Part 15

A pleasant meadow walk by the riverside leads to Leathley, which has a Norman church, but can scarcely be called a village, for there is no inn. A formidable pair of stocks stand ready by the churchyard; but as nothing stronger than milk can be procured, they have not been worn out with too much work. Again, at Weston on the other side of the Wharfe river we come across the roadside stocks (like the usual Yorkshire type, with two uprights of stone) by the spreading roots of an ancient tree. Weston Hall is a long low Tudor building, with at one end a broad bay of three storeys. An old banqueting-house in the grounds is ornamented with shields of arms; and formerly the windows of it were full of heraldic stained glass, some of which is now in the windows of the Hall. From here we went northwards in search of Swinsty Hall, over a lonely moorland district. The road goes up and up until you are not surprised when you come to a signpost pointing to "To Snowdon." To the left, you are told, leads to "Blubberhouses," wherever that may be. For preference we chose the latter road, and soon got completely lost in the wilds. The only sign of civilisation was a barn, where we had the fortune to find an old man who presumably spoke the pure dialect, for we couldn't make head or tail of it. "Swinsty--ai, you go on ter road until it is," was the direction he gave, and we went on and until it _wasn't_. At length, however, after plodding knee deep in marshy land and saturated heather, we found the object of our search perched in a lonely meadow above a wide stretch of water. It looked as if it had a gloomy history; and no wonder that some of the upper rooms are held in awe, for there the ghost of a person with the unromantic name of Robinson is said to count over his ill-gotten gains, which he brought down from London in waggons when the Plague of 1666 was raging. He had the good fortune to escape contamination, and once back with his plundered wealth he meant to have what nowadays we call "a good time"; but the story has a moral, for it got winded abroad how he got his gold, and nobody would have anything to do with him or his money, and by the irony of fate he had to spend the rest of his days in trying to wash away the germs of infection.

The hall is entered through a spacious porch in the roof of which is hung an enormous bell. The room you enter is by no means gloomy. A carved oak staircase with balustrade of peculiar form leads to other rooms panelled to the ceiling, with fine overmantels. The leads of the small window-panes are of fanciful design; one bears the date 1627 and the initials I. W. H., and these occur again with the date 1639 in some oak carving in one of the bedrooms. A "well" stone staircase between rough-hewn stone walls leads up to the attics, which have open timber roofs with semicircular span to the main beams. They look as if they were but recently put up, so fresh does the wood look, and the pegs that join the timbers still protrude as if they had just been hammered in, and awaited the workman's axe to cut them level. A word upon the subject of these old roofs may not be out of place. When old houses are restored, of course it is the proper thing to open out an original timber roof where the original hall or chamber has been divided and partitioned, but in so many instances nowadays flat ceilings are removed to show the open timbers which were _never intended to be seen_. Bedrooms are thus made cold and bare, with not nearly enough protection from the draughts from the tiles. The attics at Swinsty are a proof of this, there being no great distance between the floor and the roof. Another thing, if the floors were done away with here, Mr. Robinson would have to come down a storey, and that is not desirable.

On the way to Swinsty, by the bye, a ruinous house is passed on the right about midway between there and Otley. It is of no great architectural interest, but is singular in construction, having a projecting turret containing a spiral staircase at the back, which presumably was the only entrance. It is lofty, and has square windows with a bay in the centre, but it is now only a shell. Mr. Ingram in his _Haunted Homes_ relates that Dob Park Lodge, as the place is called, is reputed to be haunted by a huge black dog who has the power of speech, and is said to watch over a hidden treasure in the vaults, like the dog with saucer eyes in Hans Andersen. The entrance to these is locally supposed to be somewhere at the foot of the winding stair, and so far only one person has ventured to explore the depths; but when he did, he actually saw a great chest of gold!--but then we must take into account that he was very drunk. Fewston village, not far from Swinsty, is picturesquely situated on a knoll above the lake or reservoir; but the church, mostly of William III.'s time, has nothing of interest save a few stalls and a pretty little font cover. The wooden spiked altar rails might almost be the palings of a suburban garden, whilst the crude square panes of red and blue of the chancel windows should be anywhere but in a church.

To the north-east is "Catch'em Corner"; but it is uncertain what is to be caught except a chill, for the position is very bleak. Striking northwards we get into the delightful Nidd valley. To the right lies Ripley, famous for the rood screen, the ancient glass, and Edwardian tomb of the Ingilbys of the castle, which Tudor structure surrendered to the Parliament a day or so before Marston Moor was fought. Here Cromwell is said to have sat up all night before the battle, hob-a-nob with his unwilling hostess.

Going northwards from Fewston, the prettiest part of the road to Pateley is struck near the village of Dacre. The romantic rocks and glens hereabouts are famous, and much frequented by tourists, consequently sixpences and threepences have to be frequently disbursed. The price is cheap enough, but the romance is spoiled. Hack Fall, near Masham, to the north-east, is as lovely a spot as one could wish to see, but there are too many signs of civilisation about. It is like taming a lion. The guide-book tells you to go along until you get to a "refreshment house," which almost reads like an advertisement in disguise.

There is a sculptured Saxon cross in Masham churchyard, and the church contains a fine monument to the Wyvells of Burton Constable manor, an old house near Finghall, to the north-west, where members of the family are also buried. The famous Jervaulx Abbey ruins nestle in a hollow on the right of the road to Middleham. When close upon it we asked the way of a yokel, but he shook his head; and then it dawned upon him what we meant: "It's Jarvey ye warnt," he said, and pointed straight ahead. Scott's worthy, Prior Aylmer, would surely beam with joy at the tender care bestowed upon the remains of the establishment over which he once presided; and the park might grace the finest modern dwelling, judging by the well-kept lawns and walks; but all this trimness looks less natural to a ruin than the more rustic surroundings of Easby, for example. The remains of the Cistercian monastery are rather fragmentary, consisting mainly of some graceful octagonal pillars and a row of lofty lancet windows in the wall of the refectory, and some round-headed arches of the chapter-house. It was destroyed in 1539, and the beautiful screen of the church carried off to Aysgarth, where it may now be seen.

Continuing along the road to Middleham, Danby Hall, the ancient seat of the Scropes, is seen in the distance on the right; but the river intervenes, and one has to go beyond East Witton before a crossing can be obtained. This village, built on either side of a wide green, has nothing out of the common except its Maypole and its very conspicuous Blue Lion rampant. A blue lion is a little change after the hackneyed red, and the beast looks proud of his originality. Witton probably was much prettier before the jubilee celebration of George III.'s reign, when the old church and most of the old houses were pulled down.

By the old grey bridge (with the pillar of a sundial in the centre, dated 1674) the Cover and Yore Rivers join hands with not a little fuss, like the enthusiasm of a new-made friendship. The road to Danby Hall runs level with the river then branches to the left. The mansion is Elizabethan; but the stone balustrade was added in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the small cupola-crowned towers were added subsequently. The oldest part is a square tower to the north-east, where, in the time of religious persecution, there was a small oratory or chapel for secret services. In the heraldic glass of the windows the ancient family of Scrope may be traced from Lord Scrope who fought at Flodden up to the present day, and their history may be followed by the portraits of the various generations on the walls. A curious discovery was made here in the early part of the last century. One of the chimneys in a stack of four could not be accounted for, and a plummet of lead was dropped down each of them, three of which found an outlet but the fourth could not be found. To get at the bottom of the mystery, a not too bulky party was lowered down, and he found himself in a small chamber full of long cut-and-thrust swords, flintlock pistols, and the ancient saddlery of untanned leather for a troop of fifty horse. Not much value was set upon such things in those days, so the harness was put to good account and utilised for cart-horse gear upon the farm. But the dispersal of the ancient weapons has a history too, for at the time that England was trembling with the fear of an invasion from the dreaded "Boney," a cottage caught light one night on one of the surrounding hills; and this being taken as a signal of alarm, the beacon on top of Penhill was fired. The terror-stricken villagers rushed everywhere for weapons, but none could be provided, and the good squire of Danby speedily distributed the secret store which had been hidden in the house for the Jacobite insurrection of 1715. In time the yokels returned, and there was a week's rejoicing and merry-making that the blazing beacon after all had only proved a flash in the pan. The pistols and swords, however, were not returned save one, which may still be seen with the armourer's marks on the blade, "Shotley" on one side and "Bridge" on the other.[32] Another has found its way into the little museum at Bolton Castle. In demolishing a cottage at Middleham it was discovered up in the thatch roof, where it was put, perhaps, pending another alarm. The hiding-place was converted into a butler's room by Major Scrope's grandfather.

Among the portraits are some good Lelys, including two of Sir Carr Scrope who was so enamoured of the Court physician's daughter.[33] Another Lely of a handsome girl is said to represent one of the Royalist Stricklands of Sizergh. Above the black oak staircase of James I.'s time hangs a rare portrait of Mary of Modena; for one seldom sees her when the beauty of youth had departed, for naturally she did not like to be handed thus down to posterity. The queen looks sour here, which tallies with the accounts we have of her in later life; but truly she had cause enough to make her sour.

From the Yore River the ground ascends to Middleham, now only a sleepy looking village but called a "town." Above the roof-tops at the summit of the hill stands the mediæval castle where resided in great pomp that turbulent noble, Warwick the "kingmaker." Here it was that he imprisoned Edward IV., the monarch he had helped to put upon the throne, for daring to marry the widowed daughter of Sir Richard Woodville in preference to a Nevill. When, the year after reinstating Henry VI. for a brief space, the great feudal baron ended his career on Barnet battlefield, his castle at Middleham was handed over by Edward to his brother Richard, who had also a claim upon it by his marriage with the "kingmaker's" daughter. Here "Crookback," or rather "Crouchback," was living before he usurped the Crown in 1483; and here his son the young Prince Edward died upon the first anniversary, as a providential punishment for the death of his little cousins in the Tower. Richard, by the way, is said to have had another natural son who lived into the reign of Edward VI. and died in a small house on the Eastwell estate near Wye in Kent. Richard Plantagenet's death is duly recorded in the parish register, distinguished by the mark of a V, which distinguishes other entries of those of noble birth, and a plain tomb in the chancel is supposed to be his place of interment. Until an old man he preserved his incognito, when Sir Thomas Moyle discovered that a mason at work upon his house was none other than a king's son. His youth had been spent under charge of a schoolmaster, who had taken him to Bosworth field and introduced him into Richard's tent. The king received him in his arms and told him he was his father, and if he survived the battle he would acknowledge him to be his son; but if fortune should go against him, he should on no account reveal who he was. On the following day in entering Leicester a naked figure lying across a horse's back was pointed out to him as the same great person whose star and gaiter had inspired him with awe.

The walls of the Norman castle keep are of immense thickness, and protected without by others almost as formidable of a later date. The great hall was on the first floor, and the tower where little Edward Plantagenet was born (the Red Tower) at the south-west corner; but tradition hasn't kept alive much to carry the imagination back to the time when the powerful Nevill reigned here in his glory. The escape of Edward IV. has been made realistic in the immortal bard's _King Henry VI._, and Scene v. Part iii. might be read in less romantic spots than in Wensleydale, with this grand old ruin standing out in the distance like one of Doré's castles. In this case, distance "lends enchantment," as Middleham itself is by no means lovely. The ancient market-cross would look far less commonplace and tomb-like were the top of it again knocked off. The site of the swine market bears the cognosance of "Crouchback," which is scarcely a compliment to his memory; but this antique monument is put vastly in the shade by a jubilee fountain, the only up-to-date thing in the place, and quite out of harmony with the ring where bulls were baited within living memory.

In Spennithorne church, near Middleham, there is an ancient altar-tomb of John Fitz-Randolph, of the family of the early lords of the castle before the Nevills became possessed of it. Along the font are several coloured shields of arms of the various families with whom they intermarried. The nave of the church has an odd appearance, as the north and south aisles are separated by a series of distinct arches, the latter Early English, the former pure Norman. A very interesting thirteenth-century screen was originally at Jervaulx Abbey. On the west wall there is a large fresco of Father Time, dating perhaps two hundred years later. The rector must be commended for hanging in his church a brief summary of the points of interest, and many might follow this laudable example.

Leyburn stands high among the hills, and must have been a picturesque old market-place before the ancient town-hall, market-cross, and two stately elms were removed. The great wide street has now a bare and by no means attractive appearance, and were it not for the lovely surroundings it would not form so popular a centre for exploring. The "Shawl," the huge natural terrace, on a rocky base high up above the tree-tops of the woods below, is, of course, its great feature, and a more delightful walk could not be found in England, with the softest turf to walk upon and the glorious panorama in front. Conspicuous among the heights is flat-topped Penhill, standing boldly out against the wide expanse of dale, upon whose crest are the ruins of a chapel of the old Knights Templars. A gap in the rock, with a path running westwards through the woods, is known as "Queen's Gap," for Mary Queen of Scots when she fled from Bolton Castle got thus far when she was overtaken in attempting to urge her horse through the narrow ravine. In consequence of this, the "Shawl" locally is said to derive its name from the shawl the prisoner dropped upon the way, giving her pursuers a clue; which on the face of it is ridiculous, as the name is derived either from the Saxon _Sholl_ or Scandinavian _Schall_. Bolton is some five miles away to the west, and the poor captive was to have gone northwards to Richmond and thence to her native land; and at Bellerby, between Richmond and Leyburn, a halt was to have been made at the Hall, the seat of the Royalist family of Scott, where a company of Scots guards was stationed ready to receive her. The old Hall still stands on the left-hand side of the village green as you enter, and looks as if it had a history.

At Bolton the window may be seen from which she was lowered to the ground, and one can trace the way she took in a north-easterly direction across the rocky bed of the rushing stream into the woods below the "Shawl." The window from which she escaped is the upper one of the three running horizontally with the south-western tower. There is another window to the prison-room which looks into the inner courtyard. The apartment is grim and bare, with a small fireplace, and steps leading down into a larger bare apartment, once the "drawing-room." Though externally the castle is not so picturesque as Middleham, it is much more perfect and interesting. The hooded stone fireplaces remain in the walls, and various rooms can be located, from the hall and chapel to the vault-like stables in the basement. The well, too, is perfect, with scooped-out wall to the upper chambers, not forgetting the awful dungeon in the solid rock. A large apartment with wide Tudor fireplace has been converted into a museum, and the curiosities are of a varied nature, from cocking spurs and boxing-gloves from the sporting centres of Leyburn and Middleham to the bull-fight banderillos of Spain. There is quite an assortment of weird-looking instruments of torture, which, after all, are only toasting-dogs, huge cumbrous things like antediluvian insects or much magnified microbes. How is it these appurtenances of domestic comfort have entirely died out like the now extinct warming-pan? But this museum can no way be compared with Mr. Home's wonderful collections at Leyburn. Here you can learn something about everything, for the kindly proprietor of the museum takes a pride in describing his curios. Those who have been to Middleham and seen the castle immortalised by Shakespere, may here study Edward IV.'s fair hair. As rare a curiosity is a valentine of the time of William III. From the treasures of Egyptian tombs you skip to the first invented matches; from Babylonian inscriptions to early-Victorian samplers. And the learned antiquarian relates how he was educated in the old Yore mill at Aysgarth by old John Drummond, the grandson of the Jacobite Earl of Perth, who had to hide himself in a farm in Bishopdale (How Rig) for his hand in the '45, when the Scotch estates were confiscated for aiding the cause of the Bonnie Prince. Were it not for Mr. Home's interest in old-time customs, the bull-ring in the market-place would have disappeared, for the socket was nearly worn through when he had it repaired. He relates how at the last bull-baiting the infuriated beast got away and sent the whole sportsmen flying, and at length was shot in Wensley village.

Wensley nestles in the valley, surrounded by hills. The interior of the church is rich in carvings from the ruinous abbey of Easby, near Richmond. The stalls from Easby have at the ends exceptionally bold and elaborate carvings with heraldic shields and arms, dating from the days of Edward IV. A nearly life-size brass, of the third Edward's time, is of its kind one of the finest in England,--an ecclesiastic in robes, with crossed hands pointing downwards. By the entrance door is a quaint old poor-box; but what first strikes the eye as you enter, is the parclose screen from Easby Abbey, which, ill fitting its confined space, partially blocks the windows; but the effect of the elaborate carving against the tracery is very striking. It is early-Tudor in date, and belonged to the Scrope chantry, whose arms appear upon it, with those of Fitz-Hugh, Marmion, and other noble families. Within this screen, evidently a good many years later, a manorial pew was made, the side of which is within the parclose. To amalgamate the two, the latter has been somewhat mangled, doors having been added, with a pendant aloft to balance other large hollow pendants in the various arches. Unfortunately the whole has been painted with a dull grey and grained, a feeble attempt to represent marble, and parts of it are also gilt. A fixed settle has been added to the interior, so unless carefully examined it is difficult to detect how the parclose and pew were made into one. The two-decker pulpit and the wide old-fashioned pews lined with faded green baize and pink rep, bring us back to more modern times; but one would be loath to see them removed if restoration funds were lavish. Beneath the great manorial pew lie at rest the remains of the daughter of the thirteenth Lord Scrope, who by marriage with the first Duke of Bolton brought the castle into the Poulett family: until then the Scropes had held possession through marriage with an heiress of the Nevills. The third wife of Charles Poulett, second Duke of Bolton, was Henrietta Crofts, the daughter of the Duke of Monmouth and Eleanor Needham.[34]

The Scrope who had charge of the Scots queen at Bolton Castle was Henry, the eleventh lord, whose wife was sister to the captive's plotting lover, the Duke of Norfolk, who also lost his head through these ambitious schemes; and doubtless it was the duke who contrived the queen's escape. She had been brought from the castle of Carlisle in July 1568, but after her attempt to escape was promptly removed (on January 26) to Tutbury Castle under charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The furniture of her private altar at Bolton, the altar-cloth, part of a rosary, a small bronze crucifix, and an alms-bag, are now preserved at Low Hall, Yeadon, mentioned earlier in this chapter. Her hawking gloves also: these are said to have been given to Lord Scrope upon her leaving.

Some miles to the west of Bolton is Nappa Hall (where the ancient family of Metcalfe lived since the reign of Henry VI., and where Metcalfes live to-day), a fortified manor-house with square towers (suggestive of Haddon), which also claims association with the unfortunate queen. By some accounts she slept here one night, by others two or more; and the tradition in the Metcalfe family says nine, in the highest chamber of the tallest tower. The date is not known, but probably she was brought here on her way from Carlisle Castle. The bed on which she slept, the top of which was very low, is now at Newby Hall, near Ripon. Our sanitary views being very distinct from those enlightened times, the pillars of these sixteenth-century beds are frequently raised (in some cases unnecessarily high), and unless one wished to be half-smothered, this is a natural thing to do if the bed is to be put to practical use; but nowadays the collectors of ancient furniture are again reducing the height, and bringing them down to their original proportions.