recorded on the tablet, that with his wife's fortune he purchased estates,
and erected for the tenants new farm houses.
Sir Thomas Parkyns died in 1751.
In his will there is bequeathed a guinea a year to be wrestled for every
midsummer day at Broadmore.
We venture to surmise that our north country readers--more especially those
interested in the sport half a century ago--will be struck with a
similarity in the wrestling career and character of Sir Thomas Parkyns, and
one of the great ornaments and enthusiastic advocates of the northern ring,
namely, Professor Wilson. To us it appears there is a striking similitude.
One, like the other, ranks amongst the cleverest and most scientific in
their different modes of wrestling; one, like the other, had about the same
social standing; one, like the other, somewhat eccentric in early life. One
delighted with encouraging and upholding his favourite amusement in Bunny
Park; the other happy when he could get together a goodly muster of
athletes from the villages, the valleys, and mountain sides of the Lake
district, at Bowness, Low Wood, or Ambleside--all within easy walking
distance of Elleray, his beautifully situate Windermere mansion.
WRESTLING IN SCOTLAND.
In the year 1827, a society styled the "Saint Ronan's Border Club," was
established at Innerleithen, near Peebles, the object of which was to
revive the old martial spirit of the Borders, to encourage the practice of
out-door sports and pastimes, and to yield amusement to the visitors of
this sequestered watering place. Lockhart, in his life of Sir Walter Scott,
(after giving an account of the publication of the novel of _St. Ronan's
Well_, in 1823,) thus proceeds to describe the establishment of the annual
gathering at Innerleithen:--
Among other consequences of the revived fame of the
place, a yearly festival was instituted for the
celebration of _The St. Ronan's Border Games_. A club
of _Bowmen of the Border_, arrayed in doublets of
Lincoln green, with broad blue bonnets, and having the
Ettrick Shepherd for Captain, assumed the principal
management of this exhibition; and Sir Walter was well
pleased to be enrolled among them, and during several
years was a regular attendant, both on the Meadow,
where (besides archery) leaping, racing, wrestling,
stone-heaving, and hammer-throwing, went on opposite to
the noble old Castle of Traquair, and at the subsequent
banquet, where Hogg, in full costume, always presided
as master of the ceremonies. In fact, a gayer spectacle
than that of the _St. Ronan's Games_, in those days,
could not well have been desired. The Shepherd, even
when on the verge of threescore, exerted himself
lustily in the field, and seldom failed to carry off
some of the prizes, to the astonishment of his
vanquished juniors; and the _bon-vivants_ of Edinburgh
mustered strong among the gentry and yeomanry of
Tweeddale to see him afterwards in his glory filling
the president's chair with eminent success, and
commonly supported on this--which was in fact the
grandest evening of his year--by Sir Walter Scott,
Professor Wilson, Sir Adam Ferguson, and _Peter_
Robertson.
The Earl of Traquair was patron of the club, and among the members not
mentioned by Lockhart, occur the names of the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord
Napier, Robert Gladstone of Liverpool, William Blackwood, James Ballantyne,
and Adam Wilson, captain of the Six-Feet Club.[5] At a later date,
Glassford Bell, sheriff of Lanarkshire, took great interest in these
sports.
The games continued to be celebrated yearly in the early autumn, and lasted
two days, the second day being mostly devoted to archery. Among the various
athletes who entered the lists, the following are probably the most
noteworthy. Professor Wilson (Christopher North,) threw the hammer; James
Hogg tried his hand at the bow and the rifle, but yet--in despite of
Lockhart's praise--the Shepherd did more doughty deeds with the grey-goose
quill than with either of those weapons. Robert Bell, from Jed Water, was
the champion "putter" of the stone, and could have been matched against
any man in the three kingdoms, in throwing the sixteen or twenty-one pound
ball--he upon his knees, and his opponent on his feet. An advertisement
appeared in a leading newspaper, to back him for £100 against all comers,
the challenge to hold good for twelve months, but there was no one to take
it up. The Harper brothers, farmers near Innerleithen, held several prizes
for throwing the hammer; and Leyden of Denholme, the champion leaper, could
spring thirty-two feet, at three standing leaps, including the backward and
forward leaps over the same ground.
The first competition was held at Innerleithen on the 26th of September,
1827; and among other prizes competed for, the Six-Feet Club of Edinburgh
gave a silver medal to the best wrestler in the back-hold style, as
practised in Cumberland and Westmorland. The introduction of this mode of
wrestling into Scotland, may probably be attributed to the great interest
which Professor Wilson took in the formation of these games. The prize in
1827, was gained by George Scougal, a native of Innerleithen. On one side
of the medal was the following inscription:--
"Presented by the Six-Feet Club, to the St. Ronan's
Border Club, to be awarded to the best Wrestler, at
their first Gymnastic Competition, at Innerleithen,
26th September, 1827."
And on the reverse side, the following quotation from Waller:--
"Great Julius, on the mountain bred,
A flock perchance or herd had led:
He who subdued the world had been
But the best Wrestler on the green."
Gained by GEORGE SCOUGAL, Innerleithen.
Thirty-two competitors.
Scougal carried off, also, the head prize for Wrestling, at the St. Ronan's
Games, for the years 1828 and 1829. After performing these feats, he was
"outlawed"--that is, he was excluded from contending again in the same
arena, for the three years which followed. When past the prime of life, he
was induced to enter the wrestling ring again, which he very unwillingly
did, after much persuasion, and once more succeeded in bearing off first
honours.
In his day, Scougal was looked upon as the champion wrestler on the
Scottish side of the Borders. At the St. Ronan's Games, he gained six
medals for wrestling and throwing the hammer; and, likewise, a considerable
number of trophies at other local meetings. A stout massive built man, he
stood five feet eleven inches high, and weighed from fifteen to sixteen
stones. With little or no knowledge of scientific wrestling, he
nevertheless proved more than a match for all comers, by the herculean
amount of power he possessed in the shoulders and arms.
His usual mode of attack was to gather an opponent well to his breast, and
then by sheer strength keep him there until a favourable opportunity
presented itself to rush him upon his back. When excited or ruffled in
temper, he gripped his man quickly and firmly, and then, in spite of all
struggles or clicks, threw him over his hip. These movements were the
nearest approach to science known to Scougal.
Scougal was a butcher by trade, and is thus referred to in the _Noctes
Ambrosiana_, in the Shepherd's parlance: "Geordie Scougal slauchered a
beast last market day at Innerleithen, and his meat's aye prime." On one
occasion, he actually felled a bullock with a blow from his fist; and in
the smithy, which adjoined his slaughter-house, he not unfrequently
exhibited feats of surpassing strength, one of which was to lift a waggon
axle and two wheels, with a heavy man seated at each end of the axle. His
skill in throwing the hammer was well known, and during his early manhood
he carried off most of the leading prizes. At several meetings, the Harpers
came into competition with him, but never approached any nearer than second
to the dual Border champion of wrestling and throwing the hammer. Old
people, who remember Scougal's earliest efforts, describe him as a
veritable Goliath of Gath in strength, but--unless unduly excited--as
gentle as a woman in manner and bearing.
After Scougal's three years had elapsed, Robert Michie of Hawick, came to
the fore as amateur wrestler. Michie took the belt at St. Ronan's, and kept
it about two years. He was present at most of the gymnastic gatherings on
the Borders, and carried off many prizes for wrestling and hammer throwing.
At the Hawick Border Games in 1831, he threw Thomas Emmerson, from the
neighbourhood of Carlisle,[6] after an exciting contest of some duration.
His hammer throwing at St. Ronan's was inimitable, and has been described
by the Ettrick Shepherd in the "Bridal of Polmood."
Michie is introduced anachronically into the "Royal Bridal," in Wilson's
_Tales of the Borders_, after the following fashion:--
At a distance from the pavilion,... was a crowd
composed of some seven or eight hundred peasantry
engaged in and witnessing the athletic games of the
Borders. Among the competitors was one called Meikle
Robin, or Robin Meikle. He was strength personified.
His stature exceeded six feet; his shoulders were
broad, his chest round, his limbs well and strongly put
together. He was a man of prodigious bone and sinews.
At throwing the hammer, at putting the stone, no man
could stand before him. He distanced all who came
against him, and, while he did so, he seemed to put
forth not half his strength, while his skill appeared
equal to the power of his arm.
The following notice of the wrestling at Saint Ronan's, for 1831, is copied
from the _Edinburgh Literary Journal_:--
Wrestling is not a Scotch game, as will be conceded by
every one who has been present at the Carlisle and
Saint Ronan's games. There is strength enough among our
peasantry, but it is the ore--it has never been moulded
for a practical purpose. Men came forward on this
occasion, who never would have dreamed of thrusting
their noses into an English ring; and they set to work
in a slovenly unhandsome way--some of them armed
_cap-à-piè_--hat, coat, and shoes. Still, amid the
motley crew you might recognise men who knew both how
to seize and to wield their antagonists. The art only
needs encouragement; and we trust next meeting will
witness a better turn-out.
There were other local athletes, who figured in the ring at Saint Ronan's,
almost a match for Scougal. George Best of Yarrow, tailor, possessed far
more science than the Innerleithen butcher, and was the holder of several
prizes. Best, likewise, finds a niche in the _Noctes Ambrosiana_ of
October, 1828, where the Shepherd is made to exclaim:--"Tibbie's married.
The tailor carried her aff frae them a'--the flyin' tailor o' Ettrick,
sir--him that can do fifteen yards, at hap-step-and-loup, back and forward
on level grun'--stood second ae year in the ring at Carlisle--can put a
stane within a foot o' Jedburgh Bell himsell, and fling the hammer neist
best ower a' the border to Geordie Scougal o' Innerleithen."
In which year of grace, we wonder, did Best stand second in the Carlisle
ring? Wilson's memory must have proved treacherous when he penned this
sentence. At all events, if Best _did_ wrestle second, "ae year in the
ring at Carlisle," it must have been for some minor prize, long since
forgotten.
Abraham Clark of Calzie, farmer, a man of powerful frame, entered the ring
after Scougal was "outlawed," and did some noteworthy feats.
Another man, also remembered as a prize taker in the ring at Saint Ronan's,
was Walter Scott of Selkirk, carrier.
At Miles End, in Northumberland, athletic games were kept up until
recently. Young men from both sides of the Borders entered keenly into
these contests; and one noteworthy peculiarity of them was, that of keeping
up the old national characteristic of Englishmen being pitted against
Scotchmen, and Scotchmen against Englishmen. This mode of contesting was
the means of producing many splendid feats of agility and prowess, but was
apt to degenerate into mere exhibitions of warm blood, which too frequently
ended in blows being exchanged by the rival combatants. Remnants of these
contests may be witnessed to this day, at the annual fair at Stagshawbank,
between the shepherds from the Reed, Liddle, Coquet, and Tyne, and those
from the Slitrig, Jed, Oxmoor, Kail, and Teviot. Wrestling was always a
leading sport at these gatherings; single-stick, tilting, leaping, and
foot-racing, were also practised; and hence the devotion shown to these and
similar athletic pastimes by the sturdy race of people living on both sides
of the Cheviots.
IRISH WRESTLING.
The "collar and elbow" is the national style of wrestling in Ireland--that
is, to take hold of an opponent's collar with one hand, and his elbow with
the other. The fall is won if an opponent touches the ground with his hand,
knee, back, or side, as in the Cumberland and Westmorland style.
A wrestling match was witnessed in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in the autumn of
1876, which may serve to illustrate to some extent the manner of
proceeding. A ring was formed, around which seven or eight thousand people
gathered, and two coats laid in the centre of the ring. Presently a
wrestler enters, and dons one of the coats, which was a challenge for any
man to take up the other coat. Another wrestler shortly after enters, and
then, when due preliminaries are gone through, the tussle commenced in
earnest. But how it proceeded, or how it ended--whether the struggle was an
arduous one, or the victory an easy one--our informant could not tell.
At the termination of the Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling held at the
British Lion, Redcross Street, London, on August 21st, 1844, one Kelly, an
Irishman, challenged any native of either of the above counties, to
wrestle for a sovereign, in the collar and elbow style, the gainer of the
first three falls, out of five, to be the winner. This offer was accepted
by Edward Stainton, a native of Westmorland. And after three-quarters of an
hour's good play, Stainton had floored his man three times in succession.
Kelly was second in the leaping match at the same sports.
* * * * *
[NOTE.--We regret exceedingly the great paucity of our
information on the subject of Irish Wrestling.
Enquiries were made in many and various ways, without
success. Any information respecting two or three of the
representative wrestlers of the Green Isle, addressed
to the _local_ publishers, will be very acceptable.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Daiklès, the Messenian, was the first who had the honour of being
crowned with the simple wreath woven from the sacred olive-tree near
Olympia, for his victory in the Stadium.
[2] Hill's Essays.
[3] Strutt's Sports and Pastimes.
[4] Retrospective Review.
[5] Professor Wilson was anxious to get enrolled in the Six-Feet Club, but
could not manage it. He was just half-an-inch too short.
[6] Emmerson was a powerful built man, a mason by trade, who wrestled for
several years in the Carlisle and other rings, with moderate success. He
won the head prize at Hawick in 1835.
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND WRESTLING.
Wrestlers of Cumberland,
Good fellows all;
Wrestlers of Westmorland,
Stout lads and tall:
Ye who are thrown to-day,
Rise more alert and gay,
Next year make the play,
Good fellows all.
_King Arthur's Round Table Ballad_, 1824.
Wrestling, as a matter of course, occupies a prominent position in our
review of Northern Pastimes, more especially from the commencement to the
end of the time to which our notices extend. Some of the other sports are
now remembered only as illustrating the habits of a byegone period. In this
last are to be classed Bull-baiting and Cock-fighting: condemned now as
cruel and torturing by all classes, but deserving of record from their
encouragement and popularity in times past. Others of a less objectionable
type are extinct as well. That almost all were looked upon with disfavour
by a considerable portion of the community, in the old Puritan times of
Cromwell, the following curious extract will abundantly testify. It is
quoted from THE AGREEMENT OF THE ASSOCIATED MINISTERS AND CHURCHES OF THE
COUNTIES OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMERLAND. _London: Printed by T. L. for Simon
Waterson, and are sold at the sign of the Globe in Paul's Churchyard, and
by Richard Scot, Bookseller in Carlisle, 1656._
"All scandalous persons hereafter mentioned are to be suspended from the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper: this is to say ... any person that shall
upon the Lord's Day use any dancing, playing at dice, or cards, or any
other game, masking, wakes, shooting, playing, playing at football, stool
ball, _Wrestling_; or that shall make resort to any Playes, interludes,
fencing, bull baiting, bear baiting; or that shall use hawking, hunting, or
coursing, fishing or fowling; or that shall publikely expose any wares to
sale otherwise than is provided by an Ordinance of Parliament of the sixth
of April, 1649.... These Counties of Cumberland and Westmerland have been
hitherto as a Proverb and a by-word in respect of ignorance and
prophaneness; Men were ready to say of them as the Jews of Nazareth, Can
any good thing come out of them?"
This intolerant anathema did not put a stop to the practice of Wrestling,
on fine summer evenings, at nearly all the villages of Cumberland and
Westmorland--a practice, we opine, less detrimental to the formation of a
good rural peasantry than loitering about or brawling in village
ale-houses. It was, however, upwards of a century and a half after, before
back-hold wrestling assumed the importance it has attained. A passing
notice of doings in the ring, in a long ago period, may nevertheless be
interesting.
In King Edward the Sixth's time, somewhere between 1547 and 1553, a
gigantic youth of great strength and in wrestling practice, resided at
Troutbeck, near Windermere. His name was Gilpin, or Herd. His mother was
driven away from Furness with child--generally asserted in the
neighbourhood--to one of the monks of Furness Abbey. The mother afterwards
led a tramping and begging sort of life, and drew to a house in Troutbeck
belonging to the Crown. The house and some adjoining land were conferred by
the king on a retainer, who on attempting to take possession, met with
determined opposition from the desperate woman, and her wild son Gilpin,
or, as he was familiarly called, the "Cork Lad of Kentmere." This led to
the "Lad"--then about twenty years old--being summoned to London. He set
off on foot, in a home-spun dress, and after many strange adventures and
shifty expedients, reached the end of his long journey. Soon after
arriving, the king held a meeting for athletic contests. The wild-looking
northerner was present, and ascended the stage to contend with the
champion wrestler. He easily won the first fall. In the second, he threw
the champion clear off the stage. After astonishing the spectators by
several other muscular performances, the king sent for him, and enquired
who and what he was, and where he came from. He told the king he did not
know his own name, but "folk commonly co' me the Cork Lad o' Kentmere!" The
king desiring to know the sort of food he lived on at home, received this
quaint reply, "Thick porridge an' milk that a mouse might walk on dry shod,
to my breakfast; an' the sunny side of a wedder to my dinner, when I can
get it." Being acknowledged champion, the king wished to confer some reward
as a distinction, and asked him to state what he wished. He begged to have
the house he lived in at Troutbeck, and land adjacent to get peat off, and
wood from Troutbeck Park for fire. These were soon made over to him. He did
not enjoy the generous gift for any lengthened period; for at the age of
forty-two, he got so injured in attempting to pull up a tree by the roots,
that he died from the effects. Leaving no children or will, the estate
reverted to the Crown, and King Charles the First granted it to Huddleston
Philipson of Calgarth.
It appears that Kentmere Hall in Kentmere--a secluded pastoral dale, some
dozen miles north of Kendal, and running in another dozen miles up to the
steep sides of Hill Bell, Nan Beild, and High Street--was built at the
time the "Cork Lad" was in the valley. During the building, he performed a
surprising feat of strength, by placing, without any assistance, a huge
beam on the walls. On a Mr. Birkett being applied to by James Clarke, the
author of the "Survey of the Lakes," for particulars respecting the well
nigh incredible feat, he replied in the following sensible letter:--
"I have taken dimensions of the beam at Kentmere Hall, which is thirty feet
in length and thirteen inches by twelve-and-a-half in thickness. There is
no inscription on it, as you mentioned. I shall inform you what has been
given by tradition, (and I had it from a man that was _one hundred and four
years old_ when he died). When the Hall was building, and the workmen gone
to dinner, this man, whose name was Herd, happened to be there, and while
they were at dinner, laid it up himself. At that time the Scots made
frequent incursions into England. He with his bow and arrows killed many of
them in coming off the mountains, at a place which still retains the name
of 'Scot's Rake,' which is about a mile from where he lived."
In the days of brave Queen Bess, lived Richard Mulcaster, whose father
represented the city of Carlisle in Parliament. "By ancient parentage and
lininal discent," Mulcaster was "an esquier borne; by the most famous Queen
Elizabeth's prerogative gift," parson of Stanford Rivers church, in Essex.
Being an earnest student, he became not only proficient in the Greek and
Oriental languages, but also an expert archer, and thought it not
unbecoming to his cloth to shoot by times, at "the targets for glory at
Mile End Green." This good old clergyman loved athletic exercises so well,
that among other learned treatises, he issued one in 1581 entitled
"Positions; wherein those Primitive Circumstances be examined, which are
necessarie for the training up of Children, either for Skill in their
Booke, or Healthe in their Bodie," which was dedicated to his patron, Queen
Elizabeth. In this quaint old quarto volume, the author discourses on the
ancient art of "wrastling" as becometh one reared on Cumbrian soil.
"Clemens Alexandrinus," says he, "which lived at Rome in Galenus' time, in
the third book of his 'Pedagogue or Training Maister,' in the title of
exercise, rejecting most kinds of wrastling, yet reserveth one as well
beseemeing a civill trained man, whom both seemeliness for grace and
profitableness for goode healthe do seeme to recommende. Then an exercise
it is, and healthfully it may be used; if discretion overlook it, our
countrey will allow it. Let us, therefore, use it as Clemens of Alexandria
commendes it for, and make choice in our market. Wherefore not to deale
with the catching pancratical kind of wrastling which used all kindes of
hould to cast and overcome his adversarie, nor any other of that sorte
which continuance hath rejected and custome hath refused, I have picked out
two which be both civill for use, and in the using upright, without any
great stouping. It is a friend to the head, bettereth the bulke, and
strengtheneth the sinews. Thus much for wrastling, wherein, as in all other
exercises, the training maister must be both cunning to judge of the thing,
and himself present to prevente harme when the exercise is in hand."