Only a few miles from Ripon is a village less famous, but not less attractive, than any of these: a spot well-known to antiquarians, and doubtless to artists too, but unfamiliar to ordinary folk. The charm of West Tanfield catches the eye at once from the bridge that spans the Ure, and comes as a pleasant surprise in the midst of rather tame scenery. The red-roofed cottages are grouped upon the river-bank, with gay little gardens sloping to the water's edge; behind them rises the church tower, and the square grey gatehouse of the Marmions, with its delicate oriel. This gateway was built by Henry V.'s friend and executor FitzHugh, who married one of the Marmions and lived here, and added to the church that held the splendid tombs of his wife's ancestors. He was not buried here himself, but by his own wish with curious haste at Jervaulx. It is seldom that a little village church possesses such monuments as these of the Marmions, so rich in ornament and so marvellously preserved: the arched and canopied recess that holds the effigy of Sir John; the cloaked and coronetted figure of Maud his wife, who built this aisle and founded chantries here; the emblazoned tomb of the unknown lady with the lion; the knight in mail; and the magnificent monument of that other knight and his wife which is probably a cenotaph in memory of John and Elizabeth Marmion of the fourteenth century. Their effigies lie, perfectly preserved, under a light and graceful "hearse" of ironwork, with seven sconces for candles—the only iron hearse, they say, in England. Every detail of the dress, every line of the features, is distinct. The knight's aquiline nose and full lips, rather sweet in expression, are encircled by a gorget of mail, over whose delicate links droop the ends of his long moustache. A collar of SS clasps his throat.
On the north side of the chancel there is a curious recess, with a squint into the nave and two little windows into the choir. It is unique, I believe, and as regards its origin and uses very baffling.
Beyond West Tanfield the scenery grows in beauty, for we are nearing the hills. Masham lies prettily in a valley, with a setting of moors and dales, gold and emerald when the sun is shining, soft grey and green when the day is dull. Skirting the little town we go on our way to Jervaulx.
The site of Jervaulx is not beautiful, but pleasant and peaceful. It lies in a private park, so the car must wait beside the gardener's cottage while we walk, borrowed key in hand, across the field to the scattered fragments of what was once a great Cistercian abbey. Of the ruins tragically little was left standing by the energetic commissioners of Henry VIII., though they apologised for some necessary delay in their congenial work. "Pleasythe your lordship to be advertysed," wrote Thomas Cromwell's "most bounden beadman" Richard Bellyseys, "I have taken down all the lead of Jervaulx ... and the said lead cannot be conveit nor carried until the next sommre, for the ways in that countre are so foul and deep that no caryage can pass in wyntre. And as concerninge the taking down of the house I am minded to let it stand to the next spring of the year, by reason of the days are now so short it wolde be double charges to do it now." The work was finished with great thoroughness at last, however, as all may see. Of the church the barest outline only is left, with the raised platform where once the high altar stood, and near it the broken figure that is said to represent the Henry FitzHugh who did so much for West Tanfield and left such strange orders about his funeral. He desired to be buried at Jervaulx with all possible haste after his death. "To be carried thither by daylight, if it come not too late; but if so, then the same night." The land on which this community first settled, at Fors, was the gift of one of FitzHugh's ancestors, which may account for his wish to be buried here.
The case of the last abbot of Jervaulx, Adam Sedbergh, was a sad one; for he suffered the pains of martyrdom without its exaltation, and while certainly failing to please himself, pleased no one else. He was a timid creature, apparently, and when Yorkshire rose in the Pilgrimage of Grace, he was so much afraid of king and rebels alike that he simply ran away and hid. The rebel mob came clamouring about the gates of Jervaulx, crying: "Choose you a new abbot!" and the frightened brothers gathered hurriedly in the chapter-house. If we follow this path, and turn down by these crumbling steps, we may stand where they stood that day; for there is more of the chapter-house still in existence than of any other part of the building. The roof that covered the monks' bewildered heads is gone; but here is the wide stone bench on which they sat, trembling, through that hasty conclave, and here are the columns and the walls on which their eyes dwelt, unseeingly, while the rebels threatened them with fire at their gates and their rightful leader was hiding in the heather. They could think of no better course than to seek the reluctant Adam, and make a rebel of him whether he would or no. They found him on the moors at last, and lest his beautiful abbey should be burnt to the ground because of him, he came back to face the curses and daggers of the mob, the futile sufferings of rebellion, the prison-cell in the Tower where his name still shows upon the wall, and the gallows of Tyburn. His tardy and unwilling heroism was piteously useless, for not even the flames of the Pilgrims of Grace could have laid the walls of Jervaulx lower or left its altars more desolate than did the hammers and picks of the king's agents.
CHAPTER HOUSE, JERVAULX ABBEY.
Charles Kingsley came here once, and picked a forget-me-not for his wife—a pleasant memory among so many fierce ones. He was the last canon of the collegiate church of Middleham, where he stayed for several days at the time of his instalment, and endured "so much bustle, and robing and unrobing" that he had no time to think. Middleham, as a rule, is anything but a bustling place; but in spite of its demure looks, I believe there are still days when its streets are, as Kingsley saw them, "crowded with jockeys and grooms." We are now on our way thither. After passing through East Witton we cross the Cover, whose pools are dear to fishermen, and were therefore dear to Kingsley. "Little Cover," he called it affectionately, "in his deep wooded glen, with his yellow rock and bright white stones, and brown water clearer than crystal."