The battlefield of Neville’s Cross lies to the west of the Cathedral, so no singing takes place on the western side of the tower. The popular, but mistaken, idea in Durham is that this is because a choir-boy once overbalanced on that side and fell from the tower.
If you would see how Castle and Cathedral are situated with regard to the busy modern city, there is no such place as the railway station, whence they are seen dominating the mass of houses, among the smoke-wreaths of commerce, like the martyrs of old steadfast amidst their burning faggots. If again, reversing the order of precedence as seen in the view from Prebend’s Bridge, you would have the Castle in the forefront and the Cathedral behind, it is from the Framwellgate Bridge, carrying the Great North Road over the Wear, that another lovely glimpse is seen, ranging to Prebend’s Bridge itself.
XXII
But time grows short, and we have not long to linger at Durham. Much else might be said of the Cathedral; of Saint Cuthbert’s Shrine, and of the vandal Wyatt, who “restored” the Cathedral in 1775, cutting away, in the process, a depth of four inches from the stonework of much of the exterior. The work cost £30,000, and resulted in eleven hundred tons weight of stone chippings being removed from the building. If that “restorer” had had his way, he would have destroyed the beautiful Galilee Chapel that projects from the west front, and forms so uniquely interesting a feature of Late Norman work. His idea was to drive a carriage road round this way. The work of destruction had, indeed, already been begun when it was stopped by more reverent men.
A curious relic still remains upon the door of the Cathedral’s north porch, in the form of a huge knocker, dating back to Norman times. Cast in the shape of a grinning monster’s head, a ring hanging from its jaws, it is the identical sanctuary knocker of Saint Cuthbert’s Sanctuary, which was in use from the foundation of the Cathedral until 1524. All fugitives, whatever their crimes, who succeeded in escaping to Durham, and reaching the bounds of “Saint Cuthbert’s Peace,” were safe from molestation during thirty-seven days. A criminal, grasping the ring of this knocker, could not be torn from it by his pursuers, under pain of their being subjected to excommunication; and lest there should be bold spirits whom even this could not affright, there were always two monks stationed, day and night, in a room above the porch, to watch for fugitives. When admitted, the criminal confessed his crime, with every circumstance attending it, his confession being taken down in writing, in the presence of witnesses; a bell ringing in the Galilee tower all the while, giving notice that some one had fled to the protection of Saint Cuthbert. After these formalities, the fugitive was clothed with a black gown, bearing a yellow cross on the left shoulder: the badge of the Saint whose protection he had secured. After the days of grace had expired, and in the event of no pardon being obtained, ceremonies were gone through before the Shrine, in which the malefactor solemnly forswore his native land for ever. Then, safeguarded to the coast, he was shipped out of the kingdom by the first vessel sailing after his arrival.
There must have been many an exciting chase along the roads in those times, and many a criminal who richly deserved punishment must have escaped it by the very skin of his teeth. Many another, no doubt, was seized and handed over to justice, or slain, on the threshold of safety. Other fugitives still—and here Saint Cuthbert appears in better guise—victims of hatred and oppression, private or political, claimed the saintly ægis, and so escaped the vengeance of their enemies. So, looking upon the ferociously grinning mask of the knocker, glaring with eyeless sockets upon Palace Green, we can reconstruct the olden times when, at his last gasp, the flying wretch seized the ring and so came into safety. By night, the scene was more impressive still, for there were crystals in those sockets then, and a lamp burning behind, so that the fugitive could see his haven from afar, and make for it.
To-day, Saint Cuthbert avails no man, as the county gaol and the assize courts sufficiently prove, and Durham city is essentially modern, from the coal-grit that powders its dirty streets to the awfully grotesque effigy of a Marquis of Londonderry that lends so diabolical an air to the Market-place, where the Statute Fair is held, and where he sits, a coal-black effigy across his coal-black horse, towering over the steam merry-go-rounds, like Satan amid the revelries of a Walpurgis Night. This bronze effigy is probably the most grotesque statue in the British Isles, and loses nothing of that quality in the noble Marquis being represented in a hussar uniform with flying dolman over his shoulders, and a busby, many sizes too large for him, on his head, in an attitude as though ferociously inviting the houses on the other side of the street to “come on.”
That diarising Scotswoman, Mrs. Calderwood of Coltness, travelling south in 1756, wrote:—