At the period so memorable in history when Wiclif was giving his
countrymen the first complete English Bible--this under the kindly
wing of John o' Gaunt, who shielded the daring reformer in many a
perilous hour--Lancashire possessed six or seven baronial castles; and
no fewer than ten, or rather more, of the religious houses
distinguished by the general name of abbeys and priories. Every one of
the castles, except John o' Gaunt's own, has disappeared; or if relics
exist, they are the merest fragments. Liverpool Castle, which held out
for twenty-four days against Prince Rupert, was demolished more than
200 years ago. Rochdale, Bury, Standish, Penwortham, are not sure even
of the exact spots their citadels occupied. A fate in some respects
heavier has overtaken the monastic buildings, these having gone in
every instance; though the ruins of one or two are so beautiful
architecturally, that in their silent pathos there is compensation for
the ruthless overthrow: one is reconciled to the havoc by the
exquisite ornaments they confer, as our English ruins do universally,
on parts of the country already picturesque.
"I do love these ancient ruins!
We never tread among them, but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history."
Lancaster Castle, the only survivor of the fortresses, stands upon the
site of an extremely ancient stronghold; though very little, somewhat
singularly, is known about it, or indeed of the early history of the
town. The latter would seem to have been the Bremetonacis of the
Romans, traces of the fosse constructed by whom around the castle hill
are still observable upon the northern side. On the establishment of
the Saxon dynasty the Roman name was superseded by the current one;
the Saxon practice being to apply the term _caster_, in different
shapes, to important former seats of the departed Roman power, in the
front rank of which was unquestionably the aged city touched by the
waters of the winding Lune. Omitting fractions, the name of Lancaster
is thus just a thousand years old. The Saxons seem to have allowed the
castle to fall into decay. The powerful Norman baron, Roger de
Poictou (leader of the centre at the battle of Hastings)--who received
from the Conqueror, as his reward, immense portions of Lancashire
territory from the Mersey northwards--gave it new life. He, it is
believed, was the builder of the massive Lungess Tower, though some
assign this part of the work to the time of William Rufus. In any
case, the ancient glory of the place was restored not later than A.D.
1100.
After the disgrace of Roger de Poictou, who had stirred up sundry
small insurrections, the possession was transferred to Stephen, Earl
of Boulogne, inheritor of the crown, and from that time forwards, for
at least two centuries, the history of Lancaster Castle becomes
identified with that of the sovereigns of our island to a degree
seldom equalled in the annals of any other away from London. King
John, in 1206, held his court here for a time, receiving within the
stately walls an embassy from France. Subsequent monarchs followed in
his wake. During the reign, in particular, of Henry IV., festivities,
in which a brilliant chivalry had no slight share, filled the
courtyard with indescribable animation. The gateway tower was not
built till a later period, or the castle would probably not have
suffered so severely as it did when the Scots, after defeating Edward
II. at Bannockburn, pushed into Lancashire, slaying and marauding. The
erection of this splendid tower, perhaps the finest of its kind in the
country, is generally ascribed to John o' Gaunt (fourth son of Edward
III.), who, as above mentioned, was created second Duke of Lancaster
(13th June 1362) by virtue of his marriage to Blanche, daughter of the
first duke, previously Earl of Derby, and thus acquired a direct
personal interest in the place. But certain portions of the
interior--the inner flat-pointed archway, for instance, the passage
with the vaulted roof, and a portion of the north-west corner--are
apparently thirteenth-century work; and although it is quite possible
that the two superb semi-angular towers and the front wall as high as
the niche containing the statue may have been built by this famous
personage, the probabilities point rather toward Henry, Prince of
Wales, eventually Henry V. Ten years after the death of John o' Gaunt,
or in 1409, this prince was himself created Duke of Lancaster, and may
reasonably be supposed to have commemorated the event in a manner at
once substantial and agreeable to the citizens. The presumption is
strongly supported by the heraldic shield, which could not possibly
have been John o' Gaunt's, since the quartering for France consists
of only three fleurs de lys. The original bearing of the French
monarchy, as historians are well aware, was _azure_, semée de fleur de
lys, _or_. Edward III. assumed these arms, with the title of King of
France, in 1340. In 1364 the French reduced the number of fleurs de
lys to the three we are so familiar with, and in due time England
followed suit. But this was not until 1403, when John o' Gaunt had
been in his grave nearly four years. The shield in question is thus
plainly of a period too late for the husband of the Lady Blanche.
But whoever the builder, how glorious the features! how palatial the
proportions! Placed at the south-east corner of the castle, and
overlooking the town, this superb gateway tower is not more admirably
placed than exalted in design. The height, sixty-six feet, prepares us
for the graceful termination of the lofty wings in octagonal turrets,
and for the thickness of the walls, which is nearly, or quite, three
yards: it is scarcely possible to imagine a more skilfully
proportioned blending of strength, regal authority, and the air of
peacefulness. The statue of John o' Gaunt above the archway is modern,
having been placed there only in 1822. But the past is soon recalled
by the opening for the descent of the portcullis, though the ancient
oaken doors have disappeared.
The entire area of Lancaster Castle measures 380 feet by 350 without
reckoning the terrace outside the walls. The oldest portion--probably,
as said above, Roger de Poictou's--is the lower part of the massive
Lungess Tower, an impressive monument of the impregnable masonry of
the time, 80 feet square, with walls 10 feet in thickness, and the
original Norman windows intact. The upper portion was rebuilt temp.
Queen Elizabeth, who specially commended Lancaster Castle to the
faithful defenders of her kingdom against the Spaniards. The height is
70 feet; a turret at the south-west corner, popularly called John o'
Gaunt's Chair, adding another ten to the elevation. Delightful views
are obtained from the summit as, indeed, from the terrace. The chapel,
situated in the basement, 55 feet by 26, here, as elsewhere in the
ancient English castles, tells of the piety as well as the dignity of
their founders and owners. In this, at suitable times, the sacraments
would be administered, not alone to the inmates, but to the foresters,
the shepherds, and other retainers of the baron or noble lady of the
place; the chapel was no less an integral part of the establishment
than the well of spring water; the old English castle was not only a
stronghold but a sanctuary. Unhappily in contrast but in equal harmony
with the times, there are dungeons in two storeys below the level of
the ground.
The Lancaster Castle of 1881 is, after all, by no means the Lancaster
Castle of the Plantagenets. As seen from Morecambe and many another
spot a few miles distant, the old fortress presents an appearance
that, if not romantic, is strikingly picturesque:
"Distance lends enchantment to the view,"
and the church alongside adds graciously to the effect, seeming to
unite with the antique outlines. But so much of the building has been
altered and remodelled in order to adapt it to its modern uses--those
of law-courts and prison; the sharpness of the new architecture so
sadly interferes with enjoyment of the blurred and wasted old; the
fitness of things has been so violated that the sentiment of the
associations is with difficulty sustained even in the ample inner
space once so gay with knights and pageantry. The castle was employed
for the trial of criminals as early as 1324, but 1745 seems to be the
date of its final surrender of royal pride. No sumptuous halls or
storied corridors now exist in it. Contrariwise, everything is
there that renders the building convenient for assizes; and it is
pleasing to observe that with all the medley of modern adaptations
there has been preserved, as far as practicable, a uniformity of
style--the ecclesiastical of temp. Henry VII.
[Illustration: LANCASTER]
Clitheroe Castle, so called, consists to-day of no more than the Keep
and a portion of the outermost surrounding wall. The situation and
general character of this remarkable ruin are perhaps without a match.
Half a mile south of the Ribble, on the great green plain which
stretches westwards from the foot of Pendle, there suddenly rises a
rugged limestone crag, like an island out of the sea. Whether it
betokens an upheaval of the underlying strata more or fewer millions
of years ago, or whether it is a mass of harder material which
withstood the powerful descending currents known to have swept in
primæval times across the country from east to west, the geologists
must decide. Our present concern is with the fine old feudal relic
perched on the summit, and which, like Lancaster Castle, belongs to
the days of Roger de Poictou and his immediate successors, though a
stronghold of some kind no doubt existed there long previously--a
lofty and insulated rock in a country not abounding in strong military
positions, being too valuable to be neglected even by barbarians. The
probability is, that although founded by Roger de Poictou, the chief
builders were the De Lacys, those renowned Norman lords whose
headquarters were at Pontefract, and who could travel hither, fifty
miles, without calling at any hostelrie not virtually their own. They
came here periodically to receive tribute and to dispense justice.
There was never any important residence upon the rock. The space is
not sufficient for more than might be needed for urgent and temporary
purposes; and although a gentleman's house now stands upon the slope,
it occupies very little of the old foundation.
The inside measurement of the keep is twenty feet square; the walls
are ten feet thick, and so slight has been the touch, so far, of the
"effacing fingers," that they seem assured of another long seven
centuries. The chapel was under the protection of the monks of Whalley
Abbey. Not a vestige of it now remains; every stone, after the
dismantling of the castle in 1649, having been carried away, as in so
many other instances, and used in the building of cottages and walls.
After four generations, or in little more than a hundred years, the
line of the De Lacys became extinct. Do we think often enough, and
with commensurate thankfulness, of the immense service they and the
other old Norman lords rendered our country during their lifetimes?
The Normans, like the Romans, were scribes, architects, reclaimers of
the waste, instruments of civilisation--all the most artistic and
interesting relics of the Norman age Old England possesses bear Norman
impress. How voiceful, to go no further, their cathedrals--Hereford,
Peterborough, Durham, Gloucester! Contemplating their castles, few
things more touch the imagination than the presence, abreast of the
aged stones, of the shrubs and flowers of countries they never heard
of. Here, for instance, sheltering at the knee of old Clitheroe Castle
Keep, perchance in the identical spot where a plumed De Lacy once
leaned, rejoicing in the sunshine, there is a vigorous young Nepalese
cotoneaster. Surely it is the gardener, perpetuator of the earliest of
ennobling professions, who, by transfer of plants and fruits from one
country to another, shows that art and taste co-operating, as at
Clitheroe, do most literally "make the whole world kin." How welcome
will be the volume which some day will be devoted to thorough survey
of the benevolent work! From whatever point approached, the ancient
keep salutes the eye long before we can possibly reach it: no one who
may seek it will pronounce the visit unrewarded.
[Illustration: CLITHEROE CASTLE]
Nor will the tourist exploring Lancashire think the time lost that he
may spend among the sea-beaten remains of the Peel of Fouldrey,--the
cluster of historic towers which forms so conspicuous an object when
proceeding by water to Piel Pier, _en route_ for Furness Abbey and the
Lakes. The castle owes its existence to the Furness abbots, who,
alarmed by the terrible raid of the Scots in 1316, repeated in 1322,
temp. Edward II., discreetly constructed a place for personal safety,
and for deposit of their principal treasures. No site could have been
found more trustworthy than the little island off the southern extreme
of Walney. While artillery was unknown Fouldrey must have been
impregnable, for it was not only wave-girt but defended by artificial
moats, and of substance so well knit that although masses of tumbled
wall are now strewn upon the beach, they refuse to disintegrate. These
huge lumps are composed partly of pebbles, and of cement now hard as
rock. The keep is still standing, with portions of the inner and outer
defences. Traces of the chapel are also discoverable, indicating the
period of the erection; but there is nothing anywhere in the shape of
ornament. The charm of Fouldrey is now purely for the imagination.
Hither came the little skiffs that brought such supplies to the abbey
as its own broad lands could not contribute. Here was given the
welcome to all distinguished visitors arriving by sea, and from
Fouldrey sailed all those who went afar. To-day all is still. No
voices are heard save those of the unmusical seafowl, and of the waves
that toss up their foam--
"Where all-devouring Time
Sits on his throne of ruins hoar,
And winds and tempests sweep his various lyre."
"Peel," a term unknown in the south of England, was anciently, in the
north, a common appellation for castellets built as refuges in times
of peril. They were often no more than single towers, square, with
turrets at the angles, and having the door at a considerable height
above the ground. The word is variously spelt. Pele, pile, pylle, and
two or three other forms, occur in old writers, the whole resolving,
apparently, into a mediæval _pelum_, which would seem to be in turn
the Latin _pila_, a mole or jetty, as in the fine simile in Virgil,
where the Trojan falls smitten by a dart:
"Qualis in Euboico Baiarum litore quondam
Saxea pila cadit," etc.--_Æneid_, ix. 710, 711.
Fouldrey itself is not assured of immortality, for there can be no
doubt that much of the present sea in this part of Morecambe Bay
covers, as at Norbreck, surface that aforetime was dry, and where
fir-trees grew and hazel-nuts. Stagnant water had converted the ground
into moss, even before the invasion of the sea; for peat is found by
digging deep enough into the sands, with roots of trees and trunks
that lie with their heads eastwards. Walney, Fouldrey, and the
adjacent islets, were themselves probably formed by ancient inrush of
the water. The beach hereabouts, as said by Camden, certainly "once
lay out a great way westward into the ocean, which the sea ceased not
to slash and mangle ... until it swallowed up the shore at some
boisterous tide, and thereby made three huge bays." Sand and pebbles
still perseveringly accumulate in various parts. Relentless in its
rejection of the soft and perishable, these are the things which old
ocean loves to amass.
The castle was dismantled by its own builders at the commencement of
the fifteenth century, probably because too expensive to maintain.
From that time forwards it has been slowly breaking up, though gaining
perhaps in pictorial interest; and seen, as it is, many miles across
the water, never fails to excite the liveliest sentiments of
curiosity. One of the abbots of Furness was probably the builder also
of the curious old square tower still standing in the market-place of
Dalton, and locally called the "Castle." The architecture is of the
fourteenth century.
Furness Abbey, seven miles south-west of Ulverston, once the most
extensive and beautiful of the English Cistercian houses,--which held
charters from twelve successive kings, and whose abbots had
jurisdiction, not only ecclesiastical but civil, over the whole of the
great peninsula formed by the Duddon, the Leven, Windermere, and the
sea,--still attests in the variety and the stateliness of the remains
that the "pomp and circumstance" of monastic authority must here have
been played forth to the utmost limit. In its day the building must
have been perfect alike in design and commodiousness. The outermost
walls enclosed no less than sixty-five acres of ground, including the
portion used as a garden. This great area was traversed by a clear and
swiftly flowing stream, which still runs on its ancient way; and the
slopes of the sequestered glen chosen with so much sagacity as the
site, were covered with trees. To-day their descendants mingle also
with the broken arches; these last receiving comfort again from the
faithful campanula, which in its season decks every ledge and
crumbling corbel, flowering, after its manner, luxuriantly--a reflex
of the "heavens' own tinct," smiling, as Nature always does, upon the
devastation she so loves to adorn. The contrast of the lively hues of
the vegetation with the gray-red tint of the native sandstone employed
by the builders, now softened and subdued by the touch of centuries,
the painter alone can portray. When sunbeams glance through, falling
on the shattered arcades with the subtle tenderness which makes
sunshine, when it creeps into such places, seem, like our own
footsteps, conscious and reverent, the effects are chaste and
animating beyond expression. Even when the skies are clouded, the long
perspectives, the boldness with which the venerable walls rise out of
the sod, the infinite diversity of the parts,--to say nothing of the
associations,--render this glorious ruin one of the most fascinating
in our country.
Furness Abbey was founded in the year 1127, the twenty-sixth of Henry
I., and sixty-first after the Norman Conquest. The original patron was
the above-named Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, afterwards King of England,
a crowned likeness of whom, with a corresponding one of his queen,
Matilda, still exists upon the outer mouldings of the east window. The
carving is very slightly abraded, probably through the sculptor's
selection of a harder material than that of the edifice, which
presents, in its worn condition, a strong contrast to the solid,
though simple, masonry. The Furness monks were seated, in the first
instance, on the Ribble, near Preston, coming from Normandy as early
as 1124, then as Benedictines. On removal to the retired and fertile
"Valley of Nightshade," a choice consonant with their custom, they
assumed the dress of the Cistercian Order, changing their gray
habiliments for white ones, and from that day forwards (7th July 1127)
they never ceased to grow steadily in wealth and power. The dedication
of the abbey, as usual with the Cistercians, was to Our Lady, the
Virgin Mary. The building, however, was not completed for many years,
transition work being abundant, and the lofty belfry tower at the
extreme west plainly not older than the early part of the fifteenth
century, by which time the primitive objection with the Cistercians to
aspiring towers had become lax, if not surrendered altogether. The
oldest portions in all likelihood are the nave and transepts of the
conventual church, the whole of which was completed perhaps by the
year 1200. Eight pillars upon each side, alternately clustered and
circular, their bases still conspicuous above the turf, divided the
nave from the aisles, the wall of the southern one still standing.
Beneath the window of the north transept the original Early Norman
doorway (the principal entrance) is intact, a rich and delectable arch
retiring circle within circle. Upon the eastern side of the grand
cloister quadrangle (338 feet by 102) there are five other
deeply-recessed round arches, the middle one leading into the
vestibule of the Chapterhouse--the fretted roof of which, supported by
six pillars, fell in only about a hundred years ago. The great east
window, 47 feet in height, 23-1/2 in width, and rising nearly from the
ground, retains little of its original detail, but is imposing in
general effect.
[Illustration: FURNESS ABBEY]
Scrutinising the various parts, the visitor will find very many other
beautiful elements. With the space at our command it is impossible
here even to mention them, or to do more than concentrate material for
a volume into the simple remark that Furness Abbey remains one of the
most striking mementoes England possesses, alike of the tasteful
constructive art of the men who reared it and of the havoc wrought,
when for four centuries it had been a centre of public usefulness, by
the royal thirst, not for reformation, but for spoil. The overthrow of
the abbeys no doubt prepared the way for the advent of a better order
of things; but it is not to be forgotten that the destruction of
Furness Abbey brought quite a hundred years of decay and misery to
its own domain.
[Illustration: FURNESS ABBEY]
Of Whalley Abbey, within a pleasant walk from Clitheroe, there is
little new to be said; few, however, of the old monasteries have a
more interesting history. The original establishment, as with Furness,
was at a distance, the primitive seat of the monks to whose energy it
owed its existence having been at Stanlaw, a place at the confluence
of the Gowy with the Mersey. In Greenland itself there is not a spot
more desolate, bleak, and lonely. It was selected, it would seem, in
imitation of the ascetic fathers of the Order, who chose
Citeaux--whence their name--because of the utter sterility. After a
time the rule was prudently set aside, and in 1296, after 118 years of
dismal endurance, the whole party migrated to the green spot under the
shadow of Whalley Nab where now we find the ruins of their famous
home. The abbey grounds, exceeding thirty-six acres in extent, were
encircled, where not protected by the river, by a deep trench, crossed
by two bridges, each with a strong and ornamental gatehouse tower,
happily still in existence. The principal buildings appear to have
been disposed in three quadrangles, but the merest scraps now remain,
though amply sufficient to instruct the student of monastic
architecture as to the position and uses of the various parts.
Portions of massive walls, dilapidated archways, little courts and
avenues, tell their own tale; and in addition there are piles of
sculptured stones, some with curiously wrought bosses bearing the
sacred monogram "M," referring to the Virgin, to whom, as said above,
all Cistercian monasteries were dedicated. The abbot's house did not
share in the general demolition, but it has undergone so much
modernising that little can now be distinguished of the original
structure. The abbot's oratory has been more fortunate, and is now
dressed with ivy.
The severest damage to this once glorious building was not done, as
commonly supposed, temp. Henry VIII., nor yet during the reign of his
eldest daughter, when so great a panic seized the Protestant
possessors of the abolished abbeys, and the mischief in general was so
cruel. "For now," says quaint old Fuller (meaning temp. Mary), "the
edifices of abbeys which were still entire looked lovingly again on
their ancient owners; in prevention whereof, such as for the present
possessed them, plucked out their eyes by levelling them to the
ground, and shaving from them as much as they could of abbey
characters." Whatever the time of the chief destruction wrought at
Furness, that of Whalley did not take place till the beginning of the
reign of Charles II.
Third in order of rank and territorial possessions among the old
Lancashire religious houses came Cokersand Abbey, founded in 1190 on a
bit of seaside sandy wilderness about five miles south of Lancaster,
near the estuary of the streamlet called the Coker. There is no reason
to believe that the edifice was in any degree remarkable, in point
either of extent or of architectural merit. Nothing now remains of it
but the Chapter-house, an octagonal building thirty feet in diameter,
the roof supported upon a solitary Anglo-Norman shaft, which leads up
to the pointed arches of a groined ceiling. The oaken canopies of the
stalls, when the building was dismantled, were removed, very properly,
to the parish church of Lancaster.
Burscough Priory, two miles and a half north-east of Ormskirk, founded
temp. Richard I., and for a long time the burial-place of the Earls of
Derby, has suffered even more heavily than Cokersand Abbey. Nothing
remains but a portion of the centre archway of the church. Burscough
has interest, nevertheless, for the antiquary and the artist; the
former of whom, though not the latter, finds pleasure also in the
extant morsel of the ancient priory of Cartmel--a solitary gateway,
standing almost due west of the church, close to the little river Ea,
and containing some of the original windows, the trefoil mouldings of
which appear to indicate the early part of the fourteenth century. The
foundation of the edifice, as a whole, is referred to the year 1188,
the name then given being "The Priory of the Blessed Mary of
Kartmell." The demolition took place very shortly after the fatal
1535, when the church, much older, was also doomed, but spared as
being the parochial one. Contemplating old Cartmel, one scarcely
thinks of Shakspere, but it was to the "William Mareshall, Earl of
Pembroke," in _King John_, that the Priory owed its birth.
Of Conishead Priory, two miles south of Ulverston, there are but atoms
remaining, and these are concealed by the modern mansion which
preserves the name. The memory of good deeds has more vitality than
the work of the mason:--the monks of Conishead were entrusted with the
safe conveyance of travellers across the treacherous sands at the
outlet of the Leven; the Priory was also a hospital for the sick and
maimed. Upholland Priory, near Wigan, dates from 1319, though a
chantry existed there at a period still earlier. One of the lateral
walls still exists, with a row of small windows, all covered with ivy.
Some fragments of Penwortham Priory, near Preston, also remain; and
lastly, for the curious there is the never-finished building called
Lydiate Abbey, four miles south-west of Ormskirk, the date of which
appears to be temp. Henry VIII., when the zeal of the Catholic
founders received a sudden check. The walls are covered with ivy,
"never sere," and the aspect in general is picturesque; so calmly and
constantly always arises out of the calamities of the past nutriment
for pleasure in the present.
X