'A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside.
* * *
As one that inly mournd, so was she sad,
And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow.'
Stanza VI. With this 'brown study,' cp. Wordsworth's 'Reverie of
Poor Susan.'
Stanza. VII. line 114. Reference to the lion of 'Faery Queene,' I.
iii:--
'Forsaken Truth long seekes her love,
And makes the Lyon mylde.'
line 124. bowl and knife. Poisoning and stabbing.
Stanza VIII. Monk-Wearmouth. A monastery, founded here in 674 A. D.,
was destroyed by the Danes in the ninth century, and restored after
the Norman Conquest. For Tynemouth, see below, 371, Seaton-Delaval,
the seat of the Delavals, who by marriage came into possession of
Ford Castle. Widderington. It was a 'squyar off Northombarlonde,
Ric. Wytharynton,' that showed notable valour and persistent
endurance at Chevy Chase:--
'For Wetharryngton my harte was wo,
That ever he slayne shulde be;
For when both his leggis wear hewyne in te,
He knyled and fought on hys kne.'
Butler, fully appreciating this doughty champion, uses him in a
descriptive illustration, 'Hudibras,' I. iii. 95:--
'As Widdrington, in doleful dumps,
Is said to fight upon his stumps.'
Widderington Castle, with the exception of one tower, was destroyed
by fire. Warkworth Castle is about a mile from the mouth of the
Alne, and is the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. Bamborough, the
finest specimen of a feudal castle in the north of England, is said
to have been founded by King Ida about the middle of the sixth
century. Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, purchased the Bamborough
estates between 1709 and 1720, and left them for charitable
purposes. This charity maintains, inter alia, a national school in
the village of Bamborough, and an officer to fire a cannon from the
dangerous rocks every fifteen minutes in foggy weather, besides
providing for the education of thirty girls within the castle walls.
Stanza IX. line 164. battled. See above, I. 4.
Stanza X. line 173. Pointed or Gothic architecture came in towards
the end of the twelfth century.
Stanza XII. line 215. Suppose we = Let us suppose. This is an
Elizabethanism. Cp. Macbeth, i. I. 10:--
'Hover through the fog and filthy air,'
where hover = hover we.
Stanza XIII. line 234. Scott quotes from 'A True Account,'
circulated at Whitby, concerning the consequences of a boar-hunt on
Eskdale-side, belonging to the Abbot of Whitby. The boar, being hard
pressed, made for a hermitage and died just within the door. Coming
up, the three leaders--William de Bruce, Lord of Uglebarnby, Ralph
de Percy, Lord of Smeaton, and a freeholder named Allatson--in their
disappointment and wrath set upon the hermit, whom they fatally
wounded. When the abbot afterwards came to the dying hermit, and
told him his assailants would suffer extreme penalty for their
ruthless conduct, the hermit asked the gentlemen to be sent for, and
said he would pardon them on certain conditions. 'The gentlemen
being present bade him save their lives.--Then said the hermit, "You
and yours shall hold your lands of the Abbot of Whitby, and his
successors, in this manner: That, upon Ascension-day, you, or some
of you, shall come to the wood of the Stray-heads, which is in
Eskdale-side, the same day at sun-rising, and there shall the
abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know where
to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten
stakes, eleven strout stowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you,
or some of you, with a knife of one penny price: and you, Ralph de
Percy, shall take twenty-one of each sort, to be cut in the same
manner; and you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut
as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs and carried to the town
of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock the same day
before mentioned. At the same hour of nine of the clock, if it be
full sea, your labour and service shall cease; and if low water,
each of you shall set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard
from the other, and so yether them on each side with your yethers;
and so stake on each side with your strout stowers, that they may
stand three tides, without removing by the force thereof. Each of
you shall do, make, and execute the said service, at that very hour,
every year, except it be fall sea at that hour; but when it shall so
fall out, this service shall cease. You shall faithfully do this, in
remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me; and that you may the
better call to God for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and
do good works. The officer of Eskdale-side shall blow, Out on you!
Out on you! Out on you! for this heinous crime. If you, or your
successors, shall refuse this service, so long as it shall not be
full sea at the aforesaid hour, you or yours shall forfeit your
lands to the Abbot of Whitby, or his successors. This I entreat, and
earnestly beg, that you may have lives and goods preserved for this
service: and I request of you to promise, by your parts in Heaven,
that it shall be done by you and your successors, as is aforesaid
requested; and I will confirm it by the faith of an honest man."--
Then the hermit said, "My soul longeth for the Lord: and I do as
freely forgive these men my death, as Christ forgave the thieves on
the cross." And, in the presence of the abbot and the rest, he said
moreover these words: "In manus tuos, Domine, commendo spiritum
meum, a vinculis enim mortis redemisti me, Domine veritatis, Amen."-
-So he yielded up the ghost the eighth day of December, anno Domini
1159, whose soul God have mercy upon. Amen.
'"This service," it is added, "still continues to be performed with
the prescribed ceremonies, though not by the proprietors in person.
Part of the lands charged therewith are now held by a gentleman of
the name of Herbert."'--SCOTT.
line 244. Edelfled 'was the daughter of King Oswy, who, in gratitude
to Heaven for the great victory which he won in 655, against Penda,
the pagan King of Mercia, dedicated Edelfleda, then but a year old,
to the service of God, in the monastery of Whitby, of which St.
Hilda was then abbess. She afterwards adorned the place of her
education with great magnificence.'--SCOTT.
line 251. 'These two miracles are much insisted on by all ancient
writers who have occasion to mention either Whitby or St. Hilda. The
relics of the snakes, which infested the precincts of the convent,
and were at the abbess's prayer not only beheaded but petrified, are
still found about the rocks, and are termed by Protestant
fossilists, Ammonitae.
'The other miracle is thus mentioned by Camden: "It is also
ascribed to the power of her sanctity, that these wild geese, which,
in the winter, fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen
in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every one, fall
down suddenly upon the ground, when they are in their flight over
certain 'neighbouring fields hereabouts: a relation I should not
have made, if I had not received it from several credible men. But
those who are less inclined to heed superstition, attribute it to
some occult quality in the ground, and to somewhat of antipathy
between it and the geese, such as they say is betwixt wolves and
scyllaroots: for that such hidden tendencies and aversions, as we
call sympathies and antipathies, are implanted in many things by
provident Nature for the preservation of them, is a thing so
evident, that everybody grants it." Mr. Chariton, in his History of
Whitby, points out the true origin of the fable, from the number of
sea-gulls that, when flying from a storm, often alight near Whitby;
and from the woodcocks, and other birds of passage, who do the same
upon their arrival on shore, after a long flight.'--SCOTT.
Stanza XIV. line 257. 'St. Cuthbert was, in the choice of his
sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the
Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands,
having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about
two years before. {1} His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it
remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery
was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they
deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert. The Saint
was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more
intolerable, as, like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea, he journeyed upon
the shoulders of his companions. They paraded him through Scotland
for several years, and came as far west as Whithorn, in Galloway,
whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by
tempests. He at length made a halt at Norham; from thence he went to
Melrose, where he remained stationary for a short time, and then
caused himself to be launched upon the Tweed in a stone coffin,
which landed him at Tilmouth, in Northumberland. This boat is finely
shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only
four inches thick; so that, with very little assistance, it might
certainly have swam: it still lies, or at least did so a few years
ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at Tilmouth. From
Tilmouth, Cuthbert wandered into Yorkshire; and at length made a
long stay at Chester-le-street, to which the bishop's see was
transferred. At length, the Danes continuing to infest the country,
the monks removed to Rippon for a season; and it was in return from
thence to Chester-le-street, that, passing through a forest called
Dunholme, the Saint and his carriage became immovable at a place
named Wardlaw, or Wardilaw. Here the Saint chose his place of
residence; and all who have seen Durham must admit, that, if
difficult in his choice, he evinced taste in at last fixing it. It
is said, that the Northumbrian Catholics still keep secret the
precise spot of the Saint's sepulture, which is only intrusted to
three persons at a time. When one dies the survivors associate to
them, in his room, a person judged fit to be the depositary of so
valuable a secret.'--SCOTT.
'The resting-place of the remains of this Saint is not now matter of
uncertainty. So recently as 17th May, 1827,--1139 years after his
death--their discovery and disinterment were effected. Under a blue
stone, in the middle of the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at the eastern
extremity of the choir of Durham Cathedral, there was then found a
walled grave, containing the coffins of the Saint. The first, or
outer one, was ascertained to be that of 1541, the second of 1041;
the third, or inner one, answering in every particular to the
description of that of 698, was found to contain, not indeed, as had
been averred then, and even until 1539, the incorruptible body, but
the entire skeleton of the Saint; the bottom of the grave being
perfectly dry, free from offensive smell, and without the slightest
symptom that a human body had ever undergone decomposition within
its walls. The skeleton was found swathed in five silk robes of
emblematical embroidery, the ornamental parts laid with gold leaf,
and these again covered with a robe of linen. Beside the skeleton
were also deposited several gold and silver insignia, and other
relics of the Saint.
'(The Roman Catholics now allow that the coffin was that of St.
Cuthbert.)
'The bones of the Saint were again restored to the grave in a new
coffin, amid the fragments of the former ones. Those portions of the
inner coffin which could be preserved, including one of its rings,
with the silver altar, golden cross, stole, comb, two maniples,
bracelets, girdle, gold wire of the skeleton, and fragments of the
five silk robes, and seme of the rings of the outer coffin made in
1541, were deposited in the library of the Dean and Chapter, where
they are now preserved.'--LOCKHART.
For ample details regarding St. Cuthbert, see 'St. Cuthbert,' by
James Raine, M. A. (4to, Durham, 1828).
line 263. For 'fair Melrose' see opening of Canto II, 'Lay of the
Last Minstrel,' and Prof. Minto's note in the Clarendon Press
edition.
Stanza XV. line 292. 'Every one has heard, that when David I, with
his son Henry, invaded Northumberland in 1136, the English host
marched against them under the holy banner of St. Cuthbert; to the
efficacy of which was imputed the great victory which they obtained
in the bloody battle of Northallerton, or Cuton-moor. The conquerors
were at least as much indebted to the jealousy and intractability of
the different tribes who composed David's army; among whom, as
mentioned in the text, were the Galwegians, the Britons of Strath-
Clyde, the men of Teviotdale and Lothian, with many Norman and
German warriors, who asserted the cause of the Empress Maud. See
Chalmers's "Caledonia," vol. i. p. 622; a most laborious, curious,
and interesting publication, from which considerable defects of
style and manner ought not to turn aside the Scottish antiquary.
'Cuthbert, we have seen, had no great reason, to spare the Danes,
when opportunity offered. Accordingly, I find in Simeon of Durham,
that the Saint appeared in a vision to Alfred, when lurking in the
marches of Glastonbury, and promised him assistance and victory over
his heathen enemies; a consolation which, as was reasonable, Alfred,
after the battle of Ashendown, rewarded, by a royal offering at the
shrine of the Saint. As to William the Conqueror, the terror spread
before his army, when he marched to punish the revolt of the
Northumbrians, in 1096, had forced the monks to fly once more to
Holy Island with the body of the Saint. It was, however, replaced
before William left the north; and, to balance accounts, the
Conqueror having intimated an indiscreet curiosity to view the
Saint's body, he was, while in the act of commanding the shrine to
be opened, seized with heat and sickness, accompanied with such a
panic terror, that, notwithstanding there was a sumptuous dinner
prepared for him, he fled without eating a morsel (which the monkish
historian seems to have thought no small part both of the miracle
and the penance,) and never drew his bridle till he got to the river
Tees.'--SCOTT.
Stanza XVI. line 300. 'Although we do not learn that Cuthbert was,
during his life, such an artificer as Dunstan, his brother in
sanctity, yet, since his death, he has acquired the reputation of
forging those Entrochi which are found among the rocks of Holy
Island, and pass there by the name of St. Cuthbert's Beads. While at
this task, he is supposed to sit during the night upon a certain
rock, and use another as his anvil. This story was perhaps credited
in former days; at least the Saint's legend contains some not more
probable.'--SCOTT.
See in Mr. Aubrey de Vere's 'Legends of the Saxon Saints' a fine
poem entitled 'How Saint Cuthbert kept his Pentecost at Carlisle.'
The 'beads' are there referred to thus:--
'And many an age, when slept that Saint in death,
Passing his isle by night the sailor heard
Saint Cuthbert's hammer clinking on the rock.'