MIDDLEHAM CASTLE.
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.
QUEEN'S GAP, LEYBURN "SHAWL."
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.
BOLTON CASTLE.