Chapter 25

York continued to exist without making much history for several centuries, till the Wars of the Roses came between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. In this York bore its full part, but it was at first the Lancastrian king who was most frequently found at York, and not the duke who bore the title. But after Towton Field, on Palm Sunday, March 29, 1461, the most sanguinary battle ever fought in England, one hundred thousand men being engaged, the news of their defeat was brought to the Lancastrian king Henry and Queen Margaret at York, and they soon became fugitives, and their youthful adversary, the Duke of York, was crowned Edward IV. in York Minster. In the Civil War it was in York that Charles I. took refuge, and from that city issued his first declaration of war against the Parliament. For two years York was loyal to the king, and then the fierce siege took place in which the Parliamentary forces ruined St. Mary's Abbey by undermining and destroying its tower. Prince Rupert raised this siege, but the respite was not long. Marston Moor saw the king defeated, Rupert's troopers being, as the historian tells us, made as "stubble to the swords of Cromwell's Ironsides." The king's shattered army retreated to York, was pursued, and in a fortnight York surrendered to the Parliamentary forces. The city languished afterwards, losing its trade, and developing vast pride, but equal poverty. Since the days of railways, however, it has become a very important junction, and has thus somewhat revived its activity.

The walls of York are almost as complete as those of Chester, while its ancient gateways are in much better preservation. The gateways, called "bars," are among the marked features of the city, and the streets leading to them are called "gates." The chief of these is Micklegate, the highroad leading to the south, the most important street in York, and Micklegate Bar is the most graceful in design of all, coming down from Tudor days, with turrets and battlements pierced with cross-shaped loopholes and surmounted by small stone figures of warriors. It was on this bar that the head of the Duke of York was exposed, and the ghastly spectacle greeted his son, Edward IV., as he rode into the town after Towton Field. It did not take long to strike off the heads of several distinguished prisoners and put them in his place as an expiatory offering. Here also whitened the heads of traitors down to as late as the last Jacobite rebellion. One of the buttresses of the walls of York is the Red Tower, so called from the red brick of which it is built. These walls and gates are full of interesting relics of the olden time, and they are still preserved to show the line of circumvallation of the ancient walled city. But the chief glory of York is its famous minster, on which the hand of time has been lightly laid. When King Eadwine was baptized in the little wooden church hastily erected for the purpose, he began building at the same place, at the suggestion of Paulinus, a large and more noble basilica of stone, wherein the little church was to be included. But before it was completed the king was slain, and his head was brought to York and buried in the portico of the basilica. This church fell into decay, and was burned in the eighth century. On its site was built a much larger minster, which was consumed in William the Conqueror's time, when the greater part of York was burned. From its ashes rose the present magnificent minster, portions of which were building from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, it being completed as we now see it in 1470, and reconsecrated as the cathedral of St. Peter with great pomp in 1472. Its chief treasure, was the shrine of St. William, the nephew of King Stephen, a holy man of singularly gentle character. When he came into York it is said the pressure of the crowd was so great that it caused the fall of a bridge over the Ouse, but the saint by a miracle saved all their lives. The shrine was destroyed at the Reformation, and the relics buried in the nave, where they were found in the last century. York Minster remained almost unchanged until 1829, when a lunatic named Martin concealed himself one night in the cathedral and set fire to the woodwork of the choir, afterwards escaping through a transept-window. The fire destroyed the timber roofs of the choir and nave and the great organ. Martin was arrested, and confined in an asylum until he died. The restoration cost $350,000, and had not long been completed when some workmen accidentally set fire to the south-western tower, which gutted it, destroyed the bells, and burned the roof of the nave. This mischief cost $125,000 to repair, and the southern transept, which was considered unsafe, has since been partially rebuilt.

Few English cathedrals exceed York Minster in dignity and massive grandeur. It is the largest Gothic church in the kingdom, and contains one of the biggest bells. "Old Peter," weighing ten and three-quarter tons, and struck regularly every day at noon. The minster is five hundred and twenty-four feet long, two hundred and twenty-two feet wide, ninety-nine feet high in the nave, and its towers rise about two hundred feet, the central tower being two hundred and twelve feet high. Its great charms are its windows, most of them containing the original stained glass, some of it nearly six hundred years old. The east window is the largest stained-glass window in the world, seventy-seven by thirty-two feet, and of exquisite design, being made by John Thornton of Coventry in 1408, who was paid one dollar per week wages and got a present of fifty dollars when he finished it. At the end of one transept is the Five Sisters Window, designed by five nuns, each planning a tall, narrow sash; and a beautiful rose-window is at the end of the other transept. High up in the nave the statue of St. George stands on one side defying the dragon, who pokes out his head on the other. Its tombs are among the minster's greatest curiosities. The effigy of Archbishop Walter de Grey, nearly six hundred and fifty years old, is stretched out in an open coffin lying under a superb canopy, and the corpse instead of being in the ground is overhead in the canopy. All the walls are full of memorial tablets--a few modern ones to English soldiers, but most of them ancient. Strange tombs are also set in the walls, bearing effigies of the dead. Sir William Gee stands up with his two wives, one on each side, and his six children--all eight statues having their hands folded. Others sit up like Punch and Judy, the women dressed in hoops, farthingales, and ruffs, the highest fashions of their age. Here is buried Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford, and scores of archbishops. The body of the famous Hotspur is entombed in the wall beneath the great east window. Burke's friend Saville is buried here, that statesman having written his epitaph. The outside of the minster has all sorts of grotesque protuberances, which, according to the ancient style of church-building, represent the evil spirits that religion casts out. Adjoining the north transept, and approached through a beautiful vestibule, is the chapter-house, an octagonal building sixty-three feet in diameter and surmounted by a pyramidal roof. Seven of its sides are large stained-glass windows, and the ceiling is a magnificent work.

York Castle occupied a peninsula between the Ouse and a branch called the Foss. Of this Clifford's Tower is about all of the ancient work that remains. It rises on its mound high above the surrounding buildings, and was the keep of the ancient fortress, constructed according to a remarkable and unique plan, consisting of parts of four cylinders running into each other. It dates from Edward I., but the entrance was built by Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, its governor under Charles I. The interior of the tower was afterwards burned, and George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, who was imprisoned there, planted a walnut tree within the tower which is still growing. It was in the keep of the Norman castle, which this tower replaced, that the massacre of the Jews, which grew out of race-jealousy at their great wealth, occurred in 1190. On March 16th the house of Benet, the leading Jew in York, was sacked by a mob and his wife and children murdered. Five hundred of his countrymen then sought refuge in the castle, and those who remained outside were killed. The mob besieged the castle, led by a hermit from the neighborhood "famed for zeal and holiness," who was clothed in white robes, and each morning celebrated mass and inflamed the fury of the besiegers by his preaching. At last he ventured too near the walls, and was brained by a stone. Battering-rams were then brought up, and a night's carouse was indulged in before the work of knocking down the castle began. Within was a different scene: the Jews were without food or hope. An aged rabbi, who had come as a missionary from the East, and was venerated almost as a prophet, exhorted his brethren to render up freely their lives to God rather than await death at the enemy's hands. Nearly all decided to follow his counsel; they fired the castle, destroyed their property, killed their wives and children, and then turned their swords upon themselves. Day broke, and the small remnant who dared not die called from the walls of the blazing castle that they were anxious for baptism and "the faith and peace of Christ." They were promised everything, opened the gates, and were all massacred. In later years York Castle has enclosed some well-known prisoners, among them Eugene Aram, and Dick Turpin, who was hanged there. The York elections and mass-meetings are held in the courtyard.

Here Wilberforce, who long represented York in Parliament, spoke in 1784, when Boswell wrote of him: "I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table, but as I listened he grew and grew until the shrimp became a whale." The York streets are full of old houses, many with porches and overhanging fronts. One of the most curious rows is the Shambles, on a narrow street and dating from the fourteenth century. A little way out of town is the village of Holgate, which was the residence of Lindley Murray the grammarian. Guy Fawkes is said to have been a native of York, and this strange and antique old city, we are also credibly assured, was in 1632 the birthplace of Robinson Crusoe.

CASTLE HOWARD.

Starting north-east from York towards the coast, we go along the pretty valley of the Derwent, and not far from the borders of the stream come to that magnificent pile, the seat of the Earls of Carlisle--Castle Howard. More than a century ago Walpole wrote of it: "Lord Strafford had told me that I should see one of the finest places in Yorkshire, but nobody had informed me that I should at one view see a palace, a town, a fortified city: temples on high places; woods worthy of being each a 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 sublimer one." Castle Howard was the work of Vanbrugh, the designer of Blenheim, and in plan is somewhat similar, but much more sober and simple, with a central cupola that gives it dignity. It avoids many of the faults of Blenheim: its wings are more subdued, so that the central colonnade stands out to greater advantage, and there are few more imposing country-houses in England than this palace of the Howards. This family are scions of the ducal house of Norfolk, so that "all the blood of all the Howards," esteemed the bluest blood in the kingdom, runs in their veins. The Earls of Carlisle are descended from "Belted Will"--Lord William Howard, the lord warden of the Marches in the days of the first Stuart--whose stronghold was at Naworth Castle, twelve miles north-east of Carlisle. His grandson took an active part in the restoration of Charles II., and in recompense was created the first Earl of Carlisle. His bones lie in York Minster. His grandson, the third earl, who was deputy earl-marshal at the coronation of Queen Anne, built Castle Howard. The seventh earl, George William Frederick, was for eight years viceroy in Ireland, resigning in 1864 on account of ill-health; and it is said that he was one of the few English rulers who really won the affections of the people of that unhappy country. He died soon afterwards.

Leaving the railway-station in the valley of the Derwent, and mounting the hills to the westward, a little village is reached on the confines of the park. Beyond the village the road to the park-gates passes through meadow-land, and is bordered by beautiful beech trees arranged in clusters of about a dozen trees in each, producing an unusual but most happy effect. The gateway is entered, a plain building in a castellated wall--this being Walpole's "fortified city"--and, proceeding up a slope, the fine avenue of beeches crosses another avenue of lime trees. Here is placed an obelisk erected in honor of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, which also bears an inscription telling of the erection of Castle Howard. It recites that the house was built on the site of the old castle of Hinderskelf, and was begun in 1702 by Charles, the third Earl of Carlisle, who set up this inscription in 1731. The happy earl, pleased with the grand palace and park he had created, thus addresses posterity on the obelisk:

"If to perfection these plantations rise, If they agreeably my heirs surprise, This faithful pillar will their age declare As long as time these characters shall spare. Here, then, with kind remembrance read his name Who for posterity performed the same."

The avenue then leads on past the north front of the castle, standing in a fine situation upon a ridge between two shallow valleys. The bed of the northern valley has been converted into a lake, while on the southern slopes are beautiful and extensive lawns and gardens. The house forms three sides of a hollow square, and within, it is interesting in pictures and ornaments. It is cut up, however, into small rooms and long, chilly corridors, which detract from its good effect. The entrance-hall is beneath the central dome and occupies the whole height of the structure, but it is only about thirty-five feet square, giving a sense of smallness. Frescoes decorate the walls and ceilings. The public apartments, which are in several suites opening into each other and flanked by long corridors, are like a museum, so full are they of rare works of art, china, glass, and paintings. Much of the collection came from the Orleans Gallery. There are also many portraits in black and red chalk by Janet, a French artist who flourished in the sixteenth century. Some of the paintings are of great value, and are by Rubens, Caracci, Canaletti, Tintoretto, Titian, Hogarth, Bellini, Mabuse, Holbein, Lely, Vandyke, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and others. The Castle Howard collection is exceptionally valuable in historical portraits. The windows of the drawing-room look out upon extensive flower-gardens, laid out in rather formal style with antique vases and statues. Beyond these gardens is seen a circular temple placed upon a knoll, the "mausoleum" which so moved Walpole. Here the former owners of the castle are buried, a constant _memento mori_ to the tenants of the house, though the taste certainly seems peculiar that has made the family tomb the most prominent object in the view from the drawing-room windows.

Not far from Castle Howard are the ruins of Kirkham Priory. A charming fragment of this noble church remains in a grassy valley on the margin of the Derwent. Here, nearly eight hundred years ago, the Augustinians established the priory, the founder being Sir Walter l'Espec, one of the leaders of the English who drove back King David's Scottish invasion at the battle of the Standard, near Durham. Sir Walter had an only son, who was one day riding near the site of Kirkham when a wild boar suddenly rushed across his path. The horse plunged and threw his rider, who, striking head-foremost against a projecting stone, was killed. Sir Walter, being childless, determined to devote his wealth to the service of God, and founded three religious houses--one in Bedfordshire, another at Rievaulx, where he sought refuge from his sorrows, and the third at the place of his son's death at Kirkham. Legend says that the youth was caught by his foot in the stirrup when thrown, and was dragged by his runaway horse to the spot where the high altar was afterwards located. Sir Walter's sister married into the family of De Ros, among the ancestors of the Dukes of Rutland, and they were patrons of Kirkham until the dissolution of the monasteries. Little remains of it: the gate-house still stands, and in front is the base of a cross said to have been made from the stone against which the boy was thrown. Alongside this stone they hold a "bird-fair" every summer, where jackdaws, starlings, and other birds are sold, with a few rabbits thrown in; but the fair now is chiefly an excuse for a holiday. The church was three hundred feet long, with the convent-buildings to the southward, but only scant ruins remain. Beyond the ruins, at the edge of the greensward, the river glides along under a gray stone bridge. At Howsham, in the neighborhood, Hudson the railway king was born, and at Foston-le-Clay Sydney Smith lived, having for his friends the Earl and Countess of Carlisle of that day, who made their first call in a gold coach and got stuck fast in the clay. Here the witty vicar resided, having been presented to a living, and built himself a house, which he described as "the ugliest in the county," but admitted by all critics to be "one of the most comfortable," though located "twenty miles from a lemon." Subsequently Smith left here for Somersetshire.

SCARBOROUGH AND WHITBY.

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.

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.