Among the many other prerogatives that the ninth Earl of Derby still retained as Lord of Man was the strange one of appointing its Bishop. The last Bishop, Baptist Levinz, had died in 1693, and for some strange reason no successor had been appointed. It is said that at last William III. threatened to take the appointment into his own hand, and the Earl was thus compelled to make his tardy election. It fell on Thomas Wilson, who was consecrated at the Savoy in 1698. Wilson from the first set his face against corruption, and administered his diocese with firmness and good-nature. He seems, in fact, in his remote island diocese, to have played a part in some ways not dissimilar to that which was played by the "admirable Walker" in the Furness parish of Seathwaite. "He soon became 'a very energetic planter' of fruit and forest trees, turning 'the bare slopes' into 'a richly-wooded glen.' He was an equally zealous farmer and miller, doing much by his example to develop the resources of the island. For some time he was 'the only physician in the island'; he set up a drug-shop, giving advice and medicine gratis to the poor. Against the then besetting sin of pluralism Wilson turned a face of steel; twice he refused the offer of the rich living of Badsworth, in the West Riding, which twice his patron offered him, because he disapproved of non-resident incumbents. His deep practical piety is manifest from his two posthumous books, Maxims of Piety and Christianity and Sacra Privata. But perhaps the best-known episode in his long episcopate of more than fifty-seven years—he died at the patriarchal age of ninety-three—was his imprisonment in Castle Rushen for refusal to pay a fine. In 1722 he had suspended the Governor's chaplain for administering the Communion to the Governor's wife, she being then in some sense excommunicate, and for sanctioning false doctrine. Mulcted for this interference in a sum of £50, Wilson and his two Vicars-General elected to go to prison rather than submit to the tyranny of an authority that they held to be usurped. Wilson, indeed, seems to have endeavoured to maintain in the Isle of Man a system of moral discipline similar to that the decay of which is deplored in the Commination Service. His practice, however, was tolerant; the Quakers are said to have 'loved and respected him'; Roman Catholics not infrequently attended his services; whilst Dissenters, since permitted to stand, or sit, at the Communion, were content to kneel at the altar-rails like ordinary church-folk. To burial inside the walls of a church he exhibited strong abhorrence; and provision was expressly inserted in his will that his own body should be interred in the graveyard." A similar repulsion was entertained by Dr. Wynne, a former resident of Mold, in Flintshire, whose sentiments have found public expression, if I recollect rightly, in his epitaph, composed by himself. In this case, unfortunately, by a curious irony of fate, a subsequent extension of the chancel to the east has since brought his grave within the compass of the church.
In the lych-gate on the east side of Kirkmichael Churchyard are preserved several of those fine old crosses, though more or less in fragments, that form the chief archaeological glory of Man, and are now tended with such laudable care. Something of these is said on a later page. The Bishop's Palace at Bishop's Court, a long mile to the north from the end of the village, has been the residence of the Bishop from at least the thirteenth century, and probably for very much longer. The bishopric of Sodor and Man was founded, according to tradition, as early as the fourth century, when Amphibalus is reported Bishop in 360; but all its early history is difficult and obscure. Originally it comprised, not merely Man, but also the Scottish Hebrides (Southern Isles, or Sudreys, as opposed to the Northern Islands, i.e., the Shetlands and Orkneys); but the latter were necessarily severed when the island was wrested from the Scots in the reign of Edward III. Thomas (d. 1348), or William Russel (d. 1374), may approximately be considered as the first solely Manx Bishop; but the ancient title of Sodor still forms part of their official title, just as the Kings of England still continued to quarter the fleur-de-lys of France long after Mary had lost Calais.
Bishop's Court, however, is a little out of the way for those who wish to cross the hills from Kirkmichael to Ramsey. Nor does the place indeed exhibit any interest for the archaeologist, though the Bishop's private chapel is at present used as a kind of pro-cathedral for the diocese. From Kirkmichael Village there is a track—that for part of the distance is no track—almost directly due east, which passes between Slieau Dhoo (1,139 feet), on the north, and Slieau Fraoghane (1,602 feet), on the south, and ultimately drops into the head of Sulby Glen at the bottom of the western slopes of Snaefell.
SULBY GLEN AND SNAEFELL.
Snaefell is the chief height in the island (2034 ft.) It is now possible to ascend almost to the summit by an electric railway from Douglas.
Or the visitor may retrace his steps toward Glen Helen as far as the chapel at Baregarrow, passing on the left the Hill of Reneuriling, sometimes called Cronk Urleigh, or Eagle Mount, which is said to have been the original Tynwald Hill of the island. At Baregarrow a lane turns away to the left, and winds up along the southern slopes of Sart Fell (1,560 feet). Whichever route be taken, as we penetrate the hills we realize more and more the real nature of Manx mountains. The central chain of hills extends for about twenty miles from Bradda Head, a sea-cliff (766 feet), in the south-west, to North Barrule (1,842 feet), in the north-east, thus forming a true axis to the island. The range is interrupted, not exactly in the middle, but more towards the south, by the great lateral valley that pierces it completely from sea to sea, and through which run road and rail between Peel and Douglas. South of this great glen the highest summit is South Barrule (1,565 feet); but north of it comes a cluster of much higher hills, the culminating point of which is Snaefell (2,034 feet). These hills are built of slate, like the hills of Cumberland and North Wales, but there all analogy ceases. Snowdon and Scafell Pike are convulsed masses of broken rock, whose black nakedness is not always scantily clothed with a coverlet of bracken, or wiry grass, or sloppy bog-moss. From the foot of the sheer crags extend long acres of scree-shoot, and the hills are further torn in every direction by the deeply furrowed channels of the torrents. In Man the hill slopes are everywhere smooth, and modelled in regular contours; they are clad, no doubt, with moor, and sodden in places with wet, but crag, and scree, and rock, are almost wholly absent. They have even less ferocity than Skiddaw; and Skiddaw, in addition, boasts a splendid "double-front," and a bold black top that excited the enthusiasm of even the town-loving "Elia." What little rock they exhibit is confined chiefly to the sides of one or two glens—Sulby Glen, for instance, which is quite the finest in the island—and to the beds of mountain streams; but none of this is terrific.