No doubt Wolsey’s father was a butcher, but his Eminence scarce cared to have his memory jogged on the matter; no doubt the English nobles were afraid of the great prelate, but they would rather not be told so. Thus, when vengeance threatened, Skelton found none to take his part. With a mocking grin, you fancy, invoking the protection of the very Church he had disgraced, he took sanctuary at Westminster, whence not even Wolsey dared drag him forth. Here he is said to have amused himself in inditing certain “Merrie Tales,” accounts, it would seem, of his own adventures.
We must find room for one of these stories from his student days. He had made merry at Abingdon, near Oxford, where he had eaten “salte meates.” Returned to Oxford, he “dyd lye in an ine named the ‘Tabere.’” At midnight he awoke with a most consuming thirst; he called in succession on the “tappestere” (the quaint mediæval term for a barmaid), “hys oste, hys ostesse, and osteler,” but none would give him ear—possibly the poet lacked regularity in his payments. “‘Alacke,’ sayd Skelton, ‘I shall perysh for lacke of drynke: what remedye!’” He soon found one: he bellowed “fyer, fyer, fyer,” so long and so loud that presently the whole house was up and scurrying hither and thither in excitement and alarm. Finding nothing, they finally asked the poet where the fire was? The mad rogue, pointing to his open mouth and parched tongue, implored, “fetch me some drynke to quench the fyer and the heate and the driness in my mouthe.” Our forefathers dearly loved a joke even at their own expense. The honest folk of the “Tabere” were amused rather than enraged. Mine host produced him of his best, and at length even Skelton’s thirst was quenched. Yet this madcap was a man of genius. Erasmus spoke of him to Henry VIII. as “Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen”; and if you can endure the obsolete and (one must add) the coarse expressions, you will find in “The Tunnyng of Elynour Running” the most remarkable picture in existence of low life in late mediæval England.
But let us return to the Eden, which now enters the parish of Wetheral. Not far from Wetheral Bridge the riverside is precipitous. Here, cut in the face of the rock, forty feet above the water level, are three curious cells known as “Wetheral Safeguards.” Tradition affirms that St. Constantine, younger son of an early Scots king, having excavated them with his own hands, lived therein the pious life of a hermit. To him was dedicated Wetheral Priory, whereof a mouldering gateway alone survives the havoc of well-nigh a thousand years. The choicest of Eden scenery is in this parish. There is Cotehill, with its sweet pastoral aspect; Cotehill Island, fringed with trees, whose low-lying branches continually sway to and fro in the stream; and Brackenbank, wherefrom you best catch the prominent features of the surrounding country. We think the pencil gives the aspect of such places better than the pen, so we refer to our illustrations, and move on to Corby Castle in the same parish, which tops a precipitous cliff overhanging the river. From it you see far along the richly wooded banks. Do you wonder that it “has been a gentleman’s seat since the Conquest”? And yet, not to be disdained of the most fastidious modern, for “the front of Corby House is of considerable length and consists of a suite of genteel apartments.” And those delightful walks through the woods! There among the trees by the edge of the stream is the Long Walk, best of all. The reflection of the moon in the water on a calm summer evening is much admired by amorous couples, who cannot understand, however, why the Walk is called Long. If those same couples go up the winding stairway cut in the rock, they will be chagrined to find that, despite its wildly picturesque appearance, it leads to nothing more romantic than a boathouse! Years ago some ingenious wit carved choice quotations from the poets on the rocks and trees, and the name of the river suggested many passages from Milton’s account of Eden in “Paradise Lost”; but the quotations were not appreciated by the rustics, who joyed in defacing them. Edward II. gave the place to the Salkeld family, but it has long been in the possession of the Howards. In Wetheral Church, among many other monuments, is a touching one to the lady of the house, commemorated by Wordsworth in the perfect lines beginning—
“Stretched on the dying mother’s lap lies dead
Her new-born babe; dire ending of bright hope!”
We have now followed the Eden’s course to Carlisle; there it is joined by two tributaries, the Caldew and the Petteril, each of some importance. The CALDEW rises on the eastern slope of Skiddaw. Both it and its affluent, the Caldbeck, flow through the romantic scenery of the Fells, and dash at quite a headlong pace down steep declines, whereof Howk Fall is the most renowned. At Holt Close Bridge the Caldew deserts the light of day altogether, but after four miles of subterranean windings it “comes up smiling” (as one might say) at Spout’s Dub. The PETTERIL comes from two headstreams in Greystoke Park and by Penruddock, and has a course of some twenty miles through pleasant woodland and meadow scenery. Near the Westmorland border, on a steep eminence by its first headwater, stands Greystoke Castle. The old castle was, during the Civil Wars in 1648, taken by Lambert for the Parliament, and burned to the ground. The remains of the battery he threw up are still called “Cromwell’s Holes.” This place has long been in the possession of the Howards. The castle was widely famed for its collection of curiosities, more or less authentic. Thus, there were “a large white hat,” said to have covered no less a head than Thomas Becket’s; and a picture of silk embroidery representing the Crucifixion, worked by the royal hands of Mary Queen of Scots. A fire in 1868 played sad havoc among these oddities; but you may still admire the great park with its deer and its ponds, and the charming prospects of the Lake mountains which you have from the castle windows.
VIEW FROM BRACKENBANK, LOOKING TOWARDS COTEHILL (p. [306]).
COTEHILL ISLAND.