Part 10

His hurts do not seem to have permanently harmed him, for he lived forty years longer.

XXI

In the lowlands beneath Clifton stands Brougham Hall, and near it Brougham Castle, both beside the Eamont river. A good deal of the Hall is ancient, but most of the exterior, recased in a baronial way, looks like (what it is) an academic attempt at recovering the architectural style of the fourteenth century. When it is said that the work was done in the early part of the nineteenth century, it will be supposed, with a good deal of truth, that the result is dull and lifeless. Anciently the seat of the Broughams, it came at length to the Bird family, from whom the property was purchased in 1727 by the grandfather of the Lord Brougham who was Lord Chancellor and a great political figure in the days of George the Fourth, William the Fourth, and Queen Victoria. Dr. Granville, travelling hereabouts in the middle of the nineteenth century, sampling medicinal spas, looked upon the Hall with awe, as the residence of that statesman.

The Doctor cherished a remarkable veneration for that able, but eccentric personage, and was perhaps the only person to do so. Says he, “Like the Château de Vernet, Brougham Hall, when the grave shall have swept away prejudices and political animosities, will be visited by thousands, eager to behold the _château_ of the English Voltaire; he who, to the encyclopædic knowledge and pungent wit of the French philosopher, joined the impassioned and fiery eloquence of Mirabeau.” Thus the enthusiastic Granville.

[Sidenote: _LORD BROUGHAM_]

Eloquence? Brougham could tear a passion to tatters with any one, but he ranted. It is true that the post-boys used to drive the chaises of travellers in these regions somewhat out of the direct road, in order to glimpse the residence of Lord Brougham; but those travellers viewed the place, and Brougham himself, with curiosity, just as one might an Icelandic geyser, to which, indeed, he is not inaptly to be compared. His spoutings were as plentiful and as hot.

Not every one looked upon Brougham with awe, as the caricatures of his grotesque physiognomy prove. Jemmy Anderson, a well-known post-boy in this district, was not abashed by him; but then post-boys venerated no one. It was in the days when the future Lord Chancellor was still Mr. Henry Brougham, Q.C., that Jemmy Anderson drove him, post, from Shap to Penrith, and “took him down” an unwonted peg. Jemmy jogged quietly along at about seven miles an hour, mounted upon an almost broken-down wheeler, until the fiery spirit within the post-chaise could stand it no longer. Letting down the front window the future Lord Chancellor vociferated: “Post-boy, I shan’t give you a farthing, for you have driven me like a snail.” “Indeed,” replied the shrewd Cumbrian, “thee wunna gie me a farden, wunna thee? Then ah’ve coomed far enow for nowt!” With that he slowly dismounted and began to detach his horses from the chaise, until an appealing voice from within led to a compromise, by which the angry lawyer, who had been specially retained to appear in a _cause célèbre_ at Penrith, capitulated, and upon paying his money down—upon which the offended post-boy insisted—Jemmy Anderson was persuaded to finish the stage.

The Brougham family, still owning the Hall, trace their descent from Saxon times, and one of their ancestors, referred to as “Brum,” fortified his residence here so long ago as 1284.

An early ancestor was Udard De Broham, a crusader, who died in 1185. “His soul is with the saints, we trust”; but his skull, ravished from his grave in Brougham Church, grins from its glass case in the Hall, and his trusty sword, that had been buried with him, is near by. It was in 1846, when repairs were in progress at the church, that the skeleton of Udard was discovered, beneath the inscribed slab pictured here, a mere two feet deep. He had been laid here cross-legged and spurred on one heel. With him had been buried a fragment of glass of Phœnician manufacture, blue inside, but externally patterned in black and white stripes not unlike the striped peppermint sweets still dear to rural youth. This was considered a talisman, or luck-compelling object, in the superstitious age in which Udard flourished, and was doubtless brought by him from Palestine and buried with him as his most prized possession.

Nine ancient De Brohams in all were discovered at this time, including the remains of Gilbert, son of Udard, a man of gigantic size, who died in 1230. A curious enamelled metal circlet, of beautiful workmanship, and in perfect preservation, lay beside him; and his grave was duly rifled of it.

[Sidenote: _ANN CLIFFORD_]

But Brougham Castle is finer than the Hall, or than memories of De Brohams. Brougham derives its name, down the long alleys of time, from _Brovacum_, a Roman station in these outposts of the Roman dominion, thickly studded with such. And a military post of the first importance it continued to be until the time of Henry the Fourth. Normans built the keep of the old castle, and the families of Vipont and De Clifford added to it, and held the marchlands against the Scots, or warred for or against their sovereigns, with more or less success, until their line ended in a woman: the famous Ann Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, who was as good a man as any. She was born in 1590, and enjoyed length of days and strength of mind during the whole of them, dying at last in 1676. Marrying twice, and unhappily on both occasions, she was twice widowed, and left with an only daughter. Upon her second widowhood she retired to these scenes of her youth, and busied herself in rebuilding her ancient and ruined castles of Brougham, Appleby, Skipton, Bardon Tower, Pendragon, and Brough; together with the restoration of numerous churches, and the erection of monuments to various people, including herself. She was as ceaseless and busy a builder as old Bess of Hardwick herself, and an imperious and masterful old lady who even withstood Cromwell. He declared he would ding down her castles as soon as she built them up, but she merely replied that they would be rebuilt every time, and Cromwell was obliged to give in. “Let her build an she will, for me” he said, and build she accordingly did. She is described as having been a “perfect mistress of forecast and aftercast,” who “knew well how to converse of all things, from predestination to slea-silk;” and she certainly was tenacious of her rights, or what she conceived to be her rights; being as remarkable a litigant as she was a builder. By all accounts, she was nothing less than an unmitigated terror, and the plain man, who reads of her autocratic ways, is apt to think that the unhappiness of her marriages was felt by her husbands a good deal more than by herself.

[Sidenote: _THE CASTLE-BUILDER_]

We know a great deal about this extraordinary woman, for among her activities was the writing, at tremendous length, about herself and her ancestors; and in those pages she dwells with an amusing complacency upon the early beauties of her face, her form, and mind.

It was in 1652 that she so thoroughly repaired Brougham Castle, making it afterwards her principal residence; but the day of castles was done, and, as she really must have foreseen, her works were left, after her death, to decay. Her only daughter had married the Earl of Thanet, who in 1728 caused the most part of Brougham Castle to be demolished, and the materials sold. And here it stands to-day, a roofless shell.

“Thys made Roger” are the words boldly carved over the gateway; telling us that the first Lord Clifford was the great builder of the castle. His grandson added largely to it; and a mighty place it must have been. Cliffords of Brougham and a dozen other strongholds dared with impunity what smaller men would have been ruined to attempt the tenth part of; and the messengers of Kings, sent with formidable sealed documents, have been set down to dine at Brougham Castle upon the wax and parchment of the commands they brought, and have made a hearty, but involuntary, meal upon those unappetising materials under the grim eyes of my lord, without wine to wash them down or condiment to flavour them withal.

And now the scene is merely the subject for an artist; and a beautiful subject, too. The old ruins stand in an ideal situation, in an undulating grassy meadow, sloping towards the sparkling Eamont, framed in with trees, and with distant mountains closing in the scene.

[Sidenote: _COUNTESS PILLAR_]

Such is the present condition of the old Countess Ann’s pride; but something of her passion for commemoration remains, not so far away, in the monument known in all this countryside as the Countess Pillar; built by her in 1656. It is adorned with her arms and those of allied families, and bears this inscription:

This Pillar was erected Anno 1656 by ye Rt. Hono^{ble} Anne Countess Dowager of Pembrook, daughter and sole heire of ye Rt. Hono^{ble} George, Earl of Cumberland, for a memorial of her last parting in this place with her good and pious mother, ye Rt. Hono^{ble} Margaret, Countes Dowager of Cumberland, ye 2^d of April, 1616, in memory whereof she also left an annuity of four pounds, to be distributed to ye poor within this parrish of Brougham euery 2^d day of April for euer vpon ye stone table here hard by.

LAUS DEO.

The Eamont, the Eden, and the Lowther were well guarded, as the fortified houses by the fords still prove. Yanwath Hall, an ancient home of the Threlkelds, is a fine example of a peel-tower added to and elaborated into a residence. It is one of the earliest and most interesting, having been built midway in the fourteenth century. The original tower, strong in its walls, six feet thick and embattled, stands fifty-five feet high and looks down into a courtyard, the barmkin, or inner bailey, where the ancient oaken, iron-banded, and studded doors and windows guarded by thick stanchions show how concerned the old owners were for their personal security in insecure times.

[Sidenote: _ASKHAM HALL_]

Cliburn, Sockbridge, and Barton Kirke were all fortified houses, disposed by these rivers like the castles upon a chess-board. Finest of these old fortified mansions is the romantically situated and picturesquely designed Askham Hall, now the rectory of Lowther, but situated in Askham village. It stands high above the wooded Lowther, foaming down among its rocks under Lowther Park, and was originally the castellated seat of the Sandford family. The front is dour and forbidding enough, and the interior, although oak panelled and converted into a residence after the ideas that were modern two hundred and fifty years ago, does not commend itself as a cheerful residence. But the additions made at the side by Thomas Sandford in 1574 are exquisitely sketchable. They comprise a gatehouse and outbuildings enclosing a courtyard. The drip-moulding over the archway is in a peculiar style, resembling a cable; its ends finished off in the likeness of ammonites. Over the arch are the Sandford arms, with those of Crackanthorpe and Lancaster of Howgill, and this inscription, done in letters run oddly together:

Thomas · Sandford · Esqvyr, Forthys · payd · meatahyr[1] The · year · of · ovr · Savyore XV · hvndreth · seventyfovr.

The Sandfords ended at last, after three hundred years, in 1680.

XXII

Returning to the road from these quests, the Lowther is crossed at Lowther Bridge. Beside the river and immediately skirting the road, is the earthwork known as “King Arthur’s Round Table,” an ancient raised platform whose purpose can only be guessed at. Not King Arthur, but the Norse settlers, are held to have been the originators of it, as the stage whereon their rude displays of arms were held: in particular a duel known as “holmegang,” a species of gladiatorial combat in which the opponents were armed with knives, bound together, and then compelled to fight to the death. Such are the fearful memories of this now peaceful scene. On the opposite side of the road, within a belt of trees, is an arena ascribed to the no less tragical rites of the Druids.

King Arthur is further celebrated in a huge circular red sandstone tank standing in the yard of the “Crown” inn, adjoining. It is known locally as “King Arthur’s Drinking Cup,” and has a capacity of about eighty gallons, sufficient to quench the thirst, not merely of King Arthur, but of a megatherium. But quite apart from any wildly absurd legends, the thing is astonishing in these days of zinc cisterns. Who so painfully scooped this tank out of a solid block of stone, and when, and how long the work occupied him, are alike unknown.

[Sidenote: _EAMONT BRIDGE_]

On the embankment enclosing the prehistoric camp there has been placed in the last few years a monument, in the shape of an Iona cross, to the patriotism of four natives of Eamont Bridge. But let the inscription on the cross itself tell the tale: “At that crisis in the history of the Empire, when volunteers were invited for active service in the South African War, this village of Eamont Bridge sent four: John Hindson, William Todd, and Arthur Warwick, of the 24th Coy. (Westmoreland and Cumberland) Imperial Yeomanry, and William Hindson, of the Volunteer Coy. of the Border Regt. Of these John Hindson and William Todd were killed in action at Faber’s Put, 30th May, 1900. This monument was erected by public subscription on this historic spot granted by Lord Brougham and Vaux, 1901. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._”

The old bridge, built in 1425, spanning the Eamont River, has given its name to the village that has in the course of years sprung up here. It is a small, scattered place, but some of the houses are old, and several bear inscriptions. “Omne solum forti patria est,” says one, with initials “H. P.” and date “1671” appended. “H. P.” was evidently a student of Ovidius Naso.

The road over Eamont Bridge is very steep and narrow and the ascent beyond it steeper still; so that the stranger, observing the fury with which the drivers of the excursion wagonettes and motor chars-a-banc take the ascents and descents on their wild way to and from Penrith and Ullswater, confidently expects an accident “while he waits.” But whether it be skill, or luck, the accidents do not happen, and expectant strangers, to have their expectations realised, would have to wait on the spot until the moss grew on them.

According to the writers of guide-books, there may be found, carved on the parapet of the bridge, the hospitable phrase, “Welcome into Cumberland.” You, in fact, in crossing it leave Westmoreland for Cumberland, and, having read so much of this kindly sentiment, you seek diligently for the inscription. Alas! in vain. There is not, nor was there ever, anything of the kind. Instead, what meets your eye is an inn whose sign, “The Welcome into Cumberland,” is adorned with a representation of pipes and punch-bowl, and with a weird picture of a Personage—he must be a Personage, for he wears frock-coat and silk hat—effusively greeting a Highlander arrayed in full Highland fig. Each looks astonished at the other, and the pilgrim of the roads, gazing fascinated, is astonished at both. This, then, is the “Welcome,” and one by no means so disinterested as you were led to expect. Another vanished illusion!

Even the inn bears its moral tag, for over the door you read “Struimus in Diem, sed Nox venit,” with the date “MDCCXVII,” and the names of Nathan and Elizabeth Gower. One “R. L. Wharton” appears to have endorsed the sentiment (having duly inquired what the Latin meant) and subscribed his name and the date 1781, in approval.

XXIII

[Sidenote: _PENRITH_]

Penrith derives its name, originally Pen-rhydd; “the red hill,” from Beacon Hill, 937 feet high, under whose shelter this place of narrow and huddled streets lies. The Beacon Hill was in the old days a protection to the surrounding country, for from its crest flared those warning flames that advised many a mile of threatened Westmoreland of the approach of the invading Scots.

But although Penrith is sheltered by its great godfather hill, it was never at any time effectually protected against the invader. Carlisle, eighteen miles away to the north, was its great bulwark, and if that fortified city fell, or were cleverly avoided, then the case of Penrith was sorry indeed, as in the notable instance of 1345, when the Scots, numbering 26,000 men, came pouring across the Border, and burnt the town and many neighbouring villages; taking prisoners with them, on their return, as many hale and hearty men as they could find, to be sold as slaves to the highest bidders. Such was life on the Borders in the fourteenth century, and, reading these things, we are inclined to agree with Taylor the “Water-poet’s” conclusion:

Whoso then did in the Borders dwell Lived little happier than those in Hell.

The next year, the remaining inhabitants of Penrith, graciously permitted by the King to protect themselves, built a communal castle, and each townsman, so far as was possible to him, rebuilt his own dwelling-house in a strong and defensible way. Hence the grim, thick-walled houses that even now line many of the narrow streets.

That the Castle was at least once rebuilt seems certain. One of these rebuildings was that by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, before he became that inimical character of history, Richard the Third, was Governor of these marches, and resided here in every circumstance of magnificence. Now the place is a ruin, a condition it owes to the Penrith people themselves, who early in the time of Queen Elizabeth considered they had a more pressing need for a prison than for a fortress, and accordingly with thirty loads of stone, erected a very secure, if not very comfortable, gaol. At the same period, Robert Bartram, a merchant of the town, built himself a house from the same materials; and there it stands to this day in the churchyard, inscribed “R. B., 1563.”

There is thus nothing pictorial in the bare, roofless red walls of the Castle. It has little, or no story, and stands in the unromantic neighbourhood of the railway station, in a lofty situation on a hilltop above the town.

[Sidenote: _THE “GLOUCESTER ARMS”_]

The Duke of Gloucester, although he rebuilt the Castle, is chiefly associated with a much more sheltered situation, in the town itself. There were intervals between the acts of even Richard the Third’s melodrama, when, turning from battle, and from compassing the death of his relatives, he sought repose and refreshment, and he found them here in what must have been the exceedingly comfortable quarters of what was once Dockwray Hall, an ancient building that stands in the square called Great Dockwray, and is now, in memory of him, the “Gloucester Arms” inn.

The old house does not wear so prepossessing an exterior as, under these historic circumstances, it should. That is largely due to its stucco facing, painted the colour of decaying liver. The only exterior sign of the house being anything out of the ordinary is the carved and emblazoned shield over the door, displaying the arms of Richard himself, supported by two white boars with gilded manes. Another doorway has a shield with three greyhounds, “in pale, courant,” as a herald would say, and the inscription “I. W., 1580:” the initials standing for “John Whelpdale,” who made extensive alterations to the building.

The pilgrim who sups not merely on gross food and drink, but feeds the finer tissues of his being on historic scenes and antique panelled rooms, will find much delight in the “Gloucester Arms.” He may sleep where that gory Richard slept—and, it may be hoped, with a better conscience, and may look upon a banqueting-hall, now unfortunately subdivided, wherein our ancestors feasted on swans and other curious dishes long obsolete, washed down with nasty drinks unknown to the present age.

Equally interesting is the old “Two Lions” inn near by. It looks out up the street in a shy manner, being hidden upon a narrow entry, in a fashion that to a southron seems a strangely retiring pose for an ancient mansion of the landed classes; a complexion from which, in fact, the house has, since ancient times, declined. Time was—in the reign of the more or less good Queen Bess, to be precise—when what is now the “Two Lions” was the “town house” of Gerard Lowther, a notable member of the always rich and powerful Lowther family; and little though the exterior may attract, there is a very wealth of interest within. The fireplace of the hall has three heraldic shields, and the banqueting-room, now the smoking-room, has an enriched plaster ceiling, dated 1585 and displaying ten shields of the arms of Lowthers and allied families. In an upstairs room is another ceiling heraldically adorned with the arms of Lowther and Dudley, dated 1586, and with the initials of Gerard Lowther himself and Lucy, his wife. More to the purpose of the smaller tradesmen of Penrith, who are the chief frequenters of the “Two Lions,” is the fine bowling-green—bowling rhyming with “howling,” in the speech of the older folk—at the back of the house.

[Sidenote: _PENRITH CHURCH_]

There is not much left of the ancient church of Penrith, beside its Gothic tower, for the body of the building dates only from 1722, and is in a classic style that seems rank heresy in a place so historic as this. Not even the monolithic Ionic columns of red marble that decorate the interior, nor the ornate gilded chandeliers presented by the Duke of Portland, in recognition of the loyalty of Penrith in 1745, can compensate the stranger for the loss; although, to be sure, the townsfolk are inordinately proud of them. But there are many ancient monuments in the church, and some interesting fragments of stained glass that have escaped destruction. Among them is represented golden-haired Cicely Neville, youngest of all the two-and-twenty children of Henry Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. This is that “Proud Cis of Raby” who was wife of Richard, Duke of York, and mother of Edward the Fourth and Richard the Third. Here, too, is seen a plaguey ill-favoured stained-glass “likeness” of Richard the Second, with hair of an unpleasant canary-yellow and a couple of chin-sprouts of the same colour.

[Sidenote: _THE “GIANT’S GRAVE”_]

Still upon three sides of the church-tower you see sculptured the “bear and ragged staff” device of the great Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, who in his time was lord of Penrith, and rebuilt the upper stage of the tower; but undoubtedly the chief interest—and mystery—of the spot is the so-called “Giant’s Grave,” in the churchyard. No one knows who rests here, but for choice it is the grave of a chief among those Scandinavian settlers who established themselves in these northern counties in the tenth century. Legend, of course, steps in to explain that of which archæology is ignorant. The invincible hardihood of legends is such as to command the astonished respect of the calmest mind; and here we are bidden by old folk-lore to look upon the grave of one Sir Hugh Cæsarius, a man of colossal proportions, but as big-hearted, metaphorically, as he was high, who cleared the surrounding Inglewood Forest of the wild boars that were a terror to the people, at some period not specified. The tall grey sandstone pillars that stand over his grave, at a distance apart of fifteen feet, are supposed to mark his height, and are covered with Runic devices, greatly defaced and pitifully weather-worn. Rude hunch-backed stones between them are popularly supposed to represent the backs of boars.