After St. Germain came St. Maughold. This Bishop was a sort of
transfigured Manx Caliban. I trust the name does him no wrong. He had
been an Irish prince, had lived a bad, gross life as a robber at the
head of a band of robbers, had been converted by St. Patrick, and,
resolving to abandon the temptations of the world, had embarked on the
sea in a wicker boat without oar or helm. Almost he had his will at
once, but the north wind, which threatened to remove him from the
temptations of this world, cast him ashore on the north of the Isle of
Man. There he built his church, and the rocky headland whereon it stands
is still known by his name. High on the craggy cliff-side, looking
towards the sea, is a seat hewn out of the rock. This is called St.
Maughold's Chair. Not far away there is a well supposed to possess
miraculous properties. It is called St. Maughold's Well. Thus tradition
has perpetuated the odour of his great sanctity, which is the more
extraordinary in a variation of his legend, which says that it was not
after his conversion, and in submission to the will of God, that he put
forth from Ireland in his wicker boat, but that he was thrust out thus,
with hands and feet bound, by way of punishment for his crimes as a
captain of banditti.
But if Maughold was Caliban in Ireland, he was more than Prospero in
Man. Rumour of his piety went back to Ireland, and St. Bridget, who had
founded a nunnery at Kildare, resolved on a pilgrimage to the good
man's island. She crossed the water, attended by her virgins, called
her daughters of fire, founded a nunnery near Douglas, worked miracles
there, touched the altar in testimony of her virginity, whereupon it
grew green and flourished. This, if I may be pardoned the continued
parallel, is our Manx Miranda. And indeed it is difficult to shake off
the idea that Shakespeare must have known something of the early
story of Man, its magicians and its saints. We know the perfidy of
circumstance, the lying tricks that fact is always playing with us, too
well and painfully to say anything of the kind with certainty. But the
angles of resemblance are many between the groundwork of the "Tempest"
and the earliest of Manx records. Mannanan-beg-Mac-y-Lear, the magician
who surrounded the island with mists when enemies came near in ships;
Maughold, the robber and libertine, bound hand and foot, and driven
ashore in a wicker boat; and then Bridget, the virgin saint. Moreover,
the stories of Little Man-nanan, of St. Patrick, and of St. Maughold
were printed in Manx in the sixteenth century. Truly that is not
enough, for, after all, we have no evidence that Shakespeare, who knew
everything, knew Manx. But then Man has long been famous for its seamen.
We had one of them at Trafalgar, holding Nelson in his arms when he
died. The best days, or the worst days--which?--of the trade of the West
Coast of Africa saw Manx captains in the thick of it. Shall I confess to
you that in the bad days of the English slave trade the four merchantmen
that brought the largest black cargo to the big human auction mart at
the Goree Piazza at Liverpool were commanded by four Manxmen! They were
a sad quartet. One of them had only one arm and an iron hook; another
had only one arm and one eye; a third had only one leg and a stump; the
fourth was covered with scars from the iron of the chains of a slave
which he had worn twelve months at Barbadoes. Just about enough humanity
in the four to make one complete man. But with vigour enough, fire
enough, heart enough--I daren't say soul enough--in their dismembered
old trunks to make ten men apiece; born sea-rovers, true sons of Orry,
their blood half brine. Well, is it not conceivable that in those
earlier days of treasure seeking, when Elizabeth's English captains were
spoiling the Spaniard in the Indies, Manx sailors were also there?
If so, why might not Shakespeare, who must have ferreted out many a
stranger creature, have found in some London tavern an old Manx sea-dog,
who could tell him of the Manx Prospero, the Manx Caliban, and the Manx
Miranda?
But I have rambled on about my sailors; I must return to my Bishops.
They seem to have been a line of pious, humble, charitable, godly men
at the beginning. Irishmen, chiefly, living the lives of hermits
and saints. Apparently they were at first appointed by the people
themselves. Would it be interesting to know the grounds of selection?
One was selected for his sanctity, a natural qualification, but another
was chosen because he had a pleasant face, and a fine portly figure;
not bad qualifications, either. Thus things went on for about a hundred
years, and, for all we know, Celtic Bishops and Celtic people lived
together in their little island in peace, hearing nothing of the loud
religious hubbub that was disturbing Europe.