It was upon the surrender ending this memorable siege that Carlisle Cathedral suffered so greatly. The visitor who first sets eyes upon the venerable pile finds himself bewildered by its unusual proportions, and has some difficulty in distinguishing which end is east and which west. He has been used, everywhere else, to see the nave of a cathedral much longer than its choir, and to see the building stretching away westward from the central tower five and six times the length of the eastern, or choir, limb. Here, however, when he has definitely settled his bearings, he perceives the choir to be more than thrice the length of the nave.
This present odd aspect of the Cathedral, looking as though it had been twisted bodily round, is entirely owing to the fury with which the soldiery fell upon it, after the siege. Where there were once eight bays to the Early Norman nave, there are now but two: the rest all went as so much rough stone wherewith to repair the walls of the city and to erect guard-houses: a curious reversal of its early use, for it was from the ancient Roman wall that these stones came in Norman times.
EAST END, CARLISLE CATHEDRAL.
THE STEEL THAT MAKES AFRAID
But Carlisle was not done with trouble, even in the sacrilege of 1645. It escaped in 1715, for the rebels avoided coming to clashes with a fortified city; but it came to know intimately of the much more nearly successful rebellion of 1745. But what use are battlemented walls of stone, if they be manned with faint hearts? After all the brave doings of “merry Carlisle,” it is sad to think how low the martial spirit had sunk by 1745, when the militia, assembled in the city, declined to fight the rebels under Prince Charlie. A bold front would have compelled the invaders to leave Carlisle alone; but the broadswords of the Highlanders had so much of what military historians term “moral effect” that the militiamen positively refused to run the risk of being cleaved by that terrible cold steel. Poor Colonel Durand, in command—if we may still call that a command which will not obey orders—might rave, and implore, and even weep, but it was useless, and the city was surrendered. Prince Charlie was in camp at Brampton, eight miles away, and it must have been a proud moment for him—if a sorry humiliation for some—when mayor and corporation went out to him and on their knees offered the keys of the gates. The next day the Prince entered in triumph, on a milk-white horse, one hundred pipers piping before him. It must have been a fearful moment—for those who did not love the bagpipes.
George the Second, at St. James’s, began to reconsider his position at hearing of this signal failure of his sworn protectors, and many excellent, though time-serving, people in high places began to explain away the disagreeable things they had said of the Stuarts. But in a few weeks, as we know, the Highlanders were retreating; and, trimming their sails anew, politicians and witlings were repeating again their protestations of loyalty to the House of Hanover, and refurbishing that old quotation from Revelation, chapter xvii. verse 11, first current in 1715, by which they affected to believe that James the Second of England and Seventh of Scotland, and his son, the Pretender (de jure James the Third and Eighth) were the subjects of prophecy: “And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.”
An ingenious find, it must be allowed, and sufficient, providing no one else could refer to Revelation and find another quotation, a little destructive of the first. But such an one was actually to hand in the preceding verse, which very curiously says, “And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” There were those excellent Whigs who, reading this, were not entirely happy until events demonstrated that the rebellion was absolutely hopeless.
The Duke of Cumberland with ease retook the city, and captured with it Prince Charlie’s devoted rear-guard: the brave Colonel Townely and his 120 men of the Manchester Regiment, together with over two hundred Highlanders, and some few Frenchmen. They were lodged in the Cathedral, and thence taken in a long melancholy procession to London, there, according to their degree, to be beheaded as gentlemen, or hanged like common malefactors. They rode, tied hand and foot, or walked, roped together, the whole bitter way.
THE CASTLE DUNGEONS