The village well is dignified with a domed roof raised on tall columns,

put up about seventy years ago by the previous Sir Tatton to the memory

of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much

the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,

and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is

now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts

of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that

Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,

conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On

market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of

conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to

his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half

Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire

that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his

journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.

A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the

exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall

surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the

slightest alteration in the smooth turf.

The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style

of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but

something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,

but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere

you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the

workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found

in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the

timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite

of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the

screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with

the rest of the work.

Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected

about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European

war.

As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of

the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges

into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all

day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile

themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,

driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying

just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.

The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley

of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque

gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an

element of unreality.

Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street

stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,

where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry

that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon

church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is

every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle

of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses

and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the

tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a

Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy

capitals.

The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in

remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,

there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional

fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the

south.

With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where

North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the

road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with

ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel

arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just

enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to

those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken

up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the

carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly

representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.

When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration

is at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen.

CHAPTER XX

FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD

'As the shore winds itself back from hence,' says Camden, after

describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue

thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater

known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant

watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is

singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,

and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the

broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a

healthy seaside haunt.

The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the

headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of

sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the

particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys

of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and

then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves

heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that

there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in

promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize

that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely

more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There

is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its

interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the

tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy

warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the

headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea

by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not

frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary

care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy

rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the

grassy top in order to get back to Filey.

The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from

the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or

north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting

rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave

than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down

below comes steadily onward, and reaching the foam-streaked area,

becomes still more sinister. As it approaches within striking distance,

a spent wave, sweeping backwards, seems as though it may weaken the

onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and

dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of

creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest

height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off

in long white beards.

The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the

rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head

down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of

water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch

shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the

imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in

a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running

with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of

seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined

with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the

pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the

moment for another great _coup_ arrives.

Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense

conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and

primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the

vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the

coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy

meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating

Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and

semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its

appearance with a jetty.

From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over

with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without

claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly

unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many

watering-places.

Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and

densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy

tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline

and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high

pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without

cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a

conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns

alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory

above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that

the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a

western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual

feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.

A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the

bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about

eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from

Speeton to Flamborough Head.

The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in

the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over

two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a

few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the

precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.

We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh

morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine

broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the

cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight

downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the

surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The

crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen

with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On

the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;

razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless

guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,

and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically

noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no

nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by

those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays

another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.

Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first

noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn

into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the

remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it

appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the

promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is

purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has

been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been

deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the

dwellers on the headland a very complete security.

Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging

of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would

have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been

attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug

several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road

from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order

that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs

inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons

being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being

considered important. The results of the excavations proved

conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart

were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground

on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the

surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a

horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this

fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running

along the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit of

chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great

entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using

people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'

And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of

its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for

strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from

outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,

that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have

been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,

for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of

ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that

they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,

with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no

trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this

part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,

when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated

wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some

danger.

We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the

village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,

unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for

the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of

what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the

attractiveness of the place.

All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for

their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total

indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their

entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the

cliffs nearly two miles away.

Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone

tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is

a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied

niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the

red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the

chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir

Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,

is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in

the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent

and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The

greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty

deeds: of his passing over to France 'with Kyng Edwarde the fourith,

y[t] noble knyght.'

'And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name

He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same [1482]

And by ky[n]g Edward chosy[n] Captey[n] there first of anyone

And rewllid and governid ther his tyme without blame

But for all that, as ye se, he lieth under this stone.'

The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at Flodden

Field when he was seventy, 'nothyng hedyng his age.'

Sir Marmaduke's daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley,

called 'the Great Black Knight of the North,' who was the first of his

family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving

his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.

Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly

long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back

from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a

woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also

extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a

rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman

will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned

in his presence[1].

[Footnote 1: 'Flamborough Village and Headland,' Colonel A.H.

Armytage.]

On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious

beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no

protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such

miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been

made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side

is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep

slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the

South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern

one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less

picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed

between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.

Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish

green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay

slopes back to the grass above.

When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions,

blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth

seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to

their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets

pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up

the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where

carts take the fish to the station four miles away.

In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the

peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The

chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with

caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque

groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest

of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating

unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing

as they circle just above the waves.

Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of

chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of

age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and

purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt

that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being

extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder

stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.

In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada

was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in

the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,

and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says

briefly:

'Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost,

takinge lighte from Bridlington,

and geving lighte to Rudstone.'

There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seem

merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by

two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of

thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put

up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the

dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as

exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed

to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a

matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower

ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed

on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great

that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the

early structure came into existence.

Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness,

with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred and

seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It

remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr.

Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of

Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful

light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result

was that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel was

'lost on that station when the lights could be seen.'

The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown to

have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly

a corruption of _Fleinn_, a Norse surname, and _borg_ or

_burgh_, meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt 'Flaneburg,'

and _flane_ is the Norse for an arrow or sword.

At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of

Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of

Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and

even now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,

place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday

resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the

railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three

Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide

parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential

energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There

are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,

refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and

even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,

and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long

curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden

sand.

The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature

in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington

Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.

In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She

had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and

ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch

ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended

to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl

of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper

security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,

conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at

Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is

told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,

1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry

arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the

rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.

'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue

his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament

Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at

foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to

send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were

but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply

us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our

beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the

Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their

forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon

the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and

before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud

about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing

to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the

house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring

houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of

the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on

foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a

Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the

Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within

twenty paces of Her.'

In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian

Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure

known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.

They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to

form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any

real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The

Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its

erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when

permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily

for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after

the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared

only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the

gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains

having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the

church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and

styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At

the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,

occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the

vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.

The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns

built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on

the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been

destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is

merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.

Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low

coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is

nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its

featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.

The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power

to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of

gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,

and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with

all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we

come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of

breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished

villages of Auburn and Hartburn.

From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance

to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the

lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer

that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having

practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,

and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded

by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists

on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on

the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once

crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece

of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later

opinion labels them post-Conquest.[1] In the time of the Domesday

Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a

Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and

received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the

King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for

some reason seen fit to poison her, he fled from England, it is said,

during the last few months of William's reign. The Barony of Holderness

was forfeited, but Drogo was never captured.

[Footnote 1: A worked flint was found in the moat not long ago by Dr.

J. L. Kirk, of Pickering.]

Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave

orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of

Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When

Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion

Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl

of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great

Seigniory of Holderness.

Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on

a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on

come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea

and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise

to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake

in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be

found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that

day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the

growth of a new town on the shore.

The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to

Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface

seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of

them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being

supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and

the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless

water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.

It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to

a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.

Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of

Meaux, laid claim to fishing rights in the southern half of the lake,

only to find his brother Abbot of York determined to resist the claim.

The cloisters of the two abbeys must have buzzed with excitement over

the _impasse_ and relations became so strained that the only

method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to

the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two

monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number

of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse

was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of

the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot

appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until

evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the

ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the

Mere.

Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between

the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk

utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work

there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the

roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic

seizure of which he died.

By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in

this new position and supplied with a modern head.

As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the

desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny

waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain

from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and

the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before

satisfying a fresh appetite.

The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour

and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely

disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place

called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven

acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres

remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from

Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until

1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the

eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and

a cloud of dust.

Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the

churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses

were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.

The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more

attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer

to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been

fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with

a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect

given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.

At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the

waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with

salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not

more than fifteen feet high.

CHAPTER XXI

BEVERLEY

When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth

its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an

uplifting of the mind--a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than

even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted

spaces of a cathedral.

Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it

stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the

Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely

upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we

come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are

just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,

with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close

at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark

trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way

prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree

lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the

foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar--the last

of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red

brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern

houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town

records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but

nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'

We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the

beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian

houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,

while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very

picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles

Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the

Corporation at that time.

Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little

pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser

transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper

proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The

eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early

English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments

the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not

blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part

of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of

the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of

one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out

in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider

the result beautiful.

In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in

graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the

turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.

A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery

were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The

'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to

give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked

advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other

portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the

dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took

place of which there is a record:

'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was

burnt, in the month of September, the night after the Feast of St.

Matthew the Apostle, and in the year 1197, the sixth of the ides of

March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John

in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his

sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found

likewise, and re-interred.'

This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate

discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened

and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The

picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great

extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one

of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the

Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the

year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by

forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve

years, he retired here for the rest of his life. When he died, in 721,

his memory became more and more sacred, and his powers of intercession

were constantly invoked. The splendid shrine provided for his relics in

1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals

employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it

disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very

foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything

except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived

until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion

has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the

triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the

early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great

addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch

and the west end--the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts

and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that

perfection of form characterizing York.

A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of

the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the

sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than

any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible

representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his

body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her

way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the

ear of the man who is wheeling her.

In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the

lesser transept on that side, is the tomb of Lady Eleanor FitzAllen,

wife of Henry, first Lord Percy of Alnwick. It is considered to be,

without a rival, the most beautiful tomb in this country. The canopy is

composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally

encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that

the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is

always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep

gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex

for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of

the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure

represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,

holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped

figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one

of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two

fingers on her head.

In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double

staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along

the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a

slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the

marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at

the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English

stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of

sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron

clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The

privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in

the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all

sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and

minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security

of St. John of Beverley. Here is a case quoted from the register by Mr.

Charles Hiatt in his admirable account of the Minster:

'John Spret, Gentilman, memorandum that John Spret, of Barton upon

Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first

day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the

lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,

husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be

at the kyllyng of the saym John with a dagarth, the xv day of August.'

On entering the city we passed St. Mary's, a beautiful Perpendicular

church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the

Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window

flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are

run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper

portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,

and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is

crowned by sixteen pinnacles.

In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like

the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is

Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave

is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels

carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is

painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be

seen that the centre figure, who is dressed as an alderman, had a harp,

and the others a pipe, a lute, a drum, and a violin. From Saxon times

there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous

fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his

monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,

at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse

for music.

CHAPTER XXII

ALONG THE HUMBER

'Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;

But if you faint, as fearing to do so,

Stay and be secret, and myself will go.'

_Richard II_, Act II, Scene 1.

The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of

the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider

patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of

sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and

populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle

of the fourteenth century.

Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for

shipping, where merchant vessels were constantly coming and going,

bearing away the wool of Holderness and bringing in foreign goods,

which the Humber towns were eager to buy. This traffic soon

demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the

estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all

vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about

that time by a benevolent hermit.

No doubt the site of this early structure has long ago been submerged.

The same fate came upon the two lights erected on Kilnsea Common by

Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles

II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.

In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two

lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry

in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not

completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low

light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions

the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was

taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid

the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the

illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the

wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.

Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the

circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from

wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for

the lifeboat and other purposes.

The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted

with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of

519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast

of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by

placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty

seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen

in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.

In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the

Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,

and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was

probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a

knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of

the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no

less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward

III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and

also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.

The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a

number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened

in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many

different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port

of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might

have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the

matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which

have been discovered.

There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a

Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a

compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a

narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the

sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from

Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is

mentioned in the lines:

'The King the swift ships with the flood

Set out, with the autumn approaching,

And sailed from the port, called Hrafnseyrr (the raven tongue of land).'

From this event of 1066 Ravenser must have remained a hamlet of small

consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and

then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit

of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge

of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the

early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man--the earliest

recorded Peggotty--converted it into a house, and even made it a

tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four

houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small

port was created, its development being fostered by William de

Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success

that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,

and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To

distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an

island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of

large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the

Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally

written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no

longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port

as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to

Ravenserodd, the busy port, it is often merely referred to as Ravenser,

spelt with many variations.

The extraordinarily rapid rise of Ravenserodd seems to have been due to

a remarkable keenness for business on the part of its citizens,

amounting, in the opinion of the Grimsby traders, to sharp practice.

For, being just within Spurn Head, the men of Ravenserodd would go out

to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their

cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting

the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they

would force the ships to enter their harbour and trade with them,

whether they liked it or not. All this came out in the hearing of an

action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the

plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the

Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown

that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.

The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340

and 1350, is told by the monkish compiler of the Chronicles of Meaux.

Translated from the original Latin the account is headed:

'Concerning the consumption of the town of Ravensere Odd and concerning

the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.

'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally

annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the

great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half

an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,

pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition

during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the

sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in

their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the

swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure

the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,

threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this

terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,

with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which

remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum

of the body of Christ in the hands of the priest, flocking together,

mournfully imploring grace, warded off at that time their destruction.

And afterwards, daily removing thence with their possession, they left

that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,

with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous

floods, was irreparably destroyed.'

The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and

other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.

When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn

Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only

incident recorded is his meeting with a hermit named Matthew Danthorp,

who was at the time building a chapel.

The very beautiful spire of Patrington church guides us easily along a

winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the

meadows.

We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this

diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less

than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of

Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most

beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east

window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in

the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of

detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and

without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts

as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above

the tower rises a tall stone spire, enriched, at a third of its height,

with what might be compared to an earl's coronet, the spikes being

represented by crocketed pinnacles--the terminals of the supporting

pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when

that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the

colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on

the clustered columns.

In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three

chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south

transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess

for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the

groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of

considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the

Annunciation, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. John the Baptist,

and on the under side is a Tudor rose. Sir Henry Dryden, in the

_Archaeological Journal_, states that this pendant was used for a

lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,

that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An

alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a

relic where it would have been safe even if visible.

Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although

lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant

place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in

all the Holderness towns.

On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass

Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where

we may see the memorials of a fine old family--the Hildyards of

Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.

The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and

when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,

and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that

was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No

doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from

her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was

scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had

been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted

with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the

disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.

The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that

period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with

a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle

colours we saw at Patrington.

In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone

of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting

for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of

the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes

copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness

loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of

blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct

behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion

of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand

points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of

cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears

its offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull,

founded by Edward I at the close of the thirteenth century.

It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the

Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial

development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;

and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the

smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English

architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,

where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and

there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing

dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is

practically all.

When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended

with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled

the winding streets--the windmills, the churches and monasteries--we

understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as

Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la

Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen

Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in

Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick

mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during

his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt

and restored that its interest is much diminished.

The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is,

therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the little

town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and

has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and

chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.

The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with

brick--no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the

founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades

of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and

the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any

pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it

appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a

pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.

William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a

large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column

surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of

the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is

a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of

the city.

In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the

southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they

show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the

church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The

cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique

houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that

we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has

lost most of its tracery, and has the appearance of a great archway;

its date, together with the whole of the chancel, is late Decorated,

but the exquisite little chapterhouse is later still, and may be better

described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in

each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are

remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of

ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the

loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast

disappearing.

About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the

ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out

green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,

it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought

closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem

to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.

The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is

the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of

the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a

fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great

towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.

Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the

Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal

grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the

Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl

of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an

order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.

Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during

that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified

building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible

source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was

therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding

them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was

done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made

by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact

that, of the four sides of the square, three have totally disappeared,

except for slight indications in the uneven grass.

The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings

spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century

ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the

fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.

The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and

other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the

sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient

sculpture, finely executed in wood, exhibiting the bearings, crests,

badges, and devises, of the Percy family, in a great variety of forms,

set off with all the advantages of painting, gilding and imagery.'

There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a

fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one

of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and

kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the

two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the

chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered

his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would

probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the

conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his

lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of

Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By

reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a

complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512

and later.

From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments

were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and

bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the

altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, every

one's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts each

time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is

one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:

'ITEM.--Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean

Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and

Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every

Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after

ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a

Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde

for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst

Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther

Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii

Cariages allowid theime.'

We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from

the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look

at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy

tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at

length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice

that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with

the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this

great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its

striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman

arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated

or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south

transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they

allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in

the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully

repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to

the period when the church was a collegiate foundation of Durham.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS

Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of three

separate places--Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a

pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive

suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its

attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a

slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges

the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,

although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so

extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.

On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of

two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some

three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability

identified with the _Delgovitia_ of the Antonine Itinerary.

Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages

here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as

you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on

the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above

the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the

middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of

Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life

sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear

sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the

church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the

two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,

two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The

abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.

Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly

country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as

the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.

The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains

can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the

Wolds.

There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a

park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each

side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left

are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands

into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the

distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle

of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect

of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.

In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few

sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George

Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with

the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how

Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;

nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me

that I should see one of the finest places in Yorkshire; but nobody ...

had informed me that should at one view see a palace, a town, a

fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each

metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the

noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum

that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic

places before, but never a sublime one.'

The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's

description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures

include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,

Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale

Caracci.

Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the

deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees

whose dense foliage only allows a soft green light to filter through,

goes steeply down to the river. We cross the deep and placid river by a

stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin

partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable

fashion the detail of its outward face.

The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to

a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the

event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of

Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was

fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.

One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small

stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking

his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is

said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of

them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.

Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to

tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one

of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all

that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few

walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone

survive.

Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,

is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time

to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English

King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's

brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the

right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially

armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it

appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for

a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on

the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above

the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place

there Freeman has no doubt.

Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of

the Roman _Derventio_, it was natural that some village should

have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.

An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from

Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If

we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant

trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach

a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular

space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,

is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we

approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible

that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I

saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and

also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very

magnificent.

We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to

the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees

appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have

no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,

which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of

York.

In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only

intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the

towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the

former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first

Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram

de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of

Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of

Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it

was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within

these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the

eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was

also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,

when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but

the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,

Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton

until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the

throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,

and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent

for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled

together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this

simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to

play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief

butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of

Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up

Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the

Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his

execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight

years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could

hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all

the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was

said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'

Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called

Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some

curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the

historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198--probably the year of

his death--was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole

life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions

of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh

was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose

family was _Bonne et belle assez_. One of his descendants was

created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in

1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last

owner--Sir George Wombwell, Bart.--inherited the property from his

grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George

was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of

the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.

The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying

what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus

Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed

still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery

crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir

George wore at Balaclava.

The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of

Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the

Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.

This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a

vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small

metal plate is written:

'In this vault are Cromwell's bones, brought here, it is believed,

by his daughter Mary, Countess of Fauconberg, at the Restoration, when

his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'

The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having

been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally

clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's

remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at

Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661--the

twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I--and the head was

placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate

history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a

Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps

have been able to secure the decapitated remains of his father-in-law,

after their burial at the foot of the gallows at Tyburn. It has often

been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to

Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been

conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to

one of the Belasyses.

Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is

so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land

still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the

village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on

each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with

twisted branches--whether oak or elm, I cannot remember--stands at the

top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the

village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint

little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone

ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the

Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and

cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.

The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal

tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the

Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who

received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in

1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows

him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the

drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great

carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space

in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the

communion-rail has been resorted to--that of bringing forward from the

centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit

Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight

years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in

the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the

opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one

of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads

of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the

right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing

associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside

of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.

During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous

spirits were much subdued, Sterne completed his 'Sentimental Journey.'

He also relished more than before the country delights of the village,

describing it in one of his letters as 'a land of plenty.' Every day he

drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day

his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which

went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,

'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"--at

which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of

it.'

The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles

north of Coxwold, and there we come upon the ruins of Byland Abbey.

Their chief feature is the west end of the church, with its one turret

pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge

circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of

Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to

be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows

everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking

place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve

monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and

after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of

Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account

pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with

all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes

how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near

Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years

received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This

position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be

too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community

obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called

Stocking, where they remained until they came to Byland.

Recent excavation and preservation operations carried out by H.M.

Office of Works have added many lost features to the ruins including

the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto

buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go

through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,

roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open

hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more

distant moors in the north.

In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the

Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most

beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The

walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being

filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of

Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great

families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against

the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform

brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,

the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense

foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I

have seen elsewhere.

CHAPTER XXIV

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK

Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know

practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the

earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that

have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of

the Civil War the great happenings of the country always affected York,

and brought the northern capital into the vortex of affairs. And yet,

despite the prominent part the city has played in ecclesiastical,

military, and civil affairs through so many centuries of strife, it has

contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any

town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate

fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never

become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being

unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.

There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that

furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we

are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented

wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we

enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages

within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down

to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar

with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.

Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during

the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars

and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing

the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy

colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's

atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the

extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour

of every view would gradually disappear.

Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of

the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while

embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of

Roman walling.

The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have

each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of

York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow

streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we

know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we

reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a

flight of stone steps leading to the top of the wall. We climb them,

and find spread out before us our first notable view of the city. The

battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the

bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above

the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear

the stately towers of the Minster.

On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs

to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when

open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within

were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so

admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of

age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having

reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its

bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements

are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.

In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached

York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the

portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some

Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that

above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,

after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a

long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of

pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in

architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a

blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.

The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river

and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no

antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the

eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's

house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the

artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called

Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored

the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can

still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates

from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible

tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those

merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were

not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they

were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed

themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were

afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.

On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just

outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a

picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of

fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its

battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.

The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to

Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;

inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan

timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,

was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It

was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York

capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent

terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster

suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the

only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near

St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.

Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier

who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all

the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax

had paid a salary for some years, the loss was reduced to a minimum.

Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond we

come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de

Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the

fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful

survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On

the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the

interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was

illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to

York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.

The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to

All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where

butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of

the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops

has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the

passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and

either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces

between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,

too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and

oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so

rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number

of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying

an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge

that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of

York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are

in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little

disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems

to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of

the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many

charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is

hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as

Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has

only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in

Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until

you have at least seen what England can show at York and Chester?

Skirting the west end of the Minster, and having a close view of its

two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so

beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the

most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open

space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind

are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them

rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in

1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,

destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look

out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in

early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that

armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying

northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be

feared in the Middle Ages.

Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by

trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house

where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in

stately fashion.

When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage

of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The

citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted

three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of

Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and

resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The

beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the

site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building

itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up

when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is

particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in

their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to

enter the praetorium at Jerusalem when Christ was made prisoner,

because it was the Feast of the Passover.

We can see the restored front of the Guildhall overlooking the river

from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but

to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and

turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is

therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each

side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with

excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the

history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman

Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner

to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.

The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the

Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and

aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much

greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some

of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the

windows.

St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the

signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or

Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;

St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing

Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if

there were space.

We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept

door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have

reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the

lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty

things.

Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian

Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced

by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in

the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in

1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city

in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely

to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still

later.

CHAPTER XXV

THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT

It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of

Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this

actually happened not many years ago.

It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first

seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The

Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task

entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,

they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs

of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within

the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and

York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it

was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but

the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent

telegraphed:

'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will

now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of

the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten

streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole

of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a

fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in

considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now

burned through.

'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet

above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'

When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of

destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber

in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows

had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals

reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,

where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so

calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous

condition.

Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a

new roof had been built, it was easily made ready for holding services.

The two bays nearest to the transept are early Norman, and on the south

side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved

diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham

Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the

Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from

early Norman to Early English.

On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a

slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint

fashion:

'Here Lyes ye Body of poor Frank Raw

Parish Clark and Gravestone Cutter

And ys is writt to let yw know:

Wht Frank for Othrs us'd to do

Is now for Frank done by Another.

Buried March ye 31, 1706.'

A stone on the floor of the retro-choir to John Johnson, master and

mariner, dated 1737, is crowded with nautical metaphor.

'Tho' Boreas with his Blustring blasts

Has tos't me to and fro,

Yet by the handy work of God I'm here

Inclos'd below

And in this Silent Bay

I lie With many of our Fleet

Untill the Day that I Set Sail

My Admiral Christ to meet.'

The great Perpendicular east window was considered by Pugin to be one

of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of

being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of

the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a

considerable portion of it is original.

Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its

greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At

the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches

of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in

1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the

north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.

Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders

of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of

Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of

nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and

its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a

hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an

eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic

structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,

Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent

Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'

The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence

just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately

towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the

scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of

the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the

time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers

and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the

historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of

steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved

the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below

the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its

ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary

cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the

stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the

melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications

constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in

case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose

cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one

embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen

on carved stones on the front walls over the entrance. The date, 1591,

is believed to be later than the time of the erection of the house,

which, in the form of its parapets and other details, suggests the

style of Henry VIII's reign.

Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of

Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished

castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the

great personages and famous events of English history connected with

its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.

The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from

the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made

to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which

replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and

the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly

hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where

the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the

Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present

name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman

Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to

become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of

Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either

to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls

and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides

of the castle yard.

The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without

issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard

Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when

Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.

Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and

Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau

Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed

Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt

at relief. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who was a cousin of Edward II,

was more or less in continual opposition to the king, on account of his

determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with

Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow

Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,

and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the

Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of

Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own

castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of

rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in

league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was

condemned to death as a traitor, and the next day, June 19, 1322,

mounted on a sorry nag without a bridle, he was led to a hill outside

the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.

In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in

the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed

King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.

Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another

in the lines:

'The Kyng the[n] sent Kyng Richard to Ledis,

There to be kepte surely in previtee,

Fro the[n]s after to Pykeryng we[n]t he nedes,

And to Knauesburgh after led was he,

But to Pountfrete last where he did die.'

Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, while

Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.

During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to

the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following

century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed

after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the

Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through

most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the

Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly

and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just

three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and

lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the

besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the

castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a

unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the

garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to

realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,

and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before

recent times.

In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned

the garrison, and remained a month with the Parliamentary forces,

without seeing any immediate prospect of the surrender of the castle.

When the Royalists had been reduced to a mere handful, Colonel Morris,

their commander, agreed to terms of capitulation on March 24, 1649. The

dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a

matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but

seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which

for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.

Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has

languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces

those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size

of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'

The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the

twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of

completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of

Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly

the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave

is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and

refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the

situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to

the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the

countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their

interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural

standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this

neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded

hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of

Haworth.

More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontë passed away in

that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period

the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,

her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given

Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,

destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really

are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they

were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were

still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is

invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.

We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep

valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though

it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as

possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black

Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontë began,

owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly

called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important

patrons.

The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones

dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this

dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontës' house looked,

as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an

unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should

have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only

been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the

south, it is conceivable that the Brontës would have enjoyed better

health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of

a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her

father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression

of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:

'Miss Brontë put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller

than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a

little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are

joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was

first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home

his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,

even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench

cheerfulness and hope.'

Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontë died, when the

eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having

been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the

children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest

walks, the five little girls with their one brother--all of them under

seven years--directed their steps towards the wild moors above their

home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and

practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so

that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand

over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had

travelled back over the intervening years.

The purple moors so beloved by the Brontës stretch away to the Calder

Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the

Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy

reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and

ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel

works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit

crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling

brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity

reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working

during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come

every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of

scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.

End of Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home