Part 6

The road rising out of Went Bridge runs between the jagged rocks of a cutting made in the last years of the coaching age to lighten the pull up, but still it is a formidable climb. This is followed by a hollow where a few outlying houses of Darrington village are seen, and then the bleak high tableland is reached that has to be traversed before the road drops down into the valley of the Aire at Ferrybridge, that now dull and grimy town which bears no appearance of having had an historic past. Yet Ferrybridge was the scene of the skirmish that heralded the battle of Towton, and stands in the midst of that mediæval cockpit of England, wherein for centuries so many rival factions contended together. Near by is Pontefract, in whose castle Richard the Second met a mysterious death, and not far off lies Wakefield. Towton Field itself lies along the Tadcaster route to York. In every direction blood has been shed, for White Rose or Red, for King or Parliament; but Ferrybridge is anything but romantic to the eye, however greatly its associations may appeal to the well-stored mind. Coal-mining and quarrying industries overlie these things. The place-name explains the situation of the townlet sufficiently well, and refers to the first building of a bridge over the old-time ferry by which wayfarers crossed the Aire to Brotherton, on the opposite bank. It is quite unknown when the first bridge was built, but one existed here in 1461, the year when Towton fight was fought. This was succeeded by a wooden structure, itself replaced by the present substantial stone bridge, built at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This was always a troublesome part of the road to keep in repair, as we may judge from old records. A forty days’ indulgence was granted by the Bishop of Durham early in the fourteenth century to the faithful who would contribute to the repair of the road between Ferrybridge and Brotherton, in these words:—“Persuaded that the minds of the faithful are more ready to attach themselves to pious works when they have received the salutary encouragement of fuller indulgences, trusting in the mercy of God Almighty and the merits and prayers of the glorious Virgin his Mother, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and of the most holy confessor Cuthbert, our patron, and of all saints, we remit forty days of the penances imposed on all our parishioners and others, sincerely contrite and confessed of their sins, who shall help by their charitable gifts, or by their bodily labour, in the building or in the maintenance of the causeway between Brotherton and Ferrybridge, where a great many people pass by.”

Let us hope that the pious, thus incited to the commission of good works, responded. It was a more serious matter, however, in later ages, when a great many more people passed by, and when road-surveyors, unable to dispense these ghostly favours, repaired the roads only at the pecuniary expense of the ratepayers. These Yorkshire streams, the Aire, the Wharfe, and many others, descending from the high moorlands, develop an extraordinary force in times of flood, and have often destroyed half the communications of these districts. Such was the havoc wrought in 1795 that many of the bridges were washed away and great holes made in the roads. Three bridges on this road between Doncaster and Ferrybridge disappeared. With such perils threatened, travellers deserved to be comfortably housed when they lay by for the night. And comfort was the especial feature of these inns.

The most luxurious inn and posting-house in the north of England was held to be the “Swan” at Ferrybridge; “in 1737 and since the best inn upon the great northern road,” according to Scott. However that may have been, certainly the “Angel” at Ferry-bridge was the largest. Both, however, have long since been given up. The many scattered buildings of the “Angel” have become private houses, and the “Swan,” empty for many years past, is falling into a roofless ruin by the riverside. Innkeeping was no mean trade in those times, especially when allied with the proprietorship of horses and coaches. Thus, in the flower of the coaching age, the “Angel” was in the hands of a medical man, a certain Dr. Alderson, the son of a local clergyman, who actually found time to attend properly to his practice and to conduct the business of a licensed victualler and coach-proprietor. He thought it not derogatory to his social position to be “mine host,” and he certainly made many friends by his enterprise. Ferrybridge, as the branching-off place of yet another Great North Road route—the Tadcaster route to York—was a very busy coaching centre, and besides the two inns mentioned there were the “Greyhound” and the “Golden Lion.” The last-named was especially the drovers’ house. Drovers were a great feature of the road in these old days, and their flocks and herds an unmitigated nuisance to all other travellers. Uncouth creatures from Scotland, they footed it all the way to London with their beasts, making their twenty miles a day; their sheep and cattle often numerous enough to occupy a whole mile of road, and raising dust-clouds dense enough to choke a whole district. It was, at the pace they went, a three weeks’ journey from the far north to London and the fat cattle that started on the four hundred miles walk must, with these efforts, have become the leanest of kine on arrival at Smithfield.

The “Old Fox” inn, which still stands on the other side of the river at Brotherton, was also a drovers’ place of call. It stands at the actual fork of the roads, eleven miles from Tadcaster, and twenty from York. The Edinburgh mail originally ran this way, finally changing to the Selby route, while the “Highflyer” and “Wellington,” London and Edinburgh and London and Newcastle, coaches kept on it until the end in 1840; but it was chiefly crowded with the cross-country coach traffic, which was a very heavy one.

The places are few and uninteresting on these twenty miles into York; Sherburn and Tadcaster—that town of ales—the chief of them; while the tiny godless village of Towton, without a church, on the way, is disappointing to the pilgrim, eager to see it for the sake of its association with the great battle. The road skirts the eastern side of that tragic field, after passing the hamlet of Barkston Ash.

XIII

THE battle of Towton, March 29, 1461, was the bloodiest ever fought on English ground, the slain on both sides in that desperate fight and in the skirmishes at Ferrybridge and Dintingdale amounting to more than 30,000 men. The events that had preceded it were alternately cheering and depressing to the hopes of the Yorkists, who had been defeated with great slaughter at Wakefield on the last day but one of the previous December, had gained the important victory of Mortimer’s Cross on the 2nd of February, and had been defeated again at the second battle of St. Albans on the 17th of the same month; and although on March 4th the young Duke of York had entered London and assumed the crown as Edward the Fourth, the Lancastrians still held the Midlands and, lying at York, interposed a bold front against an advance. It was a singular position. The Lancastrians had their headquarters at the city from which their opponents took their title, and two kings of England, equally matched in power, animated their respective adherents with the utmost loyalty.

After their victory at St. Albans the Lancastrians, exhausted, had retired to York, the south being as dangerous to a Lancastrian army as the north, loyal to the Red Rose, was to the Yorkists. The Yorkists, on their part, eager to enter London, did not pursue their rivals. Both sides required breathing time, for events had marched too rapidly in the past two months for the pace to be maintained. Still, the Yorkists were in force, three weeks later, at Pontefract, and threatening to cross the Aire at Ferrybridge, a strategic point on their contemplated line of advance to the city of York. It was here, early in the morning of the 28th, that the bloody prelude to the battle opened, in a sudden Lancastrian attack on the Yorkist outpost. Lord Fitzwalter, the Yorkist commander, lay asleep in bed at the time. Seizing a pole-axe at his sudden awakening, he was slain almost instantly, but his force, succeeding in driving the enemy across the river, took up a position at Brotherton, the Lancastrians falling back in disorder to Dintingdale, near Barkston Ash, where, later in the day, the Lancastrian, Lord Clifford, was slain by an arrow.

[Picture: Map of Battlefield of Towton and Surrounding Country]

The advance-guard of the Lancastrian army now fell back upon the main body, which took up a well-chosen position between the villages of Saxton and Towton, lying across a rising road which led out of the former place, and having on its right the steeply falling meadows leading down into the deep depression of Towton Dale, where the Cock Beck still wanders in far-flung loops in the flat lands below. On their left the ground stretched away for some distance and then fell gently towards the flats of Church Fenton.

[Picture: Saxton]

At their rear the road descended steeply again into Towton, while Tadcaster lay three miles and York eleven miles beyond. It was a position of great strength and one that could only possibly be turned from the left. The fatal defect of it lay in the chance, in the case of defeat, of the beaten army being disorganised by a retreat down so steep a road, leading as it did to the crossing of a stream swollen with winter rains.

In visiting this spot, we must bear in mind that the broad road from Ferrybridge to Tadcaster and York was not then in existence. The way lay across the elevated land which, rising from Barkston Ash towards Saxton, reaches to a considerable height between that village and Towton. From this commanding spot the valleys of the Wharfe and Ouse lie plainly unfolded, and the towers of York itself may be seen on the skyline, on the verge of this wide expanse of meadows and woodlands.

The hedgerows on the way to the battle-field are remarkable for the profusion of briar roses that grow here in place of the more usual blackberry brambles and thorns, and Bloody Meadow, the spot where the thickest of the fight took place, was until quite recently thickly overgrown with the red and white roses with which Nature had from time immemorial planted this scene of strife. Latterly they have all been grubbed up by farmers, keener on the purity of their grasslands than on historic associations.

[Picture: Towton Dale]

The main body of the Yorkists, advancing to Saxton, opened the attack on the Lancastrians early in the morning of Palm Sunday, the 29th. The centre of the fight was in the meadow on the left hand of the road leading towards Towton, a short distance beyond Towton Dale quarry. The Lancastrians numbered 60,000 men, the Yorkists 48,600. For ten hours the furious encounter raged, “sore fought, for hope of life was set aside on every part.” Six years’ warfare, from 1455, when the first battle of St. Albans had been fought, had rendered the enemies implacable. Almost every combatant had already lost kinsfolk, and intense hatred caused the order on both sides that no quarter was to be given and no prisoners taken. The day was bitterly cold, and snowstorms swept the upland, driving in the faces of the Lancastrians with such blinding fury that their arrows, shot in reply to the Yorkist volleys, could not be properly aimed, and so missed their mark. A hand-to-hand encounter with swords and battle-axes then followed, obstinately fought, but resulting practically in the butchery of the Lancastrians, for nearly the half of their whole force were slain or met their death either in Towton Dale or at the crossing of the stream down the road past Towton Hall. The rest fled to Tadcaster and on to York, where Henry the Sixth, the Queen, and the young Prince of Wales were waiting the result of the fight. They left immediately, and the victorious Duke of York entered the ancient city.

Many proud nobles fell that day with the men-at-arms; among others, Lord Dacre, fighting for the Red Rose, shot by a boy concealed in what the country people call a “bur-tree,” that is to say, an elder. He lies buried in the churchyard of Saxton, on the north side of the church, under a much-mutilated altar-tomb, whose inscription refers to him as “verus miles”—a true knight. Tradition yet tells of his death, in the local rhyme:—

The Lord of Dacres Was slain in the North Acres,

fields still known by that name. Many grave mounds remain in Bloody Meadow, where a rude cross leans, half hidden under a tangled hedge; and in 1848, during some excavations in Saxton churchyard, a stratum of bones, four feet in thickness, was exposed, the poor relics of those who fell in the great fight. Others still are said to have been buried in the little chapel of Lead, a mile away, by the banks of the Cock, whose stream ran red that day. A few stones at the back of Towton Hall mark the place where a votive chapel was erected, where prayers might be said for the souls of the dead, whose numbers on both sides are said by one authority to have reached 36,776.

[Picture: Lead Chapel]

Relics have been found on the battle-field. Many years ago a wandering antiquary found a farmer’s wife breaking sugar with a battle-axe discovered in the river. She did not know what it was, but he did, and secured it. It is now at Alnwick Castle. In 1785 was found a gold ring which had belonged to the Earl of Northumberland, who was carried mortally wounded from the field. It weighs an ounce, and bears the Percy Lion, with inscription, “Now ys thus.” Another interesting and pathetic find was a spur, engraved with “En loial amour, tout mon coer,” the relic of some unknown knight.

XIV

IT is a wild, weird kind of country upon which we enter, on the way from Brotherton to Aberford and the North. Away to the left suddenly opens a wide valley, in an almost sheer drop from the road, looking out upon illimitable perspectives. Then comes Fairburn, followed by what used to be Peckfield Turnpike, where the “Boot and Shoe” inn stands at the fork of the roads, and where the Leeds and London “Royal Mail,” “Rockingham,” and “Union Post” coaches turned off. Micklefield, two miles beyond, approached by a fine avenue of elms, is an abject coal-mining village, and hauling-gear, smoke, and the inky blackness of the roads emphasise the fact, even if the marshalled coal-wagons on the railway did not give it insistence. Coming up the craggy rise out of Micklefield and its coal, on to Hook Moor, one of the finest stretches of the road, _quâ_ road, brings the traveller past the lodge-gates of Parlington Park and the oddly ecclesiastical-looking almshouses beyond, down into the stony old village of Aberford, which lies in a depression on the Cock Beck. Beyond the village, on journeying towards it, one sees the long straight white road ascending the bastioned heights of windy Bramham Moor; and the sight clinches any half-formed inclination to rest awhile at Aberford before climbing to that airy eminence.

Aberford still seems to be missing its old posting and coaching traffic, and to be awaiting the return of the days when the Carlisle and Glasgow mail changed at the “Swan,” a fine old inn, now much shrunken from its original state. Stone-quarrying and the neighbouring coal-mines keep the village from absolutely decaying; but it still lives in the past. The picturesque old settles and yawning fireplaces of the “Swan,” and of that oddly-named inn, the “Arabian Horse,” eloquent of the habits of generations ago, survive to show us what was the accommodation those old inns provided. If more primitive, it was heartier, and a great deal more comfortable than that of modern hotels.

By the churchyard wall stands part of the old Market Cross, discovered by the roadside and set up here in 1911; with the “Plague Stone” in whose water-filled hollow purchasers placed their money, so that the sellers might not risk infection.

A ruined windmill of strange design, perched on the hillside road behind the village, is the best point whence to gain an idea of the country in midst of which Aberford is set. It is boldly undulating country, hiding in the folds of its hills many old-world villages. Chief among them, two miles off the road, is Barwick-in-Elmete—_i.e._ in the elm country—with its prehistoric mounds and the modern successor of an ancient maypole, set up in the village street by the cross, presented in May 1898 by Major-General Gascoigne, of Parlington Park.

[Picture: Ruined Mill, Overlooking Aberford]

The road two miles out of Aberford reaches that home of howling winds, that most uncomfortable and undesirable place, Bramham Moor. Here, where the Bramham Moor inn stands at the crossing of the Leeds and York road, a considerable traffic enlivened the way until eighty years ago. Since that time the broad roadways in either direction have been empty, except when the hounds meet here in the hunting season, when, for a brief hour, old times seem come again. It was along this cross-road that “Nimrod,” that classic coaching authority, travelled in 1827, his eagle eye engaged in criticism of the Yorkshire provincial coaches.

[Picture: Barwick-in-Elmete]

The rustical driver of the Leeds to York stage, happily, did not know who his passenger was. Let us hope he never saw the criticism of himself, his coach and horses, and everything that was his, which appeared shortly afterwards in the _Sporting Magazine_. Everything, says “Nimrod,” was inferior. The man who drove (he scorns, you see, to call him a coachman) was more like a Welsh drover than anything else. The day was cold, but he had neither gloves, boots, nor gaiters. However, he conducted the coach only a ten miles’ stage, and made up with copious libations of gin for the lack of warm clothing. On the way he fell to bragging with his box-seat passenger of the hair’s-breadth escapes he had experienced when driving one of the Leeds to London opposition coaches; and “Nimrod,” complimenting him on the skill he must have shown on those occasions, he proceeded to give a taste of his quality, which resulted in his getting the reins clubbed and a narrow escape from being overturned. “Nimrod” soon had enough of it, and at the first opportunity pretended to be ill and went inside, as being the least dangerous place. Arriving at Tadcaster, ten miles from York, the door was opened, and “Please to remember the coachman” tingled in the ears of the passengers. “What now,” asked “Nimrod,” “are you going no farther?” “No, sir, but ah’s goes back at night,” was the Yorkshireman’s answer. “Then you follow some trade here, of course?” continued the great coaching expert. “No, sir,” said a bystander, “_he has got his horses to clean_.” Fancy a coachman, even if only of that inferior kind, who could not be called anything better than “the man who drove,”—fancy a coachman seeing to his own horses. “Nimrod” was properly shocked at this, and with memories of coaching nearer London, with stables and yards full of ostlers and helpers, and the coachmen, their drinking done, flirting with the Hebes of the bar, could only say, with a gasp, “Oh! that’s the way your Yorkshire coaching is done, is it?”

He then saw his fellow-passengers pull out sixpence each and give it to the driver, who was not only satisfied, but thankful. This also was a novelty. Coachmen were, in his experience, tipped with florins and half-crowns, nor even then did they exhibit symptoms of thankfulness, but took the coin as of right. “What am I to do?” “Nimrod” asked himself; “I never gave a coachman sixpence yet, and I shall not begin that game to-day.” So he “chucked” him a “bob,” which brought the fellow’s hat down to the box of the fore-wheel in gratitude.

With a fresh team and another driver the journey was continued to York. About half-way, the coach stopped at a public-house, in the old style; the driver got down, the gin bottle was produced, and, looking out of the window, “Nimrod” was surprised to see the man whom he had thought was left behind at Tadcaster. “What, are you here?” he asked. “Why, yes,” answered the man; “’tis market-day at York, and ah’s wants to buy a goose or two.” “Ah,” observed “Nimrod,” “I thought you were a little in the huckstering line.”

XV

BRAMHAM MOOR leads down into Bramham village, past the Park, where a ruined manor-house, destroyed by fire, stands amid formal gardens and looks tragical. The place wears the aspect of romance, and seems an ideal home for the ideal Wicked Squire of Early Victorian novels. Lord Bingley, who built it and laid out the grounds in the time of Queen Anne, was not more wicked than the generality of his contemporaries, but here are all the “properties” with which those novelists surrounded the cynical deceivers of innocence, who stalked in inky cloaks, curly hats, and tasselled riding-boots through their gory pages. Here is Lord Bingley’s Walk, an avenue of gigantic beeches where he did not meet the trustful village maiden, as he ought to have done, by all the rules; here also is the obelisk at the suggestively named Blackfen, whence twelve avenues diverge—where no tattered witch ever cursed him, so far as can be ascertained. Lord Bingley evidently did not live up to the possibilities of the place, or of his station, nor did those who came after him, for no horrid legend is narrated with bated breath in Bramham village, which lies huddled together in the hollow below the park, the world forgetting, and by the world forgot, ever since that leap year, 1408, when on the 29th of February the Earl of Northumberland, rebelling against Henry the Fourth, was defeated and slain by Sir Thomas Rokeby at the battle of Bramham Moor.

[Picture: Moor End]

Rising steeply out of Bramham and coming to the crest at Moor End, where the road descends long and continuously to Wetherby and the river Wharfe, we come to what used to be regarded as the half-way town between London and Edinburgh. The exact spot, where a milestone told the same tale on either face, is, in fact, one mile north, where the “Old Fox” inn stands. This was, of course, the most noted landmark on the long road, and the drovers who journeyed past it never failed to look in at the “Old Fox” and “wet their whistles,” to celebrate the completion of half their task. At Wetherby itself the “Angel” arrogated the title of “half-way house,” and was the principal coaching inn. It still stands, like its rival, the “Swan and Talbot,” smaller than of yore, the larger portion of its stables now converted into cottages. At the “Angel” the down London and Glasgow mail dined, with an hour to spare; the up coach hurrying through to its change at Aberford. Wetherby was a change for the stage-coaches, which ran the whole seventeen miles to Ferrybridge with the same teams; a cruelly long and arduous stretch for the horses.

[Picture: Nineveh]

This is a hard-featured, stony town; still, as of old, chiefly concerned with cattle-raising and cattle-dealing, and crowded on market-days with farmers and drovers driving bargains or swearing at the terrified efforts of beasts and sheep to find their way into the shops and inns. Down on the southern side of the town runs the romantic Wharfe, between rocky banks, hurrying in swirling eddies towards its confluence with the Ouse, below Tadcaster; and on to the north goes the road, through the main street, on past the conspicuous spire of Kirk Deighton church, coming in three miles to Walshford, where a bridge crosses the rocky, tree-embowered Nidd, and that old posting-house, the comfortable-looking “Walshford Bridge Inn,” stands slightly back from the road, looking like a private mansion gone diffidently into business.