[Illustration: Neville's Cross.]
We resume the illustration of these curious structures with two
specimens of interesting architectural character, and memorable
association with our early history. The first is Neville's Cross,
at Beaurepaire (or Bear Park, as it is now called), about two miles
north-west from Durham. Here David II., King of Scots, encamped with his
army before the celebrated battle of Red Hills, or Neville's Cross, as
it was afterwards termed, from the above elegant stone cross, erected to
record the victory by Lord Ralph Neville. The English sovereign, Edward
III., had just achieved the glorious conquest of Crecy; and the Scottish
king judged this a fit opportunity for his invasion. However, "the great
northern barons of England, Percy and Neville, Musgrave, Scope, and
Hastings, assembled their forces in numbers sufficient to show that,
though the conqueror of Crecy, with his victorious army, was absent
in France, there were Englishmen enough left at home to protect the
frontiers of his kingdom from violation. The Archbishops of Canterbury
and York, the prelates of Durham, Carlisle, and Lincoln, sent their
retainers, and attended the rendezvous in person, to add religious
enthusiasm to the patriotic zeal of the barons. Ten thousand soldiers,
who had been sent over to Calais to reinforce Edward III.'s army, were
countermanded in this exigency, and added to the northern army.[7]"
The battle, which was fought October 17, 1346, lasted only three hours,
but was uncommonly destructive. The English archers, who were in front,
were at first thrown into confusion, and driven back; but being
reinforced by a body of horse, repulsed their opponents, and the
engagement soon became general. The Scottish army was entirely defeated,
and the king himself made prisoner; though previous to the fight he is
said to have regarded the English with contempt, and as a raw and
undisciplined host, by no means competent to resist the power of his
more hardy veterans.
"Amid repeated charges, and the most dispiriting slaughter by the
continuous discharge of the English arrows, David showed that he had the
courage, though not the talents, of his father (Robert Bruce). He was
twice severely wounded with arrows, but continued to encourage to the
last the few of his peers and officers who were still fighting around
him."[8] He scorned to ask quarter, and was taken alive with difficulty.
Rymer says, "The Scotch king, though he had two spears hanging in his
body, his leg desperately wounded, and being disarmed, his sword having
been beaten out of his hand, disdained captivity, and provoked the
English by opprobrious language to kill him. When John Copeland, who was
governor of Roxborough Castle, advised him to yield, he struck him on
the face with his gauntlet so fiercely, that he knocked out two of his
teeth. Copeland conveyed him out of the field as his prisoner. Upon
Copeland's refusing to deliver up his royal captive to the queen
(Philippa), who stayed at Newcastle during the battle, the king sent for
him to Calais, where he excused his refusal so handsomely, that the king
sent him back with a reward of 500_l._ a year in lands, where he
himself should choose it, near his own dwelling, and made him a knight
banneret."[9]
Hume states Philippa to have assembled a body of little more than 12,000
men, and to have rode through the ranks of her army, exhorting every man
to do his duty, and to take revenge on these barbarous ravagers. "Nor
could she be persuaded to leave the field till the armies were on the
point of engaging. The Scots have often been unfortunate in the great
pitched battles which they have fought with the English: even though
they commonly declined such engagements where the superiority of numbers
was not on their side; but never did they receive a more fatal blow than
the present. They were broken and chased off the field: fifteen thousand
of them, some historians say twenty thousand, were slain; among whom
were Edward Keith, Earl Mareschal, and Sir Thomas Charteris, Chancellor:
and the king himself was taken prisoner, with the Earls of Sutherland,
Fife, Monteith, Carrick, Lord Douglas, and many other noblemen." The
captive king was conveyed to London, and afterwards in solemn procession
to the Tower, attended by a guard of 20,000 men, and all the city
companies in complete pageantry; while "Philippa crossed the sea at
Dover, and was received in the English camp before Calais, with all the
triumph due to her rank, her merit, and her success." These indeed were
bright days of chivalry and gallantry.
"The ground whereon the battle was fought," say the topographers of the
county,[10] "is about one mile west from Durham; it is hilly, and in some
parts very steep, particularly towards the river. Near it, in a deep
vale, is a small mount, or hillock, called the _Maiden's Bower_, on
which the holy Corporex Cloth, wherewith St. Cuthbert covered the
chalice when he used to say mass, was displayed on the point of a spear,
by the monks of Durham, who, when the victory was obtained, gave notice
by signal to their brethren stationed on the great tower of the
Cathedral, who immediately proclaimed it to the inhabitants of the city,
by singing Te Deum. From that period the victory was annually
commemorated in a similar manner by the choristers, till the occurrence
of the Civil Wars, when the custom was discontinued; but again revived
on the Restoration," and observed till nearly the close of the last
century.
The site of the Cross is by the road-side: it was defaced and broken
down in the year 1589. Its pristine beauty is thus minutely described in
Davis's _Rights and Monuments_: "On the west side of the city of
Durham, where two roads pass each other, a most famous and elegant cross
of stone work was erected to the honour of God, &c. at the sole cost of
Ralph, Lord Neville, which cross had seven steps about it, every way
squared to the socket wherein the stalk of the cross stood, which socket
was fastened to a large square stone; the sole, or bottom stone being of
a great thickness, viz. a yard and a half every way: this stone was the
eighth step. The stalk of the cross was in length three yards and a half
up to the boss, having eight sides all of one piece; from the socket it
was fixed into the boss above, into which boss the stalk was deeply
soldered with lead. In the midst of the stalk, in every second square,
was the Neville's cross; a saltire in a scutcheon, being Lord Neville's
arms, finely cut; and, at every corner of the socket, was a picture of
one of the four Evangelists, finely set forth and carved. The boss at
the top of the stalk was an octangular stone, finely cut and bordered,
and most curiously wrought; and in every square of the nether side
thereof was Neville's Cross, in one square, and the bull's head in the
next, so in the same reciprocal order about the boss. On the top of the
boss was a stalk of stone, (being a cross a little higher than the
rest,) whereon was cut, on both sides of the stalk, the picture of our
Saviour Christ, crucified; the picture of the Blessed Virgin on one
side, and St. John the Evangelist on the other; both standing on the top
of the boss. All which pictures were most artificially wrought together,
and finely carved out of one entire stone; some parts thereof, though
carved work, both on the east and west sides, with a cover of stone
likewise over their heads, being all most finely and curiously wrought
together out of the same hollow stone, which cover had a covering of
lead."
[Illustration: (_Percy's Cross_.)]
The second specimen (_see the Cut_) stands by the side of the
highway over Hedgeley Moor, in the adjoining county of Northumberland.
This Cross is a record of the War of the Roses. Here, in one of the
skirmishes preliminary to the celebrated victory at Hexham (May 12,
1464), Sir Ralph Percy was slain, by Lord Montacute, or Montague, brother
to the Earl of Warwick, and warden of the east marches between Scotland
and England. His dying words are stated to have been, "I have saved the
bird in my breast:" meaning his faith to his party. The memorial is a
square stone pillar, embossed with the arms of Percy and Lucy: they are
nearly effaced by time, though the personal valour of the hero is
written in the less perishable page of history.
The Nevilles are distinguished personages in the pages of the historians
of the North. In Durham they have left a lasting memorial of their
magnificence in Raby Castle, the principal founder of which was John de
Neville, Earl of Westmoreland; who, in 1379, obtained a license to
castellate his manor of Raby; though a part of the structure appears to
have been of more ancient date. Leland speaks of it in his time as "the
largest castle of lodgings in all the north country." It remains to this
day the most perfect castellated mansion, or, more strictly, castle, in
the kingdom, and its "_hall_" eclipses even the chivalrous
splendour of Windsor: here 700 knights, who held of the Nevilles, are
said to have been entertained at one time. The whole establishment is
maintained with much of the hospitable glories of the olden time by the
present distinguished possessor of Raby, the Marquess of Cleveland.
[6] See also pages 113 and 329 of the present volume.
[7] Hist. Scot. By Sir W. Scott, Bt., vol. i, p. 197.
[8] Ibid. p. 199.
[9] Faedera, tom. v. p. 542.
[10] Messrs Britton and Brayley--Beauties of England and Wales,
vol. v. p. 199.
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