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 OLD CASTLES: 
 
 INCLUDING SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 CARLISLE, CORBY, and LINSTOCK 
 CASTLES; 
 
 WITH A POEM ON CARLISLE. 
 
 By M. S. 
 author of an essay on shakespeare, etc. 
 
 "It is in the soul that architecture exists." — Emerson. 
 
 CARLISLE : 
 GEORGE COWARD, SCOTCH STREET, 
 
 MDCCCLXVIII.
 
 
 r R E F A C E . 
 
 The following, to some extent incomplete and un- 
 finished sketches of "Old Castles," were written three 
 or four years ago, and one of them appeared in the 
 Border Magazine, for which the sketch of Carlisle 
 Castle was also written, but owing to the failure of the 
 magazine it did not appear. It was afterwards printed 
 in two consecutive numbers of the Carlisle Express, 
 and some who saw it there for the first time were kind 
 enough to say that it deserved a better place — that it 
 was a mistake to allow it to appear in a newspaper at 
 all. Feeling that there was some truth in these re- 
 marks, the author concluded to reprint the whole of 
 them in the more permanent and more availabe form 
 of a book, which while it may perhaps serve as a hand- 
 book to strangers and others, may at the same time 
 perhaps serve also to enlarge to some small extent the 
 general appreciation of places whose eventful histories 
 comprehend so much of the general history of the past, 
 and which ought as a result to be sources of interest 
 and instruction to the localities in which they stand. 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Carlisle, 
 March 31, 1868. 
 
 922001
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Carlisle : a Poem . . . . . i 
 
 Carlisle Castle . . . ... .17 
 
 Corby Castle and Walks . . . .55 
 
 Linstock, and Linstock Castle . . -65
 
 CARLISLE 
 
 AREL ! O canny Carel of the past, 
 How sweetly flow the streams that bound 
 thee round : 
 The Eden fair, upon whose waves are cast 
 Thy oft repeated chimes — a pleasant sound 
 To the worn wanderer on its rock-bound sides ; 
 And, east and west, its affluents, whose soft tides. 
 Flow where they will, are still with beauty crowned. 
 And every beck and little streamlet found. 
 Or far or near thy fell-bound precincts round, 
 Has something more, a something quite apart 
 From every otlier streamlet, the great heart 
 Of Nature, in her freest fairest moods, 
 Throbs in their flow, and fills their solitudes. 
 Beauteous for ever ! Time on them has laid 
 No trace of age or change ; they brightly fall 
 As glide the seasons, either swift or staid. 
 As when the Roman cohorts fierce and tall 
 First made these valleys ring with Latian sounds. 
 And everywhere about them still abounds 
 Their virgin lieauty, by the years unspoiled. 
 Art's modern wonder, which no more astounds, 
 (Showing the heights to which the world has toiled,)
 
 2 Carlisle. 
 
 But adding grace to grace, and charm to charm, 
 Its viaducts most rare across them spanned, 
 And linking field to field, and farm to farm — 
 The ornaments of all the pleasant land — 
 But heightening what at first they seemed to harm. 
 Beauty with beauty still delighting well. 
 
 But thou hast more, O Carlisle, than thy streams ! 
 Thy castled heights crown many a charming rood, 
 Renowned in olden story ; field and fell, 
 Through many a league of gracious solitude, 
 Where yet perchance some genuine bard still dreams, 
 Bearing sure witness to the ancient feud 
 Of Scot and Briton, and the Roman strength 
 That interposed between them, and subdued 
 The vagrant Pict to British force at length. 
 And age by age the gathering centuries round, 
 Thy history's written still upon the ground. 
 Which compasses thee around, or far or near. 
 The travelled wanderer catching something here 
 To-day, if skilful, of the ancient sound, 
 Of the fierce strife of Saxon and of Gael, 
 Which through long centuries kept thee desolate. 
 And intermixed with these of far off date. 
 Wrought in with antique zeal, flows many a tale 
 Of Dane and Druid, and the famous state 
 In which King Arthur kept his Yule feast here. 
 Nor is there wanting in the grammary 
 Of that far age, the names of holier fame, 
 Or tales of purer import ; where we dwell 
 Within these walls, the holy Cuthbert came, 
 The guest of Egfrid, visiting the well — 
 True relic of the times — the Romans made ;
 
 Carlisle. 
 
 And Ermengard, his friend and faithful aid, 
 The wife of Egfrid, here ^vi-ought piously, 
 Herself and sister — names which through the shade 
 Of many storms and centuries still run free. 
 And, all about, tradition decks thee out, 
 This castled county, rich in antique lore, 
 Bearing on all its face the land about 
 Strange tales of wonder of the times of yore. 
 Here may be heard sublimely from the past 
 The voices old of heroes and of kings — 
 The Bruce and Wallace, and, not least, though last, 
 Cromwell, who caught their spirit, and who flings 
 An air of health o'er British rule to-day. 
 And, joined with these their fellows in the fray. 
 Circling thy walls to-day the echo rings 
 Of Norman and Plantagenet, and the array 
 Of armies vast, whom Scotia's Bard still sings, 
 Though he, with his immortal Marmion, 
 A traveller here, long since has passed away. 
 Nor must we quite forget the lady fair 
 Who hither came a queen without a crown — 
 The royal INIary, yet most desolate ; 
 Her hopes from their high altitude cast down. 
 And burd'ning all her spirit with the weight 
 Such ruin brings, of wild tumultuous care. 
 Her name is linked to thine, O Carlisle, still 
 Linked with thy ancient walls, thy castle old ; 
 Linked with thy bounds from far, o'er vale and hill, 
 Piercing their deeps and distance manifold, 
 Her vision wandered ; Caledonia wild, 
 Home of her heart, her childhood's airy nest, 
 Winning her bosom soft, by pride beguiled,
 
 4 Carlisle. 
 
 To longings once again for its true rest, 
 To thoughts of peace, perchance by crowns unspoiled. 
 She was thy captive sad, this lady fair, 
 And thou hadst many captives in those days, 
 Noteless and notable ; thy dungeons old, 
 Close cavern'd in from all the sun's sweet rays, 
 And all devoid of lightest breath of air, 
 Have borne upon their basements dank and cold 
 The wearying form of many a child of care. 
 Here came the Jacobite still unsubdued, 
 A patriot brave, and all devoid of fear, 
 His heart still rising, neither chain nor cell 
 His hopes despoiling ; long the terror here 
 Of all this Border Country, his old feud 
 Oft ending in vast file on Gallows Hill, 
 As did the brave McDonald, long renowned 
 As the Mc.Ivor of the Scottish tale. 
 And in these times, and often with these found, 
 Nor short of them in resolution hale, 
 Was the moss trooper — brigand most profound, 
 Yet something more than brigand all the while. 
 His was the feud of races ; clan with clan — 
 Stern hater of the British name and isle. 
 His mode of action still the good old plan. 
 That they should take who have the greatest power, 
 And they who can should keep — a rule which wrought 
 Full often his own ruin ; hour by hour 
 O'er field and fell and moorland waste and wild 
 The war note rising, and the blood-hounds' yell. 
 Such were tlie means the troubled country sought 
 To capture him ; and often he was brought 
 In chained bands, to die in durance here ;
 
 Carlisle. 5 
 
 Or, standing through slow months, from earth exiled, 
 At last to perish on some gibbet near. 
 
 Sad were those times for thee, O Carlisle, then 
 Thy battlements and towers and gates all o'er 
 Were clothed with blanching skulls and features fair, 
 Distorted by the halter, fixed as when 
 Death did his solemn deed, were left to glare 
 On the meek face of all thy unstained life. 
 Yet with this rigour stern thou hadst no rest, 
 Still were thy gates the scenes of martial strife, 
 Nor didst thou prosper ; war is still unblest ; 
 Its crown is still a ruin, and its knife 
 Is still insatiate, moving in death's sphere 
 A track of desolation. Many a tear 
 Has orphaned sorrow, blasted by its fate, 
 Shed in thy walls ; and weeping women here. 
 Spared by its doom, left lorn and desolate. 
 Have sunk insensibly to early death 
 (Of love deprived, seeking no other mate) ; 
 And age, bereft by it, its straitened breath 
 Has here drawn all alone uncomforted. 
 Such are war's tragic fortunes ; and more dreat, 
 Could the great past arise, and, through its dead, 
 Tell all the horrid tale, would they appear. 
 Here in thy gates of eld, war's fiery sphere. 
 Have horrors dread been done, to shock the light, 
 And make the stars recoil the living day, 
 Polluted by them, and the holy night 
 By them all seared and tortured with mad fear. 
 Think for one instant of the frightful deed 
 Ohanging twelve fair boys in open day. 
 In one dread cluster, without stain or crime.
 
 6 Carlisle. 
 
 Because their sires, perchance by some foul play, 
 
 Had failed to ransom them in their sore need 
 
 As their own hostages, at the just time. 
 
 Or think again of some fair lady's form, 
 
 With hands all jewelled, and soft silken tire, 
 
 Enclosed in mortar, while the young blood warm, 
 
 Wandered within it, and its eyes' pure fire 
 
 Still kept its native lustre unbedimmed. 
 
 These things are sad; but here, as though o'er-brimmed, 
 
 Just at their verge two nations' wrath run o'er. 
 
 And cruelty ran riot, centring all its strength 
 
 Upon this city's borders, till at length 
 
 Change soothed time's temper, and. from shore to shore, 
 
 The twain became one kingdom, never more 
 
 To rage together, but henceforth to be 
 
 Helpers together in the world's great fight 
 
 For peace, for freedom, and for amity ; 
 
 And, above all, for progress, and the right 
 
 Man claims of man, has in his nature free 
 
 To use the privileges and gifts of light. 
 
 Such is thy past, O Carlisle, yet things fair, 
 Brave Seeds, and noble, large enduring life 
 Have been its firm attendants ; wise and well. 
 Heroic still through all that age long strife. 
 Thy sires have borne them and this Border air 
 With all that nature owns of rare most rife, 
 Has borne upon its currents the sweet swell 
 Of Piety calm hearted, and of prayer, 
 And sweet domestic kindness. " Belted Will," 
 The best known name of all of Border fame, 
 Was a most tender lover, where his heart 
 Had tender dues and duties to fulfil,
 
 Carlisle. 
 
 In his own castle, where his husband's part 
 Was played out with a zeal that gladdens still, 
 Worthy his Howard blood, his Howard name. 
 
 And here have Science and sweet Poesy, 
 Born of the soul despoilers still of ill, 
 Hung out their purer ensigns, the old wound 
 Of sorrow healing with the pleasant thrill 
 Of native harmony, whose modern round 
 Poor Anderson essayed, nor without skill, 
 To trance the native heart with native thought, 
 And give it back the life it erst had found 
 In Ctimbria's homely pleasures, all unfraught 
 With the soft manners of an age refined. 
 
 But Blamire did this best ; her woman's mind, 
 Soul of her song, its burden's tender type, 
 Blent with her native lyre the touch and tone 
 Of purer genius ; and her numbers ripe 
 All up and down this Border country strewn, 
 Have pierced the deeps of Cumbria's gentler heart. 
 Refining it to virtue ; and her song. 
 Sung here in pleasant guise with her sweet friend, 
 The gentle Gilpin, who in all had part, 
 Will in these hills and valleys linger long, 
 And cheer the native Cumbrian to the end. 
 
 Nor has there failed the bard of loftier fame ; 
 For Wordsworth here, of Eden eloquent. 
 Sang as the poet should, with the true swell 
 Of a true heart, wrapt in its own intent ; 
 The castled cliff, the craggy hill and dell. 
 All loud with voice of streams of Cumbrian frame, 
 Still gave his muse content, and here he found 
 His spirit still inspired, where'er he went.
 
 8 Carlisle. 
 
 Nor has this city, in still older times, 
 
 Wanted its singer ; " Carel " still has been 
 
 The theme of song, the burden of old rhymes, 
 
 The quickening word of numbers rashly wrought, 
 
 Giving its living spirit to the sheen 
 
 Of all the Poet's music and his thought. 
 
 Here 'twas lived Percy, who o'erwrought by love 
 
 Of Border Minstrelsy, around it threw 
 
 A band protecting, gathering a sweet store 
 
 Of all its beauties, neither scarce nor few, 
 
 For common delectation, which he wove 
 
 Into his " Reliques " — songs which here of yore 
 
 Out of the people's common customs grew. 
 
 So sanctified by song has all thy past. 
 
 Fierce though it seems, been shaped to something true. 
 
 Its rigours and its sorrows brought at last, 
 
 As doth the storm cloud in the rainbow's hue, 
 
 To minister to pleasure, and create 
 
 Another mind, which, on the future cast, 
 
 Shall lipen into power, and subdue 
 
 War, and war's spirit, either soon or late. 
 
 And still, still other names await my line ; 
 Thy race of bards, O Carlisle, still flows on — 
 Thy last and latest, Lonsdale, of his sires. 
 The Border Poets, a most worthy son. 
 He sleeps too soon ; but still his numbers pure, 
 Fraught with the love that 'mongst these mountains 
 
 grows. 
 Shall still be honoured, still from door to door, 
 Spread the sweet sympathy that through them flows. 
 
 And thou hast had thy Paley, clear and strong. 
 Not quite a poet, but poetical :
 
 Carlisle. 
 
 He fed his thought thy ancient towers among, 
 Making it clear and simple, of a fall 
 That catches common hearing. Well he wrote, 
 And in the lists of fame his name is filed — 
 A Theologic Wordsworth, who took note 
 How God in all the world Himself has soul'd. 
 He sleeps in thy cathedral, 'mong the dust 
 Of many noble fathers, whose pure fame 
 Is its best consecration, and whose hearts, 
 Still mingling with its worship, light the flame 
 Of pure devotion, where the heart's strong trust, 
 One with their own in its pure heavenward aim, 
 The letter from the spirit wisely parts, 
 Finding the eternal substance, the bright Name 
 In which all worship centres, and all rest. 
 
 Nor in these spheres alone hast thou been blest, 
 Thy stock's been fruitful in a varied life, 
 Varied, yet kindred ; the same generous fires 
 Have run through all thy heroes, the old strife 
 Finding new objects, as the changing times 
 Have changed in their ambitions, giving zest 
 For things more purely noble — Art and Thought, 
 Destined to lead the world a purer way, 
 And ransom it from evil, consecrate 
 With all the true pure life religion yields. 
 So the brave artist, Watson, crowned thy state — 
 A lowly boy, inspired by Art's pure ray — 
 Bringing fresh garlands from her fairy field, 
 To honour thy old walls, thy towers grey, 
 Flushing afresh with the new vivid light 
 Of the world's onward genius, and his own. 
 Peace to his memory ! He was a true knight
 
 lO Carlisle. 
 
 Of worthy labour ; and his name, deep sown 
 In thy now peaceful annals, the low sight 
 Of youth irresolute, in sloth upgrown, 
 May lead to purer vision ; all his thought 
 Imbuing with the sense of the vast power 
 There lives in man, as man — a power fraught 
 With life to quicken every passing hour 
 Into divinest action, and to speed — 
 Such is the substance of the human flower — 
 Even in the lowliest mind, ambition's seed. 
 
 Nor must the Muse forget the gentle Steel, 
 Who in the ranks of genius. Mentor mild, 
 Marshall'd the powers of progress rising here, 
 With Journalistic Science ; prone to feel 
 How vast earth's bondage from those powers exiled, 
 How great earth's sorrows when usurped by fear. 
 He rose by effort to the worthiest fame ; 
 One of the people, a brave son of toil, 
 Whose heart aspiring unto knowledge bound, 
 Was quickened into hope by its pure flame. 
 Spreading at length its fruit o'er all the soil 
 Of this fair country, all the Border round. 
 
 So flows thy list of worthies — not half done — 
 A list too long for such a line as this ; 
 For thou than these, of daughter and of son. 
 Hast boasted many ; and thy sires I wis 
 Could tell of thy renowned ones without end, 
 Fostering their pride and thine with every word. 
 And every word a truth, for virtue lies 
 In a green covert, whose fair boughs, soft stirred 
 With only its own breath, no motions lends 
 To the loud trumpeting which through the skies
 
 Carlisle. 1 1 
 
 With names of noisier note and honours blends. 
 Who knows who's honoured thee ? Who's made thee 
 
 strong ? 
 Who's lifted up thy head and made thee great % 
 What prayer or speech or unremembered song 
 Has helped the current of thy life's new date. 
 Here influences have wrought, untold, unknown, 
 The holy breath of thought, that never grew 
 Into a verbal framing ; the dear love 
 W^hich but the heart that held it ever knew ; 
 The hope which brings true rest, the peace that's wove 
 Into domestic manners pure and free. 
 Blessing the inner spirit ; far above. 
 In its unnoted strength, the ecstasy 
 Of joys of grander import, its soft tone 
 Working in ways of good continually. 
 Soothing the sighs of grief, and pain's shrill groan. 
 And healing the vexed heart of poverty. 
 
 These, and a thousand more of gentler force, 
 Sweet influences in thine own heart upgrown. 
 Powers all ignored by fame, their silent course 
 Keeping unseen around life's common day. 
 Into thy deeper soul a charm have thrown. 
 Keeping it even in the grander way 
 Of Public Progress and of Modern Life. 
 
 So hast thou grown illumined by the ray — 
 Deep in thy bosom still, through all thy strife — 
 The ray of heavenly wisdom, whose soft sway 
 Has changed thy destinies, thy spirit rife 
 With old barbaric hate, and wrought in thee 
 The life and purpose of a city free. 
 Henceforth thy path is onward. Victory
 
 1 2 Carlisle. 
 
 Is thine in other fields than those of blood ; 
 
 Thy heart is strong, and the loud loom to-day 
 
 Stands where of eld thy skull-crowned ramparts stood 
 
 And Commerce in thy streets in peaceful mood 
 
 Pursues its hopeful customs now secure 
 
 Of loss of property and loss of peace : 
 
 And more than these — firm root of thine increase, 
 
 The blessing of thy people rich and poor — 
 
 Fair Knowledge reigns in thee, her rest and ease . 
 
 Spreading from gate to gate, from door to door. 
 
 Thy sons have led her banners, first again, 
 
 In deeds of valour and of bravery. 
 
 The same in spirit as those stalwart men 
 
 Who here of old still held their own in thee ; 
 
 And she, fair Knowledge, honouring their zeal. 
 
 Has led them on to vie with cities great : 
 
 Thy Exhibition, equal to the hour, 
 
 Proving by its fair circumstance and state, 
 
 That for thy honour and thy people's weal. 
 
 Thou still hast hearts to strive, to pray, to wait, 
 
 Firm hearts, most strong where love alone is power. 
 
 O " merrie city " of the ancient past, 
 City of pleasant scenes and old renown, 
 How sweetly art thou compassed ! Here at last 
 The tired wayfarer may at last sit down. 
 All Cumbria in his heart, and see again 
 All the fair scenes of this fair Border land : 
 Skid daw and Crififel and Helvellyn's steeps — 
 Thy southern ramparts, one long mountain band, 
 Enlaced all round from their dark sombrous deeps 
 With tree-sloped vale and stream-engirdled glen, 
 A flower clad, brightening vista, on each hand.
 
 Carlisle. 1 3 
 
 Here too the silver Solway from thy heights, 
 
 Soft mantUng on the distance, may be seen ; 
 
 And Scotland's purple hills — long misty flights. 
 
 Where oft of yore her brave ones' feet have been, 
 
 Or where her bards have dwelt, their sounds and sights 
 
 The joy that blest them, kept their souls serene ; 
 
 And nearer, fell on fell around thee creeps. 
 
 Their dark brows steeping in the radiant blue 
 
 Of the sweet summer ; or when winter keeps 
 
 His storm-clouds marshalled, looking grandly through 
 
 The silver braiding of their swelling sweeps, 
 
 Half lost in its pale glory, but still true 
 
 To their stern form and features, better seen 
 
 When those dark clouds have fall'n, and the pale snow 
 
 Rests on their rugged shoulders, its pure sheen 
 
 Gracing their grandeur, the fair marble show, 
 
 The soul from far of the rude wintry scene 
 
 Of this north country, while the dark months flow. 
 
 And nearer still, still ready for the feet 
 
 Of wearied artizan, or o'ertasked child. 
 
 Or raptured lovers, bringing sweet to sweet. 
 
 Thou hast thy beauteous walks and scenes more mild ; 
 
 The "Scaur," athwart whose heights the Romans piled 
 
 Their masonry enduring, the grand Wall 
 
 Which kept the Pict abeyant, o'er which frowned 
 
 The Roman legions, ready one and all. 
 
 From east to west, to keep this ancient bound 
 
 From foot incursive, where'er foot might fall. 
 
 Hard by where Hyssop Holme's green mantled steeps 
 
 Crown the famed "Well," most honoured of thy haunts, 
 
 This fabric ponderous paced the Eden's deeps, 
 
 Flying far on to where the Solway chants
 
 14 Carlisle. 
 
 Its monologue eternal, its bright bars 
 
 The terminus of this stupendous work, 
 
 Which here stood vast and awful 'neath the stars; 
 
 A splendid structure ! which nor spear nor dirk, 
 
 But the strong hand of time at last threw down. 
 
 The tale in stone of these old nations' wars. 
 
 Of all the Roman works the head and crown. 
 
 This is a scene of beauty, soft and still, 
 
 Thy noises hushed by the prevenient space : 
 
 Thou liest across the river, street and mill 
 
 Behind the nobler features of thy face. 
 
 Thy fair cathedral and thy castle's tower — 
 
 From hence most fitly seen, its towering grace, 
 
 And massive ramparts, bringing back the hour 
 
 Of thy past triumphs, when this very place, 
 
 Loud with the artillery of war and death. 
 
 Flashed out their fearful flames, where now the flower 
 
 Gladdens the wanderer with its easeful breath. 
 
 pleasant are these haunts, not less, but more 
 
 1 love them for the past that here has been ; 
 The life that ebbed out here in days of yore 
 Will keep these hills and vales for ever green 
 In human interest, brightening them all o'er 
 To days far distant, wdth the imagined scene 
 Of the great peaceless past, steeped to the core 
 In broils and turmoils, all its blazing sheen 
 Now dimmed and darkened, and its reeking roar 
 Silenced for ever by a hand serene. 
 
 Tales are there many of this Border Land, 
 And of this Border city fair and free ; 
 Tradition's subtle tongue, and time's dim hand, 
 Have woven about them things of mystery j
 
 Carlisle. 1 5 
 
 And in the winter, when the fire bums dim, 
 And garrulous guests have lost their wonted glee, 
 And the long night, far sloping to its rim, 
 Grows lone and awesome, mixing melancholy 
 With every breath, the peasant old and grey, 
 His heart fear palsied as his palsied limb, 
 Will tell, with the due meed of gaunt and grim 
 That makes a tale a tale — the flickering ray 
 And the weird silence all assisting him — 
 Such ghastly tragedies, that even fear 
 Itself exceeding, will itself o'erbrim. 
 Easing itself with the unbidden tear. 
 That at such times in listeners' eyes will swim. 
 But there are others of a softer frame, 
 Which deep in Cumbria's heart lie fast and sweet — 
 Tales of true love and trust and woman's name. 
 Which told, make winter hours as summer's fleet. 
 These are for female hearts and female tongues. 
 For household gatherings where the gentle meet — 
 Sweet ditties sweetly sung in Cumbria's songs, 
 With simple truth and trust and love replete ; 
 Tales unto which the virtue still belongs 
 To make the heart with genuine pleasure beat. 
 So art thou girt about, strong on each hand 
 In Border lore and Border bravery ; 
 Thy sons, as any in this Border land. 
 Valiant and hopeful, resolute and free. 
 And in the coming time, the time of peace — 
 The time hope paints, which yet in truth shall be — 
 Their virtues firm, their scorn of fireside ease. 
 Their swift decision, and their energy 
 Shall be thy strength again, and thy old might
 
 1 6 Carlisle. 
 
 In every need shall still return to thee. 
 
 Thy past has been a struggle stern and strong ; 
 The Danes of old turned their fierce fires on thee, 
 And thou laidst black and waste for centuries long, 
 A refuge but for want ; thy poverty 
 Bringing thee strange acquaintance ; and since then 
 Since Rufus raised thy walls of unknown date, 
 Raised long before by Rome, and yet again 
 By the good Egfrid, thou both soon and late 
 Hast oft been troubled, oft destroyed in part, 
 Thy fiery neighbour, the marauding Scot, 
 Still constant at thy gates ; but still thy lot 
 Has been to prosper ; and thy purer heart, 
 Strengthened by sorrow, unto virtue bound, 
 Nor undevoid of feelings which create 
 Religion's purer thought and purer life, 
 Shall still be thy protection, still thy state 
 Increase and prosper, and thy future strife 
 Enrich with nobler meed of nobler thought. 
 Bringing thee guerdon of things truly great — 
 A nobler spirit, and a wisdom fraught 
 With purposes diviner, of a reach 
 With the great coming ages, which shall teach 
 All men new doctrines, and shall all men free 
 With the pure power of purest Charity.
 
 CARLISLE CASTLE. 
 
 THE FIRST ENGLISH PRISON OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 
 
 " How fair amid the depth of Summer green 
 
 Spread forth thy walls, Carlisle ! Thy castled heights 
 
 Abrupt and lofty : thy Cathedral dome 
 
 Majestic and alone ; thy beauteous bridge 
 
 Spanning the Eden, where the angler sits 
 
 Patient so long, and marks the browsing sheep 
 
 Like sprinkled snow amid the verdant vales. 
 
 Old Time hath luing upon thy misty walls 
 
 Legends of festal and of warlike deeds — 
 
 King Arthur's wassail cup ; the battle axe 
 
 Of the wild Danish sea-kings ; the fierce beak 
 
 Of Rome's victorious eagle : Pictish spear 
 
 And Scottish claymore in confusion mixed 
 
 With England's clothyard arrow. Every helm 
 
 And dinted cuirass hath some stirring tale — 
 
 Yet here thou sitt'st as meekly innocent 
 
 As though thine eager lip had never quaffed 
 
 Hot streams of kindred blood. 
 
 Mrs. Lydia Sigourney. 
 
 T is an old adage that familiarity breeds 
 contempt ; and there is something of truth, 
 but also something of untruth, in it \ for our 
 contempt for what is familiar oftener arises from want 
 
 2
 
 1 8 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 of thought and reverence than from frequency of sight. 
 " A thing of beauty," a thing of interest " is a joy for 
 ever" to the refined, the intellectual, but like the 
 famous potter, Peter Bell, of whom it is written that 
 
 " A primrose on a river's brim, 
 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 
 And it was nothing more. " 
 
 many of us in this old city of Carlisle are apt, we fear, 
 to look upon our ancient castle simply as a castle, and 
 nothing more ; either forgetful or uninformed of all its 
 strange brave histories, and its equally strange and 
 striking perils and pageantries and long silenced sor- 
 rows. In these days we read so much history that its 
 truth — its vivid living realities almost escape us: we 
 do not hear the rush and push and struggle of the 
 brave, or see the tears and terrors which in far off 
 homes, or subsequently, in nearer dungeons, were often 
 their tragic accompaniment. 
 
 But coming out of the obliquity of the accustomed 
 flow of house and street life, and standing as we stood 
 on a bright November afternoon lately, in cells where 
 the chained captive must often have sighed for death — 
 thought returns, the imagination clears, and the won- 
 derful panorama of the past rushes on and on before 
 the excited mind in all the vivid hues of restless, 
 changing, struggling, suffering human life. Sir Walter 
 Scott said that "There are few cities in England which 
 have been the scene of more momentous and more 
 interesting events than Carlisle ; " and what is true of 
 the city is true also of the castle, whose history is in 
 reality the history^ of the city, and which has ample
 
 Carlisle Castle, 19 
 
 claim in comparison with all other castles in England 
 to all that is stated in this assertion. 
 
 Carlisle Castle stands at the north west side of the 
 city, on the left bank of the Eden, and is a massive 
 building in the form of an irregular triangle, of various 
 architecture, but principally in the Anglo Norman 
 style, as the ingenious visitor will discern from its 
 internal arrangement and construction, the material of 
 its composition being chiefly red sand stone. 
 
 The entrance to it is through two ancient double 
 gateways or towers of immense strength, and connect- 
 ing the outer and inner wards, before both of which 
 gates there was formerly a portcullis. 
 
 The castle now consists of one principal tower, with 
 the ancient keep, (which is still in a sound and staunch 
 looking state,) and the remains of what is called Queen 
 Mary's Tower, from its having been the place where 
 that unfortunate lady was confined in 1568, and which 
 appears from its ornamental exterior to have been 
 appropriated before that time to the use of royal or 
 other stately visitors of the castle. 
 
 This tower is on the left side of entrance from the 
 inner gate, and the interior of it is attained by going 
 through the officers' rooms, including a large mess 
 room, etc., which are at its rear, and which occupy 
 the basement of what was formerly the chapel of the 
 castle. But only a fraction of it is now standing, as its 
 insecurity, it is said, necessitated its removal some 
 years ago — a necessity much to be regretted by every 
 intelligent visitor of the castle. Inside this tower, 
 and in a sort of place which seems to have been 
 extemporized into an officers' kitchen, there are still
 
 20 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 remaining a few of the steep steps of the stairs that 
 once led up into it, and over which have doubtless 
 rustled the floating trains of the beautiful quartette 
 of Marys and their sorrowful mistress ; and we could 
 not help thinking as we looked on them that the 
 very foot which had taken precedence of the proud 
 Catherine de Medeci in the regal ceremonials of courtly 
 France, had passed in far different fashion up and 
 down there. 
 
 A rampart of immense thickness and strength sur- 
 rounds the castle on the north, east, and west sides, 
 in which are embrasures for cannon. On the west 
 side of this rampart is the present entrance to the 
 tower, which opens into the armoury over the dungeons 
 entered from the inner court. At present the arms in 
 it consist only of about twenty very indifferent old 
 swords hanging up and down on the bare walls, the 
 interior of the room being occupied with a very goodly 
 quantity of hospital clothing and requisites — and some 
 of the rooms are filled with the general stores of the 
 castle. 
 
 Leading out of these apartments, and on the same 
 floor, are two cells which have been used formerly as 
 places of confinement. One of them has the reputation 
 of having been the prison of that eccentric Jacobite, 
 Fergus Mc.Ivor, the hero of Waverley, and who, as the 
 initiated know, was meant to represent the real, and 
 we hope not less heroic, Major McDonald of Kip- 
 poch. In this cell the loop liole looks out upon the 
 pleasant Scotch country \ and on its base are two 
 deep indentions of fingers, one of three, and the other 
 of four, in what appears to be the solid stone. These
 
 Carlisle Castle. 2 1 
 
 are said to be the impression of the fingers of the poor 
 Scotch prisoners, who as they incessantly stood gazing 
 on their own dear distant hills, wore the impression 
 of their strained fingers on the hard stone. It is a 
 sad momento of the stern past, and one of the most 
 pathetic of the many touching records time has left on 
 these old walls. This cell jias also an additional 
 interest from the fact of Sir Walter Scott having been 
 here on his last sad journey home — from Italy. He 
 was accompanied by his daughter Ann, and the 
 officious conductor, unknowing his visitor, explained 
 to him how this had been Fergus's cell, and those the 
 print of his fingers. 
 
 Outside these two cells there is a great deal of rude 
 carving on the walls all around, of grifiins, boars, 
 scorpions, and armorial emblems, some of these latter 
 being the arms of the ancient families of the county. 
 There are some also of more pious design — women 
 with lifted hands and eyes, and one with a child 
 bearing the cross. One, too, we noticed, of Justice, 
 her eyes bandaged, and the scales ; and there was one 
 also of Fortune and her wheel. That grand monster 
 of the good old times, the rack, is also duly depicted, 
 as is its ally and competitor, the redoubted thumb- 
 screw — figures under the operations of these mixing 
 wofully with bands of pilgrims and solitary palmers, a 
 pictorial compendium of the history of the times. 
 These want no comment. Stolid indeed must he be 
 who cannot read thoughts in things here ; and more 
 stolid still who, when read, cannot .sympathize with 
 the great pondering, yearning human heart from which 
 these thoughts flowed.
 
 22 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 Passing from these cells, our conductor led us to an 
 apartment on the same floor, containing a large quantity 
 of exceedingly dusty lumber, among which he showed 
 us what is said to have been Queen Mary's dining 
 table. It is a veritable relic apparently, the two stands, 
 one at each end, by which it is supported having been 
 largely cut all round by the curious — not the reveren- 
 tially — for chips or pieces of it. The table, which 
 is a very plain, substantial one, is of oak, and about 
 five feet in length by two and a half in breadth. 
 Its antiquity is demonstrated by its workmanship, 
 the nails by which the top is attached to the stands 
 appearing in regular order on the surface of it. Poor 
 Sir Francis Knollys, we fancy, if he had written that 
 "story instead of a letter" he talked about, many 
 a scene of it would have been described as taking 
 place at this identical table. It was a sad charge his 
 — sad for him, but still more sad for Mary. Here, 
 during two long, sweet spring months, when the bright, 
 glinting sun smiled down in beguiling blessedness over 
 all the green rejoicing earth, peering even into her 
 prison, with its old, old sweetness, how must that yet 
 youthful heart have rankled under the unexpected 
 restraint to which she was reduced. Often and often 
 the substance of her thoughts must have been — 
 
 Now blooms the lily by the bank, 
 
 The primrose clown the brae, 
 The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 
 
 And milkwhite is the slae ; 
 The meanest hind in fair Scotland 
 
 May rove their sweets amang, 
 But I, the queen of all Scotland, 
 
 Maun lie in prison Strang.
 
 Carlisle Castle. 23 
 
 There are tears, hot, burning tears, under those cere- 
 monious sentences she wrote to Elizabeth from here. 
 Her heart was full of them, though the Queen awed 
 the woman, and kept them there. Sad restless nights 
 must she have passed under those soft starry June 
 skies, though her days were pomped out with the regal 
 strain of her grand rank. It was the Queen who looked 
 on for two hours while her faithful followers played 
 football for her amusement "on a playing green to- 
 wards Scotland," and that beautiful face undoubtedly 
 had its full complement of smiles and graces ; but that 
 proud passioned heart in whose depths pulsed the 
 blood of the heaven-scaling Guises and the absolute 
 Tudors, must have had hours of dreadful hard human 
 suffering here, as it was here that her pleasant sustaining 
 dream of Elizabeth's sympathy and help was first so 
 utterly dispelled. But the heathery hills of Scotland 
 were still in sight here, and here also she could still hear 
 the clear ringing accent and heart hallowed speech of 
 her own loved land, and the attraction bound her — she 
 wished to stay here. Poor lady, on her beautiful head 
 descended the retribution of many wrongs. Queen of 
 Scotland, and born on its rugged soil, she yet through 
 her maternity and education was entirely French. All 
 her affinities with the Scotch nature had been destroyed, 
 and from this all her troubles sprang. She was the 
 victim of circumstances — the heiress of the results of a 
 century of mistakes and acrimonious unwisdom. We 
 must pity her. She must ever be pitied, and her final 
 treatment must be for ever deprecated. But still 
 Elizabeth acted not alone. Terrible things — the 
 Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, in which at
 
 24 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 least thirty thousand Protestants had been shamefully 
 murdered, and the dreadful executions in the Nether- 
 lands by the ferocious Alva, of ten thousand Pro- 
 testants, together with the sacking of Antwerp by 
 the same Duke — had taken place during Mary's 
 imprisonment, and these with the recollection of the 
 fierce fires of Mary Tudor's reign, and the fear of their 
 renewal, led the people as well as the nobles, who 
 were already becoming ultra-Protestants or Puritans, 
 to desire the death of Mary, who with Tudor tenacity 
 still held fast to all the revoked ritual of her fallen 
 church ; thus allying herself with the enemies of 
 England and her own country, and also with all the 
 enemies of truth and progress and enlightend piety 
 throughout the world. Mary died a martyr to her 
 religion, as she herself declared, when she took that 
 last lone sacrament at Fotheringay; but it was the 
 hard and fearful events of the times rather than the 
 evil disposition of either the nobles or the people, or 
 even the sovereign, which principally procured her 
 death. Requiescat in pace. There seems injustice, but 
 in the vast reaches of celestial jurisdiction good and 
 evil interflow, and the wise and the thoughtful are 
 "reduced as they ponder the solemn mysteries of life 
 and time to a devout belief in a sublime oi^timism, 
 which for ever and ever, in large and in little, by suffering 
 and by peace, works out a greater and still a greater 
 good. 
 
 Concluding this episode, and taking a last look at 
 this antique table, at which we almost seemed to feel 
 the inspiring presence of the fair captive, we resume 
 our explorations of the castle, our next progress being
 
 Carlisle Castle. 25 
 
 to the top of the tower, which is three stories high, 
 each of sixteen feet in height, and which is, from 
 the ground to the top of the parapet, sixty-eight 
 feet in height. The prospect seen from here is 
 a very fine one. On the south Skiddaw stretches its 
 subhme circumference on the far off margin of vision, 
 and to the west, beyond the silver Sohvay, rises the 
 dark crest of Criffel, while the northern and eastern 
 views are bounded by irregular heights of cloud capped 
 fell, between which flows the tranquil Eden. 
 
 Within this area, and all around Carlisle, sweeps a 
 beautiful and fertile extent of rich cultivated land, over 
 which peaceful white villages and farms cluster thickly. 
 This tract includes also many noted border towers 
 and castles — Corby, Naworth, Brougham, Linstock, 
 Penrith, and Rose Castle, for instance; but no helmed 
 warders pace their keeps now. The times have 
 changed, and one noble border chieftain, now, alas ! 
 no more, has sweetly tuned his peaceful lyre to the 
 praises of the "wild and winsome jessamine tree" 
 that blooms upon his border tower. 
 
 There are, also, many sweet rural solitudes in the 
 interspaces of this prospect, where in the green summer 
 time the honeysuckle and the wild rose and the satin- 
 threaded bramble flower far up in mid air scatter their 
 gracious healing beauty and fragrance on the unworldly 
 wanderer. From here also the whole country may be 
 reconnoitred for miles, the roads on every hand being 
 visible for great distances. 
 
 Underneath the armoury, and on the ground floor 
 of the tower are the solitary dungeons. They are 
 entered mostly by narrow doors, and are utterly dark,
 
 26 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 no narrow chink of any kind communicating with the 
 sweet upper air. The bare damp clay is all that is at 
 the bottom of them, all round them at regular intervals 
 are horizontal apertures, where we were told rings had 
 once been to tie the prisoners up to, and the sad fact 
 seemed but too conspicuously apparent for any less 
 barbarous explanation. A large ancient gothic door 
 in the inner ward, and not far from the inner gate, 
 leads to these, from which there is a descent of stone 
 steps, apparently the very same over which the bleached 
 visages of those miserable prisoners must have come 
 and gone. Grim, defiant faces, full of mad daring, 
 and a wild half noble heroism, they rise upon the 
 imagination ; and what numbers of them must have 
 passed that fearful threshold in the days when the 
 slogan broke the bright silences of morning and 
 evening full often round the purple hills of the border, 
 and the hot-trod* was a common spectacle and a 
 common fear to the irreclaimable moss-trooper. What 
 numbers also must have repassed it to swift and sum- 
 mary execution, or in another fearful form as livid 
 corpses, whose ghastly emaciations no bed had com- 
 forted, and whose last irrepressible sorrows no eye had 
 watched, and no ear heard. 
 
 The outer and inner wards of the castle are separated 
 by a wall and tower gate. The great tower, or keep, 
 and the principal buildings of the castle, including those 
 
 * The hot-trod was a pursuit mamtained with a lighted piece 
 of turf carried on a spear with hue and cry, and bugle, horn, and 
 blood-hound, and all who heard the alarm were expected to join 
 in the chase. In many of the villages there were blood-hounds 
 kept for this purpose.
 
 Carlisle Castle. 27 
 
 we have seen, are in the inner ward, which is of a 
 triangular form. Formerly this ward was enclosed by 
 a wide and deep ditch, with a drawbridge ; but there 
 is scarcely a trace now of such having been. The 
 tower gate is apparently of very ancient date, being all 
 black and grim underneatli, and bearing on its sides 
 many quaint initials. On the left side of the entrance 
 by this, there are still a great many ancient rooms and 
 other buildings, some parts of which were taken down 
 in 1S20, and it was here that at that time the skeleton 
 of a lady was found walled up. Looking up, on passing 
 under the gate on that side, the place is still visible 
 where this singular discovery was made, though the 
 walls which enclosed it are gone. This lady, it is 
 authentically stated, wore a Scotch tartan silk dress, 
 and had on her fingers two gold rings, while her feet 
 were placed on several silk handkerchiefs — facts which 
 the curious may like to know, but which, nevertheless, 
 avail Uttle. There have been many conjectures re- 
 specting this mysterious person ; and it has been made 
 the subject of more than one tale ; but there is no 
 authentic idea, either traditional or otherwise, relating 
 to it. The tales which have been written on it refer 
 the atrocity of the deed to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 
 who was Governor of the Castle and Sheriff of Cum- 
 berland during his brother Edward the Fourth's reign • 
 but this is entirely supposititious and quite question- 
 able, as a wall built in the thorough fashion of those 
 times at that date would scarcely have become insecure 
 so soon as 1820. Nothing certain is, or can be known 
 about this mystery. In the far past such dreadful 
 deeds were not uncommon in many countries of Europe,
 
 28 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 and this may have been done by some impoverished 
 Crusader, who, among his many ideas derived from 
 travel and foreign association, had got this one of 
 waUing up ahve any one whom jealousy or fear or 
 avarice might make it desirable for him to dispense 
 with. Ah ! those were barbarous times, we exclaim. 
 Truly, they were. Nor is the world quite free from 
 that barbarism yet, nor will be till ambition, the great 
 master passion of man, true to the central fact of all 
 truth, revolves universally in its own legitimate track 
 round Life, making that, in lieu of wealth, power, or 
 position, the passion and purpose of existence. 
 
 Where all is so vague and conjectural, very little can 
 be said ; but in perambulating the precincts of the 
 Castle it is well to pause here and let the mind realise 
 the fact that a living lady was once the sufferer of an 
 extraordinary barbarism there, since it is the spirit 
 which we bring to or find amongst things which is the 
 best help to knowledge, and which avails the most also 
 in producing within us the faculties which lead to its 
 proper use. 
 
 Passing out of this ancient gateway, before which 
 now lies a very large open space of ground used for 
 drilling, &c., and beyond which are the barracks, we 
 come to the guard house and outer gate. The first of 
 these is a very old place, close by the gate, with win- 
 dows in the old barbaric style of one pane only. Our 
 conductor told us there was nothing to be seen there, 
 and so we did not go in ; but these guard houses were 
 the old novelist's favourite places for intrigues and 
 midnight machinations ; and could the old dim walls 
 of this guard house articulate, we might possibly hear
 
 Carlisle Castle. 29 
 
 stories to fill and thrill the heart and haunt the 
 imagination for many a day. 
 
 The outer gate is a lofty stone entrance of immense 
 strength and thickness, and dim and black hued by 
 time to a still greater extent than the inner one. It 
 has also a greater number still of antiquated initials, 
 and over it, on the outer side, is a defaced tablet of 
 the arms of Henry the Seventh. This gate, from its 
 appearance, must have been coeval with the most 
 ancient parts of the castle, and, as such, is of great 
 interest, as under its solid masonry must have passed 
 and repassed all the notabilia of the castle from 
 Rufus's reign downwards. Peaceful to-day as a moun- 
 tain cotter's rose-garnitured threshold, it has other 
 and different memories. Royal retinues, and princely 
 and priestly pageantries and personages have passed 
 under its awed shade, with curious or abstracted vision, 
 and from its defied heights have issued the solemn 
 cortege of pinioned prisoners for Gallows Hill. It has 
 strange histories, if we knew them, that old outer gate. 
 From 1 122, when the courtly and learned Beauclerc 
 was here, and most probably lodged in some prepared 
 part of the castle, its walls have echoed with stately 
 steps, and renowned visitors. Here— and very familiar 
 with this place, having taken the city in 1135, and 
 retreated here from the dreadful Battle of the Standard 
 passed David, King of Scotland, for the last of many 
 times, to die alone in his chamber, devoutly kneeling 
 to the King of Kings ; and three years before that sad 
 event, in 1 150, our own Henry Plantagenct, then a 
 ruddy, handsome, graceful youth passed here on his 
 way, in company with the Earl of Chester, to this very
 
 30 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 David, for counsel as to his course with Stephen. It 
 ended in their entering into a league against Stephen, 
 and Henry being knighted by David ; and with such 
 results, Henry most probably repaced this portal in 
 pleasant spirits, the Earl of Chester and many a noble 
 English youth by his side. 
 
 After David's death the castle again came into the 
 hands of the English, and, twenty years after, we find 
 that gallant governor, Robert de Vaux, pacing these 
 old arches. A right heroic princely man, he rises 
 upon us through the mists of time, his successful 
 defence of the castle against William the Lion, of 
 Scotland, during many months' siege, being the grand 
 deed about which his name and fame revolve. And 
 this was no common deed, for the city during that 
 time was invested with 8,000 Scotch soldiers, and the 
 resolute garrison were at fearful extremities, and on 
 the very brink of yielding, when an accident — the 
 Scotch king being taken prisoner at Alnwick — at last 
 delivered them from their peril. Thirteen years 
 after this Henry Plantagenet, now Henry II., again 
 passed these portals. He was now no longer young, 
 had reigned thirty-two years, and was within three of 
 his death. Fierce struggles and fierce sorrows had 
 passed over him, but great events and great things had 
 also transpired and been done. Active, and hurrying 
 hither and thither to the last, he came this time with 
 a large army and met William the Lion (who had been 
 in league with his own sons against him, but it seems 
 forgiven,) and David his brother here. He was now 
 lord of Scotland, William, on his defeat at Alnwick, 
 having acknowledged himself his vassal ; and the great
 
 Carlisle Castle. 31 
 
 king must have caused on this last visit of his a great 
 deal of running and riding through this grand old 
 gateway. 
 
 In 1 2 16 another Scotch King appears on the scene 
 — Alexander, successor to William the Lion. In this 
 year that king took the city, after a long and miserable 
 siege, gracing, undoubtedly, these dim walls with his 
 daily presence for some short time. But his sway here 
 was but of one year's duration, for, though England 
 was in a troubulous state then — the first year of 
 Henry III. the English won back the city in 12 13, 
 and Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, was made 
 Governor of the Castle. 
 
 But the century did not close over the city and 
 castle peaceably, for in 1296 siege was again laid to 
 the city by the Scotch, though ineffectually this time, 
 owing to the bravery of the inhabitants — the women 
 even pouring boiling water over their heads from the 
 walls, so that in three days it was abandoned by them. 
 Stirring times these for these old walls, shrill women's 
 voices even mingling with the martial din constantly 
 pervading here ! 
 
 At this very time — Scotland's fiercest foe, the fiery 
 Edward the First, was pouring thousands of soldiers 
 into the Border country, Dunbar and Falkirk battles 
 being fought in 1296 and 1298, in which year the 
 victorious Edv/ard having reigned twenty-six years, 
 and being at the height of his fame — marched his army 
 here on their way from Falkirk ; and in the September 
 following, while the white autumn mists silvered field 
 and fell in the holy hours of twilight, winning to 
 ecstatic contemplations and devotions, unknown, but
 
 32 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 not unhonoured saints, this ambitious king held a 
 parliament within these walls. 
 
 A year before this Wallace himself had appeared 
 before these walls demanding the surrender of the city, 
 but once more we find the old city awake and vigilant 
 in all needful dues for its own defence, and the brave 
 Wallace himself retired from before it. 
 
 In 1300 Edward was again here on his route to 
 Scotland, attended by his nobles and his army ; and 
 again in 1306, the very year his grand adversary, 
 Robert Bruce, was crowned king of Scotland, and one 
 year after the noble Wallace had been "hung, drawn, 
 and quartered," most likely in his august presence, in 
 his English capital. 
 
 This last time Carlisle was the appointed rendezvous 
 of his army ; and he himself was accompanied by his 
 second young queen, Margaret of France, and his son 
 Edward, Prince of Wales, eighteen years old that year. 
 Here also, at the same time, were assembled nineteen 
 bishops, and between fifty and sixty mitred abbots, 
 the archbishop of York, and a great number of barons, 
 with the Cardinal d'Espagnol, the Pope's legate. The 
 redoubtable John Hilton, Bishop of Carlisle was at 
 that time governor of the castle and factotum of the 
 king in this border country, and during his stay here 
 Edward was a frequent guest at Linstock castle, the 
 Bishop's residence. All the succeeding winter of this 
 year, and till the July of the following, the time of his 
 death, the king and court remained either here or at 
 Lanercost, and another Parliament was held here on 
 the 20th of January, 1307. This was in all proba- 
 bility the acme of the great days of our castle — the
 
 Carlisle Castle. 33 
 
 grandest and most distinguished times these old Gothic 
 walls ever knew. What gay hunting cavalcades, alight 
 with sweet ladies' faces, their smiles and voices the 
 wonder of northern ears and eyes, must have issued 
 from these gates in the golden dawns of those years to 
 Inglewood or otherwhere. And what great fires must 
 have roared, that holy Christmas time, on the open 
 hearths of the royal tower and apartments of this 
 comely castle — a king and queen eating their brawn 
 and plumb joorridge in its then glowing chambers. 
 
 But these men, with all their faults, were something 
 more than mere pleasure takers. War was their 
 religion, and to its heroisms they devoted themselves, 
 kindling the defiance they sought to subdue. They 
 had conquered Wallace, one of the noblest patriots 
 that ever breathed the sweet aiis of earth, and of 
 kindred, if not equal virtue, with Themistocles and 
 the Gracchi; but he also had conquered them, and 
 though now no more, his spirit survived in Bruce and 
 his countrymen. It was in fact a Titanic war, great 
 men being in both camps ; but all our sympathies are 
 with the brave Wallace and his brave compeers. 
 
 One little fact looming out here will show the 
 superstitious tendency of even the strongest minds of 
 that period. In the February of that year, 1307, 
 Edward being already g.n invalid at Lanercost, and 
 doubtless much mortified by the fact of Bruce's acces- 
 sion, despite of himself, to the Scotch throne, caused 
 him to be excommunicated with bell, book, and 
 candle, in the cathedral here, the Pope having pre- 
 viously commissioned the Archbishop of York and the 
 
 .3
 
 34 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 Bishop of Carlisle, the doughty John Hilton, to do 
 this deed. 
 
 Among the governors of the castle sometime during 
 the early part of this reign was John Baliol, the "Toom 
 Tabard" of the Scots. He invaded Cumberland while 
 king, and most probably gained some short space of 
 sway here as a result. Bruce also was here more than 
 once — the Bruce whose heart the brave Douglas 
 carried forth to Palestine, though he never got there 
 for his many wars. He was a hero of the grand line, 
 and is one of the greatest presences that have graced 
 these gates. 
 
 In 1307, after Edward II. had been proclaimed 
 king in this city, on his father's death, and gone with 
 all his "dool" vested followers to London, and from 
 thence to France, to fetch his unfortunate " fate " 
 Isabella, we find the same Robert Bruce besieging the 
 city for ten days ; but it was gallantly defended by 
 Andrew de Harcla, the first Earl of Carlisle. In 13 15 
 Bruce again besieged the place unsuccessfully, and 
 eight years afterwards Harcla was arrested in this 
 castle for having treasonously purposed to convert it 
 into a garrison for his former enemy, de Brus. It is 
 also said that that witty unprincipled favourite of 
 Edward's, Piers Gravestone, was sometime governor 
 of this castle, but if so, it must have been for a very 
 short time. Let him pass. He is grand jester in our 
 train of notabilia, and during his brief sway, if ever he 
 ruled here, kept the old city company in its renowned 
 characteristic right heartily we opine. 
 
 A quarter of a century after this, in 1335, we find 
 the active and ambitious Edward III. here with a
 
 Carlisle Castle. 35 
 
 large army, his object being the assistance of his 
 ignoble vassal, Robert Baliol, in whose interest he 
 had two years before been at Hallidon Hill. Edward 
 was little more than twenty-three when here, though 
 he had already reigned eight years ; but his head was 
 already teeming \\dth great ideas, and though we cannot 
 sympathize with his mission, it must have been a sight 
 worth seeing to have looked on that absorbed visage, 
 as with his great ambitions just budding into deter- 
 minate deeds — a real man under the gay garniture of 
 person that then prevailed, he rode up and down this 
 antique entrance. His five year old son, the Black 
 Prince, with the good and wise Phillipa, his mother, 
 was then at Windsor, a place which that great man, 
 Wilham of Wykeham, then but eleven years old, was 
 soon to fashion into its present grandeur. 
 
 Bolingbroke and his sad captive, Richard 11. , are 
 also said to have lodged here for a night on their way 
 southward. A king in name and a real king: the 
 man wliom everybody blessed and the king whom 
 nobody blessed — the melancholy, misled Richard, and 
 the smiling, gracious Henry. Curious citizens would 
 doubtless watch for these as they quitted at early morn 
 these grey arches, looking with strained eyes after the 
 royal cortege, while they brought up old memories and 
 recounted new tales of the two principal figures in it. 
 Poor Richard ! the saddest king undoubtedly that ever 
 passed out here ; his sad downcast face mingles with 
 the old vivid fancies of the castle as a pathetic phantom 
 or a sorrowful apparition sent to touch the soft airs 
 and fair stars of to-day with a sense of pity which now, 
 as ever, makes the heart, amid all its vain ambitions, 
 wise and good.
 
 36 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 Ten years after Edward the Third's visit here, the 
 Scotch again besieged Carhsle, burning both it and 
 Penrith, and plundering very heavily, as it seems 
 from the old chronicles. But once more they were 
 defeated by the brave natives, their leader, the re- 
 nowned Sir William Douglas, being taken and laid in 
 irons in the castle, the common fate of all prisoners in 
 those "stern old times." 
 
 We find also that during the Wars of the Roses, 
 Carlisle was harassed to an unprecedented extent, 
 and doubtless, the castle all through these Wars was 
 the scene of strange and fearful events if we knew 
 them. The scots especially sympathized with Henry 
 the Sixth, and made an ineffectual attempt to take 
 Carlisle for him ; and all through the reigns of Henry 
 IV., v., and VL, the city was miserably harassed, the 
 suburbs and adjacent parts, up to the very gates, being 
 destroyed by fire. For all England this was a time of 
 terror, and probably this old castle suffered greatly 
 from the constant hostilities of the times, and doubtless 
 many brave men and true passed these portals during 
 all these years, for calamity also produces " thoughts 
 that do often lie too deep for tears;" and where we 
 stand to-day as mere conjecturers, souls, whose names 
 have been blown by heavenly trumps, may have 
 prayed and perished, or, in the pressure of troubles, 
 conceived thoughts or done deeds whose praise lingered 
 in the local heart with loving pride for many a meagre- 
 lettered generation. 
 
 Passing on to Edward the Fourth's reign, we find 
 his brother, the notorious Duke of Gloucester, governor 
 of the castle. He was also sheriff of the county, and
 
 Ca7' lisle Castle. 37 
 
 must have been in the north for a considerable time, 
 since we find him residing at Penrith Castle, then 
 barely finished; and Camden says "this castle" 
 i.e. Carhsle, "King Richard III., as appears by his 
 arms, repaired;" and these repairs were most probably 
 either planned or begun while Richard was here. 
 There is also a tower called the "Tile Tower," or 
 "King Richard's Tower," which was built at the same 
 time. This Tile Tower is a very short distance west 
 of the castle, and was originally on the city walls, 
 being built to defend the wall on that side of the city. 
 It is not a place of very large dimensions or height. 
 One apartment only is open now, but out of this a 
 doorway which led to some other has been walled up. 
 A subterranean passage from the castle to the cathedral 
 ran through the tower, and is said to have been used 
 by Queen Mary and her ladies, but it is now walled 
 up within on each side of the base of the tower, and 
 the entrance to it, which was somewhere by the inner 
 gate, has been closed up also. This building, which 
 is now in a very dilapidated condition, bears the arms 
 of Richard on its western side. We confess to being 
 not very greatly interested in this king, yet though 
 " cheated of feature by dissembling nature," he seems 
 not to have wanted many of the principal character- 
 istics of the Plantagenets, viz — strength, ambition, and 
 resolution, and the genius of improvement ; and his 
 faults have in all probal)ility been greatly exaggerated 
 by our great poet, who doubtless remembered that the 
 fair lady he wished to please was a Tudor. But if 
 Richard himself is something lacking in interest, the 
 time of his stay here was one of particular note in the
 
 38 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 history of modern times, for during that time WilUam 
 Caxton was revising his first proofs in the sacred 
 purUeus of Westminster, and Christopher Columbus 
 was waiting on the western coast of Spain in a poor 
 convent for the means to reahze his subUme idea of a 
 vast India over the virgin waves of the great Atlantic. 
 Both these things perhaps were in Richard's thoughts 
 as he came and went here, and not improbably formed 
 the topic of talk at some of the suppers he and his 
 retainers ate together in our castle. 
 
 After this, and in 1537, we find, as a result of the 
 growing intelligence of the times, the first signs of 
 desires for peace between the English and the Scots. 
 In that year, and most likely within the walls of the 
 castle, the Bishops of Durham and Orkney met at 
 Carlisle as commissioners for a treaty of peace between 
 the two countries. But these ancient towers had 
 many a storm in reserve then, the first of which 
 occurred in the very same year — the year of the Pil- 
 grimage of Grace. In that year the city was besieged 
 by those misguided men, which resulted in their being 
 repulsed by the garrison and citizens, and seventy-four 
 of their principal ofticers being executed on the city 
 walls. Subsequently, their ghastly heads gleamed 
 from these towers or the walls, scaring the mid-day 
 airs even with fearful terror ; for these were not the 
 hated Scotch, but English gentlemen, and some of 
 them probably well known and much loved in the city. 
 There must have been many a sad procession through 
 these gates, both^ in and out, during this "rising." 
 Here in these border counties the two great antagonistic 
 forces of the time, Protestantism and Catholicism,
 
 Carlisle Castle, 39 
 
 met, and the latter was utterly defeated. It was too 
 late to burn Bibles as they were burnt by the people 
 at Durham ; too late to restore the mass in England, 
 though for a century after this hope lingered in the 
 Catholic heart ; still, the genuine enthusiasm of many 
 of the leaders of this Rebellion, gives a touch of 
 grandeur to the determinate effort of tliis desperate 
 band of men, and adds to the regret which spon- 
 taneously rises in generous minds in contemplating 
 the fearful severities they suffered. One in every 
 village for sixty miles around, and in many of them 
 many more, was hung, to awe the disaffected. It 
 was a sad time. Anti-progressionists have ever been 
 persistent persecutors, and most of all so in all times 
 when the progression has been one in connection with 
 Religion — the mind of man still confounding its passing 
 forms with its eternal spirit and substance. In the 
 year 1400, a century and a quarter before this, the 
 stake had been set up in England, but the flame only 
 increased the fury of zealots, the unswerving victims 
 of the inquisition, by their noble behaviour, but 
 creating new supplies for its horrid tortures \ and in 
 conjunction with this the grim age still held its cord 
 and axe, as though sure of the occasion which, in the 
 insecurity of the times, was never wanting. It was 
 the God of the Old Testament, not of the New, the 
 age worshipped — a (iod of vengeance, not the God 
 of Love ; and Shakespeare, yet unborn, had yet to 
 teach men the qualities of mercy, and how 
 
 "It becomes 
 The throned monarch better than his crown." 
 
 In 1596 we find that famous borderer, Kinmont
 
 40 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 Willie, in irons in the castle. He was taken prisoner 
 during a time of truce, and imprisoned contrary to the 
 express agreement of the truce, and William Scott, 
 the Lord of Buccleuch, whose follower he was, de- 
 manded his instant release. This demand was not 
 complied with, and his angry chief, after the fashion 
 of those times, came here at once with two hundred 
 horsemen, provided with ladders for scaling the walls, 
 and instruments of iron for forcing the gates; and 
 before the garrison could prepare for resistance, in the 
 brightening dawn of an April morning, forced the 
 castle, and carried off tlie renowned Willie, his irons 
 still on, which Sir Walter Scott says a smith knocked 
 off at a cottage by the road side between Longtown 
 and Langholm. Summary proceedings these. These 
 men had not yet acquired our modern notion of 
 debating the question. They did not palter whatever 
 they did, nor cheat their consciences with the question- 
 able virtue of votes. 
 
 Another of our English monarchs, James the First, 
 visited Carlisle in 1617, and very probably lodged in 
 the castle, perhaps in the very apartments his mother 
 once occupied. The object of his journey to Scotland 
 — the establishment of Episcopacy in the place of 
 Presbyterianism— was a very unwise one, and together 
 with his intolerance of the English Puritans and his 
 universal despotism, the source of all the long train 
 of evils that troubled all, or nearly all, his descendants. 
 But the pedant king appears to have found favour with 
 the pleasant people of Carlisle, for they, with all due 
 speechifying and kissing of hands, presented him with 
 a "cup of golde" valued at thirty pounds, and "a
 
 Carlisle Castle. 41 
 
 purse of sylke containing forty jacobuses of the same." 
 A most welcome gift we have no doubt to the needy 
 monarch, who, we are told, used this obliging " INIaiore 
 and his brethren very graceouslye." 
 
 At this time James had been fourteen years in 
 England, and was more than fifty years old. His 
 eldest son and heir, Henrj^, was already dead in his 
 prime, his Queen, Ann of Denmark, was a trouble to 
 him, and the country was fermenting with the new 
 religio political emotion of Puritanism, made daily 
 stronger by his prohibitions. Three years after this 
 the jNIay Flower left the coast of Holland for America; 
 and while James was here receiving cups and purses 
 of gold from the gracious ]\Iayor and citizens, many 
 of the noblest of his subjects were flying from his 
 arbitrary rule to Holland and other places, and the 
 great men who were to put the disjointed times right 
 — ]Milton, Cromwell, and Hampden, were already- 
 ripening into manly life and deed. But James was 
 no seer, and consequently, with "feast royall" and 
 public church going, enjoyed himself in right kingly 
 style here with his rattling retainers and the "merrie" 
 citizens, he and they talking Amnenian Theology and 
 Universal Episcopacy in the calmer intervals of their 
 noisy plays and pageantries. 
 
 In 1639 five hundred Irish soldiers were sent as a 
 garrison to this castle, and remained here two years. 
 The commotion in Scotland caused by the imposition 
 of Bishops, etc., necessitated this precautionary move- 
 ment. The great struggle was just commencing 
 between king and people, which for more than ten 
 years after this was to break nearly every sweet silence
 
 42 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 of wood and field between the Grampians and Land's- 
 end with tlie fierce din of war. And in this war this 
 city and castle had a full share of the general tumult 
 of the times. The royalists held the city in 1644, of 
 Marston Moor memory, and we find General Leslie 
 besieging Sir Thomas Glenham, commander-in-chief 
 for his majesty here the same year. More than seven 
 months this siege lasted — from October, 1644, to 
 June, 1645, a long winter through, and the calamity 
 consequent was very great. " Flesh of horses, dogs, 
 and other animals " was for some time the subsistance 
 of the besieged. The old city, notwithstanding its 
 bravery, must have been fearfully tried during all this 
 time, and gaunt anxious faces must have passed 
 through these old arches in those drear winter months ; 
 but the brave garrison capitulated to Leslie at last, 
 almost death driven. 
 
 In 1648 the city again fell into the hands of the 
 Royalists, having been taken by surprise by Sir Philip 
 Musgrave, who after two months' occupation gave it 
 up to the Duke of Hamilton, and by liim it was 
 garrisoned with Scots, Sir William Livingstone being 
 appointed governor. This same year, on the first of 
 October, and after the defeat of Hamilton and Lang- 
 dale at Preston, by Cromwell, this city also quietly 
 surrendered to him. During this year the city had 
 been the scene of the most distressing suffering. The 
 siege of Carlisle of 1644-5 is one of three of the most 
 determined for the king's cause. Isaac Tullie, who 
 was in the city the whole time, gives a very striking 
 account of it. " The citizens' clothes hung on them," 
 he says, " like those of men on gibbets ; and one day
 
 Carlisle Castle. 43 
 
 some officers and soldiers came to the common bake- 
 house, and took away the horse flesh from the poor 
 people who were as near starving as themselves. 
 
 " Women met at the cross abusing Sir Henry 
 Hadling the governor, who threatened to fire upon 
 them ; they begged it as a mercy, and the old soldier 
 went away with tears in his eyes — he could not help 
 them. This was Leslie's siege." Sad troubled times 
 of change and commotion were these, but the strong 
 man had now come, and the storm subsided. Crom- 
 well is one of the very noblest and bravest who have 
 graced these gates ; and even to-day, dwelling on 
 those stormy times, his presence is half realized. 
 Fresh from the signal victory, or rather victories, at 
 Preston, his heart, as he passed these portals, which 
 he undoubtedly did, wovild perhaps be revolving his 
 favourite Scripture, "Why do the heathen rage, and 
 the people imagine a vain thing % The kings of the 
 earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel 
 together against the Lord and against his anointed, 
 saying, ' Let us break their bands asunder and cast 
 away tlieir cords from us. He that sitteth in the 
 heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in 
 derision.' " Brave Oliver ! we wonder if he also lodged 
 within these towers, and whether amid all the multi- 
 tude of sounds that have passed hence, the audible 
 morning and evening prayer of that great true man 
 mingled. 
 
 Pacing these arches on a different errand, another 
 great hero of the time was at this castle, in 1653. 
 This was that truly noble man, George Fox, whose 
 manly zeal inspired him with the idea of preaching to
 
 44 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 the garrison here. His discourse was most likely 
 delivered in the inner court of the castle, and it being 
 the fourth year of the Protectorate, it is not improbable 
 that some of Cromwell's soldiers might be intermixed 
 with the troops, which may account for his favourable 
 reception, for we find the soldiers on the morrow 
 taking his part when he was arrested after preaching 
 at the Market Cross. However this may be, his being 
 here adds to the interest of these ancient walls, and to 
 him who lingers lovingly over all their great past, im- 
 bibing not only the fact, but the spirit of the times out 
 of which the fact grew, this one calm voice amid the 
 multitudinous din of years will be precious indeed — 
 precious as the augury of a new era, as the first 
 receding wave of a many centuried strife-tide which, 
 not here only, but throughout the whole world, had 
 spread perpetual desolation and perpetual sorrow. It 
 would be worth much now to many to annihilate the 
 intervening years, and catch but for one brief minute 
 the look and tone that pierced the hearts of that 
 grotesque auditory on that special day in this castle 
 court. So plain a man and yet so powerful, so 
 courageous and yet so humble he rises on the imagin- 
 ation ; and then his truth so great that it has yet to 
 live on and refresh unknown generations — not yet 
 fully apprehended, but finally to be both apprehended 
 and honoured. No wonder that a preacher of such 
 doctrines — a denouncer of routine and formula — 
 should here, as every Avhere, have found a prison. 
 One of the most faithful and farseeing of the spiritual- 
 ists of all times, his imagined presence still hallows 
 these scenes ; and though there is no authentic proof
 
 Carlisle Castle. 45 
 
 of his having been confined in these dungeons, yet his 
 followers, as well as others, may still gain some in- 
 struction by coming to see where he preached. 
 
 A century after this, in 1745, the "Young Pretender," 
 Charles Edward Stuart, came hither from Scotland 
 with an army of nine thousand men, and laid siege to 
 the city on the 9th of November, demanding its in- 
 stant surrender in the name of his father. On the 
 15th the gates of the city were opened to him, and 
 his father was proclaimed king at the Cross. This 
 done, they marched southward as far as Warwickshire, 
 contemplating, in their hour ol victory, the subduction 
 of the metropolis. But other and sadder fortunes 
 awaited them. The Duke of Cumberland was already 
 in the field as their opponent, and at Derby they found 
 three armies in front of tliem. Charles Edv\'ard, 
 perhaps wisely for him, following the counsels of his 
 ofiicers, at once retreated before these forces, taking 
 the direct way back to Carlisle, the Duke and his 
 ponderous army all pursuing. The Prince's army 
 arrived in Carlisle on the 19th of December, after 
 some severe skirmishing at Penrith the previous day. 
 The Duke followed hard after, and, in the interval of 
 eleven days, Carlisle, with little loss, was once more 
 in the hands of his majesty King George. During 
 this interval the city had been besieged, the fire of the 
 besiegers being directed "wholly against the Castle," 
 which the Duke in scorn had called "a miserable hen- 
 coop," and which Lord Murray, of the Prince's army, 
 w^ould have blown up, if his own will had been done, 
 ere the Prince's party left it. The castle was in fact 
 the great scene of action during all this disastrous time.
 
 46 Carlisle CasUe. 
 
 Three hundred and ninety-six men, of various ranks, 
 became prisoners of the Duke by the recapture of the 
 city. Hamilton, governor of the castle, and Colonel 
 Townley, governor of the city, were subsequently 
 executed in London, undergoing to the letter, as did 
 all the long list of these prisoners, their whole horrid 
 sentence of being half hung, embowelled while yet 
 alive, and afterwards quartered. The heads of Hamil- 
 ton, and Cappoch, the "rebel bishop," were sent to 
 Carlisle and placed on the Scotch gate, and the heads 
 of Captain Berwick and Lieutenant Chadwick were 
 also sent, and placed on the English gate. 
 
 The August following 382 prisoners were sent here, 
 after the Battle of CuUoden. Of these, 125, all 
 heavily ironed, v/ere thrust into 07ie room in the castle 
 keep — probably the large cell on the ground floor — 
 partial suffocation and indescribable miseries assailing 
 them while they awaited the tender mercies of judge 
 and jury. Many of these were afterwards executed, 
 numbers at Gallows Hill in the ensuing October and 
 November, among whom was Major McDonald of 
 Kippoch, (the Fergus Mc.Ivor of Waverley,) a really 
 brave and generous gentlemen, his head all beautiful 
 with bonny bland locks " fearsomely " withering for 
 long after on the Scotch Gate, he himself having, with 
 his companions in sorrow, been hung, drawn, and 
 quartered at the common place of execution, where 
 now blooms the golden celandine encinctured with 
 dappled daisies. Besides these, six were executed 
 at Brampton, seven at Penrith, and twenty-two at 
 York. So ended these last efforts of the Stuarts. 
 They were gallantly made, but thay shared the
 
 Carlisle Castle. 47 
 
 sad fate of all their projects — the blood of many 
 a strong Scotch heart being the unhappy result. 
 There is much in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley illustra- 
 tive of this special enterprise with which every visitor 
 of the castle should be acquainted, as these old stones 
 will be nothing to him whose heart has never been 
 touched by the emotions of pity and regret for the 
 noble young hearts that perished in their shadow. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott himself is among our notabilia, 
 having visited the castle many times — a reverend and 
 loving connoisseur of all its old glories and many 
 legends, "part seen, imagined part." How he lingered 
 in these old stately ways with his soul o'erbrimmed 
 with thought, we can well imagine every tower and 
 turret bringing to his great worshipping heart some 
 tale of that stirring past of his country and this brave 
 Border land on which he so loved to dwell. 
 
 Besides him, it has been visited by many noble and 
 learned authors; but it has no book for visitors' 
 names, and, consequently, they are but very indefinitely 
 known. Mrs. Sigourney of America is something of 
 an exception to this rule, as she has immortalized her 
 visit by her ready pen. As Mary Queen of Scots first 
 English prison she seems to have visited it, and on 
 the other side of the Atlantic its fame is almost ex- 
 clusively derived from this sad circumstance. 
 
 We close the list of our notabilia with the present 
 Prince of Wales. He visited the castle when about 
 fourteen. It was a mere tourist's visit on his way to 
 Scotland one bright summer morning ; but we hope in 
 time to come, when ho has won the noble fame of a 
 just and wise king, even this short visit may be rcmcm-
 
 48 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 bered and added to the worthiest memories of this 
 ancient castle. 
 
 The exact time of the erection of this castle is un- 
 certain ; but it is supposed to occupy the site of the old 
 Roman fort, which was probably one of those built by 
 Agricola in his westward progress to Scotland, about 
 the year 80. That it was originally of Roman con- 
 struction is proved by a Roman well which still exists 
 in the north wall of the keep, and which was made of 
 an immense depth, for the purpose of furnishing the 
 garrison with a supply of water which could not be cut 
 off by an assailing enemy. Egfrid the Christian king 
 of Northumbria, and a descendant of Bertha, the wife 
 of Ethelbert, king of Kent, through their daughter 
 Ethelburger, repaired the castle in 6S0 ; and six years 
 after we find the Bishop of Lindisfarne at Carlisle to 
 obtain an audience of Queen Ermengard, the wife of 
 Egfrid, who was then on a visit to her sister, the 
 abbess of the nunnery here. Egfrid, it is possible, 
 was at the castle at the same time as the great Bishop 
 is said to have been his guest 3 but whether or not, the 
 citizens brought St. Cuthbert out to show him their 
 walls and this famous well while he was here ; and as 
 we stood in the very place where the holy man had 
 stood so many dim centuries ago, and looked down 
 its morticed sides, a cartoon of the Avhole scene in- 
 voluntarily arose upon the imagination^the devout 
 Christ-hearted Cuthbert, and the curious awed train of 
 Volanti " people of the forest," as the inhabitants of 
 these northern counties were then called, which un- 
 doubtedly followed him. 
 
 Two centuries after this the city was destroyed by
 
 Carlisle Castle. 49 
 
 the Danes, the castle in all probability being greatly- 
 injured, for the whole place, it is said, lay in desolation 
 for the space of two centuries, till in 1072 the Con- 
 queror returning from Scotland, ordered the city to 
 be restored and fortified. But it was not till 1092, 
 when Rufus also returning from Scotland, observing 
 the beautiful situation of the city, ordered it at once 
 to be rebuilt ; and this included the restoration of the 
 castle, which forthwith proceeded without delay. 
 Ranulph de Meschines, who before this time had 
 received Cumberland as a grant from the Conqueror, 
 was the restorer of Carlisle. He was a very noted 
 man of those times, and one whose name is deeply 
 inwoven into the past annals of this city and county. 
 
 Previous to this a few poor Irish alone tenanted the 
 forlorn and devastated city ; but about this time a 
 colony of Flemings had settled here, it is said, for a 
 Avhile, being at length "replaced by a colony of south 
 Britons, who cultivated the wild Forest of Inglewood, 
 and taught the natives the art of profiting by the 
 natural fertility of the soil." These in all probability 
 — i.e. the Flemings and Britons — were the principal 
 " hands " in raising once more the solid bastions of 
 our ponderous castle. Let us pause a moment, and 
 looking through the silent centuries, try to get a sight 
 of those quaint, strange tongued men working in the 
 same holy sun which shines to-day. How modern 
 they are — they shout and joke and laugh as though 
 they wore corduroy and ankle-jacks, and anon they 
 praise the Red Roysterer for his sagacity in appreciating 
 the fertile country and the precious worth of the old 
 city, and also for his energy in action respecting it, 
 
 4
 
 50 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 their poor animated Irish hodmen meanwhile per- 
 forming some equivalent for tossing their caps — for 
 caps there were none in those days — their prolix 
 tongues, then as now, always ready with a chorus for 
 every chant. But where are all those brave workers 
 now ? They also are gone with all the brave thousands 
 who have defended or assailed these gates before or 
 since. But we feel to-day that these also are sanctified 
 by death and time, and that their honourable names, 
 though unknown, are woven into the great anagram of 
 human helpers, and also into the notabilities of our 
 castle. 
 
 Before closing this sketch, there are one or two 
 things of interest which seem to demand some word 
 or two. The first is respecting "The Lady's Walk," 
 which lies on the outside of the outer Gate, the gate 
 called " John de Ireby," (the inner one for some un- 
 known reason being called "The Captain.") It leads 
 along close by the outer wall on that side till it comes 
 to a postern now walled up, which formerly led to the 
 Sorceries, and through which Queen Mary and her 
 ladies would pass when they went to see the football 
 playing on "a green toward Scotland." This postern 
 may still be seen by persons going the usual way to 
 what is called the "Castle Bank." The door from the 
 castle to this walk has also been walled up, but may 
 be recognised by a shield charged with the arms of the 
 Dacres over it. Formerly two ash trees, planted, 
 tradition says, by the captive Queen, grew here, 
 forming an ornamental appendage to the castle. They 
 were cut down in 1804, by order of the Board of 
 Ordnance, a proceeding as little to be understood as 
 commended.
 
 Carlisle Castle. 51 
 
 On the outer wall of the ancient Chapel of the 
 castle, close behind Queen Mary's Tower, and which 
 seems from its architecture to have been of Tudor 
 origin, are the arms of Queen Elizabeth, with an in- 
 scription to this effect — '• Queen Elizabeth made this 
 work at her own expense, while Lord Scrope was 
 Warden of the Western Marches." It was originally 
 on the old barracks, and the work in question was 
 most likely " made " about the time that this Lady, 
 siding with Mary in her fallen fortunes, against the 
 Lords, charged this Lord Scrope to allow the Scotch 
 marauders of the Borders to pursue their course un- 
 molested, Bothwell's followers being supposed to be 
 among them. Opposite to this Chapel, which the 
 visitor will easily recognise, the ramparts are all hollow, 
 having a face of stone to the inner ward in the 
 building, of which the curious may see several stones, 
 which still bear the diamond shaped mark of the 
 Roman pick on their exterior, proving them to be 
 nearly eighteen centuries old, the remains, most likely, 
 of some more ancient and ruined part of the castle, 
 which is now entirely non-existent. At the end of this, 
 and by Queen Maiy's Tower, there are also the remains 
 of an ancient portcullis, the use of which seems now 
 somewhat inexplicable, but in the olden days of the 
 castle it doubtless had one. 
 
 In the cells also let the visitor look carefully at the 
 locks ; some of them are now detached and hanging 
 in the armoury. Each door had four, and their weight 
 and size is something extraordinary, some of them 
 being of themselves a good half-hundredweight. But 
 cumbrous and heavy as they are they will still act —
 
 52 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 the bolt still flying in response to the ponderous key, 
 though in all probability some of them are more than 
 a thousand years old. 
 
 In the upper rooms of the keep the visitor may also 
 see remains of the ancient spiral stairs which led to 
 the top, and with which there seem to have been 
 private communications in different places. He will 
 notice also that the immense rooms at the top have 
 had a door between them, in the centre of the wall, 
 which is now closed up, and that opposite to this 
 closed up door, is a fire place, also closed up. Prob- 
 ably in these large rooms the Parliaments were held 
 which have been held here ; and it is not impossible 
 to imagine that the large courts occasionally remaining 
 here may have been feasted, and perhaps some of 
 their numbers even bedded in these spacious chambers 
 now, happily for the times, entirely silent, and divest 
 of all their former martial adjustments, their strange 
 and changing histories almost wholly conjectural. Yet 
 we know that hearts v.'ith human passions once beat 
 here, and that forms now dead and turned to clay once 
 animated this forlorn silence. 
 
 There are many other traditions of the castle than 
 these. It is said, for instance, that King Arthur and 
 his renowned knights once drank their wassail bowl 
 within it j and hence the story of King Arthur's cup, 
 which tradition is doubtless truth. There are many 
 traditions, too, of Lord William Howard, the "Belted 
 Will " of Border story ; but truth and fiction are so 
 largely blended, that to dissever and disentangle is 
 almost impossible. This gentleman was, it is true^ 
 the Warden of the Marches here for many years, and
 
 Carlisle Castle. 53 
 
 was doubtless a frequent visitor of the castle, his vigour 
 in putting down the mosstroopers being a special 
 advantage to the city, which before his time was con- 
 stantly suffering from their depredations. He was in 
 reality a good and worthy man, possessing even in the 
 midst of his stern work, many of the fine tastes of his 
 renowned ancestor, Sir Philip Sidney ; he himself, as 
 my reader should note, being a son of that Duke of 
 Norfolk who lost his life for his tender attachment to 
 Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 AVhatever we have missed of all the scenes and 
 story of this really interesting relic of antiquity, we 
 feel that for our purpose it is enough to know that 
 here is a spot which, for nearly eighteen lasting 
 centuries of night and day has really been the focus 
 of a great share of all the eveats and histories of 
 our brave England ; and that w^here we stand to-day, 
 many of all the bravest and noblest men of those 
 centuries have stood also. This we know is true, and 
 hence the inspiration and instruction these many-cen- 
 turied walls afford. The shout of warders and guards 
 is all silent now ; but those old ages have left stern 
 witnesses of their strength in these twelve feet thick 
 walls ; and these are at the same time witnesses also 
 of the persistent courage and practical wisdom of the 
 antagonists of this city. The castle is in fact a con- 
 densed history of the past — of all the jealousies and 
 criminal ambitions of rival nations, and all the evils 
 and miseries which spring from unchristianized might; 
 and its dim walls and dark dungeons, with their now 
 darkened grating, to which sad hungering eyes once 
 looked so anxiously and enviously, coveting the blessed
 
 54 Carlisle Castle. 
 
 light, with all the other saddening purlieus of the place, 
 still, well repay the visitor who values either poetical 
 emotion or suggestive and enlarging thought.
 
 CORBY CASTLE AND WALKS. 
 
 X the race days at Carlisle, which occur shortly 
 after jNIidsummer, a great number of Excur- 
 sions are generally made to the most beautiful 
 or noted parts of the county. Issuing out with a large 
 party with one of these, we, with many pleasant friends, 
 left the flushed, bustling, far-travelled throng of our 
 usually sober city, for Corby. The morning had been 
 showery and unpromising, but at noon — our hour of 
 starting — the clouds cleared off, and from the clear 
 blue of the open sky, fell the full, far-sweeping rays of 
 the gladdening glorious sun. Under its pure beauti- 
 fying glory we started on our way, the rich scythe- 
 waiting meadows, the densely-foliaged trees, and the 
 sheets of fresh and apparently fadeless flowers beneath 
 them, and stretching their long trails into every nook 
 of nature, giving the first taste of that hallowing joy 
 which nature never fails to give to those who love her. 
 So passing Durran Hill Cottage, the clean, quiet, well- 
 to-do village of Scotby, and the pretty new Station at 
 Wetheral, we came to Corby Bridge, where we alighted. 
 Right on we passed through the village, clean and trim 
 and bright with roses and carnations — which spread
 
 56 Co7^by Castle. 
 
 their splendid hues before and behind the quiet cot- 
 tages till we came to the lodge gate — the lodge, which 
 is a very worthy appendant of the castle, being our 
 first object of admiration. Here all at once the scene 
 of beauty opens. There is only a very short distance 
 between this and the castle, which, in a few steps, 
 reveals its square substantial outline, brightened on 
 its eastern side by the rich profuse bloom of the showy 
 rhododendron, and a glass conservatory, full of choice 
 and beautiful flowers, the rich varieties of geraniums, 
 calceolarias, and balsams being now at the very acme 
 of their brilliance. The castle itself has no castleated 
 roof, nor any of the usual features of the real Gothic 
 castle, but is a large handsome massive structure, in 
 the modern style of architecture, surmounted by a 
 well-executed collosal lion, which gives an air of 
 princely beauty to the Whole building. Fronting the 
 castle is a fine flowing lawn, which gently descending 
 effectively sets off its stately proportions, and being 
 plain, is in excellent keeping with them. The castle 
 contains several fine pictures — one by Titian — and 
 several curious and interesting antiquarian relics. 
 
 But the Walks are the great object of interest, their 
 unprecedented beauty, causing, it is said, even Hume 
 to break out into verse when he visited Carlisle, where 
 he left traced on the window of his hotel — 
 
 "Here chicks in eggs for breakfast sprawl 
 Here godless boys God's glories squall, 
 But Corby Walks atone for all. " 
 
 Leaving the castle on the right, we proceed to the 
 walks close at hand. These consist of many acres of
 
 Corby Castle. 57 
 
 land, densely wooded, rocky, precipitous, sloping down 
 to the Eden, on whose banks they lie, in some places 
 by abrupt perpendicular declivities, in others by cir- 
 cuitous paths, under a canopy of interlacing branches, 
 impervious to the most penetrating rains, and also to 
 all the sunshine of the year, however piercing, however 
 radiant. Many noble trees of all kinds are here, and 
 one old trunk deserves especial notice, on account of 
 its immense size and poetic appearance, being hollow 
 at the bottom and " wreathed and crowned " with ivy 
 at the top and round its sides. How many thoughts 
 that old tree suggested of our ancient England, and 
 the wild wildering years fraught with the exhalations 
 and voices, the breath and bruit of persons and things 
 now become almost, or quite questionable, from their 
 very remoteness, or perhaps lost entirely from the great 
 roll of the world's accredited and accepted facts. 
 What was our England when this tree was a seedling 
 or a sapling % Over what cradles were Englishwomen 
 sin^^ing their strangely-lettered lullabies % or what was 
 the staple masculine discussion at the castle dinner, or 
 in the scriptorium amongst the shaven monks, who 
 were making the margins of their manuscripts bright 
 with the floral emblems of the names of their sainted 
 loves % Something of this might perhaps be acquired 
 by learning the exact age of the tree — but, oh ! how 
 little and uncertain.* That world with all its woes 
 and wonders has passed away, leaving us but the dead 
 ashes of what was once its living substance — a form- 
 
 * Since the above was written, Mr. Howard himself informed 
 the present writer that this venerable tree was eight hundred 
 years old.
 
 58 Corby Castle. 
 
 less, dissimilar, disproportionate residuum, from which 
 scarcely one element, or one true outline of the 
 genuine feature of the life and knowledge that then 
 were can be traced. With these thoughts, and many 
 inexpressible ones, we turn from that old tree, feeling 
 that 
 
 "There is a spirit in the pathless woods," 
 
 and feeling also some sympathy with those old, old 
 worshippers who found in trees and rivers the mystery 
 and awfulness out of which they wove the garment of 
 God — their grand, yet heartless God, of force of 
 power. 
 
 All ways we look as we pass under these stately, 
 solemn denizens of memorial and immemorial time, 
 fearing lest we lose any of the imposing, soul-abstracting 
 beauty they so abundantly display, our hearts o'er- 
 brimming, although we have but just entered, with 
 feelings which, like odoriferous incense, carry us away 
 to the vast, the illimitable, to the heaven of an enlarged 
 existence, far above and beyond the fret and fever of 
 all our petty cares, and still pettier ambitions. Gliding 
 on, for we walk as in a church, through these solemn 
 aisles of prototypal ecclesiastical architecture, we come 
 to the well — the Wishing Well we are told — whose 
 cool crystal waters, together with the kindly placed 
 cups, are an irresistable temptation to the summer 
 wanderer. Nor did the majority of our party forget 
 the Wishing business, which is done mentally before 
 drinking — the taciturn bearing of the whole party of 
 them respecting their wish causing much merriment. 
 The Well itself is a cistern placed against the des-
 
 Corby Castle, 59 
 
 cending earth or rocks, into which the spring runs, 
 and which is surmounted by soHd masonry, upon the 
 front of wliich the saintly symbol of human help is 
 placed. 
 
 Speedily, for we are on a descending path, we come 
 to an opening, and turn around to the left to seek the 
 recollected hermitage, a little round, cross-surmounted 
 mosshouse, where used to sit in state with girdle and 
 sandals, the bearded hermit, holding the long-stringed 
 numeral of his many prayers. There was no hermit, 
 but the recollection to ourselves, and the description 
 to others, seemed to suffice very well for his absence. 
 
 Leaving this, and going back and onward, we come 
 to a long straight open avenue, a sort of long shelving 
 table land between the upper and lower declivities. 
 Here again are the beautiful green sward and the sun- 
 shine, the latter heightened by the dark dominant 
 dome of foliage, it winningly but vainly woos to dissi- 
 pation. At the far end of this, in our front, is the 
 beautiful Summer House, or "Temple D' Ete'," so well 
 known, which is a beautiful sylvan structure, ascended 
 by a long flight of steps, and having a balcony on the 
 right side, under which bloom intertwined with the 
 deeper green of the fir, fair flowery shrubs — eyes 
 through which nature seems to look dispassionately 
 and saintly as a musing seraph. Inside there are 
 pictures, and all the necessary requisites for repose 
 or meditation, the different panels of the room being 
 pictured with foreign scenes and scenery, and the 
 ceiling with an eagle and a fish, while smaller birds 
 are enviously or fearfully winging around. The day 
 being rather dubious, a fire had been very thoughtfully
 
 6o Corby Castle. 
 
 and kindly lighted for us, by the order, doubtless, of 
 the noble and generous master of the place. Des- 
 cending from the steps of this Summer House, the 
 splendid avenue leading from them shows all its many 
 beauties It is indeed a matchless strip of green earth, 
 noble under all aspects, and in all seasons. At various 
 distances through its length, seats are placed for the 
 repose of the weaiy, attached to which are printed 
 quotations from the poets for their delight and inspir- 
 ation. 
 
 Under the balcony on the path which leads by the 
 river, almost dark with thick umbrageous branches, 
 we now take our way. Here Nature has her own will, 
 and it is a sweet one, order in disorder, life many- 
 formed and many-hued everywhere. And here is the 
 river musical and magnificent. How pleasantly it 
 unites its sweet symphonies with the sunshine and the 
 breeze, and the fluttering, yet incessant quirings of the 
 overhanging woods ; and when these have all ceased, 
 
 "When thickest dark doth trance the sky," 
 
 it will still harmonize. Nature never strikes the wrong 
 note. The holy stars and the silent solemn earth will 
 be to-night the wrapt auditors of this eternal wanderer 
 — this awful orator whom time and death never disable, 
 never stiU. 
 
 Returning from here, and down the avenue, we 
 come to " the coups," where the sheeny waters of the 
 river are broken into foam and fury ; but under all 
 forms the river here is grand and glorious — a real thing 
 of beauty, making as it did ours, the heart dance with 
 supremest joy. From this spot there is a beautiful
 
 Corby Castle. 61 
 
 view of the castle — perhaps the best view — its wooded 
 environs which are here seen with it, adding their 
 regal robing to its noble proportions, and enlarging to 
 a graver, greater grandeur, its massive outline. 
 
 Later, we crossed the river, on the Wetheral side of 
 which are the ruins of Wetheral Priory, founded for 
 Monks of the Benedictine Order by the Earl Ranulph 
 de Meschines, about the year 1086. A magnificent 
 view of the Corby side of the river may be had from 
 one of the top Avindows of this building, or from the 
 caves, which are immediately below, on the same side. 
 These are excavations in the solid mass of rock which 
 rises almost perpendicularly on this side of the river. 
 St. Constantine's cell is the most notable one. A 
 Prince of this name, the son of some ancient Scottish 
 king, is said to have resigned his regal inheritance 
 and here retired from the world for the remainder of 
 his life ; and opposite them, on the Corby side, those 
 interested will find a representation of him in the habit 
 of a monk, a cross and missal in his hands, and the 
 earthly crown at his feet — all hieroglyphical of his life 
 and deeds. The rocks on this side the river are very 
 romantic and beautiful for a considerable distance, the 
 abrupt heights being charmingly interspersed with 
 wood. 
 
 It is said that these caves were for many centuries 
 the shelter of the ancient inhabitants of Carlisle when 
 their city was attacked by the Scots, or by their still 
 fiercer and more remorseless enemies the mosstroopers, 
 of whom they were in constant dread ; and the place 
 must certainly have been a good one in those i)erilous 
 times.
 
 62 Corby Castle. 
 
 Being on the Wetlieral side, we now took the op- 
 portunity of visiting the Church, which no one visiting 
 Corby should omit doing, one of the divinest pieces 
 of statuary, and by one of the very chiefest artists, 
 Nollekins, being there. It is an emblematical memorial 
 of the late Mrs. Howard, and said to be the artist's 
 chef d'cejivre. Near it is another, by Flaxman, of the 
 ordinary ecclesiastical type. 
 
 As we waited in the evening sun for the boat to 
 take us back again, our hearts lifted and hushed by 
 the grandeur of art, and thoughts of the vastness of the 
 soul, and the splendours of its achieved and possible 
 realizations, we seemed more fully cognizant than ever 
 of the sweeping scene of beauty that stretched before 
 us. Never shall we forget that sit on the stone by the 
 river. We had been talking of the illustrious dead 
 and noble living, and remembered fragments of thought 
 and song had come home to our open spirits, and as we 
 looked up and down the river and on its galleried 
 sides, crowded with the lofty heads of the noblest 
 trees, and these all flushed into a thousand changing 
 lines by the descending sun, we felt the full intensity 
 of Natures's holy hallowing power — felt that God has 
 wealth for all ; that noble heart wealth of gladness in 
 beauty, in Nature, and in art. 
 
 Again in the Walks, we followed on by winding 
 paths to the caves on that side, whose surrounding 
 beauty we should almost profane by attempting to 
 describe. But the caves— the matchless masonry of 
 Nature, hollows in the solid perpendicular rock, and 
 opening on the river — how they silence all trivial 
 thought, and make one forget flesh and blood.
 
 Corby Castle. 6 
 
 t 
 
 " Thoughts that wander through eternity " start here, 
 and we think of the sublime silences of unpeopled 
 centuries which these sunken, lidless eyes in this pon- 
 derous rocky brow of nature must have seen the secrets 
 of. Before the one furnished with pictures, seats, and 
 table, there is a pallisading parallel with the river, and 
 over this, when the sun is descending, if he can, 
 let the visitor of Corby give himself time to hang and 
 muse till he hears nothing, sees nothing, not even the 
 faces and voices of his friends, but this everlasting 
 pageant of natural harmony and vision. From the 
 steps also of the other cave, in the perpetual twilight 
 of depending branches, there is a magnificent view. 
 But our friends have nearly all left us to our tranced 
 speechless musings, and we, though loath, must on. 
 One moment however we must have standing at the 
 green pond by the somewhat dilapidated Nelson, to 
 look up at the rocky heights dripping with ceaseless 
 waters. It is a semicircle of rock shelving up to an 
 immense height, on the top of which is a ruined fane, 
 containing fragments of tritons and nymphs, whose 
 broken faces still wear, amidst decay and ruin, the 
 grotesque smile or serene grandeur of their art birth. 
 This cascade and decorations, together with the steps 
 leading to the heights on which they stand, were for- 
 merly introduced as " improvements," but are now, 
 perhaps wisely, abandoned to ruin, in which state they 
 certainly have a better effect. We could linger amid 
 these scenes for hours — but there are the kind waving 
 hands of our friends from above. We greet each other 
 kindly, gladness is at the very core of our hearts. 
 Nature has cheered and comforted us ; we have come
 
 64 Corby Castle. 
 
 into the clime of birds and bees, and we return with 
 their music in our hearts — return admiring the ferns 
 beautifully luxuriant, and gathering some of them and 
 the red campion, which, spreading everywhere, beauti- 
 fies the whole extent of the woods. On our way up 
 the steep which leads back to the castle, we came upon 
 the giant, or " Belted Will," as it is more popularly 
 called, rehearsing as we pass it — 
 
 "When mailed mosstroopers rode the hill, 
 
 When helmed warders paced the keep, 
 
 And bugles blew for Belted Will." 
 
 There are many other beauties we have seen and not 
 been able to note at Corby, for our aftenoon was soon 
 gone. We are, however, bound to pay our tribute of 
 admiration and thanks to the noble owner of all this 
 beauty, whose courtesy and kindness are in fine keeping 
 with this his ancient inheritance. With the kindly 
 greetings of himself and his, then unbroken, family, we 
 passed by the castle, and, by his own direction, through 
 the gardens, as the nearest way to the station. We 
 were among the last of our party, and in the dim 
 silence of our own innumerable thoughts, felt devoutly 
 thankful for our afternoon in Corby Walks, and thankful 
 also that this stately home of England, which stands 
 so beautifully on its honoured soil, has for its head a 
 gentleman so truly generous, with an inheritance so 
 largely likely to promote both moral and spiritual 
 refinement.
 
 LINSTOCK, AND LINSTOCK CASTLE. 
 
 T^jINSTOCK is a small straggling village, about 
 two miles east of Carlisle, on the north 
 side of the Eden, and closely contiguous 
 
 to the site of Severus' Wall, one road to it following 
 the du-ect route of the wall nearly all the way. It has 
 nothing notable about it but its castle ; but, leaving 
 Carlisle one beautiful April afternoon, and proceeding 
 thither through Rickerby Holmes, we found a thousand 
 new inspiring charms in the homely irregular beauty 
 of its quiet rural unambitious seclusion, for it really is 
 a very secluded place — no public road, no railway, no 
 noisy works flushing its dreamy nooks with the clash 
 and clatter of earthly care and confusion. The " march 
 of intellect" has certainly left no outward or visible 
 sign of its many-footed train at Linstock, if it has ever 
 been there. It is an old, old place, its cottages and 
 farm-houses following, like antiquated country people, 
 the fashions of very remote and uncoutli times, and 
 its gardens and fences generally, too, seem soundly 
 conservative ; the pretty simple flowers, which are 
 both eye-salve and heart-salve to meditative loiterers, 
 growing in promiscuous prolixity under a busliy beard- 
 ing of hedge, over which shears surely have never 
 
 5
 
 66 Linstock Castle. 
 
 come. Still it has its own wild beauty — a beauty self- 
 assertative and scornful of scorn, the ever-charming 
 green of heartsome nature, which here in common 
 clothing beguiles the varied hour with the common, 
 yet holy joys of moms, and eves, and glowing noons, 
 from which, as from painted pictures, shine all the 
 luminous or shado\vy shapes of village life and labour; 
 their noble background the sweeping fields, and fells 
 and river, fringed \vith all the graceful greenery of a 
 many-aged and many-familied population of trees. 
 There is, in fact, plenty even at Linstock to interest 
 an observing eye and meditative mind for a sunny 
 summer afternoon very often, its castle crowning all its 
 commonplace rusticities with the reverential majesty 
 of memories of princes, and prelates, and noble knights, 
 who once, \a\\\ all their turbulent tide of attendants, 
 made its quiet corners ring with martial music or loyal 
 cheers. This castle stands at the far end of the village, 
 and is now occupied as a farm-house by Mr. Martin- 
 dale, who very kindly allowed us to see all, both 
 within and without, that was likely to interest us in it. 
 At present its height is the only thing which makes it 
 observable or conspicuous from the other buildings of 
 the village, as its castellated top has been — very im- 
 properly we should say — removed some time since, 
 and replaced by a common tiling, which " improve- 
 ment," though not ill-suited to its square dimensions, 
 has utterly destroyed any architectural beauty or 
 antique effect it may have had. It is, as we found on 
 coming up to it, beautifully situated for a quiet retreat 
 or secure dwelling, being built on a slight eminence 
 within a very short distance of the Eden, and com-
 
 Linstock Castle. 67 
 
 manding from its strong sides on its third floor very 
 extensive views of all the country round ; Carlisle and 
 the Scotland and Newcastle roads lying like an open 
 map under its ancient brows, and on the south side, 
 field and fell lie naked and open to it for miles, while 
 it is so shut in by trees that it is unseen till nearly 
 reached. There is also a large stretch of very fertile 
 country lying all round it, finely fit for raising all sorts 
 of cereal and vegetable productions for the use of such 
 a home, and girdling it round at the same time with 
 leafy lawns, and bowery paths, and pleasant gardens, 
 where thought of pious or philosophic mood might 
 pursue its radiant ruminations in supremest peace ; 
 those " gentle dwellers of the lea," the cowslip, violet, 
 and primrose, and thousands more of countless forms 
 and dyes, glowing gladness, pure, bright, and affinitive, 
 on its mystic visage. 
 
 Beyond this quiet, pensive beauty of field and stream, 
 lying all around it, the castle in itself has little to 
 boast. It is a plain, square-built, massive structure of 
 red sandstone ; a Gothic door or two, and its height 
 alone, distinguishing its antiquity from the outside. 
 Inside, the immense thickness of the walls is the most 
 interesting point. They are eight or nine feet thick 
 in many places, a stone staircase having been cut in 
 the south side, from the second to the third story 
 through the breadth of the wall, leaving still a breadth 
 on both sides equal or more than equal to the thickest 
 modern walls, a fact pregnant Avith history — a stony 
 tome, from which we may gather the perils, and pre- 
 science, and laborious endeavours of a brave, persistent, 
 deed-living, deed-loving race, now but too inadequately
 
 68 Linstock Castle. 
 
 represented. The part of the castle now converted 
 into a dairy secerns to have undergone the least change. 
 It is entered by one of the above-named Gothic doors, 
 and is on a level with the ground ; nevertheless, it 
 seems formerly to have been a cell. It has an arched 
 roof, and at each end there is a long loophole, now 
 glazed, by which, through the thick walls, the shadowy 
 light reaches its interior. There is also, on the right- 
 hand side of the entrance, the form of a door, now 
 built up, which probably in some remote times led to 
 a staircase, or was the opening of a staircase in the 
 wall, by which it communicated with the upper stories. 
 Standing on this floor, reflections of the stormy past 
 come thickly and fast to the mind. Who, in anguish 
 or despair, had trod that narrow space in the older 
 days of the castle? Who, in the mediaeval centuries 
 of its existence, had passed and repassed its sombre 
 threshold, waking its weird silence with their piercing 
 prayers or ghostly groans % What fair ladies, and sweet 
 babes, and pleasant homes had been dreamt of at 
 night or thought of by day in that place % What young 
 hearts had wished then that it never were summer, as 
 the golden radiance of June, streaming from afar on 
 the just visible tree-tops, mocked their misery, and 
 brought back blessed but maddening memories % 
 
 Whether such sad reflections might not have been 
 true, we will leave our readers to judge from the 
 following facts of the history of this place : — " This 
 castle was the palace of the Bishop of Carlisle till the 
 the 13th January 1229 ; and about the year 1293, the 
 famous Bishop Hilton is said to have entertained here 
 for a considerable time Johannes Romanus, Archbishop
 
 Linstock Castle. 69 
 
 of York, with his train, which amounted to above 300 
 persons. This prelate was also employed to settle the 
 claims of the pretenders to the Scottish crown, and 
 was present when sentence was given against Robert 
 Bruce, and when John Baliol did homage for the 
 kingdom of Scotland ' to his sovereign lord the King 
 of England.' He was commissioned by the Pope to 
 collect tenths in all the dioceses of Scotland ; and in 
 1302 was Governor of Carlisle Castle, and had charge 
 of all the Scottish hostages and prisoners of note, many 
 of whom, as appears from his papers, died in durance. 
 By the orders of Pope Clement V., he, conjointly with 
 the Archbishop of York, in 1305, excommunicated 
 ' by bell, book, and candle,' Robert de Brus, Earl of 
 Carrick, and all his adherents, for the murder of John 
 Comyn in the church of Dumfries. He was present 
 at the Parliament held at Carlisle in 1307, and in the 
 same year was summoned to the coronation of Edward 
 11. He was also in Carlisle in 13 14, when that city 
 was blockaded by Edward Bruce. In 13 18, Edward H., 
 with the sanction of the Pope, appropriated the church 
 of Homcastle, in Lincolnshire, to the use of Bishop 
 Hilton, as a recompense for his great services, and 
 that he and his successors might have a place of refuge 
 from the Scots. This Bishop was one of the plenipo- 
 tentiaries in a treaty of peace with Robert de Brus in 
 1320, but he died in 1324, having held the see thirty- 
 two years." 
 
 From this it may be conjectured very fairly that this 
 castle must have been in those past dim times the 
 scene oi many stirring events. Bishops were then 
 different in many things from what they are now.
 
 7o Linstock Castle. 
 
 They could don the steel corslet as easily as they could 
 say an Ave or a Paternoster, and hang or excommuni- 
 cate, according to the needs of the hour; and this 
 stalwart John Hilton, the owner of Linstock Castle 
 while the fiery Edward I. was at Carlisle, and finished 
 his life and wars on Drumburgh Marsh, a short distance 
 thence, was one of the most martial men of the times. 
 There is little about this castle now to tell of all this ; 
 but there must have been other buildings, which were 
 formerly parts of it, right down to the river, for we 
 were told that large stones like old foundations are 
 found by the men employed in weiring the river. 
 There is also a trace of an ancient moat which once 
 ran round its northern side. 
 
 We left its peaceful precincts with many thoughts of 
 the far past, its occupants, their lives, their deeds, and 
 how, through the lapsing centuries, all had changed — 
 changed, but still in some palpable manner remaining 
 much the same — the old familiar skies now, as then, 
 shutting down over a beauteous nature — cool breezes, 
 green trees, tender flowers, and the grand gloomy fells. 
 How full of instruction is the past ! how full of rever- 
 ence ! — the great need of our times ! Well would it 
 be if our masses could better understand these sermons 
 
 in stones ! 
 
 Since writing the above we have revisited this " old 
 castle," and find that there are even more points of 
 interest about it than we had at first observed. On the 
 east side more especially there are a great many lights 
 and loopholes now closed up, which formerly did 
 their stint of service to the old place which on that 
 side has not been encumbered with modern additions.
 
 Linstock Castle. 71 
 
 These the curious visitor will note for himself, not for- 
 getting a very aged pear tree on the right of the road 
 he enters by. It is an immense specimen of its kind, 
 seeming a very banyan by the space it covers, and 
 probably in its younger days had the honour of con- 
 tributing to the general list of good things with which 
 the old bishops so largely supplied their tables. Be 
 this as it may, it is well worth looking at, as it is still 
 healthy and bears, though its huge tnmk is all split 
 and torn. It was laden with fruit when we saw it, and 
 a fair haired young urchin, who acted as our guide, all 
 other hands being busy, told us it had produced " a 
 gay few cars full" the year before.
 
 SHORTLY WILL BE PUBLISHED, 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 THE MONTHS AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 F. Cap 8vo. Neat Cloth Binding.
 
 Jtist PublisJied, price Ss.6d., or with Portrait, Ss.Gd. 
 
 SONGS AND BALLADS 
 
 By JOHN JAMES LONSDALE, 
 
 Author of "The Ship Boy's Letter," "Robiu's Retxirn," &c. 
 
 WITH A BRIEF MEMOIR. 
 
 From the A THENjEUM, December 21st, 1867. 
 
 Mr. Lonsdale's songs have not only great merit, but they 
 display the very variety of which he himself was sceptical. 
 His first lay, " Minna," might lay claim even to imagination ; 
 nevertheless, for completeness and delicacy of execution, we 
 prefer some of his shorter pieces. Of most of these it may be 
 said that they are the dramatic expressions of emotional ideas. 
 In many cases, however, these songs have the robiist interest 
 of story, or that of character and picture. Wlien it is borne 
 in mind that by far the greater portion of these lays were 
 written for music, no smaU praise must be awarded to the 
 poet, not only for the siutability of his themes to his purpose, 
 but for the picturesqueness and fancy with which he has 
 invested them under drfficidt conditions. 
 
 From the WESTMINSTER REVIEW, January, 1S6S. 
 
 Poetry seems now to flourish more in the north than in the 
 south of England. JSTot long ago we noticed an admirable 
 collection of Cumberland ballads, containing two songs by 
 Miss Blamire, which are amongst the most beautifiU and 
 pathetic in our language. We have now a small volume by 
 a Cimiberland poet, which may be put on tlie same shelf with 
 Kirke White. Like Kirke ^Vl^ite's, Mr. Lonsdale's life seems 
 to have been marked by pain and disapijointmeut. Like 
 Kirke White too, he died before his jjowers were full developed. 
 A delicate pathos and a vein of humour characterize his best 
 pieces. 
 
 From the SPECTA TOR, January Uth, 1S6S. 
 
 "The Children's Kingdom" is really touching. The pictiire 
 of the band of children setting out in the morning bright and 
 happy, lingering in the forest at noon, and creeping to their 
 journey's end at midnight \\'ith tearful eyes, has a decided 
 charm. 
 
 CARLISLE : GEO. COWARD. 
 LONDON: ROUTLEDGE AND SONS; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
 
 The songs and BALLADS of CUMBERLAND, 
 
 to which are added Dialect and other Poems ; with 
 Biographical Sketches, Notes, and Glossary. Edited 
 by Sidney Gilpin. With Portrait of Miss Blamire. 
 Small Crown 8vo. Price 7s. 
 
 One of the most interesting collections of poetry which have 
 been lately published is the "Songs and Ballads of Cumber- 
 laud." How many 2:)eople know aujrthing of Miss Blamire ? 
 Yet she was the aiithor of that most beautiful and pathetic 
 of ballads beginning, "And ye shall walk in silk attire." 
 Every one will, therefore, thank the editor for the conscientous 
 way in which he has issued her pieces, and given us some 
 account of her life. It was she, too, who wrote that other 
 beautiful ballad, M'orthy of Lady Anne Lindsay, "What ails 
 this heart o' mine?" which, in our opinion, is poetry full of 
 truth and tenderness. Indeed, we should be disposed to look 
 iipon it as a critical touchstone, aud to say that those who did 
 not like it could not possibly appreciate true poetry. . . . 
 We can only advise the reader to buy the Ijook, and we feel 
 sure that he, like ourselves, will be thankful to the editor. 
 — Westminster Revieiv. 
 
 We like the Cumberland Songs a good deal better than the 
 Lancashire ones which we re^^ewed a fortnight back. There 
 is more go and more variety in them ; the hill-air makes them 
 fresher, aud we do not wonder that Mr. Gilpin feels — now he 
 has got "tern put in prent" — 
 
 Aw England cannot bang them. 
 We certainly cannot recollect a better collection. . . While 
 the author of "Joe and the Geologist" lives, we shall rest 
 assured that the Cumberland dialect will be well represented 
 in verse as well as prose, though we siippose he cannot love to 
 describe the roaring scenes at weddings aud the like that his 
 predecessors witnessed. . . . The dialect is rich in redu- 
 plicated words — in good forms — in old English words ; and 
 the volume altogether is one that should find a place on the 
 shelf of every reader of poetry and student of manners, 
 customs, and language. — The Bender. 
 
 The truly Cumbrian minstrel towards the close of the last 
 century seems to have approached the Scotch in his pictures 
 of rural courtship, and to have been still greater in his des- 
 criptions of weddings, as of some other festivities of a more 
 peculiar character. He had a healthy and robust standard of 
 feminine beauty, and his most riotous mirth was more athletic 
 and less purely alcoholic than that which flourished in Burns's 
 native soil. — The Spectator.
 
 " Songs and Ballads of Cumberland." 
 
 These Cumberland lyrics— till now scattered— are on the 
 whole well worth the pains spent on their collection. In some 
 cases, as in those of Eelph and Miss Blamire, there is evidence 
 of real genius for the ballad or the eclogue ; and with respect 
 to other -nTiters, if the poetic feeling be less deep, humoiir and 
 keen observation are displayed in dealing with the people and 
 customs of a district which, in its lingering primitiveness and 
 time-honored traditions, is richer in materials for fancy and 
 character than regions which lie nearer the metropolis. — The 
 Athenceum. 
 
 It is seldom that a book compiled on the local i^rinciple 
 contains so much good matter as this collection of the "Songs 
 and Ballads of Cumberland." In the pathetic vein. Miss 
 Blamire is a host in herself; and the humorous and "character 
 sketches," as we may call them, by various hands, are more 
 vigorous and picturesque, and less vulgar or coarse, than is at 
 all common in the works of local poets. To some readers the 
 peculiar dialect may be objectionable ; but to any one who 
 can read Burns, it need be no stumbling-block to the enjoy- 
 ment of the varied contents of this elegant and well-arranged 
 volume. . . The biographical and other notes are carefully 
 and weU written, judiciously informative, and not too long. — 
 Scotsman. 
 
 Cumberland has a goodly store of ballads, the natural off- 
 spring of her hills and lakes, and fells and "forces," a wealth 
 of ballad literature, in fact, whereof the Southron in general 
 knows, we fear, but little. Miss Susanna Blamire is a name 
 of celebrity up North, the poetess of Cum1)erland ; and Eobert 
 Anderson and many others hold almost equal repute there. 
 Mr. Sidney Gilpin, himself owning a name which has belonged 
 to more than one Cumberland celebrity, has collected and 
 edited a volume of the dialect-songs and ballads, and other 
 specimens of the minstrelsy of his county, and offers it to the 
 appreciation of the English public. The " Songs and Ballads 
 of Cumberland" ought to be a welcome volume to all who can 
 relish the home-spun simple laugiiage of a genuine muse of 
 the hills. Tliere is much true and tender i^oetry in the 
 book, and much rough, natural vigour. — Morning Star. 
 
 Cumberland has found in Mr. Sidney Gilpin an able and 
 zealous champion ; and the present collection of her Songs and 
 Ballads, though not, perhaps, absolutely exhaustive, will 
 decidedly extend her poetic fame, and no df)ubt surprise many 
 even among the students of this peculiar lore. — Church and 
 State Review. 
 
 CARLISLE : GEO. COWARD. 
 LONDON : ROUTLEDGE AND SONS.
 
 MISS BLAMIRE'S SONGS AND POEMS; 
 together with Songs by her friend Miss Gilpin of 
 Scaleby Castle. With Portrait of Miss Blamire. 
 F. Cap 8vo. Price 2g. 6d. 
 
 ROBERT ANDERSON'S CUMBERLAND 
 BALLADS. F. Cap 8vo. Price 23. 
 
 CARLISLE : GEO. COWARD. 
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