was the son of John, Lord Clifford, who was slain at Towton
Field,[H] which John, Lord Clifford, as is known to the Reader of
English History, was the person who after the battle of Wakefield
slew, in the pursuit, the young Earl of Rutland, Son of the Duke
of York who had fallen in the battle, 'in part of revenge' (say
the Authors of the _History of Cumberland and Westmoreland_); 'for
the Earl's Father had slain his.' A deed which worthily blemished
the author (saith Speed); But who, as he adds, 'dare promise any
thing temperate of himself in the heat of martial fury? chiefly,
when it was resolved not to leave any branch of the York line
standing; for so one maketh this Lord to speak.' This, no doubt, I
would observe by the bye, was an action sufficiently in the
vindictive spirit of the times, and yet not altogether so bad as
represented; 'for the Earl was no child, as some writers would
have him, but able to bear arms, being sixteen or seventeen years
of age, as is evident from this (say the Memoirs of the Countess
of Pembroke, who was laudably anxious to wipe away, as far as
could be, this stigma from the illustrious name to which she was
born); that he was the next Child to King Edward the Fourth, which
his mother had by Richard Duke of York, and that King was then
eighteen years of age: and for the small distance betwixt her
Children, see Austin Vincent in his book of Nobility, page 622,
where he writes of them all. It may further be observed, that Lord
Clifford, who was then himself only twenty-five years of age, had
been a leading Man and Commander, two or three years together in
the Army of Lancaster, before this time; and, therefore, would be
less likely to think that the Earl of Rutland might be entitled to
mercy from his youth.--But, independent of this act, at best a
cruel and savage one, the Family of Clifford had done enough to
draw upon them the vehement hatred of the House of York: so that
after the Battle of Towton there was no hope for them but in
flight and concealment. Henry, the subject of the Poem, was
deprived of his estate and honours during the space of twenty-four
years; all which time he lived as a shepherd in Yorkshire, or in
Cumberland, where the estate of his Father-in-law (Sir Lancelot
Threlkeld) lay. He was restored to his estate and honours in the
first year of Henry the Seventh. It is recorded that, 'when called
to parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely; but otherwise came
seldom to London or the Court; and rather delighted to live in the
country, where he repaired several of his Castles, which had gone
to decay during the late troubles.' Thus far is chiefly collected
from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge,
that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and
its neighbourhood, his principal retreat, that, in the course of
his shepherd life, he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I
cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject
of those numerous and noble feudal Edifices, spoken of in the
Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an
ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always
been distinguished for an honourable pride in these Castles; and
we have seen that after the wars of York and Lancaster they were
rebuilt; in the civil Wars of Charles the First, they were again
laid waste, and again restored almost to their former magnificence
by the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, etc.
etc. Not more than twenty-five years after this was done, when the
Estates of Clifford had passed into the Family of Tufton, three of
these Castles, namely Brough, Brougham, and Pendragon, were
demolished, and the timber and other materials sold by Thomas Earl
of Thanet. We will hope that, when this order was issued, the Earl
had not consulted the text of Isaiah, 58th Chap. 12th Verse, to
which the inscription placed over the gate of Pendragon Castle, by
the Countess of Pembroke (I believe his Grandmother) at the time
she repaired that structure, refers the reader. '_And they that
shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt
raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be
called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell
in._' The Earl of Thanet, the present possessor of the Estates,
with a due respect for the memory of his ancestors, and a proper
sense of the value and beauty of these remains of antiquity, has
(I am told) given orders that they shall be preserved from all
depredations."
Compare the reference to the "Shepherd-lord" in the first canto of _The
White Doe of Rylstone_, p. 116, and the topographical allusions there,
with this _Song_. Compare also the life of Anne Clifford, in Hartley
Coleridge's _Lives of Distinguished Northerners_.
_High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song._
Brougham Castle, past which the river Emont flows, is about two miles
out of Penrith, on the Appleby Road. It is now a ruin, but was once a
place of importance. The larger part of it was built by Roger, Lord
Clifford, son of Isabella de Veteripont, who placed over the inner door
the inscription, "This made Roger." His grandson added the eastern part.
The castle was frequently laid waste by the Scottish Bands, and during
the Wars of the Roses. The Earl of Cumberland entertained James I.
within it, in 1617, on the occasion of the king's last return from
Scotland; but it seems to have "layen ruinous" from that date, and to
have suffered much during the civil wars in the reign of Charles I. In
1651-52 it was repaired by Lady Anne Clifford, Countess Dowager of
Pembroke, who wrote thus--"After I had been there myself to direct the
building of it, did I cause my old decayed castle of Brougham to be
repaired, and also the tower called the "Roman Tower," in the same old
castle, and the court-house, for keeping my courts in, with some dozen
or fourteen rooms to be built in it upon the old foundation." (_Pembroke
Memoirs_, i. p. 216.) After the time of the Countess Anne, the castle
was neglected, and much of the stone, timber, and lead disposed of at
public sales: the wainscotting being purchased by the neighbouring
villagers.
_Her thirty years of winter past,
The red rose is revived at last._
This refers to the thirty years interval between 1455 (the first battle
of St. Albans in the wars of the Roses) and 1485 (the battle of Bosworth
and the accession of Henry VII.)
_Both roses flourish, red and white_,
Alluding to the marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth, which united the
two warring lines of York and Lancaster.
_And it was proved in Bosworth-field._
The battle of Bosworth Field, in Leicestershire, was fought in 1485.
_Not long the Avenger was withstood--
Earth helped him with the cry of blood._
Henry VII.--who, as Henry, Earl of Richmond, last scion of the line of
Lancaster, had fled to Brittany--returned with Morton, the exiled Bishop
of Ely, landed at Milford, advanced through Wales, and met the royal
army at Bosworth, where Richard was slain, and Henry crowned king on the
battlefield. The "cry of blood" refers, doubtless, to the murder of the
young princes in the Tower.
_How glad is Skipton at this hour--
Though lonely, a deserted Tower._
Skipton is the "capital" of the Craven district of Yorkshire, as Barrow
is the capital of the Furness district of Lancashire and Westmoreland.
The castle of Skipton was the chief residence of the Cliffords.
Architecturally it is of two periods: the round tower dating from the
reign of Edward II., and the rest from that of Henry VIII. From the time
of Robert de Clifford, who fell at Bannockburn (1314), until the
seventeenth century, the estates of the Cliffords extended from Skipton
to Brougham Castle--seventy miles--with only a short interruption of ten
miles. The "Shepherd-lord" Clifford of this poem was attainted--as
explained in Wordsworth's note--by the triumphant House of York. He was
"committed by his mother to the care of certain shepherds, whose wives
had served her," and who kept him concealed both in Cumberland, and at
Londesborough, in Yorkshire, where his mother's (Lady Margaret Vesci)
own estates lay. The old "Tower" of Skipton Castle was "deserted" during
these years when the "Shepherd-lord" was concealed in Cumberland.
_How glad Pendragon--though the sleep
Of years be on her!_
Pendragon Castle, in a narrow dell in the forest of Mallerstang, near
the source of the Eden, south of Kirkby-Stephen, was another of the
castles of the Cliffords. Its building was traditionally ascribed to
Uter Pendragon, of Stonehenge celebrity, who was fabled to have tried to
make the Eden flow round the castle of Pendragon: hence the distich--
Let Uter Pendragon do what he can,
Eden will run where Eden ran.
In the Countess of Pembroke's _Memoirs_ (vol. i. pp. 22, 228), we are
told that Idonea de Veteripont "made a great part of her residence in
Westmoreland at Brough Castle, near Stanemore, and at Pendragon Castle,
in Mallerstang." The castle was burned and destroyed by Scottish raiders
in 1341, and for 140 years it was in a ruinous state. It is probably to
this that reference is made in the phrase, "though the sleep of years be
on her." During the attainder of Henry Lord Clifford, in the reign of
Edward IV., part of this estate of Mallerstang was granted to Sir
William Parr of Kendal Castle. It was again destroyed during the civil
wars of the Stuarts, and was restored, along with Skipton and Brougham,
by Lady Anne Clifford, in 1660, who put up an inscription "... Repaired
in 1660, so as she came to lye in it herself for a little while in
October 1661, after it had lain ruinous without timber or any other
covering since 1541. Isaiah, chap. lviii. ver. 12." It was again
demolished in 1685.
_Rejoiced is Brough, right glad I deem
Beside her little humble stream._
Brough--the Verterae of the Romans--is called, for distinction's sake,
"Brough-under-Stainmore" (or "Stanemore"). The "little humble stream" is
Hillbeck, formerly Hellebeck--(it was said to derive its name from the
waters rushing or "helleing" down the channel)--which descends from
Warcop Fell, runs through Market Brough, and joins the Eden below it.
The date of the building of the castle of Brough is uncertain, but it is
probably older than the Conquest. It was sacked by the Scottish King
William in 1174. It was "one of the chief residences" of Idonea de
Veteripont (above referred to); for "then it was in its prime." (_Pemb.
Mem._, vol. i. p. 22.) Probably she rebuilt it, and changed it from a
tower--like Pendragon--into a castle. In the _Pembroke Memoirs_ (i. p.
108), we read of its subsequent destruction by fire. "A great misfortune
befell Henry Lord Clifford, some two years before his death, which
happened in 1521; his ancient and great castle of Brough-under-Stanemore
was set on fire by a casual mischance, a little after he had kept a
great Christmas there, so as all the timber and lead were utterly
consumed, and nothing left but the bare walls, which since are more and
more consumed, and quite ruinated." This same Countess Anne Pembroke
began to repair it in April 1660, "at her exceeding great charge and
cost." She put up an inscription over the gate similar to the one which
she inscribed at Pendragon.
_And she that keepeth watch and ward
Her statelier Eden's course to guard._
Doubtless Appleby Castle. Its origin is equally uncertain. Before 1422,
John Lord Clifford, "builded that strong and fine artificial gate-house,
all arched with stone, and decorated with the arms of the Veteriponts,
Cliffords, and Percys, which with several parts of the castle walls was
defaced and broken down in the civil war of 1648." His successor,
Thomas, Lord Clifford, "built the chiefest part of the castle towards
the east, as the hall, the chapel, and the great chamber." This was in
1454. The Countess Anne Pembroke wrote of Appleby Castle thus (_Pemb.
Mem._, vol. i. p. 187): "In 1651 I continued to live in Appleby Castle a
whole year, and spent much time in repairing it and Brougham Castle, to
make them as habitable as I could, though Brougham was very ruinous, and
much out of repair. And in this year, the 21st of April, I helped to lay
the foundation stone of the middle wall of the great tower of Appleby
Castle, called "Caesar's Tower," to the end it might be repaired again,
and made habitable, if it pleased God (Is. lviii. 12), after it had
stood without a roof or covering, or one chamber habitable in it, since
about 1567," etc. etc.
_One fair House by Emont's side._
Brougham Castle.
_Him, and his Lady-mother dear!_
Lady Margaret, daughter and heiress of Lord Vesci, who married John,
Lord Clifford--the Clifford of Shakespeare's _Henry VI._ He was killed
at Ferrybridge near Knottingley in 1461. Their son was Henry, "the
Shepherd-lord." His mother is buried in Londesborough Church, near
Market Weighton.
_Now Who is he that bounds with joy
On Carrock's side, a Shepherd-boy?_
Carrock-fell is three miles south-west from Castle Sowerby, in
Cumberland.
_The Boy must part from Mosedale's groves,
And leave Blencathara's rugged coves._
There are many "Mosedales" in the English Lake District. The one
referred to here is to the north of Blencathara or Saddleback.
_And quit the flowers that summer brings
To Glenderamakin's lofty springs._
The river Glenderamakin rises in the lofty ground to the north of
Blencathara.
_--Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise!_
...
_Thou tree of covert and of rest
For this young Bird that is distrest._
It was on Sir Lancelot Threlkeld's estates in Cumberland that the young
Lord was concealed, disguised as a shepherd-boy. He was the "tree of
covert" for the young "Bird" Henry Clifford. Compare _The Waggoner_, ll.
628-39 (vol. iii. p. 100)--
And see, beyond that hamlet small,
The ruined towers of Threlkeld-hall,
Lurking in a double shade,
By trees and lingering twilight made!
There, at Blencathara's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford; from annoy
Concealed the persecuted boy,
Well pleased in rustic garb to feed
His flock, and pipe on shepherd's reed
Among this multitude of hills,
Crags, woodlands, waterfalls, and rills.
The old hall of Threlkeld has long been a ruin. Its only habitable part
has been a farmhouse for many years.
_And both the undying fish that swim
Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him._
Bowscale Tarn is to the north of Blencathara. Its stream joins the
Caldew river.
_And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered._
Compare the previous reference to Blencathara's "rugged coves." There
are many such on this mountain.
_Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know
How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed:
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed._
After restoration to his ancestral estates, the Shepherd-lord preferred
to live in comparative retirement. He spent most of his time at Barden
Tower (see notes to _The White Doe of Rylstone_), which he enlarged, and
where he lived with a small retinue. He was much at Bolton (which was
close at hand), and there he studied astronomy and alchemy, aided by the
monks. It is to the time when he lived at Threlkeld, however--wandering
as a shepherd-boy, over the ridges and around the coves of Blencathara,
amongst the groves of Mosedale, and by the lofty springs of
Glenderamakin--that Wordsworth refers in the lines,
_Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills._
He was at Flodden in 1513, when nearly sixty years of age, leading there
the "flower of Craven."
From Penigent to Pendle Hill,
From Linton to long Addingham,
And all that Craven's coasts did till,
They with the lusty Clifford came.
Compare, in the first canto of _The White Doe of Rylstone_ (p. 117)--
when he, with spear and shield,
Rode full of years to Flodden-field.
He died in 1523, and was buried in the choir of Bolton Priory.
The following is Sarah Coleridge's criticism of the _Song at the Feast
of Brougham Castle_, in the editorial note to her father's _Biographia
Literaria_ (vol. ii. ch. ix. p. 152, ed. 1847):--
"The transitions and vicissitudes in this noble lyric I have
always thought rendered it one of the finest specimens of modern
subjective poetry which our age has seen. The ode commences in a
tone of high gratulation and festivity--a tone not only glad, but
_comparatively_ even jocund and light-hearted. The Clifford is
restored to the home, the honours and estates of his ancestors.
Then it sinks and falls away to the remembrance of
tribulation--times of war and bloodshed, flight and terror, and
hiding away from the enemy--times of poverty and distress, when
the Clifford was brought, a little child, to the shelter of a
northern valley. After a while it emerges from those depths of
sorrow--gradually rises into a strain of elevated tranquillity and
contemplative rapture; through the power of imagination, the
beautiful and impressive aspects of nature are brought into
relationship with the spirit of him, whose fortunes and character
form the subject of the piece, and are represented as gladdening
and exalting it, whilst they keep it _pure and unspotted from the
world_. Suddenly the Poet is carried on with greater animation and
passion: he has returned to the point whence he started--flung
himself back into the tide of stirring life and moving events.
All is to come over again, struggle and conflict, chances and
changes of war, victory and triumph, overthrow and desolation. I
know nothing, in lyric poetry, more beautiful or affecting than
the final transition from this part of the ode, with its rapid
metre, to the slow elegiac stanzas at the end, when, from the
warlike fervour and eagerness, the jubilant strain which has just
been described, the Poet passes back into the sublime silence of
Nature, gathering amid her deep and quiet bosom a more subdued and
solemn tenderness than he had manifested before; it is as if from
the heights of the imaginative intellect, his spirit had retreated
into the recesses of a profoundly thoughtful Christian heart."
Professor Henry Reed said of this poem--"Had he never written another
ode, this alone would set him at the head of the lyric poets of
England."--ED.
VARIANTS:
[1] 1815.
... sorrows ... 1807.
[2] 1827.
... hath ... 1807.
[3] 1807.
... royalty. 1815.
The text of 1820 returns to that of 1807.
[4] 1845.
Though she is but a lonely Tower!
Silent, deserted of her best,
Without an Inmate or a Guest, 1807.
Deserted, emptied of her best. MS.
To vacancy and silence left;
Of all her guardian sons bereft-- 1820.
[5] 1836.
Knight, Squire, or Yeoman, Page, or Groom; 1807.
[6] 1807.
... on vale and hill: MS.
[7] 1845.
... solemn ... 1807.
[8] 1845. This line was previously three lines--
And a chearful company,
That learn'd of him submissive ways;
And comforted his private days. 1807.
A spirit-soothing company, 1836.
[9] 1836.
They moved about in open sight,
To and fro, for his delight. 1807.
[10] 1836.
On ... 1807.
[11] 1807.
... heard ... MS.
[12] 1836.
And the Caves ... 1807.
[13] 1836.
Face of thing ... 1807.
[14] C. and 1840.
And, if Men report him right,
He can whisper words of might. 1807.
He could whisper ... 1827.
And, if that men report him right,
He could whisper ... 1836.
[15] 1845.
Alas! the fervent Harper did not know
That for a tranquil Soul the Lay was framed,
Who, long compell'd in humble walks to go, 1807.
[16] 1807.
... of ... MS.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Compare _Hudibras_, part II. canto i. ll. 567-8--
That shall infuse Eternal Spring
And everlasting flourishing. ED.
[B] This line is from _The Battle of Bosworth Field_, by Sir John
Beaumont (Brother to the Dramatist), whose poems are written with so
much spirit, elegance, and harmony, that it is supposed, as the Book is
very scarce, a new edition of it would be acceptable to Scholars and Men
of taste, and, accordingly, it is in contemplation to give one.--W. W.
1807.
Beaumont's line in _The Battle of Bosworth Field_ is--
The earth assists thee with the cry of blood. ED.
[C] "No three words could better describe the gulfs on the side of
Saddleback." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[D] "Rugged patches of Hawkweed, golden rod, and white water ranunculus
in the pools." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[E] The eagle nested in Borrowdale as late as 1785.--ED.
[F] It is imagined by the people of the Country that there are two
immortal Fish, Inhabitants of this Tarn, which lies in the mountains not
far from Threlkeld. Blencathara, mentioned before, is the old and proper
name of the mountain vulgarly called Saddle-back.--W. W. 1807.
[G] The martial character of the Cliffords is well known to the readers
of English History; but it may not be improper here to say, by way of
comment on these lines and what follows, that, besides several others
who perished in the same manner, the four immediate Progenitors of the
person in whose hearing this is supposed to be spoken, all died in the
Field.--W. W. 1807.
Compare _The Borderers_, act III. l. 56 (vol. i. p. 173)--
They say, Lord Clifford is a savage man. ED.
[H] He was killed at Ferrybridge the day before the battle of
Towton.--ED.
1808
The poems referring to Coleorton are all transferred to the year 1807,
and _The Force of Prayer_ was written in that year. Those composed in
1808 were few in number. With the exception of _The White Doe of
Rylstone_--to which additions were made in that year--they include only
the two sonnets _Composed while the Author was engaged in writing a
Tract, occasioned by the Convention of Cintra_, and the fragment on
_George and Sarah Green_. The latter poem Wordsworth gave to De Quincey,
who published it in his "Recollections of Grasmere," which appeared in
_Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_ in September 1839; but it never found a
place in any edition of Wordsworth's own poems. In this edition it is
printed in the appendix to volume viii.
The reasons which have led me to assign _The White Doe of Rylstone_ to
the year 1808, are stated in a note to the poem (see p. 191). I infer
that it was practically finished in April 1808, because Dorothy
Wordsworth, in a letter to Lady Beaumont, dated April 20, 1808, says,
"The poem is to be published. Longman has consented--in spite of the
odium under which my brother labours as a poet--to give him 100 guineas
for 1000 copies, according to his demand." She gives no indication of
the name of the poem referred to. As it must, however, have been one
which was to be published separately, she can only refer to _The White
Doe_ or to _The Excursion_; but the latter poem was not finished in
1808.
It is probable, from the remark made in a subsequent letter to Lady
Beaumont, February 1810, that Wordsworth intended either to add to what
he had written in 1808, or to alter some passages before publication; or
by "completing" the poem, he may have meant simply adding the
Dedication, which was not written till 1815.
All things considered, it seems the best arrangement that the poems of
1808 should begin with _The White Doe of Rylstone_. In the year 1891 I
edited this poem for the Clarendon Press. A few additional details have
come to light since then, and are introduced into the notes. S. T.
Coleridge's criticism of the poem in _Biographia Literaria_, vol. ii.
chap. xxii. p. 176 (edition 1817), should be consulted.--ED.
THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;
OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS
Composed 1807-10.--Published 1815
ADVERTISEMENT
During the Summer of 1807, I visited, for the first time, the beautiful
country that surrounds Bolton Priory, in Yorkshire; and the Poem of the
WHITE DOE, founded upon a Tradition connected with that place, was
composed at the close of the same year.--W. W.[A]
[The earlier half of this poem was composed at Stockton-upon-Tees, when
Mrs. Wordsworth and I were on a visit to her eldest brother, Mr.
Hutchinson, at the close of the year 1807. The country is flat, and the
weather was rough. I was accustomed every day to walk to and fro under
the shelter of a row of stacks, in a field at a small distance from the
town, and there poured forth my verses aloud as freely as they would
come. Mrs. Wordsworth reminds me that her brother stood upon the
punctilio of not sitting down to dinner till I joined the party; and it
frequently happened that I did not make my appearance till too late, so
that she was made uncomfortable. I here beg her pardon for this and
similar transgressions during the whole course of our wedded life. To my
beloved sister the same apology is due.
When, from the visit just mentioned, we returned to Town-end, Grasmere,
I proceeded with the poem; and it may be worth while to note, as a
caution to others who may cast their eye on these memoranda, that the
skin having been rubbed off my heel by my wearing too tight a shoe,
though I desisted from walking, I found that the irritation of the
wounded part was kept up, by the act of composition, to a degree that
made it necessary to give my constitution a holiday. A rapid cure was
the consequence. Poetic excitement, when accompanied by protracted
labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less
bodily derangement. Nevertheless, I am at the close of my seventy-third
year, in what may be called excellent health; so that intellectual
labour is not necessarily unfavourable to longevity. But perhaps I ought
here to add that mine has been generally carried on out of doors.