Hills, at the foot of Roulston Crag and there, on the auspicious
morning, might be seen a large assemblage gathered together, presenting
a very animated and picturesque grouping. The King, as president of
the assembly, took his seat on an improvised throne. He was clothed
in the most splendid of his regal vestments, and held in his hand
his bronze-headed spear, as an emblem of his Royal authority. On his
right stood a group of Druids, clad in long white linen robes, with
circlets of oak leaves round their heads, and on his left the three
Christian Apostles, in their weather-stained Oriental garments, whilst
scattered around, was a considerable number of Brigantian warriors,
courtiers, agriculturists, and serfs more or less garmented in coarse
woollen fabrics or skins of animals, or without clothing of any kind,
but with painted or tattooed skins, on which were depicted figures of
the sun, the moon, and sundry animals. The King opened the proceedings
by stating the object of the meeting, and calling upon the Apostles
to explain what they wished to inculcate, promising them a fair and
candid hearing, and assuring them that if what they said appeared at
all consonant with reason, it should have due consideration. In all
respects the meeting was very similar to that which was convened nearly
600 years afterwards by Eadwine, King of Northumbria, for a discussion
of the merits of Christianity, between St. Paulinus, the apostle of
Rome, and Coiffi, the High Priest of Woden, which resulted in the
second establishment of Christianity in the district, which constitutes
the modern Yorkshire. Just as one of the Apostles was commencing to
speak, a venerable Druid, with a beard reaching half-way down to
his waist, and attired in the official long white robe, entered the
assembly, and made his obeisance to the King, who inquired who he was
and whither he had come. "I am the High Priest, oh King," he replied,
"of the great and famous forest temple of Llyn yr a vanc" (on the site
of the modern Beverley). "A report came thither that certain strangers
had come to the Court of Iseur from some distant land, to promulgate a
foreign and damnable heresy; and I, as being well versed in the truths
of our faith, and gifted with an eloquent tongue, have been deputed
by my brethren to attend this conference, and aid, to the best of my
ability, in discomfiting these foreign heretics, whose object is to
uproot our holy religion and substitute a false theological creed."
"You are welcome!" said the King. "Take your place among your brother
Druids on my right. Give heed to what the strangers have to say, and
reply to their arguments as your reason and lengthened experience may
dictate."
The stranger took the place indicated, and the King bade the Apostles
tell what they had to say on the object of their mission, upon which
the eldest looking of the three, stretching forth his arms as Raphael
depicted Paul when preaching at Athens, commenced his harangue by
giving an outline of the history of man as recorded in the Scriptures,
his fall from innocence and perfection, by the seductions of the
enemy of mankind, who for his rebellious ambition had been banished
from heaven and cast down into hell, and who since then had been
going to and fro in the earth tempting man to sin against his Maker,
in which he had been so successful that God repented of having made
man, and had caused all mankind to perish save one family, and then
explained that afterwards, when the earth had again become populated,
he compassionated man's fallen estate, and had sent his Son to take
on himself the penalty due to man's transgression, that all, through
him, might be placed in a state of salvation from that death eternal
which they inherited from the transgression of their first ancestor;
and wound up by imploring the King and all present to abandon their
impotent and bloodthirsty gods, believe in the God of Mercy whom they
proclaimed, and accept the salvation offered through the merits of Him
who was crucified.
The Druid, who had come afar, then rose and craved permission to
reply, which was granted, and he stood forth on a mass of rock, with
a majestic presence and dignified air. He laughed to scorn the fables
which they had listened to, which were only fit to delude the ears
of silly old women, and could not be accepted for a moment by men
endowed with the faculty of reasoning. "We are told," said he, "that
man was made perfect, and was at the same time fallible; that God is
immutable, and yet repented; that a creature, the work of His hands,
has become His rival, and from what we hear has become even more potent
than his Maker; has set up a rival kingdom, and is able to wrest from
the hands of God three-fourths of the beings whom He creates, a God
who is asserted to be omnipotent; with many such subtle questions,
inquiring--Can these be compatible with reason, and can you, as men of
sense, believe them?" He then descanted on the superior merits of the
Druidical religion, contrasting its "simple truth" with the "absurd
fables told us by these foreigners;" concluding with a forcible and
eloquent appeal to those who listened to him not to abandon the gods
of their fathers, and go hankering after strange gods, especially such
as were recommended by such baseless arguments and improbable tales as
they had just heard.
When he concluded a murmur of applause agitated the assembly like a
rustling of leaves in the forest, and the King said, "Venerable father,
thou speakest well; thy words are those of truth; and it only remains
to bid these strangers depart from our shores and return to the land
from whence they have come, bearing with them our thanks for having
come so far to teach us what they conceive to be the truth, but which
we are unable to accept as consonant with reason."
In the vehemence of his oratorical action, the Druid had caught up
the skirt of his robe, and the apostle had spied protruding therefrom
a cloven foot, and moreover that the heat issuing therefrom had caused
the upper part of the rock on which it was placed to become partially
liquefied, or rather gelatinised, so that it adhered to the foot.
Suspecting, therefore, whom he had to deal with, he cried out on
receiving the order to depart, "Hearken, oh King, I have told you of
the arch-enemy of God and mankind, who tempted the first man to sin,
and still goes about luring men to perdition; behold he--even he--is
present in this assembly, and has been addressing you in advocacy of
the false religion, which you, in your ignorance, maintain. Him will
I unmask;" and addressing himself to the Druid, he cried in a stern
and commanding voice, "Satan, I defy thee! in the name of the Saviour
of mankind, I command thee to display thyself in thy proper person,
and depart hence to the hell from whence thou comest." In an instant,
at that adjuration, the Druid's robe and the venerable beard fell
from him, and he stood revealed in all his hideous deformity, with a
malignant scowl on his countenance, and springing up, he took flight,
impregnating the air with a sulphurous perfume, carrying with him a
mass of rock, weighing several tons, which adhered to his foot.
At this unanswerable demonstration of truth of the religion proclaimed
by the Apostles, the King, and even the Druids, became converted, and
underwent the ceremony of baptism; and the Apostles were empowered to
go throughout Brigantium and preach the Gospel, which resulted in the
conversion of multitudes, and the Brigantes became a Christian people.
Satan, however, although foiled so signally, set his wits to work to
be avenged on the King for deserting his standard. He recollected
the piece of rock which he had brought from Roulston and dropped in
his flight some seven or eight miles from Iseur, the King's capital
city, and this he resolved upon making use of to destroy that city.
Accordingly he winged his way thither, and splitting up the rock
fashioned it into four huge obelisk-like forms, and standing upon
How-hill, he hurled them at Iseur, crying out:--
"Borobrig, keep out of the way,
For Auldboro town
I will ding down."
It may be observed _en passant_ that there is a slight anachronism
here, as Aldborough was not so called until the Saxon age, and
Boroughbridge did not come into existence until after the Conquest. But
that is a matter of not much consequence in a legend.
The stones which were thus intended to "ding down" the King's city
were miraculously intercepted in their flight, falling and fixing
themselves firmly in the earth between the city and the fords over the
Ure (Boroughbridge), where three of them, still called "The Devil's
Arrows," may be seen at this day.
The Giant Road-Maker of Mulgrave.
The stately Castle of Mulgrave, now the home of the Phipps
family--Marquises of Normanby--was built by Peter de Malo-lacu or de
Mauley, in the reign of King John. Cox says, "he built a castle here
for his defence, which, from its beauty and the grace it was to this
place, he named it Moultgrace, but because it proved afterwards a
great grievance to the neighbours thereabouts, the people, who will in
such cases take a liberty to nickname places and things by changing
one letter for another--c for v--called it Moultgrave, by which name
alone for many ages it hath been and is now everywhere known, though
the reason thereof is by few understood." A previous castle, with the
barony, had been held by the de Turnhams, and the last male heir,
Robert, having died without issue male, the barony and castle were
inherited by his only daughter, Isabel, who, as was then the law
respecting heiresses, became a ward of the Crown, and her hand at the
disposal of the King. This Peter de Malo-lacu, or Peter of the Evil
Eye, was a Poictevin of brutal and ferocious character, who was made
use of by King John as the instrument for the murder of his nephew
Arthur, for which piece of service he rewarded the murderer with the
hand of the fair Isabel, with her inheritance.
But long before the de Mauleys and the de Turnhams, a noble Saxon
family were lords of the surrounding domain, and dwelt in a castle
on an eminence here, about three or four miles from the seashore at
Whitby. Leland says (_temp._ Hen. 8), "Mongrave Castel standeth on a
craggy hille, and on eche side of it is a hille far higher than that
whereon the castel standeth. The north hille on the topp of it hath
certain stones, commonly caul'd Wadda's grave, whom the people there
say to have bene a gigant and owner of Mongrave." And Camden, "Hard
by upon a steep hill near the sea (which yet is between two that are
much higher) a castle of Wade, a Saxon Duke, is said to have stood;
who, in the confused anarchy of the Northumbrians, so fatal to the
petty Princes, having combined with those that murdered King Ethered,
gave battel to King Ardulph at Whalley, in Lancashire, but with
such ill-sucess that his army was routed and himself forced to fly.
Afterwards he fell into a distemper, which killed him, and was interred
on a hill here between two solid rocks, about seven foot high, which
being at twelve foot distance from one another, occasions a current
opinion that he was of gyant-like stature."
It is with this Duke Wada that we are concerned. He appears to have
been a Saxon, or rather an Anglian noble of considerable consequence
in the kingdom of Northumbria, and to have taken a conspicuous part
in the political movements of that troublous period, when, as Speed
narrates, "the Northumbrians were sore molested with many intruders
or rather tyrants that banded for the soueraintie for the space of
thirtie years." He was a man of gigantic stature and a champion of
redoubtable energy in war, dealing death around him and cumbering the
field with the bodies of those who had fallen beneath the blows of his
ponderous mace. He was indeed a true son of Woden in all respects,
excepting that he had relinquished the hope of banqueting in the halls
of the Walhalia, and appropriating the skulls of his enemies as
drinking vessels; for through the influence of St. Hilda's Abbey of
Streoneshalh, in the immediate vicinity, he had adopted the tenets of,
if he did not regulate his life altogether according to, the principles
of Christianity.
Now Wada was a married man, and had a helpmate of stature and
proportions corresponding with his own. They were a well-matched
couple, and seemed to have lived together in a state of ordinary
connubial happiness, there being but one thing to disturb the even
tenor of their lives, and that was that the lady had to go in all sorts
of weather across a moor to milk her cows--a long and dreary journey
even in summer, along the rough and stone strewn trackway, but more
especially in winter, when the snow was frequently knee deep, and the
bitter blasts of the north-east wind came careering over the sea and
sweeping with relentless fury across the bleak and shelterless moorland.
Wada's Castle was a massive structure of stone, with round-headed
unglazed windows, and a turret which commanded a fine outlook over the
sea on one side, and the moorlands and Cleveland hills on the other.
The rooms were of large size, as befitted the abode of a giant, but
presented few of the appliances of comfort that are deemed commonplace
essentials now-a-days. The walls were of bare stone, without drapery
of any kind, and no ornamentation excepting some zigzag mouldings;
the roofs were vaulted, and in those of large size supported at the
intersections by one or more stunted round pillars; the windows were
small, without glass, and furnished with wooden shutters to exclude the
wind and rain in the inclement seasons of the year; and the furniture
consisted of rough-hewn deal or oaken tables, and shapeless benches
or stools, with an oaken coffer to hold valuables, and side shelves
to hold wooden platters and vessels of earthenware. The fire in cold
weather was made on the floor, of logs of wood or cuttings of peat, the
smoke escaping as it could through the doorways or windows.
It was in such a room as this that Wada and his wife sat at breakfast,
one rainy and boisterous morning. After devouring an enormous quantity
of beef and swine's flesh, with manchets of oaten bread, washed down by
repeated draughts of ale, Wada, wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand, rose and went to look forth at the weather.
Wada was not a ferocious giant, dragging along half-a-dozen damsels,
with one hand, by their hair, to immure them in his dungeons, and grind
their bones to make his bread, as was the wont of the Cornish giants of
old; nor was he, like them, stupid and weak-minded, so as to be easily
outwitted and destroyed by the immortal Jack. On the contrary, although
valiant in war, he abused not his great strength by tyrannising and
oppressing his vassals, lived on good terms with his neighbours, and
was gentle and tender in all his domestic relations. Hence, when he
looked through his window and saw the sea foaming with wrath, and a
few fisher-boats tossed about by the waves in their endeavour to gain
shelter in Whitby Bay, and saw the sleet driving across the moor, he
heaved a sigh, saying, "Methinks, sweetheart, thou wilt have a rough
passage over the moor this morning; would to Heaven that it were not
necessary for thee so to do." "I care not much," she replied, "for
the falling rain and the boisterous wind, rough as they may be, but
experience more inconvenience and suffering from the roughness of the
road I have to traverse daily, so bestrewn is it with obstacles and
stumbling-blocks, and so many bog-holes and quagmires have I to pass
through."
Now it chanced that a short while before this Wada, in one of his
wanderings, came upon the road constructed by the Romans, from
Eboracum, by way of Malton to the Bay of Filey, and was struck by the
facilities it gave for travelling, as compared with the more modern
Saxon roads, if roads they could be called, which were mere trackways,
formed and trodden down by the feet of men and animals. When his wife
made the above reply, this recurred to his memory, and after a few
minutes musing, the thought struck him--Why should not he make a road
on this pattern for the benefit of his wife, whom he loved so dearly,
and whose toil and labours he would be glad to lessen at any cost to
himself?
After turning the matter over in his mind as to the practicability
of the project, he came to the conclusion that it was perfectly
feasible. There was plenty of material close at hand, in the shingle
on the beach, and he had sufficient strength and energy to level
the inequalities and fill up the boggy places, so as to make a firm
foundation, and to spread over the whole a layer of the stones
gathered from the sea shore. Yes; it was perfectly practicable, and
could be accomplished at the mere expense of a little labour. He
explained the project to his wife, who was delighted with it, and
undertook to bring up the stones whilst he placed them in position
after forming the foundation.
They lost no time in commencing the work; he with his spade in the
levelling and bog-filling operations, and she carrying up the shingle
in her apron; and it went on apace day after day and week after week,
soon presenting the appearance of a newly macadamised road of modern
times, and was duly appreciated by Lady Wada in her daily tramps across
the moor.
It chanced that when the road was nearly completed, in one of her
journeys from the beach, laden with shingle, her apron strings gave
way and her load fell to the earth, and there it was left (some twenty
cart-loads), and remained until recent times as a monument of her
industry and strength, and an incontestable evidence of the truth of
the narrative. It was after this that Wada joined in the insurrection
against Ethelred, the son of Moll, who, after his restoration from
exile, put to death the Princes Alfus and Alwin, sons of King Alfwald,
who were the rightful heirs to the crown, and repudiated his wife to
marry Elfled, the daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, "which things,"
says Speed, "sate so neere the hearts of his subjects that they
rebelliously rose in arms, and at Cobre miserably slew him, the 18th
day of April, the yeare of Christ Jesus, 794." After which Wada and
his confederates were defeated in battle by Duke Ardulph, one of the
aspirants to the Crown, and fled to his castle, where he died of a
terrible disorder, and was buried, as stated, between two huge stones.
The road leading from Dunsley Bay towards Malton still exists, and goes
by the name of "Wada's Causeway," and one of the ribs of Wada's wife
is preserved in the present Mulgrave Castle, but the present age is so
incredulous in respect to the chronicles of the past that there are
sceptics who assert that it is nothing more than the bone of a whale.
Wada was the ancestor of the widely ramified family of Wade, one of
whom, at least--Marshal Wade--inherited the road-making skill of his
ancestor. After the rebellion of 1715 he was sent into the Highlands as
military governor, with the object of thoroughly subduing the country
and rendering it less available as a place of refuge for rebels. With
this view he constructed a series of military roads, where there had
previously been only trackways, with which the people were so delighted
that they set up a stone near Fort Augustus, with the inscription:--
"If you had seen these roads before they were made,
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade."
The Virgin's Head of Halifax.
In the romantic and somewhat sterile region of south-western Yorkshire,
verging on the county of Lancaster, lies a valley, or rather what
has the aspect of a valley, from its nestling under the shadows of
some hills of considerable height. On the slope of an aclivity stands
the modern town of Halifax, with its forest of lofty chimneys, its
pretty park, and its many palatial structures, devoted to charitable
and philanthropic purposes, due chiefly to the benevolence of the
Crossleys, who, from a humble origin, have, within the memory of living
persons, become manufacturing princes of the locality, and who, in
consideration of their mercantile enterprise and the philanthropic use
of the wealth they have acquired, have been honoured with a baronetcy.
It is one of the most flourishing, or what Leland would term "quick,"
towns of the Yorkshire clothing district, and in recent times has
increased rapidly in population, wealth, and importance. It is not
even mentioned in Domesday-Book, nor does its name appear in any record
until the twelfth century, when Earl Warren made a grant of the church
to the priory of Lewes, in Sussex. About the middle of the fifteenth
century it consisted of but thirteen houses, which during the following
hundred years increased to 520. In 1764, the parish, which, however, is
very extensive, being seventeen miles in length by an average width of
eleven, contained 8,244 families; and in 1811 the population numbered
73,815, that of the town being 9,159, since which period of eighty
years it has been more than nontupled, the census of 1891 giving the
population at 82,900.
The town of Halifax owes its prosperity to its mineral wealth. It is
certainly not the place for the agriculturist or the cattle breeder.
In an Act passed _temp._ Philip and Mary, it is recited, "whereas the
parish of Halifax, being planted in waste and moors, where the ground
is not apt to bring forth any corn or good grass, but in rare places
and by exceeding and great industry of the inhabitants; and the same
inhabitants altogether do live by cloth making, and the greatest
part of them neither getteth corn nor is able to keepe horse to carry
wools, etc.;" and Camden, in 1574, observes that there are 12,000 men
in the parish, who outnumber the sheep, whereas in other parts we
find thousands of sheep and but few men, "but of all others, nothing
is so admirable in this town as the industry of the inhabitants, who,
notwithstanding an unprofitable, barren soil, not fit to live upon,
have so flourished in the cloth trade, which within these seventy
years they first fell to, that they are both very rich and have gained
a reputation for it above their neighbours, which confirms the truth
of the old observation that a barren country is a great whet to the
industry of the natives."
For the first three or four centuries after the Conquest, England was a
great wool-growing but not a wool-manufacturing country. Sheep-breeding
was a great source of income to the Cistercians, who, with all the
private wool-growers, exported their produce to the spinners and
weavers of the Low Countries. It was not until King Edward III., with
great sagacity, foreseeing that England might manufacture as well as
produce the raw material, and thus share in the profits arising out of
that industry, invited over a number of Flemish artisans and settled
them in Norfolk and Yorkshire, prohibiting the exportation of wool
excepting under a tax of 50s. per pack. This was the foundation of the
clothing industry of the West Riding, which has since then expanded
so enormously; and Halifax was one of the first places to apply
itself to the spinning and weaving of wool. As stated above, although
poverty-stricken in an agricultural point of view, it possessed great
mineral wealth in the shape of almost limitless deposits of coal, which
was a valuable essential even in those primitive times, but which has
become an absolute essential since the introduction of steam-power
looms.
It is supposed that the manufacture was introduced into Halifax about
the year 1414; but it was then on a very limited scale, and it was
not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that the first
great advance took place, by the erection of looms for the weaving
of shalloons, everlastings, moreens, shags, etc., since which time
damasks, and more recently still, carpets, have taken prominent
places in the industries of the town; indeed, Halifax has absorbed
a considerable portion of the trade which belongs legitimately to
Kidderminster.
Although the town of Halifax is of comparatively modern origin, the
name is unmistakably Saxon, indicating that previously to the Conquest
there was a village or hamlet of some description to which that
appellation was given. One tradition asserts that there was a hermitage
dedicated to St. John the Baptist, in the valley, and that within it
was preserved the face of the saint, which attracted vast numbers of
pilgrims, and caused the name of the place of resort to be called
Hali-fax, or Holy-face; and there may possibly be some substratum of
truth in this, as the parish church is dedicated to the same saint.
Dr. Whitaker partially adopts this theory, but his etymologies are
frequently rather fanciful. He refers to this hermitage of St. John,
"whose imagined sanctity attracted a great concourse of people in every
direction, to accommodate whom there were four separate roads from
different points of the compass, which converged in the valley, and
hence the name Halifax, which is half Saxon and half Norman, signifying
the Holy-ways, fax in Norman-French being an old plural noun, denoting
highways."
Camden gives a brief outline of the legend given below, which he
heard from the people of the vicinity, adding--"and thus the little
village of Horton, or as it was sometimes called, 'The Chapel in the
Grove,' grew up to a large town, assuming the new name of Halig-fax,
or Halifax, which signifies holy hair, for fax is used by the English
on the other side Trent to signify hair, and that the noble family of
Fairfax in these parts are so named from their fair hair."