Yorkshire

by Gordon Home

Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey, is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place there Freeman has no doubt.

Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of the Roman Derventio, it was natural that some village should have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.

An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls, is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very magnificent.

We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres, which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of York.

In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper, when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle, and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'

Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198—probably the year of his death—was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose family was Bonne et belle assez. One of his descendants was created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in 1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last owner—Sir George Wombwell, Bart.—inherited the property from his grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.

The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir George wore at Balaclava.

The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary. This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small metal plate is written:

'In this vault are Cromwell's bones, brought here, it is believed, by his daughter Mary, Countess of Fauconberg, at the Restoration, when his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'

The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661—the twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I—and the head was placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps have been able to secure the decapitated remains of his father-in-law, after their burial at the foot of the gallows at Tyburn. It has often been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to one of the Belasyses.