Some of them are thatched, and grass and flowers grow wild
upon the thatch. At one end of the main highway is a market-cross,
near to which is a little inn. Beyond that and nearer to the Tweed,
which flows close beside the place, is a church of great antiquity,
set toward the western end of a long and ample churchyard, in which
many graves are marked with tall, thick, perpendicular slabs, many with
dark, oblong tombs, tumbling to ruin, and many with short, stunted
monuments. The church tower is low, square, and of enormous strength.
Upon the south side of the chancel are five windows, beautifully
arched,--the dog-toothed casements being uncommonly complete specimens
of that ancient architectural device. This church has been restored;
the south aisle in 1846, by I. Bononi; the north aisle in 1852, by E.
Gray. The western end of the churchyard is thickly masked in great
trees, and looking directly east from this point your gaze falls upon
all that is left of the stately Castle of Norham, formerly called
Ublanford,--built by Flamberg, Bishop of Durham, in 1121, and restored
by Hugh Pudsey, another Prince of that See, in 1164. It must once have
been a place of tremendous fortitude and of great extent. Now it is
wide open to the sky, and nothing of it remains but roofless walls
and crumbling arches, on which the grass is growing and the pendent
bluebells tremble in the breeze. Looking through the embrasures of
the east wall you see the tops of large trees that are rooted in the
vast trench below, where once were the dark waters of the moat. All
the courtyards are covered now with sod, and quiet sheep nibble and
lazy cattle couch where once the royal banners floated and plumed
and belted knights stood round their king. It was a day of uncommon
beauty,--golden with sunshine and fresh with a perfumed air; and
nothing was wanting to the perfection of solitude. Near at hand a thin
stream of pale blue smoke curled upward from a cottage chimney. At some
distance the sweet voices of playing children mingled with the chirp
of small birds and the occasional cawing of the rook. The long grasses
that grow upon the ruin moved faintly, but made no sound. A few doves
were seen, gliding in and out of crevices in the mouldering turret. And
over all, and calmly and coldly speaking the survival of nature when
the grandest works of man are dust, sounded the rustle of many branches
in the heedless wind.
The day was setting over Norham as I drove away,--the red sun slowly
obscured in a great bank of slate-coloured cloud,--but to the last
I bent my gaze upon it, and that picture of ruined magnificence can
never fade out of my mind. The road eastward toward Berwick is a green
lane, running between harvest-fields, which now were thickly piled with
golden sheaves, while over them swept great flocks of sable rooks.
There are but few trees in that landscape,--scattered groups of the ash
and the plane,--to break the prospect. For a long time the stately
ruin remained in view,--its huge bulk and serrated outline, relieved
against the red and gold of sunset, taking on the perfect semblance
of a colossal cathedral, like that of Iona, with vast square tower,
and chancel, and nave: only, because of its jagged lines, it seems in
this prospect as if shaken by a convulsion of nature and tottering to
its momentary fall. Never was illusion more perfect. Yet as the vision
faded I could remember only the illusion that will never fade,--the
illusion that a magical poetic genius has cast over those crumbling
battlements, rebuilding the shattered towers, and pouring through their
ancient halls the glowing tide of life and love, of power and pageant,
of beauty, light, and song.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] "_In thy mind thou conjoinest life's practical knowledge,
And a temper unmoved by the changes of fortune,
Whatsoever her smile or her frown,
Neither bowed nor elate,--but erect_"
LORD LYTTON'S TRANSLATION
[2] Since these words were written a plain headstone of white marble
has been placed on this spot, bearing the following inscription:--
"Matthew Arnold, eldest son of the late Thomas Arnold, D.D., Head
Master of Rugby School. Born December 24, 1822. Died April 15, 1888.
There is sprung up a light for the righteous, and joyful gladness for
such as are true-hearted."
The _Letters of Matthew Arnold_, published in 1895, contain touching
allusions to Laleham Churchyard. At Harrow, February 27, 1869, the poet
wrote: "It is a wonderfully clear, bright day, with a cold wind, so I
went to a field on the top of the hill, whence I can see the clump of
Botleys and the misty line of the Thames, where Tommy lies at the foot
of them. I often go for this view on a clear day." At London, August
2, 1869, he wrote: "On Saturday Flu and I went together to Laleham. It
was exactly a year since we had driven there with darling Tommy and
the other two boys, to see Basil's grave; he enjoyed the drive, and
Laleham, and the river, and Matt Buckland's garden, and often talked
of them afterwards. And now we went to see _his_ grave, poor darling.
The two graves are a perfect garden, and are evidently the sight of
the churchyard, where there is nothing else like them; a path has been
trodden over the grass to them by people coming and going. It was a
soft, mild air, and we sat a long time by the graves."
[3] The crime was committed on November 4, 1820. The victim was a
farmer, named William Hirons. The assassins, four in number, named
Quiney, Sidney, Hawtrey, and Adams, were hanged, at Warwick, in April,
1821.
[4] Arthur Hodgson, born in 1818, was educated at Eton and at
Cambridge. He went to Australia in 1839, and made a fortune as a
sheep-farmer. He served the State in various public offices, and
was knighted by Queen Victoria. He has been five times Mayor of
Stratford-upon-Avon.
[5] An entry in the Diocesan Register of Worcester states that in 1374
"John Clopton of Stretforde obtained letters dimissory to the order
of priest."--In 1477 Pope Sixtus the Fourth authorized John Clopton
to perform divine service in Clopton manor-house.--Mrs. Gaskell, then
Miss Byerley, saw the attic chapel at Clopton, in 1820, and wrote a
description of it at that time.
[6] The original sign of the Shoulder of Mutton, which once hung before
that house, was painted by Grubb, who also painted the remarkable
portrait of the Corporation Cook, which now hangs in the town hall of
Stratford,--given to the borough by the late Henry Graves, of London.
[7] When the moat was disused three "jack bottles" were found in its
bed, made of coarse glass, and bearing on the shoulder of each bottle
the crest of John-a-Combe. These relics are in the collection of Sir
Arthur Hodgson.
[8] It is said that the remains of Lord Lovat were, soon after his
execution, secretly removed, and buried at his home near Inverness, and
that the head was sewed to the body.
[9] Robert Dudley [1532-1588] seems not to have been an admirable
man, but certain facts of his life appear to have been considerably
misrepresented. He married Amy Robsart, daughter of Sir John Robsart,
of Siderstern, Norfolk, on June 4, 1550, publicly, and in presence of
King Edward the Sixth. Amy Robsart never became Countess of Leicester,
but died, in 1560, four years before Dudley became Earl of Leicester,
by a "mischance,"--namely, an accidental fall downstairs,--at Cumnor
Hall, near Abingdon. She was not at Kenilworth, as represented in
Scott's novel, at the time of the great festival in honour of Queen
Elizabeth, in 1575, because at that time she had been dead fifteen
years. Dudley secretly married Douglas Howard, Lady Sheffield, in
1572-73, but would never acknowledge her. His third wife was the
Lætitia whose affection deplores him, in the Beauchamp chapel.
[10] Those cedars are ranked with the most superb trees in the British
Islands. Two of the group were torn up by the roots during a terrific
gale, which swept across England, leaving ruin in its track, on Sunday,
March 24, 1895.
[11] Length. Height of Tower.
Winchester 556 ft. 138 ft.
St. Albans 548 ft. 4 in. 144 ft.
York 524 ft. 6 in. 213 ft.
[12] The White Horse upon the side of the hill at Westbury was made by
removing the turf in such a way as to show the white chalk beneath, in
the shape of a horse. The tradition is that this was done by command
of Alfred, in Easter week, A.D. 878, to signalise his victory over the
Danes, at Oetlandune, or Eddington, at the foot of the hill. Upon the
top of that hill there is the outline of an ancient Roman camp.
[13] The curfew bell is rung at Bromham church, at eight o'clock in the
evening, on week days, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and at the same
hour on every Sunday throughout the year; and on Shrove Tuesday the
bell is rung at one o'clock in the day.
[14] Sloperton Cottage is now, 1896, the property of H. H. Ludlow
Burgess, of Seend.
[15] The famous actor was knighted, by Queen Victoria, in 1895, and
became Sir Henry Irving.
[16] "In our stage to Penrith I introduced Anne to the ancient
Petreia, called Old Penrith, and also to the grave of Sir Ewain
Cæsarius, that knight with the puzzling name, which has got more
indistinct."--_Journal of Sir Walter Scott_, Vol. II., p. 151.
[17] The poet Gray, who visited these mountains in 1769, wrote, in
his Journal, October 1: "Place Fell, one of the bravest among them,
pushes its bold broad breast into the midst of the lake, and forces it
to alter its course, forming first a large bay to the left and then
bending to the right."
[18] F. A. Marshall, editor of _The Henry Irving Edition of
Shakespeare_ and author of _A Study of Hamlet_, the comedy of _False
Shame_, and many other works, died in London, December, 1889, much
lamented. His widow,--the once distinguished actress, Miss Ada
Cavendish,--died, at 34 Thurloe square, London, October 6, 1895.
[19] The Traveller's Rest is 1481 feet above the sea-level, whereas
the inn called The Cat and Fiddle,--a corruption of Caton le Fidèle,
governor of Calais,--on Axe Edge, near Buxton, is 1700 feet above the
level of the sea.
[20] Mr. Wadley died at Pershore, April 4, 1895, and was buried in
Bidford churchyard on April 10.
[21] See in the _London Athenæum_, February 9, 1889, a valuable
article, by Mr. John Taylor, on "Local Shakesperean Names" based upon,
and incorporative of, some of the researches of Mr. Wadley.
[22] William Butcher died on February 20, 1895, aged sixty-six, and was
buried in the Stratford Cemetery.
[23] See _An Account of the Discovery of the Body of King John, in the
Cathedral Church of Worcester_. By Valentine Green, F.S.A., 1797.
[24] Byron was born on January 22, 1788, and he died on April 19, 1824.
[25] Since this paper was written the buildings that flanked the church
wall have been removed, the street in front of it has been widened, and
the church has been "restored" and considerably altered.
[26] Revisiting this place on September 10, 1890, I found that the
chancel has been lengthened, that the altar and the mural tablets have
been moved back from the Byron vault, and that his gravestone is now
outside of the rail.
[27] It is now, 1896, said to be in the possession of a resident of one
of our Southern cities, who says that he obtained it from one of his
relatives, to whom it was given by the parish clerk, in 1834.
[28] Dr. Joseph Wharton, in a letter to the poet Gay, described Lavinia
Fenton as follows: "She was a very accomplished and most agreeable
companion; had much wit, good strong sense, and a just taste in
polite literature. Her person was agreeable and well made; though I
think she could never be called a beauty. I have had the pleasure of
being at table with her when her conversation was much admired by the
first characters of the age, particularly old Lord Bathurst and Lord
Granville."
General James Wolfe, killed in battle, at the famous storming of
Quebec, was born in 1726, and he died in 1759.
Robert Clive, the famous soldier and the first Lord Clive, was born in
1725, and he died, a suicide,--haunted, it was superstitiously said, by
ghosts of slaughtered East Indians,--in 1774.
[29] The romantic house of Compton Wynyate was built of material taken
from a ruined castle at Fulbrooke, by Sir William Compton, in the reign
of Henry the Eighth. Wynyate signifies a vineyard.
[30] Miss Mary Anderson, the distinguished American actress, was
married, on June 17, 1890, at Hampstead, to Mr. Antonio De Navarro. Her
Autobiography, called _A Few Memories of My Life_, was published, in
London, in March, 1896.
[31] Mr. Wall retired from the office of librarian of the Shakespeare
Memorial in June, 1895, and was succeeded by Mr. William Salt
Brassington.
[32] In 1894 the number of visitors to New Place was 809; in 1895 it
was 716, while 13,028 visited the Memorial.
[33] Mrs. Bulmer served as custodian of New Place until her death, on
March 14, 1896. The office was then assigned to Richard Savage, in
addition to his other offices.
[34] Miss Maria Chattaway died on January 31, 1891. Miss Caroline
Chattaway removed from Stratford on October 7, 1895, to Haslor.
[35] Mr. Skipsey resigned his office, in October, 1891, and returned to
Newcastle.
[36] The grave of Charles Frederick Green, author of an account of
Shakespeare and the Crab Tree,--an idle tradition set afloat by Samuel
Ireland,--was made in the angle near the west door of Trinity church,
but it has been covered, tombstone and all, with gravel.
[37] Mr. Loggin was Mayor of Stratford in 1866 and 1867, and under
his administration, in the latter year, was built the Mill Bridge,
across the Avon, near Lucy's Mill, to replace an old and dilapidated
structure. Mr. Loggin died on February 3, 1885, aged sixty-nine, and
was buried at Long Marston.
[38] The Anne Hathaway cottage was purchased for the nation, in April,
1892.
[39] Mr. Laffan resigned his office in June, 1895, and became President
of Cheltenham College. Rev. E. J. W. Houghton is now head-master.
[40] Mrs. Eliza Smith died at No. 56 Ely street, Stratford, on February
24, 1893, aged 68, and the relics that she possessed passed to a
relative, at Northampton. They were sold, in London, in June, 1896.
[41] Modern editions, following Pope's alteration, say "whereon"
instead of "where"; but "where" is the reading in the Folio of 1623.
Mr. Savage contends that the bank that Shakespeare had in mind is
Borden Hill, near Shottery, where the wild thyme is still abundant.
[42] That learned antiquarian W. G. Fretton, Esq., of Coventry, has
shown that the Forest of Arden covered a large tract of land extending
many miles west and north of the bank of the Avon, around Stratford.
[43] It has been awakened. A railway to Henley was opened in 1894.
[44] The venerable Mr. Linskill died in the rectory of Beaudesert in
February, 1890, and was buried within the shadow of the church that he
loved. That picturesque rectory of Beaudesert was the birthplace of
Richard Jago [1715-1781], the poet who wrote _Edgehill_.
[45] Like many other pleasures it has now become only a memory. Mr.
Childs died, in Philadelphia, February 3, 1894.
[46] Chantrey had seen the beautiful sculpture of little Penelope
Boothby, in Ashbourne church, Derbyshire, made by Thomas Banks, and he
may have been inspired by that spectacle.
[47] 1896. The building is, if possible, to be made a museum of relics
of Johnson. It is now a lodging-house. Its exterior has recently been
repaired. Johnson is the name of its present owner.
[48] Thomas Jefferson, 1728-1807, was a contemporary and friend of
Garrick, and a member of his company, at various times, at Drury Lane.
He was the great-grandfather of Joseph Jefferson, famous in Rip Van
Winkle.
[49] On the stone that marks this sepulchre are inscriptions, which may
suitably be preserved in this chronicle:
"Alexander Campbell Esquire, of Ederline. Died 2^d October, 1841. In
his 76^{th} year.
Matilda Campbell. Second daughter of William Campbell Esq., of
Ederline. Died on the 21^{st} Nov^r 1842. In her 6^{th} year.
William Campbell Esq., of Ederline. Died 15^{th} January 1855, in his
42^{nd} year.
Lachlan Aderson Campbell. His son. Died January 27^{th}, 1859. In his
5^{th} year."
[John Campbell, the eldest son of Alexander, died February 26, 1855,
aged 45, and was buried in the Necropolis, at Toronto, Canada. His
widow, Janet Tulloch Campbell, a native of Wick, Caithness, died at
Toronto, August 24, 1878, aged 65, and was buried beside him.]
[50] It is a small oval glass, of which the rim is fashioned with
crescents, twenty-two of them on each side.
[51] Chapters on Iona, Staffa, Glencoe, and other beauties of Scotland
may be found in my books, which are companions to this one, called _Old
Shrines and Ivy_ and _Brown Heath and Blue Bells_.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained.
"Corse" is an archaic form of "corpse". "Oftens" is an archaic adverb.
Page 121, added "a" (after a Worcester fight)
Page 311, changed "along" to "alone" (standing alone among ruins)