Part 13

"There had not long before been a secret negociation entered into between some of the Scottish and English nobility, to bring about a marriage between Mary Q. of Scots, at that time a prisoner in England, and the Duke of Norfolk, a nobleman of excellent character. This match was proposed to all the most considerable of the English nobility, and among the rest to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, two noblemen very powerful in the North. As it seemed to promise a speedy and safe conclusion of the troubles in Scotland, with many advantages to the crown of England, they all consented to it, provided it should prove agreeable to Queen Elizabeth. The Earl of Leicester (Elizabeth's favourite) undertook to break the matter to her, but before he could find an opportunity, the affair had come to her ears by other hands, and she was thrown into a violent flame. The Duke of Norfolk, with several of his friends, was committed to the Tower, and summons were sent to the Northern Earls instantly to make their appearance at court. It is said that the Earl of Northumberland, who was a man of a mild and gentle nature,[XX] was deliberating with himself whether he should not obey the message, and rely upon the Queen's candour and clemency, when he was forced into desperate measures by a sudden report at midnight, Nov. 14, that a party of his enemies were come to seize his person. The Earl was then at his house at Topcliffe in Yorkshire. When, rising hastily out of bed, he withdrew to the Earl of Westmoreland at Brancepeth, where the country came in to them, and pressed them to take up arms in their own defence. They accordingly set up their standards, declaring their intent was to restore the ancient Religion, to get the succession of the crown firmly settled, and to prevent the destruction of the ancient nobility, etc. Their common banner (on which was displayed the cross, together with the five wounds of Christ) was borne by an ancient gentleman, Richard Norton, Esquire, who, with his sons (among whom, Christopher, Marmaduke, and Thomas, are expressly named by Camden), distinguished himself on this occasion. Having entered Durham, they tore the Bible, etc., and caused mass to be said there; they then marched on to Clifford-moor near Wetherby, where they mustered their men.... The two Earls, who spent their large estates in hospitality, and were extremely beloved on that account, were masters of little ready money; the E. of Northumberland bringing with him only 8000 crowns, and the E. of Westmoreland nothing at all, for the subsistence of their forces, they were not able to march to London, as they had at first intended. In these circumstances, Westmoreland began so visibly to despond, that many of his men slunk away, though Northumberland still kept up his resolution, and was master of the field till December 13, when the Earl of Sussex, accompanied with Lord Hunsden and others, having marched out of York at the head of a large body of forces, and being followed by a still larger army under the command of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the insurgents retreated northward towards the borders, and there dismissing their followers, made their escape into Scotland. Though this insurrection had been suppressed with so little bloodshed, the Earl of Sussex and Sir George Bowes, marshal of the army, put vast numbers to death by martial law, without any regular trial. The former of these caused at Durham sixty-three constables to be hanged at once. And the latter made his boast, that for sixty miles in length, and forty in breadth, betwixt Newcastle and Wetherby, there was hardly a town or village wherein he had not executed some of the inhabitants. This exceeds the cruelties practised in the West after Monmouth's rebellion.

"Such is the account collected from Stow, Speed, Camden, Guthrie, Carte, and Rapin; it agrees, in most particulars, with the following Ballad, apparently the production of some northern minstrel.--

"Listen, lively lordings all, Lithe and listen unto mee, And I will sing of a noble earle, The noblest earle in the north countrie.

Earle Percy is into his garden gone, And after him walks his fair leddie: I heard a bird sing in mine ear, That I must either fight, or flee.

Now heaven forefend, my dearest lord, That ever such harm should hap to thee: But goe to London to the court, And fair fall truth and honestie.

Now nay, now nay, my ladye gay, Alas! thy counsell suits not mee; Mine enemies prevail so fast, That at the court I may not bee.

O goe to the court yet, good my lord, And take thy gallant men with thee; If any dare to do you wrong, Then your warrant they may bee.

Now nay, now nay, thou ladye faire, The court is full of subtiltie: And if I goe to the court, ladye, Never more I may thee see.

Yet goe to the court, my lord, she sayes, And I myselfe will ryde wi' thee: At court then for my dearest lord, His faithful borrowe I will bee.

Now nay, now nay, my ladye deare; Far lever had I lose my life, Than leave among my cruell foes My love in jeopardy and strife.

But come thou hither, my little foot-page, Come thou hither unto mee, To Maister Norton thou must goe In all the haste that ever may bee.

Commend me to that gentleman, And beare this letter here fro mee; And say that earnestly I praye, He will ryde in my companie.

One while the little foot-page went, And another while he ran; Untill he came to his journey's end, The little foot-page never blan.

When to that gentleman he came, Down he kneeled on his knee; And took the letter betwixt his hands, And lett the gentleman it see.

And when the letter it was redd, Affore that goodlye companie, I wis if you the truthe wold know, There was many a weeping eye.

He sayd, Come thither, Christopher Norton, A gallant youth thou seem'st to bee; What dost thou counsell me, my sonne, Now that good earle's in jeopardy?

Father, my counselle's fair and free; That erle he is a noble lord, And whatsoever to him you hight, I would not have you breake your word.

Gramercy, Christopher, my sonne, Thy counsell well it liketh mee, And if we speed and 'scape with life, Well advanced shalt thou bee.

Come you hither, my nine good sonnes, Gallant men I trowe you bee: How many of you, my children deare, Will stand by that good erle and mee?

Eight of them did answer make, Eight of them spake hastilie, O Father, till the day we dye We'll stand by that good erle and thee.

Gramercy, now, my children deare, You shew yourselves right bold and brave, And whethersoe'er I live or dye, A father's blessing you shall have.

But what say'st thou, O Francis Norton, Thou art mine eldest sonne and heire: Somewhat lies brooding in thy breast; Whatever it bee, to mee declare.

Father, you are an aged man, Your head is white, your beard is gray; It were a shame at these your years For you to ryse in such a fray.

Now fye upon thee, coward Francis, Thou never learned'st this of mee; When thou wert young and tender of age, Why did I make soe much of thee?

But, father, I will wend with you, Unarm'd and naked will I bee; And he that strikes against the crowne, Ever an ill death may he dee.

Then rose that reverend gentleman, And with him came a goodlye band To join with the brave Earle Percy, And all the flower o' Northumberland.

With them the noble Nevill came, The erle of Westmoreland was hee; At Wetherbye they mustered their host, Thirteen thousand fair to see.

Lord Westmorland his ancyent raisde, The Dun Bull he rays'd on hye, And three Dogs with golden collars Were there set out most royallye.

Erle Percy there his ancyent spread, The Halfe Moone shining all soe faire; The Nortons ancyent had the Crosse, And the five wounds our Lord did beare.

Then Sir George Bowes he straitwaye rose, After them some spoile to make: Those noble erles turned back againe, And aye they vowed that knight to take.

That baron he to his castle fled, To Barnard castle then fled hee. The uttermost walles were eathe to win. The earles have wonne them presentlie.

The uttermost walles were lime and bricke; But though they won them soon anone, Long ere they wan their innermost walles, For they were cut in rocke and stone.

Then news unto leeve London came In all the speed that ever might bee, And word is brought to our royall queene Of the rysing in the North countrie.

Her grace she turned her round about, And like a royall queene shee swore, I will ordayne them such a breakfast, As never was in the North before.

Shee caused thirty thousand men be rays'd, With horse and harneis faire to see; She caused thirty thousand men be raised To take the earles i' th' North countrie.

Wi' them the false Erle Warwicke went, The Erle Sussex and the Lord Hunsden, Untill they to York castle came I wiss they never stint ne blan.

Now spred thy ancyent, Westmoreland, Thy dun Bull faine would we spye: And thou, the Erle of Northumberland, Now rayse thy Halfe Moone on hye.

But the dun bulle is fled and gone, And the halfe moone vanished away: The Erles, though they were brave and bold, Against soe many could not stay.

Thee, Norton, wi' thine eight good sonnes, They doomed to dye, alas! for ruth! Thy reverend lockes thee could not save, Nor them their faire and blooming youthe.

Wi' them full many a gallant wight They cruellye bereav'd of life: And many a child made fatherlesse, And widowed many a tender wife.

"'Bolton Priory,' says Dr. Whitaker in his excellent book--_The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven_--'stands upon a beautiful curvature of the Wharf, on a level sufficiently elevated to protect it from inundations, and low enough for every purpose of picturesque effect.

"'Opposite to the East window of the Priory Church, the river washes the foot of a rock nearly perpendicular, and of the richest purple, where several of the mineral beds, which break out, instead of maintaining their usual inclination to the horizon, are twisted by some inconceivable process, into undulating and spiral lines. To the South all is soft and delicious; the eye reposes upon a few rich pastures, a moderate reach of the river, sufficiently tranquil to form a mirror to the sun, and the bounding hills beyond, neither too near nor too lofty to exclude, even in winter, any portion of his rays.

"'But, after all, the glories of Bolton are on the North. Whatever the most fastidious taste could require to constitute a perfect landscape is not only found here, but in its proper place. In front, and immediately under the eye, is a smooth expanse of park-like enclosure, spotted with native elm, ash, etc. of the finest growth: on the right a skirting oak wood, with jutting points of grey rock; on the left a rising copse. Still forward are seen the aged groves of Bolton Park, the growth of centuries; and farther yet, the barren and rocky distances of Simon-seat and Barden Fell contrasted with the warmth, fertility, and luxuriant foliage of the valley below.

"'About half a mile above Bolton the Valley closes, and either side of the Wharf is overhung by solemn woods, from which huge perpendicular masses of grey rock jut out at intervals.

"'This sequestered scene was almost inaccessible till of late, that ridings have been cut on both sides of the River, and the most interesting points laid open by judicious thinnings in the woods. Here a tributary stream rushes from a waterfall, and bursts through a woody glen to mingle its waters with the Wharf: there the Wharf itself is nearly lost in a deep cleft in the rock, and next becomes a horned flood enclosing a woody island--sometimes it reposes for a moment, and then resumes its native character, lively, irregular, and impetuous.

"'The cleft mentioned above is the tremendous STRID. This chasm, being incapable of receiving the winter floods, has formed, on either side, a broad strand of naked gritstone full of rock-basons, or "pots of the Linn," which bear witness to the restless impetuosity of so many Northern torrents. But, if here Wharf is lost to the eye, it amply repays another sense by its deep and solemn roar, like "the Voice of the angry Spirit of the Waters," heard far above and beneath, amidst the silence of the surrounding woods.

"'The terminating object of the landscape is the remains of Barden Tower, interesting from their form and situation, and still more so from the recollections which they excite.'"

* * * * *

_The White Doe of Rylstone_ has been assigned chronologically to the year 1808; although part of it--probably the larger half--was written during the autumn of the previous year, and it remained unfinished in 1810, while the Dedication was not written till 1815. In the Fenwick note, Wordsworth tells us that the "earlier half" was written at Stockton-on-Tees "at the close" of 1807, and "proceeded with" at Dove Cottage, after his return to Grasmere, which was in April 1808. But on the 28th February, 1810, Dorothy Wordsworth, writing from Allan Bank to Lady Beaumont, says, "Before my brother turns to any other labour, I hope he will have finished three books of _The Recluse_. He seldom writes less than 50 lines every day. After this task is finished he hopes to complete _The White Doe_, and proud should we all be if it should be honoured by a frontispiece from the pencil of Sir George Beaumont. Perhaps this is not impossible, if you come into the north next summer."

A frontispiece was drawn by Sir George Beaumont for the quarto edition of 1815.

When part of the poem was finished, Wordsworth showed it to Southey; and Southey, writing to Walter Scott, in February 1808, said,--

"Wordsworth has just completed a most masterly poem upon the fate of the Nortons; two or three lines in the old ballad of _The Rising of the North_ gave him the hint. The story affected me more deeply than I wish to be affected; younger readers, however, will not object to the depth of the distress, and nothing was ever more ably treated. He is looking, too, for a narrative subject, pitched in a lower key."

One of the most interesting letters of S. T. Coleridge to Wordsworth is an undated one, sent from London in the spring of 1808, containing a characteristic criticism of _The White Doe_. The Wordsworth family had asked Coleridge to discuss the subject of the publication of the poem with the Longmans' firm. It is more than probable that it was Coleridge's criticism of the structural defects in the poem, that led Wordsworth to postpone its publication. The following is part of the letter:--

"... In my reperusals of the poem, it seemed always to strike on my feeling as well as judgment, that if there were any serious defect, it consisted in a disproportion of the Accidents to the spiritual Incidents; and, closely connected with this,--if it be not indeed the same,--that Emily is indeed talked of, and once appears, but neither speaks nor acts, in all the first three-fourths of the poem. Then, as the outward interest of the poem is in favour of the old man's religious feelings, and the filial heroism of his band of sons, it seemed to require something in order to place the two protestant malcontents of the family in a light that made them beautiful as well as virtuous. In short, to express it far more strongly than I mean or think, in order (in the present anguish of my spirits) to be able to express it at all, that three-fourths of the work is everything rather _than_ Emily; and then, the last--almost a separate and doubtless an exquisite poem--wholly _of_ Emily. The whole of the rest, and the delivering up of the family by Francis, I never ceased to find, not only comparatively heavy, but to me quite obscure as to Francis's motives. On the few, to whom, within my acquaintance, the poem has been read, either by yourself or me (I have, I believe, read it only at the Beaumonts'), it produced the same effect.

"Now I have conceived two little incidents, the introduction of which, joined to a little abridgment, and lyrical precipitation of the last half of the third, I had thought would have removed this defect, so seeming to me, and bring to a finer balance the _business_ with the _action_ of the tale. But after my receipt of your letter, concerning Lamb's censures, I felt my courage fail, and that what I deemed a harmonizing would disgust you as a _materialization_ of the plan, and appear to you like insensibility to the power of the history in the mind. Not that I should have shrunk back from the mere fear of giving transient pain, and a temporary offence, from the want of sympathy of feeling and coincidence of opinions. I rather envy than blame that deep interest in a production, which is inevitable perhaps, and certainly not dishonourable to such as feel poetry their calling and their duty, and which no man would find much fault with if the object, instead of a poem, were a large estate or a title. It appears to me to become a foible only when the poet denies, or is unconscious of its existence, but I did not deem myself in such a state of mind as to entitle me to rely on my own opinion when opposed to yours, from the heat and bustle of these disgusting lectures."

. . . . .

"From most of these causes I was suffering, so as not to allow me any rational confidence in my opinions when contrary to yours, which had been formed in calmness and on long reflection. Then I received your sister's letter, stating the wish that I would give up the thought of proposing the means of correction, and merely point out the things to be corrected, which--as they could be of no great consequence--you might do in a day or two, and the publication of the poem--for the immediacy of which she expressed great anxiety--be no longer retarded. The merely verbal _alteranda_ did appear to me very few and trifling. From your letter on L----, I concluded that you would not have the incidents and action interfered with, and therefore I sent it off; but soon retracted it, in order to note down the single words and phrases that I disliked in the books, after the two first, as there would be time to receive your opinion of them during the printing of the two first, in which I saw nothing amiss, except the one passage we altered together, and the two lines which I scratched out, because you yourself were doubtful. Mrs. Shepherd told me that she had felt them exactly as I did--namely, as interrupting the spirit of the continuous tranquil motion of _The White Doe_."

It will be seen from this letter that Wordsworth had gone over the poem with Coleridge, and that they had altered some passages "together"; that Coleridge had read a copy of it sent to the Beaumonts, doubtless at Dunmow in Essex; that he had thought of a plan by which the poem could be immensely improved, both by addition and subtraction; but that hearing from Wordsworth, or more probably from his sister Dorothy, that Charles Lamb had also criticised its structure, he gave up his intention of sending to his friend suggestions, which evidently implied a radical alteration of "the incidents and action" of the tale. It would have been extremely interesting to know how the author of _Christabel_ and _The Ancient Mariner_ proposed to recast _The White Doe of Rylstone_. It is, alas! impossible for posterity to know this, although it is not difficult to conjecture the line which the alterations would take. Wordsworth's genius was not great in construction, as in imagination; and he valued a story only as giving him a "point of departure" for a flight of fancy or of idealization. Early in 1808 he wrote to Walter Scott asking him for facts about the Norton family. Scott supplied him with them, and the following was Wordsworth's reply.

"GRASMERE, May 14, 1808.

"MY DEAR SCOTT--Thank you for the interesting particulars about the Nortons. I like them much for their own sakes; but so far from being serviceable to my poem, they would stand in the way of it, as I have followed (as I was in duty bound to do) the traditionary and common historic account. Therefore I shall say, in this case, a plague upon your industrious antiquarians, that have put my fine story to confusion."

From the "advertisement" which Wordsworth prefixed to his edition of 1815, I infer that the larger part of the poem was written at Stockton. In it he says that "the Poem of _The White Doe_ was composed at the close of the year" (1807). This is an illustration of the vague manner in which he was in the habit of assigning dates. The Fenwick note, and the evidence of his sister's letter, is conclusive; although the fact that _The Force of Prayer_--written in 1807--is called in the Fenwick note "an appendage to _The White Doe_," is further confirmation of the belief that the principal part of the latter poem was finished in 1807. All things considered, _The White Doe of Rylstone_ may be most conveniently placed after the poems belonging to the year 1807, and before those known to have been written in 1808; while _The Force of Prayer_ naturally follows it.

The poem--first published in quarto in 1815--was scarcely altered in the editions of 1820, 1827, and 1832. In 1837, however, it was revised throughout, and in that year the text was virtually settled; the subsequent changes being few and insignificant, while those introduced in 1837 were numerous and important. A glance at the foot-notes will show that many passages were entirely rewritten in that year, and that a good many lines of the earlier text were altogether omitted. All the poems were subjected to minute revision in 1836-37; but few, if any, were more thoroughly recast, and improved, in that year than _The White Doe of Rylstone_. As a sample of the best kind of changes--where a new thought was added to the earlier text with admirable felicity--compare the lines in canto vii., as it stood in 1815, when the Lady Emily first saw the White Doe at the old Hall of Rylstone, after her terrible losses and desolation--

Lone Sufferer! will not she believe The promise in that speaking face, And take this gift of Heaven with grace?

with the additional thought conveyed in the version of 1837--

Lone Sufferer! will not she believe The promise in that speaking face; And welcome, as a gift of grace, The saddest thought the Creature brings?