The pilgrim to York stands in the center of the largest shire in England,
and is surrounded by castles and monasteries, now mostly in ruins, but
teeming with those associations of history and literature that are the
glory of this delightful land. From the summit of the great central tower
of the cathedral, which is reached by 237 steps, I gazed, one morning,
over the vale of York and beheld one of the loveliest spectacles that ever
blest the eyes of man. The wind was fierce, the sun brilliant, and the
vanquished storm-clouds were streaming away before the northern blast. Far
beneath lay the red-roofed city, its devious lanes and its many great
churches,--crumbling relics of ancient ecclesiastical power,--distinctly
visible. Through the plain, and far away toward the south and east, ran
the silver thread of the Ouse, while all around, as far as the eye could
see, stretched forth a smiling landscape of green meadow and cultivated
field; here a patch of woodland, and there a silver gleam of wave; here a
manor house nestled amid stately trees, and there an ivy-covered fragment
of ruined masonry; and everywhere the green lines of the flowering
hedge....
In the city that lies at your feet stood once the potent Constantine, to
be proclaimed Emperor, A.D. 306, and to be vested with the imperial purple
of Rome. In the original York Minster (the present is the fourth church
that has been erected upon this site) was buried that valiant soldier,
"old Siward," whom "gracious England" lent to the Scottish cause, under
Malcolm and Macduff, when time at length was ripe for the ruin of Glamis
and Cawdor. Close by is the field of Stamford, where Harold defeated the
Norwegians with terrible slaughter, only nine days before he was himself
defeated, and slain, at Hastings. Southward, following the line of the
Ouse, you look down upon the ruins of Clifford's Tower, built by King
William the Conqueror in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion of its
powder magazine in 1684. Not far away is the battlefield of Towton. King
Henry the Sixth and Queen Margaret were waiting in York for news of the
event of that fatal battle,--which, in its effect, made them exiles, and
bore to supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose. In this church
King Edward the Fourth was crowned, 1464, and King Richard the Third was
proclaimed king and had his second coronation.
Southward you can see the open space called the Pavement, connecting with
Parliament Street, and the red brick church of St. Crux. In the Pavement
the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded for treason against Queen
Elizabeth, in 1572, and in St. Crux, one of Wren's churches, his remains
lie buried, beneath a dark blue slab which is shown to visitors. A few
miles away, but easily within reach of your vision, is the field of
Marston Moor, where the impetuous Prince Rupert imperiled and well-nigh
lost the cause of King Charles the First in 1644; and as you look toward
that fatal spot you almost hear, in the chamber of your fancy, the paeans
of thanksgiving for the victory, that were uttered in the church beneath.
Cromwell, then a subordinate officer in the Parliamentary army, was one of
the worshipers. Of the fifteen kings, from William of Normandy to Henry of
Windsor, whose sculptured effigies appear upon the chancel screen in York
Minster, there is scarcely one who has not worshiped in this cathedral....
There it stands, symbolizing, as no other object on earth can ever do,
except one of its own great kindred, the promise of immortal life to man
and man's pathetic faith in that promise. Dark and lonely it comes back
upon my vision, but during all hours of its daily and nightly life
sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the thought, conduct, and
experience of those who dwell around it....
York is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the third in
length,--both St. Alban's and Winchester being longer. The present
structure is 600 years old, and more than 200 years were occupied in the
building of it. They show you, in the crypt, some fine remains of the
Norman church that preceded it on the same site, together with traces of
the still older Saxon church that preceded the Norman. The first one was
of wood, and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of
stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone
fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the
zig-zag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and
what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel.