The coast of Yorkshire affords the boldest and grandest scenery on the
eastern shore of England. A great protruding backbone of chalk rocks
projects far into the North Sea at Flamborough Head, and makes one of
the most prominent landmarks on all that rugged, iron-bound coast. This
is the Ocellum Promontorium of Ptolemy, and its lighthouse is three
hundred and thirty feet above the sea, while far away over the waters
the view is superb. From Flamborough Head northward beyond Whitby the
coast-line is a succession of abrupt white cliffs and bold headlands,
presenting magnificent scenery. About twenty-three miles north of
Flamborough is the "Queen of Northern Watering-places," as Scarborough
is pleased to be called, where a bold headland three hundred feet high
juts out into the North Sea for a mile, having on each side semicircular
bays, each about a mile and a quarter wide. At the extreme point of the
lozenge-shaped promontory stands the ruined castle which named the town
Scar-burgh, with the sea washing the rocky base of its foundations on
three sides. Steep cliffs run precipitously down to the narrow beach
that fringes these bays around, and on the cliffs is the town of
Scarborough, while myriads of fishing-vessels cluster about the
breakwater-piers that have been constructed to make a harbor of refuge.
It would be difficult to find a finer situation, and art has improved it
to the utmost, especially as mineral springs add the attractions of a
spa to the sea air and bathing. The old castle, battered by war and the
elements, is a striking ruin, the precipitous rock on which it stands
being a natural fortress. The Northmen when they first invaded Britain
made its site their stronghold, but the present castle was not built
until the reign of King Stephen, when its builder, William le Gros, Earl
of Albemarle, was so powerful in this part of Yorkshire that it was said
he was "in Stephen's days the more real king." But Henry II. compelled
the proud earl to submit to his authority, though "with much searching
of heart and choler," and Scarborough afterwards became one of the royal
castles, Edward I. in his earlier years keeping court there. It was
there that Edward II. was besieged and his favorite Gaveston starved
into surrender, and then beheaded on Blacklow Hill in violation of the
terms of his capitulation. Scarborough was repeatedly attacked by the
Scotch, but it subsequently enjoyed an interval of peace until the
Reformation. In Wyatt's rebellion his friends secured possession of the
castle by stratagem. A number of his men, disguised as peasants, on
market-day strolled one by one into the castle, and then at a given
signal overpowered the sentinels and admitted the rest of their band.
The castle, however, was soon recaptured from the rebels, and Thomas
Stafford, the leader in this enterprise, was beheaded. From this event
is derived the proverb of a "Scarborough warning"--a word and a blow,
but the blow first. In Elizabeth's reign Scarborough was little else but
a fishing-village, and so unfortunate that it appealed to the queen for
aid. In the Civil War the castle was held by the Royalists, and was
besieged for six months. While the guns could not reduce it, starvation
did, and the Parliamentary army took possession. Three years later the
governor declared for the king, and the castle again stood a five
months' siege, finally surrendering. Since then it has fallen into
decay, but it was a prison-house for George Fox the Quaker, who was
treated with severity there. A little way down the hill are the ruins of
the ancient church of St. Mary, which has been restored.
[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH SPA AND ESPLANADE.]
[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH FROM THE SEA.]
The cliffs on the bay to the south of Castle Hill have been converted
into a beautifully-terraced garden and promenade. Here, amid flowers and
summer houses and terraced walks, is the fashionable resort, the
footpaths winding up and down the face of the cliffs or broadening into
the gardens, where music is provided and there are nightly
illuminations. Millions of money have been expended in beautifying the
front of the cliffs adjoining the Spa, which is on the seashore, and to
which Scarborough owed its original fame as a watering-place. The
springs were discovered in 1620, and by the middle of the last century
had become fashionable, but the present ornamental Spa was erected only
about forty years ago. There is a broad esplanade in front. There are
two springs, one containing more salt, lime, and magnesia sulphates than
the other. In the season, this esplanade--in fact, the entire front of
the cliffs--is full of visitors, while before it are rows of little
boxes on wheels, the bathing-houses that are drawn into the water. The
surf is usually rather gentle, however, though the North Sea can knock
things about at a lively rate in a storm.
North of Scarborough the coast extends, a grand escarpment of cliffs and
headlands, past Robin Hood's Bay, with its rocky barriers, the North
Cheek and the South Cheek, to the little harbor of another
watering-place, Whitby. The cliffs here are more precipitous and the
situation even more picturesque than at Scarborough. The river Esk has
carved a deep glen in the Yorkshire moorland, and in this the town
nestles, climbing the steep banks on either side of the river. The ruins
of Whitby Abbey are located high up on the side of the ravine opposite
to the main part of the town, and they still present a noble if
dilapidated pile. The nave fell after a storm in the last century, and a
similar cause threw down the central tower in 1830. The choir and
northern transept are still standing, extremely beautiful Early English
work: only fragments of other portions of the abbey remain. This was in
olden times the Westminster of Northumbria, containing the tombs of
Eadwine and of Oswy, with kings and nobles grouped around them. It has
been over twelve hundred years since a religious house was founded at
Whitby, at first known as the White Homestead, an outgrowth of the
abbey, which was founded by Oswy and presided over by the sainted Hilda,
who chose the spot upon the lonely crags by the sea. The fame of Whitby
as a place of learning soon spread, and here lived the cowherd Caedmon,
the first English poet. The Danes sacked and burned it but after the
Norman Conquest, under the patronage of the Percies, the abbey grew in
wealth and fame. Fragments of the monastery yet remain, and on the hill
a little lower down is the parish church, with a long flight of steps
leading up to it from the harbor along which the people go, and when
there is a funeral the coffin has to be slung in order to be carried up
the steps. Whitby is famous for its jet, which is worked into numerous
ornaments: this is a variety of fossil wood, capable of being cut and
taking a high polish. It is also celebrated for its production of
iron-ore, which indeed is a product of all this part of Yorkshire; while
at night, along the valley of the Tees, not far north of Whitby, the
blaze of the myriads of furnaces light up the heavens like the fire of
Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples. Among the tales of the abbey is that
which
"Whitby's nuns exulting told,
How to their house three barons bold
Must menial service do."
[Illustration: WHITBY ABBEY.]
It appears that three gentlemen--De Bruce, De Percy, and Allaston--were
hunting boars on the abbey-lands in 1159, and roused a fine one, which
their dogs pressed hard and chased to the hermitage, where it ran into
the chapel and dropped dead. The hermit closed the door against the
hounds, and the hunters, coming up, were enraged to find the dogs
baulked of their prey, and on the hermit's opening the door they
attacked him with their boar-spears and mortally wounded him. It was not
long before they found that this was dangerous sport, and they took
sanctuary at Scarborough. The Church, however, did not protect those who
had insulted it, and they were given up to the abbot of Whitby, who was
about to make an example of them when the dying hermit summoned the
abbot and the prisoners to his bedside and granted them their lives and
lands. But it was done upon a peculiar tenure: upon Ascension Day at
sunrise they were to come to the wood on Eskdale-side, and the abbot's
officer was to deliver to each "ten stakes, eleven stout stowers, and
eleven yethers, to be cut by you, or some of you, with a knife of one
penny price;" these they were to take on their backs to Whitby before
nine o'clock in the morning. Then said the hermit, "If it be full sea
your labor and service shall cease; and if low water, each of you shall
set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard from the other, and so
yether them on each side with your yethers, and so stake on each side
with your stout stowers, that they may stand three tides without
removing by the force thereof. You shall faithfully do this in
remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me, and that you may the
better call to God for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and do
good works. The officer of Eskdale-side shall blow, 'Out on you, out on
you, out on you for this heinous crime!'" Failure of this strange
service was to forfeit their lands to the abbot of Whitby.