clear water." Like Carlisle, its history is largely one of attack and
retaliation. The Scottish Sovereigns were peculiarly unfortunate at
Alnwick. For here Malcolm Canmore was speared to death in 1093, and
William the Lion made prisoner in 1174, and inside the castle of to-day
with its gilded ceilings, luxurious upholstery, and majestic mantels of
Italian workmanship and marbles, are still to be seen the dour dungeons
in which many a Scot died miserably while the Percy and his retainers
feasted above. King John burned Alnwick to the ground in 1216, David I.
besieged and captured it. Each of the Edwards visited the place. It was
again devastated by the Scots in 1427. In 1463, it was held for Edward
IV., and in 1464 it fell into the hands of Queen Margaret. Royalists and
Roundheads occupied Alnwick during the wars between Charles and his
Parliament, but after 1700 it settled down to comparative quiet. The
Castle, of course, dominates the place. There is what William Howitt
calls "an air of solemn feudality" overhanging the whole town. Streets
and buildings, and the general tone harmonize well with the prevailing
conditions. Only one of its four gates survives--the gloomy, old,
weather-beaten Bondgate, built by the haughty Hotspur about the year
1450. The Cross dates from the same period. The most interesting and
venerable structure is the Church of St. Mary and St. Michael, founded
about the beginning of the 14th century, Perpendicular in style, and
abundant in Percy memorials. But the chief object of interest is the
Castle with the Castle enclosure (some five acres in extent). The Castle
itself is the most magnificent specimen of a feudal fortress in England,
a verdict in which all who see it will agree. What an extraordinarily
fascinating and profoundly impressive place, from the very stones of the
courtyard to the defiant-looking warrior figures on the battlements of
the barbican, and elsewhere. What an endless succession of towers and
turrets (some of them with distinctive names, Hotspur and Bloody Gap)
archways and corridors, walls and embrasures, and all the grim massive
paraphernalia of the past, apparently as doggedly determined as ever.
Perhaps, as one writer puts it, only a Percy could live quite at his
ease as master of Alnwick Castle. One cannot imagine the average man
making himself congenially at home here. But the inside comforts are an
overflowing compensation for a somewhat forbidding exterior. We are told
that even the towers at the angles of the encircling walls are museums
of British and Egyptian antiquities, and game trophies, collected by
members of the family. The fourth Duke has left much to show for the
quarter of a million he lavished upon the building--exquisite wood
carving, frescoes, marbles, and canvases. Mantovani, who restored the
Raphael frescoes in the Vatican, was not too great a man to be hired by
a Percy to adorn his Border castle. The walls of the grand staircase are
panelled with beautiful marbles. There are unique paintings: the
dining-room, a noble apartment, is pompous with Percys in fine frames,
bewigged, robed and plain; the first Duke and his wife, who helped him
to a dignity neither his money nor his courtly manners could have won
for him, hang suitably in the place of honour above the hearth. Vandyck,
Moroni, and Andrea del Sarto are worthily represented in the castle.
Giorgione, who did so well the comparatively little he had time for, is
here in his "Lady with the Lute." Raphael, Guido, and Titian are also
within these swarthy outer walls, Titian's landscape contribution being
specially notable, like Giovanni Bellini's "The Gods enjoying the Fruits
of the Earth." One looks from it to the fair Northumberland country
beyond the windows and then at the splendour and taste of the castle,
and fancies, inevitably, that the Percys themselves have in these later
days obtained quite their share of the privileges of Bellini's gods.
Nothing that makes for domestic pleasure is lacking at Alnwick Castle.
There is a stately library of some 15,000 books, with chairs for
dreaming and chairs for study; and, not to slight meaner comforts, there
is a kitchen that is a model of its baronial kind, about fifty yards
distant from the dining-hall, with which it communicates by an
underground passage. The first English possession acquired by the house
of Percy north of the Tees was Dalton, afterwards called Dalton-Percy.
Then came Alnwick, originally owned by the De Vescis, and purchased from
them about 1309; Warkworth; Prudhoe-on-Tyne, one of the most picturesque
of Northumbrian fortresses; Cockermouth; and Keeldar, in the Cheviots.
And what of the Percys who ruled, and still rule, at Alnwick in their
day of might? Very ancient is the name, numbering among its early
patriarchs such grand old heroes as Manfred the Dane, and
"Brave Galfred, who to Normandy
With vent'rous Rollo came;
And from his Norman Castles won,
Assumed the Percy name."
The pedigree traces the descent of Angus de Perci up to Manfred, and
that of Josceline de Louvain up from Gerberga, daughter and heiress of
Charles, Duke of Lorraine, to Charlemagne, and in the male line to the
ancient Dukes of Hainault. This same Josceline, who was brother-in-law
to King Henry I., married in 1168, Agnes, the great Percy heiress, and
assumed the name of his wife:
"Lord Percy's heir I was, whose noble name
By me survives unto his lasting fame;
Brabant's Duke's son I wed, who, for my sake,
Retained his arms, and Percy's name did take."
Their youngest son, Richard de Percy, then head of the family, was one
of the chief barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John, and the
ninth Lord, Henry, gave much aid to Edward I. in the subjugation of
Scotland. It was he who purchased Alnwick. His son--another
Henry--defeated David II. at Neville's Cross (1346); his grandson fought
at Crecy; his great-grandson, the fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick, was
marshal of England at the coronation of Richard II., and was created the
same day Earl of Northumberland. By far the greater part of the romance
of the Percys has centred round Harry Hotspur (eldest son of the
preceding), whom the dead Douglas defeated at Otterburn, and who fell
himself at Shrewsbury (1403) fighting against Henry IV. The soubriquet
of Hotspur was given him because "in the silence of the night, when
others were quietly sleeping, he laboured unwearied, as though his spur
were hot."
PLATE 9
VIEW OF ALNWICK
CASTLE
FROM A WATER COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 38, 49, and 53 to 58_)
[Illustration]
The first Earl was slain at Bramham Moor (1408). The second Earl fell
fighting for Henry VI. at St. Albans in 1455. The third at Towton
(1461), and it was his brother the fourth Earl who comforted himself as
he lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464) that he had "saved the
bird in his bosom." The fifth Earl was murdered in 1489. The sixth Earl
was the lover of Anne Boleyn, maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and had
King Henry VIII. for his rival, who in great wrath commanded Cardinal
Wolsey to break off the engagement between them. The seventh Earl for
espousing the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1572. The
eighth Earl in 1585 was found dead in bed with three pistol shots
through his breast, whether by suicide or murder. The ninth Earl was
imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower on a baseless suspicion of
being privy to the Gunpowder Plot. The tenth Earl fought on the
Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and with the death of Josceline,
the eleventh Earl, in 1670, the male line of the family came to an end.
The eleventh Earl's only child--an heiress--married the Duke of
Somerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth, and Earl of
Northumberland, with remainder (having no male issue) to his son-in-law
Sir Hugh Smithson, of Stanwick, a Yorkshire knight who in his youth had
been an apothecary in Hatton Gardens. Sir Hugh succeeded to the Earldom
in 1750, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland.
The seventh Duke succeeded in 1899.
From Alnwick it is fourteen miles to Bamborough, "King Ida's castle,
huge and square." No traveller along the great north road between
Alnwick and Berwick can fail to be struck with an object so boldly
prominent as Bamborough. Far and wide it meets the vision, and is the
more conspicuous from the flat character of its surroundings and the
very open coast. Its base is an almost perpendicular mass of basaltic
rock overlooking the sea, at a height of 150 feet. Founded in 547, it
suffered many a siege, most of all at the hands of the Danes in 933. In
the years that followed it was being constantly rebuilt, and as
constantly stormed and broken again. As the great bombards left it in
the fourth Edward's reign, so it lay dismantled for centuries. In 1720,
Lord Crewe, the philanthropic Bishop of Durham, purchased the Castle and
bequeathed it for charitable purposes--the reception and care of the
poor, etc. In 1894 it was acquired by the late Lord Armstrong, at a cost
of a quarter of a million, and fitted up as a convalescent home. The
charming village of Bamborough, nestling within easy distance, has some
celebrity as a health resort. The church in which St. Aidan died is one
of the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace
Darling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are
easily visible from the shore. There are seventeen in all, forming three
distinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It
was from the lighthouse on this latter island that the noble maiden of
barely twenty-two descried the wreck of the _Forfarshire_, the 7th
September, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. "He that goes out and
sees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at
the desperate nature of the attempt," crowned by an almost superhuman
triumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of
retirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from
shrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition
well-known. "For the space of seven years," says Reginald of Durham,
"Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men
through trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a
hospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents." Further, we are
told how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone
church at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to
Melrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the
Lowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the
head-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; passing westward to
Carlisle in Cumberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into
Lancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and
finally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when
"After many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last
Where his Cathedral, huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear."
"MERRIE CARLISLE"
A glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its
founders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old
Brigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole
lie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The
river-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the
origin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns--Hawick,
Selkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompassing streams--the Eden, the
Caldew, and the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral
hills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been aptly called "the
city of the waters." Its situation certainly is all but perfect, whilst
the picturesqueness and the extensiveness of its surrounding scenery are
the admiration of all who see it. Built upon a hill which its walls
once enclosed but which would now shut out its most populous suburbs,
Carlisle commands a prospect only limited by the lofty mountain chain
that encircles the great basin in which Cumberland lies. From the summit
of the Cathedral or from the Keep of the Castle, the eye sweeps without
interruption a vast prepossessing landscape, rich in wood and water and
fertile valleys, over which the light and shade are ever gambolling, and
the seasons spreading their variegated hues. Southward, across this fair
expanse, the majestic Skiddaw rears his noble crest, and Helvellyn his
wedge-like peak, radiant with the first and last rays of the sun.
Saddleback, and the lesser hills, link the apparently unbroken chain
with Crossfell and the eastern range; while further to the left the
Northumberland fells bound the horizon. Then come the uplands by
Bewcastle and the Border and the pastoral Cheviots. Away round to the
west, the magnificent belt is terminated by "huge Criffel's hoary top"
standing in solemn grandeur above the Solway.
PLATE 10
VIEW OF PRUDHOE-ON-TYNE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 39 and 56_)
[Illustration]
There are few fairer or wider panoramas in Britain, and none more
permeated with the very spirit of romance. What Lockhart said of
Sandyknowe is equally true of this singularly fascinating view-point. To
whichever hand we turn we may be sure there is "not a field but has its
battle, and not a rivulet without its song."
Unlike Melrose, which may claim to be the literary capital of the Border
Country, Carlisle is the fighting capital. Its most stirring memories
are of raiders and rescues, and its very air is
"full of ballad notes
Borne out of long ago."
Despite its Cathedral, Carlisle is really more Scottish than English. A
town which proclaimed the Pretender must be Scottish enough. No other
English town fills so large a place in Scottish history. And even its
present manners and customs, and no little part of its dialect, are
coloured with Scottish sentiment and tradition. For which it cannot be a
whit the worse! Walk about Carlisle, and one is charmed with the
exquisite pleasantness of the place, the sense of comfort and prosperity
that reigns in its streets and suburbs, the steady flow of traffic
running through it, and the welcome geniality of its inhabitants. What a
delightful spot is Stanwix yonder, for instance! And the banks of the
Eden have something of those "Eden scenes" about them which Burns
claimed for the Jed. That Bridge is not unlike Rennie's at Kelso. The
public buildings are worth a more minute examination than the passing
stranger usually gives. An atmosphere of delicious semi-antiquity is the
crowning feature of "Merrie Carlisle," and one feels instinctively that
under the inevitable modernity of the place there is an older story
written on its stones--
"Old legends, of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,
And chronicles of eld."
It is so old a town that one cannot be certain of its origin. The name
is apparently British, derived probably from _Caer Lywelydd_, or simply
Caer Lywel, "the town or fort of Lywel," but whether this was a tribal,
or local, or personal name it would be hazardous to say. By the Romans
it was known as _Luguvallium_ or _Luguballia_, possibly "the town or
fort by the Wall." This the Saxons abbreviated and altered to _Luel_,
the original name, with the prefix _Caer_, hence Caer-Luel, Caerleil,
Carleol, Karluil, Karliol, Carliol, Carlile, and Carlisle.
"No English city," says Bishop Creighton, "has a more distinctive
character than Carlisle, and none can claim to have borne its character
so continuously through the course of English history. Carlisle is still
known as 'the Border city,' and though the term 'the Border' has no
longer any historical significance, it still denotes a district which
has strongly marked peculiarities and retains a vigorous provincial
life. There was a time when the western Border was equally important
with the Border on the north, when the fortress on the Dee had to be
stoutly held against the foe, and when the town which rose among the
scrub by the upper Severn was a place of conflict between contending
races. But this struggle was not of long duration, and Chester and
Shrewsbury ceased to be distinctly Border towns. On the north, however,
the contest continued to be stubbornly waged, till it raised up a
population inured to warfare, who carried the habits of a predatory life
into a time when they were mere survivals of a well-nigh forgotten past.
Of this period of conflict Carlisle is the monument, and of this lawless
life it was long the capital. Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could venture to
share its glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a
town; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time
between the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a
castle, but less than a town, an accidental growth of circumstances,
scarcely to be classed as an element of popular life. Carlisle, on the
other hand, traces its origin to times of venerable antiquity, and can
claim through all its changes to have carried on in unbroken succession
the traditions of an historic life. It was the necessary centre of a
large tract of country, and whether its inhabitants were British or
English its importance remained the same. It was not merely a military
position, but a place of habitation, the habitation of a people who had
to trust much to themselves, and who amidst all vicissitudes retained a
sturdy spirit of independence. This is the distinguishing feature of
Carlisle; it is 'the Border city.' But though this is its leading
characteristic which runs through all its history, it has two other
marks of distinction, when compared with other English towns. It is the
only town on British soil which bears a purely British name; and it is
the only town which has been added to England since the Norman
Conquest."
PLATE 11
VIEW OF CARLISLE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 44, and 60 to 70_)
[Illustration]
Briefly, the headlines of Carlisle's history are these. Founded
originally by the Britons, it was held by the Romans for close on four
centuries. Many Roman remains (coins, medals, altars, etc.) have been
unearthed, and Hadrian's big Wall (murus and vallum) is still traceable
in several quarters. A sad spoliation by Pict and Scot followed the
Roman withdrawal. They scarcely left one stone on another. Then came the
Saxon supremacy under the good King Egfrith, with the spiritual
oversight under Saint Cuthbert, to whom and his successors at
Lindisfarne were bestowed in perpetuity the city with fifteen miles
around it. But for Egfrith's death fighting the Picts on the far-off
moorland of Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) Carlisle might have
risen early and rapidly to a sure place as one of the leading cities in
the land. From 685, however, to the Conquest (1066) the place was
virtually extinct. It was only then that a new epoch arose for the
broken city as for the whole of England. The Conqueror himself is said
to have commenced the rebuilding of Carlisle, but the town owes its
restoration rather to his son William the Red, who, on his return from
Alnwick, after concluding a peace treaty with the King of Scotland in
1092, "observed the pleasantness of its situation, and resolved to raise
it from its ruins." The Castle, the Priory, the once massive city walls,
were all the work of the Rufus regime, completed by Henry I., who gave
cathedral dignity to the church at Carlisle. David I., the "Sair Sanct,"
raided Carlisle in 1136, and kept court for a time within its walls,
which he heightened. It was at Carlisle that his death took place in
1153. From that date to the 'Forty-five, Carlisle's history is mainly
that of a kind of "buffer-state" between the two kingdoms. Few cities
recall so many martial memories. It was Edward's base of operations in
his Scottish wars. It was besieged by Wallace in 1298, by Bruce in
1315--the year after Bannockburn, and again in 1322. Queen Mary's
captivity at Carlisle in 1568; Buccleuch's daring and gallant rescue of
Kinmont Willie in 1596, immortalised in the best of the Border ballads;
the protracted siege by General Leslie in 1644 during the Parliamentary
War; and the Pretender's short-lived triumph--these are the rest of its
leading events.
Of the historic Carlisle little is left, the Castle, the Cathedral, and
the Guildhall being almost the sole relics of a long and notable past.
Yet how vastly changed the place is from the quiet little Border town of
a century ago even! Then it had barely ten thousand inhabitants, now
there are over forty thousand. As the county town of Cumberland, and
next to Newcastle the greatest railway centre in the north of England,
its prosperity has grown by leaps and bounds. It is the terminus of no
fewer than eight different lines, and its busy, never-at-rest Citadel
Station is known all the world over. Gates and walls have long since
vanished from "Merrie Carlisle." The streets are wide and airy, and
altogether it presents a most comfortable and thriving appearance. At
40, English Street, the chief thoroughfare, Prince Charlie slept for
four nights during the '45. And from 79 to 83, Castle Street, the corner
building (now a solicitor's office), between Castle Street and the
Green-market, Scott led Miss Carpenter to the altar. Carlisle Castle, a
huge, irregular reddish-brown stone structure, grim and defiant, with
its almost perfect specimen of a Norman Keep, and battlements frowning
towards the north, is still a place to see.
But it is the Cathedral which is Carlisle's chief glory. Rising in the
centre of the city, high above all other buildings except the factory
chimneys, there is an air of importance about it not altogether
justifiable. The building is small and not of very great account, the
reason being that Carlisle was only erected into a See in 1133, and then
out of Durham. The result was that the parish church was promoted to the
dignity of a cathedral. Nevertheless, it has several striking
features--a delightful Early English choir and magnificent east window,
reputed to be unsurpassed by any other in the kingdom, if indeed in the
world. From 1092, the date of the original building, to 1400-19, in
Bishop Strickland's time, when the north transept was restored and the
central tower rebuilt, and down to the present day, the edifice contains
every variety of style, from Norman to Perpendicular, with admirable
specimens of nineteenth century work. Of the original Norman minster the
only parts remaining are two bays of the nave, the south transept, and
the piers of the tower. How long the church remained in its pristine
state it is impossible to say. The first alteration was probably the
enlargement of the choir, towards the middle and close of the thirteenth
century, immediately before the great fire of 1292, the worst the
cathedral has experienced in its four burnings. The work of
reconstruction after 1292 appears to have been somewhat slow, so slow
that little was done till the year 1352, when Bishop Welton and his
successor set themselves in earnest to the task. "The king, the city
treasury, and the leading families of the neighbourhood contributed
towards the restoration, in response to the urgent appeals of the
bishops and to the indulgences issued for the remission of forty days'
penance to such laity as should by money, materials, or labour,
contribute to the pious work." Towards the close of the reign of Edward
III. the renovated pile rose from it ruins. To this period belongs the
entire east end, with its grand window, the triforium, the carved
capitals of the arches, and the Decorated windows of the clerestory.
The ceiling was painted and gilded and panelled, the intersections
glowing with the armorial bearings of the rich donors by whose
liberality the work had been carried to completion. The windows were
filled with stained glass, and the nine lights of the east window with
figures.
PLATE 12
VIEW OF NAWORTH
CASTLE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 39 and 74_)
[Illustration]