“King Charles’s room,” and “Queen Anne’s room”—are all hung with fine
tapestry, and furnished in a style strictly in keeping with the place
itself. The ceiling of the first of these is of geometric design. The
carved furniture in these rooms is of the most interesting character,
and among the decorations are many shields of arms of the Edgcumbes and
their alliances. The tapestry is of the finest character, the furniture
grand as old furniture well can be, the hangings rich in material
and hoary with age, and the ornaments of the most veritable _vertu_
character—each room in this grand old mansion offers subject-matter
enough for a separate volume.
[Illustration: _The Mansion._]
The drawing-room is also a fine tapestried apartment, furnished with
massive ebony chairs, ebony sofa, and ebony carved cabinet, and all
the appliances _en suite_. The kitchen and the other domestic offices
are each and all of the most interesting character, and convey to the
mind a vivid picture of the life of the inmates in days gone by. It
is impossible, indeed, to conceive anything better than Cothele as
an illustration of the home-life of our mediæval ancestors; for the
building, the furniture, and the appliances, as they are to-day, so
were they three hundred years ago. As it was in the days of Henry VII.,
so it is in those of Queen Victoria; and so, thanks to the preserving
spirit of the Edgcumbes, it is likely to remain for centuries to come.
On some of the previous pages mention is made of Sir Richard Edgcumbe’s
escape from his pursuers, and of his founding a chapel on the spot of
his deliverance. This little chapel still stands to mark the spot,
and to bring back to the mind the circumstances of his escape, and of
the discomfiture of his pursuers. The chapel is built on the edge of
the rock overlooking the water, and from the east window the view is
wonderfully grand. In this east window is a figure of St. George in the
centre, with the Annunciation and the Crucifixion on either side. It
also bears the arms of Edgcumbe and Tremaine. In the other windows are
also figures in stained glass, and on the altar is a triptych. Among
other interesting features in this chapel—and they are many—is a
fac-simile of the ancient tomb of Sir Richard Edgcumbe, at Morlaix.
The grounds are charmingly wild, yet graceful. Nature is in a great
degree left to have her own way; the trees are of magnificent size
(one of them indeed measures 28 feet in girth), ferns and wild flowers
grow in rich luxuriance: every now and then glimpses are obtained of
the beautiful river, and, on the opposite side, of the hill-steeps and
thick woods of Devonshire. A pretty landing-place for boats is among
the most picturesque points in the landscape; a lesser river here flows
into the Tamar; a waterfall adds to the interest of the scene; and a
neat little inn, close to the bank, gives refreshment to the wayfarer;
above all its attractions is to be counted this—it is distant a dozen
miles from a railway, and the shrill whistle never breaks the harmony
of the song-birds, who “cannot help but sing” in every bush, brake, and
tree of the demesne. The scenery on the river in the neighbourhood of
Cothele is extremely beautiful, and in many places thickly overhung by
skirting woods. Danescombe, a deep hollow in the woods, is a charming
spot, as are the Morwell rocks, and many other places.
We have directed attention to but one of a hundred attractions in
Devonshire and Cornwall: Devonshire is rich in the picturesque at
all seasons; and the wild grandeur of the Cornish coast has for
centuries been a theme of special laudation. Here and there, no doubt,
other countries may supply us with finer examples of the sublime and
beautiful in scenery; but they are to be reached only by sacrifices,
such as the HOME TOURIST is not called upon to make: our own Islands
have been gifted by God with so much that is refreshing as well as
exciting to the eye and mind, that he or she must be fastidious indeed
who fails to be content with the beauties that Nature presents so “near
at hand”—accessible at comparatively easy cost of time, toil, and
money.
[Illustration: _The Landing Place._]
Between Exeter and Plymouth there may be a tour for every day of a
month.
Among the more delightful trips, where all is so beautiful, and
where it is impossible to turn in any direction without finding some
delightful place or some interesting object, may be named as especially
within the reach of visitors, those to Ivy Bridge, with its abundant
charms of hill, dell, wood, and river; to Saltram, the seat of the
Earl of Morley, on the banks of the Laira; to the Beacon and moors of
Brent; to the picturesque and pleasant dingles and combs of Cornwood;
to Plympton, with its historic sites and its pleasant associations;
to Bickleigh and its poetical vale; to Dartmoor, with its gloomy
waste, its wild and romantic “breaks” of scenery, and its endless
antiquities; and to scores of other delicious spots. The trip up the
river Tamar to the Weir-head is one which ought to be taken by every
visitor, embracing, as it does, besides hundreds of other points of
interest, the dockyards, gun-wharf, Keyham steam-yard, Mount Edgcumbe,
Torpoint, Thanckes, Gravesend House, the mouth of the sweet river
Lynher, by which St. Germans is reached; Saltash, whose women are
proverbial for their dexterity and strength in aquatic exercises, and
who often carry off regatta prizes; St. Budeaux, with its conspicuous
church; the junction of the Tavy with the Tamar; Warleigh, Beer Ferris,
and Maristow; Cargreen and Landulph, in whose churchyard Theodore
Palæologus, the last male descendant of the Christian emperors of
Greece, rests in peace; Pentillie Castle, with its romantic love
stories and tales of change of fortune; Cothele, of which we have
spoken; Calstock, with its fine old church situated on a promontory;
Harewood House, the seat of the Trelawneys, and the scene, in Mason’s
_Elfrida_, of the love of Ethelwold and of the misfortunes consequent
on his marriage with the daughter of Ordgar; and the sublime and
beautiful Morwell Rock.
Staddon Heights, Mount Batten, Penlee Point, Hooe, and many other
places, are within short distances of the Hoe, at Plymouth, and can
be easily reached. Trematon Castle and St. John’s are also near at
hand, and pleasure trips are frequently made in steam-boats round the
Eddystone.
For those who make a longer stay in South Devon, visits may well be
made to Tavistock, to Totnes, to Berry Pomeroy Castle, to Torquay,
with a long _et cetera_.[17] Besides the trip up the Tamar, there are
other rivers in South Devon whose charms are of a totally different,
but perhaps even more exquisitely beautiful character. Thus the Dart,
the Lynher, the Plym, the Yealm, the Erme, and the Tavy, all present
attractions to the tourist.
It cannot fail to augment the enjoyment of those who visit this
beautiful county—the fairest, the brightest, and the “greenest” of all
our English shires—to recall the many “worthies” to whom Devonshire
and Cornwall have given birth; men renowned in art, in science, and in
letters: and the gallant men, the “adventurers,” who carried the flag
of England into every country of the world, braving the battle and the
breeze in all the seas that surround earth in the four quarters of the
globe. It is a long list—the names of Drake, of Raleigh, and of Davy;
of Reynolds, Northcote, Haydon, and Eastlake; of Carew, of Hawkins,
and of Gilbert; of Kitto, of Bryant, and of Hawker, being not a tithe
of the eminent men to which this district has given birth—of whom the
western shires are rightly and justly proud.
Shame be to those who seek in other lands the enjoyment they may find
so abundantly at home—who talk freely of the graces and grandeurs of
far-off countries, and do not blush to acknowledge entire ignorance of
those that bless and beautify their own.
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, are, each and all, rich in “the
picturesque;” to the artist and art-lover they present attractions
second to none they will find in any country of the Continent: that
is the truest “patriotism,” which inculcates, as a first duty, a full
appreciation of
“Our own, our native land!”
ALNWICK CASTLE.[18]
[Illustration]
WITH the single exception of Royal Windsor, ALNWICK CASTLE is second
to none of the mediæval British strongholds which, in our own times,
combine the characteristics of the early fortress and the modern
palace. With its magnificent architectural features, all of them deeply
impressed with the attributes of a baronial castle of the olden time,
and placed in the midst of that famous scene of long-continued strife,
of daring deeds, and of summary retribution, the Northern Border,
Alnwick may truly be said to be an historical monument, standing upon
historic ground. The names of the great barons, in like manner, who
have successively been lords of Alnwick, have been enrolled by English
chroniclers among the foremost ranks of their countrymen, so that their
own biographies, interwoven with the history of their renowned castle,
are written in the annals of England. Then, on the other hand, while in
an extraordinary degree rich as well in relics as in memories of the
past, Alnwick still maintains the unclouded splendour of its ancient
dignity in its present capacity as the residence of an existing ducal
family. Thus, from whatever point of view it may be regarded, Alnwick
Castle must be esteemed as one of the finest and most interesting of
our national edifices, and it also always will establish its claim to a
foremost place among “the stately homes of England.”
When Nature declined to provide any one of her own emphatic
boundary-lines, such as a mountain-chain or a broad and deep river,
to determine the frontier which should divide England from Scotland,
she left a very delicate and difficult international question to be
adjusted by the rulers of the two adjacent realms, so long as this
single island of Britain should be divided into two distinct, and
by no means necessarily friendly, kingdoms. An artificial line of
demarcation, accordingly, had to be drawn, and was drawn, which was
supposed to be accepted and recognised both to the north and to the
south of it. Here and there, as if to show in the clearest manner
possible the unsatisfactory character of a frontier such as this, to
a tract of country the ominous name of “Debateable Land” was assigned
by common consent. On either side of the frontier-line, again, and
including all the “Debateable Land,” the “Border” stretched far away
to both the north and the south; and, throughout its whole extent, it
formed a decidedly exceptional territory, in which there prevailed
a system of wild laws that were administered after a still wilder
fashion: hence, whatever may have been the state of things between
England and Scotland, and between the two sovereigns and the two
nations, along the Border there flourished a chronic local warfare,
duly distinguished by gallant exploits, desperate enterprises, and
barbarous devastation, with the occasional variety of an expedition of
sufficient magnitude almost to constitute a regular campaign, or the
formal investment, and perhaps the storm and sack, of some important
fortified castle.[19]
The Borderers appear to have become so accustomed to this kind of life,
that they looked upon it as their proper lot, and after a manner even
regarded it with a kind of grim approval. Among them, doubtless, there
were but too many who were thoroughly in earnest in their devotion to
what may be styled the Border system—men
“Stout of heart and steady of hand,”
who, living in the constant expectation of some sudden assault, were
both “good at need,” and ready and resolute at all times to take
advantage to the utmost of every promising opportunity for successfully
and profitably assaulting their hostile neighbours. In order to keep
a check upon this predatory warfare, and to maintain something more
than the semblance of a supreme constituted authority, certain warlike
barons, intrusted with high powers as Lords Wardens, were established
in fortified castles of great strength along the line of the Border,
and in those northern districts of England which adjoined it. Of these
early strongholds one of the proudest and the sternest was the Castle
of Alnwick.
[Illustration: _Plan of Alnwick Castle._]
Distant from London, north by west, 313 miles (by railway), Alnwick,
the county-town of Northumberland, is pleasantly situated on high
ground, rising about 200 feet above the sea-level, on the south bank
of the river Aln. From the name of this river, with the addition of
_wick_, a place of human habitation, ALNWICK, always pronounced by its
native inhabitants “Annick,” is evidently derived.[20]
[Illustration: _Alnwick Castle, from the River Aln._]
Still remaining but little changed from what it was in times long
passed away, while from the humblest of origins other towns have grown
up and increased until they have attained to great magnitude and
wealth and importance, Alnwick derives its interest from its early
association with our national history—an association blended with the
connection of the town with its castle, and with the great barons, the
lords of that castle. The site of the castle and town of Alnwick is of
a character which necessarily leads to the conclusion, that it must
have been occupied both by a settlement and by some stronghold from a
very remote period; and this opinion is confirmed by the presence of
numerous relics in the immediate neighbourhood, that may be assigned
without hesitation to ages anterior to the Roman settlement in Britain:
the authentic history of Alnwick, however, cannot be carried back
further than the era of the Norman Conquest, and even then for awhile
more than a little of uncertainty overshadows the earliest pages of the
chronicle. There exists no evidence to show that in the year 1066 any
castle was standing at Alnwick; nor have we any knowledge of what lords
may have held the high ground on the southern bank of the Aln during
the Anglo-Saxon rule.
On Alnwick Moor, and in many places in the neighbourhood, are some
remarkably interesting camps and other earth-works, and also some
barrows, in which various relics have been discovered. In one of these
was found a stone cist, containing a skeleton in the usual contracted
position of Celtic interments; and in another, in a similar cist,
was found a fine food-vessel, ornamented with a lozenge pattern. In
other barrows Celtic remains, including cinerary urns, drinking-cups,
food-vessels, flints, celts, and other implements of stone, bronze
daggers, &c., have been found, and prove incontestably the early
occupation of the site of Alnwick. In the neighbourhood, too, occur
many of those curious remains of antiquity, sculptured stones, bearing
circles and other rude and singular characters, which are supposed to
be inscriptions.
It may be accepted as probable that the first Norman by whom this
barony was held was Gilbert Tyson, standard-bearer of the Conqueror,
the kind of personage who very naturally would be intrusted with the
charge of a remote and turbulent northern district. His descendants
continued to hold some estates under the lords of Alnwick in the reign
of Edward III., but there is no foundation for the legend that the
barony of Alnwick passed to Yvo de Vesci by his marriage with Alda,
a granddaughter of Gilbert Tyson. Still, by whatever means he may
have acquired possession, Yvo de Vesci was lord of Alnwick about the
year 1096; and he also is the first Norman baron of this barony whose
history, scanty as it is, rises above doubt and speculation. He died
about the year 1134, leaving, without any male issue, an only daughter,
Beatrix, his sole heiress.
Before we pass on to trace the fortunes of the descendants of Yvo
de Vesci, a brief notice must be taken of a memorable incident which
took place in the immediate neighbourhood of Alnwick before Yvo
himself had become its lord. After the Norman Conquest many of the
Anglo-Saxon nobles found a sympathizing refuge to the north of the
Border, under the protection of Malcolm Caenmore, or “great head,” King
of Scotland, whose queen was an Anglo-Saxon princess, being sister
to Edgar Atheling. Malcolm, in his zeal for the fallen Anglo-Saxon
dynasty, five times made incursions into Northumberland, laid waste
the country far and wide with fire and sword, and carried away almost
the entire adult population as slaves into Scotland. This devastating
warfare was suspended in consequence of a treaty, during the concluding
years of the reign of the Conqueror; but it broke out afresh after
the succession of Rufus, and Malcolm, accompanied by Prince William,
his eldest son, in person led an expedition as far south as Alnwick;
and there, on the 13th of November, 1093, the king himself fell in
an ambuscade, his son at the same time was mortally wounded, and the
Scottish army was dispersed by Earl Robert de Mowbray, the governor
of Bamborough Castle. The body of Malcolm, having rested about thirty
years at Tynemouth, was removed and re-interred at Dunfermline by his
son Alexander. There still remain two fragments of a rude memorial
cross, which, from an early period, has marked the spot assigned by
tradition to the scene of Malcolm’s discomfiture and death; and, in
1774, one of his descendants, Elizabeth, Duchess of Northumberland,
erected on the same spot another cross, designed in accordance with the
debased architectural taste of that period.
[Illustration: _The Barbican._]
The one circumstance connected with the career of Yvo de Vesci that
has come down to us is the fact that he began to build the earliest
parts of the existing castle of Alnwick. With the barony, the castle
of Alnwick passed to Eustace Fitz-John by his marriage with Beatrix,
the heiress of Yvo de Vesci. In the hands of this able baron, Alnwick
Castle was “most strongly fortified:” he also founded the monastery of
Alnwick, and in 1157 was succeeded by his eldest son, William, who, in
honour of his mother, assumed the name of De Vesci. In the time of this
baron, another King of Scotland found that the neighbourhood of Alnwick
Castle was no place of safety. In the year 1174 William the Lion, while
besieging the fortress of the De Vescis, was taken prisoner, and the
large army under his command was completely routed, De Vesci himself
taking an active part in the fierce struggle. His descendant, John De
Vesci, who died in 1288, leaving no issue, founded and endowed Hulne
Abbey; and he was the first baron of his house who was summoned by the
king to the parliament by writ, his predecessors having been barons by
tenure. William De Vesci III., one of the claimants of the Scottish
crown, was born in 1245, and succeeded to the barony of Alnwick on the
death of his brother. The last baron of Alnwick of his race, he died in
1297, without legitimate issue, having infeoffed the celebrated Anthony
Bec, Bishop of Durham, with all his lands and his castle of Alnwick, to
hold them in trust for an illegitimate son. But in 1309 the bishop sold
the castle and barony of Alnwick to Henry de Percy; and this conveyance
was confirmed by Edward II. in 1310.
Deriving, as it would seem, their memorable name from that district
in Normandy in which from an early period, long before the Norman
Conquest of England, their family had been established, the PERCIES
were represented in the ranks of the Conqueror at Hastings by William
de Percy, who assumed the additional name of Le Gernons, or Algernon,
as a personal epithet denoting the mass of hair which he wore about
his face. About 1166, or almost an exact century after the battle of
Hastings, the wealth, dignities, and power of the Percies centred in an
heiress who, perhaps in 1168, married Josceline de Louvain, second son
of the Duke of Brabant, and half-brother to the second queen of Henry
I. of England. A legend has been preserved, which relates that on her
marriage with Josceline, Agnes de Percy stipulated that her husband,
at his own option, should assume either the arms or the name of Percy;
and it is added that the bridegroom elected to retain his own arms, the
blue lion rampant of Brabant, while he assumed the paternal surname
of his bride. This legend, however, must be regarded as the poetic
offspring of a later age, since at the time of the marriage of Agnes de
Percy armorial insignia had neither assumed any definite character, nor
had any such insignia become hereditary.
[Illustration: _The Prudhoe Tower and Chapel._]
There is nothing to show that Josceline de Louvain ever bore the name
of Percy; but it is certain that the surname of his mother was assumed
and borne by the second son of Josceline’s marriage with the Percy
heiress, Henry de Percy; and by his descendants and successors the
same name was regularly borne. It was Sir Henry de Percy, third of the
name, who in 1309, the second year of Edward II., when already he was
possessed of vast wealth, and great power, became the _first Lord of
Alnwick of the House of Percy_, by purchase from Bishop Anthony Bec.
Having taken an active part in the wars with Scotland and otherwise
distinguished himself among the foremost men of his time, Henry, first
Baron Percy of Alnwick, died in 1315, and was buried at Fountains
Abbey, to which institution he had been a munificent benefactor. One of
the powerful barons who signed the memorable letter to Pope Boniface
VIII., in which the peers of England refused to recognise or allow the
interference of Papal authority with the independent sovereignty of
this realm, he married Eleanor Fitz-Alan, daughter of Richard, Earl of
Arundel, by whom he had two sons, and of these the elder, another Henry
de Percy, succeeded his father as second Baron Percy of Alnwick, to
whom was granted by Edward III. the castle and manor of Warkworth “for
service in peace and war,” as appears from the original grant now in
the Duke of Northumberland’s possession. This Lord Percy was interred
at Alnwick Abbey, the only head of the family buried in Northumberland.
The history of the lords of Alnwick from this period becomes so closely
interwoven with the history of England, that it would be superfluous
in such a sketch as the present to attempt to introduce even a slight
outline of the career of each of those renowned barons; and, indeed,
if it were desirable, it would not be possible here to find space for
the very slightest outline of so comprehensive a subject. Accordingly,
we now are content to give but little more than the succession of the
Percies after they became lords of Alnwick.
Henry de Percy, eldest son of the first baron, succeeded his father
as second Baron Percy of Alnwick; he died in 1352, leaving, by his
wife Idonea de Clifford (whose magnificent monument, with its rich and
splendid architectural canopy, unsurpassed in England, and also without
a rival in its remarkable condition of preservation, is the pride of
Beverley Minster), four sons, of whom the eldest, Henry, succeeded as
third Baron Percy of Alnwick. This baron died in 1368; his eldest son,
by Mary of Lancaster, Henry de Percy, sixth of his name and fourth
baron, was created EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND by Richard II., and High
Constable of England. This great noble fell a victim to the tyranny of
Henry IV., at Bramham Moor, in 1409. He was thrice married: first to
Elizabeth, heiress to the Earl of Angus, by whom he acquired the barony
of Prudhoe; secondly to Margaret de Neville; and thirdly to Maud de
Lucy, sister and heiress of Lord Lucy, widow of Gilbert de Umfraville,
and mother of her second husband’s first wife: and by these alliances
the barony of Prudhoe, with the estates of the Lucys and the castle
and honour of Cockermouth, became annexed to the Percy earldom. Sir
Henry de Percy, known by his surname of HOTSPUR as well in song as in
history,—
“Who was sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride,”
the earl’s eldest son, was killed near Shrewsbury in 1403. At Trotton,
in Sussex, a fine monumental brass commemorates Elizabeth de Mortimer,
wife of Hotspur, and afterwards of Lord Camoys.
[Illustration: _The Keep._]