Motor tours in Yorkshire

by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

We climb into Middleham past the base of an old cross on which is fixed a modern head. At the top of the hill is the curious structure called the Swine Cross, with the mutilated stone beast whose identity has proved so hard to establish. Some say it is the Bear of Warwick; others recognise in it the Boar of Gloucester. As far as its personal appearance is concerned it might with equal plausibility be called the Lion of England or the Hound of the Baskervilles, seeing that its outline commits the sculptor to nothing and it has no manner of face whatever. Turning to the left we find the castle looking down upon us gloomily.

This castle of Middleham is square and stern; more strong than beautiful. Its keep is Norman, and is the work of a Fitzranulph of the twelfth century; but the towered wall that hems it round so closely was built by the Nevilles, who lived here for many years in princely state. The great Earl of Warwick, when he was not making kings—and, indeed, sometimes when he was—chose this to be a centre of his pomp and power; and one of the kings he made, Edward IV., is said to have been imprisoned here for a short time. The time would have been longer if Edward had not cajoled his custodian, the Archbishop of York, into allowing him to hunt in the park. We know from Henry VI. how Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Lord Hastings lay in ambush in the forest that is no longer here, and rescued Edward from those who were hunting with him.

That same Duke of Gloucester, who was a trespasser on this occasion, came to Middleham as its master later on. Poor Anne Neville, the kingmaker's daughter, spent most of her sad married life within this melancholy fortress, with the husband who asked no man to make him king, but made himself Richard III. We may see the gloomy walls of her withdrawing room—bereft now of both roof and floor—where she sat so often sick at heart and ailing; and the banquet-hall where her father kept such state; and the kitchen where six oxen were sometimes roasted for one breakfast. There, in the north wall, is the gateway through which she watched her husband riding out to entrap his little nephews, and through which she herself soon followed him to see him crowned; and here at the south-west corner of the outer wall is the tower where her only son was born. The boy spent practically all his short life here, all but that brief and brilliant interlude of the coronation at Westminster and the pageantry at York; and here, too, he died in his parents' absence. I do not know if Anne ever returned to Middleham. We hear of her "in a state bordering on madness," and not long afterwards her tragic life was over.

For many years the castle was left at the mercy of all who cared to despoil it. It was very literally treated as a quarry; for when all the faced stone within reach had been removed the walls were hollowed out below, in the hope that the upper part might fall and so provide more plunder. Such is the cohesion of the masonry, however, that this design was more or less frustrated, and the undermined walls still stand like overhanging cliffs. Here and there, indeed, great masses have fallen in huge boulders as solid as rock; but perhaps the gunpowder of the Commonwealth was responsible for these.

There was once a suggestion made, in a letter from Lord Huntingdon to his "verrye good lord ye lord Treasurer," that Queen Elizabeth should join in this work of quarrying. She purposed to pay a visit to her city of York, a visit which was designed to be "no small comforte to all hyr good subjects, and no less terrour to ye others." But the great difficulty was to find "a good housse" for her. Huntingdon excitedly laid his scheme before Burleigh. "Ye meanes ys thys," he wrote. "Hyr hyghness hathe heare ye Castell of Midham, which ys in greate ruyne and daylye wasteth, ... but ye tymber ye stone ye lead and ye iron yt ys theare wold make a fayre housse heare, and as I gesse with good husbandrye paye all ye chargys. I am sure if your L. dyd see ye place ... you wolde thinke yt most convenient to be pulled downe, rathyr than yt shuld stande and waste daylye as yt dothe."[1] Fortunately Burleigh did not think it most convenient, and now the place no longer wastes daily, but is daily being repaired.

When we crossed Cover Bridge we entered Wensleydale, and a mile or two beyond Middleham is the pretty little town from which the dale takes its name. The scenery is quiet and pastoral here, the Ure flows smoothly, and it is difficult to realise how near we are to the sort of country Defoe was thinking of when he wrote in his eighteenth-century way: "The black moorish lands show dismal and frightful." How near we are to the moorish lands, however, we shall shortly find out, and it is at Wensley that we have to decide by which road we shall cross them.

But first, here is Wensley Church on the left, with Saxon stones in it, and a splendid brass that no one who cares for such things would wish to pass by, and among its graves one that has been thought to be of interest to every British man and woman. It is an altar-tomb with fluted corners standing on the right of the path that leads from gate to porch. Beneath it lies Peter Goldsmith. It has been stated,[2] on what grounds I cannot discover, that he was surgeon of the Victory at Trafalgar, and that Nelson died in his arms. This is making a great claim for him. Yet his name is not mentioned in the standard accounts of Nelson's death,[3] nor does it appear in the list of the Victory's officers. As we all know, Beatty was the surgeon who attended Nelson in the cockpit. The assistant-surgeon was Neil Smith; the surgeon's mate was Westerburgh.[4]

This is the country of the Scropes of Bolton, and their names and arms are conspicuous in the church—over the porch, on the buttresses, on the carved chancel stalls, and, above all, on Lord Bolton's screened pew in the north aisle. The carved sides of this were originally part of the parclose by which the tombs of the Scropes were surrounded in Easby Abbey. The front of it is ugly and has an eighteenth-century air. The horrible grey marbled paint that defaces the woodwork suggests the nineteenth. The famous brass, which lies within the communion rails, is so beautiful as to appeal to the most ignorant in such matters, and dates from the fourteenth century. It marks the grave of two men—Sir Simon of Wensley, priest, and the seventeenth-century rector who desired to be buried under the same stone and brass.