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Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

by Jean F. Terry · English · Gutenberg #11124 · 433,835 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

Author: Jean F. Terry


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11124]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY ***

[Illustration]




Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

by Jean F. Terry, L.L.A.


(St. Andrews), 1913.

_To Sir Francis Douglas Blake,
this book is inscribed in admiration of
an eminent Northumbrian._




Contents


 INTRODUCTORY.
 NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
 CHAPTER I. The Coast of Northumberland
 CHAPTER II. North and South Tyne
 CHAPTER III. Down the Tyne
 CHAPTER IV. Newcastle-upon-Tyne
 CHAPTER V. Elswick and its Founder
 CHAPTER VI. The Cheviots
 CHAPTER VII. The Roman Wall
 CHAPTER VIII. Some Northumbrian Streams
 CHAPTER IX. Drum and Trumpet
 CHAPTER X. Tales and Legends
 CHAPTER XI. Ballads and Poems

[Illustration: Bamburgh Castle.]

List of Illustrations

 Bamburgh Castle. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
 The Priory, Tynemouth. _From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_
 Untitled
 Hexham Abbey from North West. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
 The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge Open).
 Untitled
 Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
 Untitled
 North Gateway, Housesteads and Roman Wall. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
 Untitled
 Alnwick Castle. _From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_
 The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”. _From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle_
 Drawing of boat
 Sketch Map Of Northumberland. _From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey_




INTRODUCTORY.


    The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep
    historical research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been
    achieved, and its existence to some extent justified, if haply by
    its aid some of the dwellers in this northern county of ours, with
    its past so full of action, and its present so rich in the
    memorials of those actions, may pass a pleasant hour in becoming
    acquainted through its pages with the happenings which have taken
    place in their own particular fields, their own streets, or by
    their own riverside.

    I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing
    an enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their
    compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can
    in no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not
    a superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information
    for which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they
    always make these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure.

    Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their
    own county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some
    three-and-a-half centuries ago, Roger North found them “great
    antiquarians within their own bounds.” If to such as these this
    little book may perhaps bring in a more convenient form the
    information they seek, and help them to become better acquainted
    with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in stirring
    phrases of “Northumberland,” and to address the home of his people
    as
  “Land beloved, where nought of legend’s dream Outshines the truth”—

    I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of
    expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham,
    for information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the
    Abbey, given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery,
    of Bywell, for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter’s; to
    R.O. Heslop, Esq., whose profound store of learning on the subject
    of “Northumberland words” was in cases of uncertainty my final
    court of appeal; to E.T. Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom
    I am greatly indebted for their goodness in reading my manuscript,
    and for their generous encouragement following thereupon; to C.H.
    Abbey, Esq., for his kindness in executing the map which
    accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P. Dunn, of Corbridge, for
    much helpful criticism, and many suggestions which only want of
    space has prevented my adopting in their entirety.

J.F.T.

    _31st May_, 1913.




NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY

CHAPTER I. THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND.


  “We’ll see nae mair the sea banks fair, And the sweet grey gleaming
  sky, And the lordly strand of Northumberland, And the goodly towers
  thereby.”
  —_A.C. Swinburne_.

    Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly
    is, but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all
    times inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs
    and hollows lashed by the “wild north-easter,” or seen calmly
    brooding in the warm haze of a summer’s day, its grey-blue water
    smiling beneath the grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and
    bents edging the sea with a border of gold and silver.

    In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of
    Tynemouth, standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of
    the Tyne, rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour
    mouth, strikes a note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old
    and the Northumberland of to-day—the note, that is, of the intimate
    commingling of the romance of the warlike past and the romance of
    the industrial present. Here, above the mouth of the river on which
    so many of the most noteworthy advances in industrial science have
    been made, and out of which sail the vessels which are often the
    last word of the moment in marine engineering and construction,
    stand calmly looking down upon them all the fragments of a building
    which was a century old when John signed Magna Charta, and which
    stands upon the site of another that had already braved the storms
    of nearly five hundred years.

    Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried
    back to the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to
    embrace Christianity, built a little church here, in which his
    daughter took the veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure
    replaced by a stone one; and here, in 651, the body of another good
    king—Oswyn—was brought for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in
    Yorkshire, where, disbanding his army, he sacrificed his cause and
    his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with whom he had been about to fight.

[Illustration: The Priory, Tynemouth.]

    When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the
    Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not
    hope to escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce
    invaders; but King Ecgfrith[1] of Northumbria restored the
    shattered shrine. Again, in the year 865, it was sacked and burnt,
    and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who had already fled from
    Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety, were ruthlessly
    slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again restored;
    but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders fell on
    the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood
    roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl
    of Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The
    rediscovery of the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the
    hearts of the monks, and forthwith the monastery was reared anew
    over the ashes of its former self.

 [1] Pronounced “Edge-frith.”

    Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building.
    He had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him
    a displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans
    instead of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell
    there. The new buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of
    St. Oswyn enshrined within them, the right of sanctuary being
    extended for a mile around his resting-place. This right, however,
    was already in existence, and had been appealed to in 1095 by
    Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by the followers of William
    Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King’s men disregarded the
    sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him prisoner to
    Durham[2].

 [2] See account of Bamburgh Castle.

    In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited
    Tynemouth Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King
    Edward II. and his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the
    angry barons to Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the
    battle of Neville’s Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by
    his captors on his way to Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the
    Tower.

    At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was
    inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the
    King’s decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to
    be used as the parish church until the days of Charles II., when
    Christ Church was built.

    The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous
    artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M.
    W. Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to
    the hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or
    homeward bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in
    some measure repaired and restored.

    There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a
    protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes. It
    stands in a commanding position on a neighbouring cliff, and is now
    used as barracks for garrison artillery corps. During the days when
    Scotland harried the English borders, the Priors of Tynemouth
    maintained a garrison here; and later, in Stuart days, Charles I.
    visited the North, and the fortress was strengthened just before
    the outbreak of the Civil War. It was captured, notwithstanding, by
    Leslie, Earl of Leven, after he had left Newcastle. Colonel
    Lilburn, left in charge as governor, shortly afterwards avowed
    himself on the side of King Charles; but he speedily paid for his
    change of allegiance, for the Castle was re-taken by a force from
    Newcastle under Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, and Lilburn lost his life in
    the fight. The Castle has long been used as a dep ôt for the
    storage of arms and ammunition. Behind the Spanish Battery which
    commands the entrance to the Tyne stands a statue of the famous
    North-countryman, Admiral Collingwood.

    Connected with Tynemouth, by the fact that a small chantry
    belonging to the Priory once stood there, is St. Mary’s Island. One
    may walk unhindered at low tide across the rocks to this favourite
    place, but where the chantry stood there is now a lighthouse with a
    powerful lantern, flashing its welcome light to the seafarers
    nearing the mouth of the Tyne, and extending
  “To each and all our equal lamp, at peril of the sea, The white
  wall-sided war-ships, or the whalers of Dundee.”

    Between Tynemouth and St. Mary’s Island lie Cullercoats, Whitley
    Bay, and Monkseaton, and together these places make practically one
    extended seaside town, stretching for three or four miles along the
    sea-front, and joined by a fine parade which leads to open links at
    Monkseaton. Of these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This
    picturesque fishing village, with quaint old houses perched in
    every conceivable position on the curve of its rocky bay, is,
    needless to say, a favourite camping ground for artists. The
    Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful weather-bronzed face, her
    short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel, and her heavily
    laden “crees” of fish is not only appreciated by the brotherhood of
    brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the district.
    At Cullercoats is struck a note of the most modern of modern
    achievements—the Wireless Telegraphy Station (225 feet); and here,
    too, is situated the Dove Marine Laboratory, looked after by
    scientists on the staff of the Armstrong College at Newcastle.

    In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of
    the bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between
    Cullercoats and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria’s
    busy workers enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant
    and bracing coast. Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built
    in the busy shipyards on the Tyne may be seen doing their speed
    trials over the measured mile. The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact,
    be said to brood over Tynemouth, even in these days, for it is an
    increasing custom for those who can do so to remain in Newcastle
    and other busy centres of toil only during business hours, and to
    leave workshop and office every evening for their home by the sea:
    while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous excursionists has rolled
    on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its old-time sleepy
    content. Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the cliffs are very
    fine. Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses, once
    belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of
    King John. Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a
    gallant Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive
    shipwrecked crews on the same day, in one case allowing himself to
    be lowered over the cliffs at a terrible risk in the furious storm.

    Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose
    house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst
    the trees which surround it. Seaton Sluice owes its name to the
    Delaval who placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order
    to have a strong current which, in rushing down to the sea, would
    be able to wash the mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud
    brought in by the incoming tide. A later baronet, Sir John Hussey
    Delaval, made the cutting through the solid rock which is so
    striking a feature of the harbour. It was ready for the entrance of
    vessels in March, 1763.

    Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present
    representative of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the
    male line early in the nineteenth century. The last Delaval, a very
    learned man, was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1814. The Hall was
    built for Admiral Delaval in 1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh,
    who also designed Blenheim Palace, given by the nation to the great
    Duke of Marlborough about the same time.

    Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as
    being the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of
    men and boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking
    up of the only shaft by a mass of d ébris, caused by the fall of an
    iron beam belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head. Before
    the shaft could be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all
    the poor fellows had died, overcome by the deadly “choke-damp.”
    Joseph Skipsey, the pitman poet, in a simple ballad, tells the
    pathetic story.
  “Oh, father! till the shaft is rid, Close, close beside me keep; My
  eyelids are together glued, And I,—and I,—must sleep.”
  “Sleep, darling, sleep, and I will keep Close by—heigh ho.”—To keep
  Himself awake the father strives. But he—he, too—must sleep.
  “Oh mother dear! wert, wert thou near Whilst—sleep!” The orphan
  slept; And all night long, by the black pit-heap The mother a dumb
  watch kept.

    From here, northward, the coast is rather dull and uninteresting,
    although the sands are fine, until we reach Blyth, at the mouth of
    the little river of the same name. This town is growing rapidly in
    size and importance; the export of coal has greatly increased since
    the harbour was so much improved by Sir Matthew White Ridley, and
    now totals some millions of tones a year. The river Wansbeck not
    far north of the mouth of the Blyth, in the latter part of its
    course flows through a district begrimed by all the necessary
    accompaniments of the traffic in “black diamonds,” and reaches the
    sea between the colliery villages of Cambois and North Seaton.

    On the point at the northern curve of Newbiggin Bay stands
    Newbiggin Church, and ancient building, whose steeple, “leaning all
    awry,” is a well-known landmark for sailors. The site of this
    church is in danger of being undermined by the waves, and, indeed,
    part of the churchyard crumbled away many years ago; but such
    defences as are possible have been built up around it,—and the
    danger averted for a time. Newbiggin itself is a large fishing
    village and an increasingly popular holiday resort, for it
    possesses not only good sands but a wide moor near at hand which
    provides one of the best of golf courses; and, also, a short
    distance along the coast, are the attractive Fairy Rocks.

    Newbiggin was a town of some importance in Plantagenet days, with a
    busy harbour, and a pier; and in the reign of Edward II. it was
    required to contribute a vessel towards the naval defence of the
    Kingdom.

    Northward from Newbiggin Point is the magnificent sweep of Druridge
    Bay, stretching in a fine curve of ten miles or more to Hauxley
    Haven. Here, the sands of a warm golden colour, the wind-swept
    bents of silvery-grey, and the vivid green of the grassy cliff tops
    edge the curve of the bay with a line of bright and delicate
    colour, only thrown into greater relief by the brown reefs and
    ridges which stretch out from the rocky shores, and by the deep
    blue-green of the waves rolling inshore in long majestic lines, to
    break into hissing foam on the sharp reefs, or slide smoothly up
    the yellow sands in the centre of the bay. Above, beyond the grassy
    tops of the cliffs, stretch deep woods, with the old pele-tower of
    Cresswell looking out from amongst the trees, fields many-coloured
    with their burden of varying crops, and wide lonely moors, where
    one may walk for half a day without hearing any sound save the wild
    screaming of sea-birds, or the whistle of the wind, with the low
    boom of the waves below sounding a deep-toned accompaniment. The
    bay is not always so peaceful, however, and many wild scenes and
    terrible shipwrecks have taken place here, as everywhere along our
    wild north-east coast. The Bondicar rocks, by Hauxley, and the
    cruel spikes of the reef at Snab Point, near Cresswell, have
    betrayed many a gallant little vessel to her doom. Not, however,
    without bringing on many an occasion proof of the courage which is
    shown as a matter of course by the fisher folk on our coasts. At
    Newbiggin, and Cresswell, for instance, deeds have been done,
    which, in their simple unassuming heroism, may be taken as typical
    of the hardy race which could count Grace Darling among its
    daughters.

    About thirty years ago, a ship drove ashore off Cresswell one
    bitter night in January, and the fisher folk crowded down to the
    shore, watching with sorrowful eyes the hapless crew clinging to
    their unfortunate vessel, which was slowly being broken up by the
    waves. There was no lifeboat at Cresswell then, and all the men of
    the village, except the old men who were past work, had gone
    northward, when the oncoming storm prevented their return. The
    women and girls heard the cries of the schooner’s crew, and mourned
    to each other their inability to help. But one gallant-hearted
    girl, named Peggy Brown, cried out, “If I thowt she could hing on a
    bit, I wad be away for the lifeboat.” But between them and
    Newbiggin, the nearest lifeboat station, the Lyne Burn runs into
    the sea, and spreads widely out over the sands; and the older
    people told Peggy she could never cross the burn in the dark. She
    set off, however, the thought of the drowning men hastening her on.
    For four miles she made her way in the storm and darkness, partly
    along the shore, scrambling over rock’s, and wading waist-deep
    through the Lyne Burn and one or two other places where the waves
    had driven far up the sands, and partly across Newbiggin Moor,
    where the icy wind tore at her in her drenched clothing. She
    pressed on, however, and managed to reach the coxswain’s house and
    give her message. The lifeboat was immediately run out, and the men
    reached the wreck in time to save all the crew except one, who had
    been washed overboard.

    On another occasion one of the fishermen, named Tom Brown, was
    preparing to go out, with the help of his two sons, in his own
    fishing coble to the aid of a ship in distress on the reef. A
    carter had come down to the beach, the better to watch the progress
    of events, and, terrified by the thundering waves, his horse took
    fright, and in its plunging drove the cart against the little boat,
    making a hole clear through one side. “Big Tom,” as he was
    generally called, merely took off his coat, rolled it into a bundle
    and stuffed it against the hole. Then he beckoned to another
    fisherman, saying to him “Sit on that.” The man clambered in, and
    without the loss of another minute these four heroes set off to
    save their fellow creatures’ lives, with a broken and leaking boat
    in a heavy sea. And they did it, reaching the brig only just in
    time, for it went to pieces a few minutes after the shivering crew
    had been safely landed.

    Incidents like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, bring
    a glow of pride to the heart, and a reassuring sense that the
    degeneration of the race is not proceeding in such wholesale
    fashion—in the country districts, at any rate—as the pessimists
    would have us believe.

    At the northern extremity of Druridge Bay is the little fishing
    village of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of
    Ratcliffe and Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the
    south-west. Passing the Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we
    enter the “fairway” for Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk
    exportation of the coal of the neighbourhood is carried on.

    Lying out at sea, opposite Amble coastguard station, the white
    lighthouse on Coquet Island keeps watch over the entrance to the
    harbour. Some of the walls of the monastery, which stood on the
    island in Saxon days, can now be seen forming part of the dwelling
    of the lighthouse keeper. For many generations, too, hermit after
    hermit went to dwell on this tiny islet, and St. Cuthbert himself
    is said to have inhabited the little cell at one time. The island
    was captured by the Scots in the Civil Wars of King Charles’s
    reign, and held by them for a time.

    The situation of Amble, at the mouth of the Coquet, has been looked
    upon as convenient from very early days, for there are signs which
    tell us of a population here at an early period. Several
    cist-vaens, or ancient stone coffins, have been found near the
    town, and a broken Roman altar was unearthed in the neighbourhood.
    The monastery which stood here, like that on Holy Island, was, in
    later times, inhabited by Benedictine monks, who were under the
    authority of the Prior of Tynemouth. William the Conqueror gave the
    then Prior the right to collect the tithes of the little town.

    A short distance from Amble, and practically encircled by the
    Coquet which here makes a wide sweep, we come upon Warkworth,
    prettiest of villages, combining the beauties of sea-shore and
    river scenery, and rich in the possession of that romantic castle,
    the ruins of which carry the mind back to Saxon times; for they
    stand on the site of an older fortress erected by Ceolwulf, a Saxon
    King of Northumbria. He was the patron of Bede, who dedicated his
    “Ecclesiastical History” to his royal friend. Ceolwulf built both
    the fortress and the earliest church at Warkworth, and a few stones
    of this latter building are still to be seen. In 737, two years
    after the death of Bede, this royal Saxon laid aside his kingly
    state and became a monk on Lindisfarne,
  “When he, for cowl and beads, laid down The Saxon battle-axe and
  crown.”

    It was when the castle was bestowed by Edward III. upon Lord Percy
    of Alnwick that it became, for more than two hundred years, the
    chief residence of that illustrious family; becoming in the next
    reign of historical value as the home of that Hotspur whose valour
    and gallantry made Henry IV. envy the Earl of Northumberland, in
    that he “should be the father of so blest a son.” In Act II., Scene
    3 of “Henry IV.,” Part II., Shakespeare has laid the scene at
    Warkworth Castle, where Hotspur’s wife, troubled by her lord’s
    moody abstraction, tries to win from him the reason of his secret
    care. And after the battle of Shrewsbury, Rumour, flying with the
    news of Hotspur’s death, says:—
  “Thus have I rumoured through the peasant towns, Between the royal
  field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone, Where
  Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland, Lies crafty-sick.”

    Two years after this, the castle was besieged by Henry IV. himself,
    and surrendered to him after a brief bombardment by the newly
    invented cannon. The keep was re-built by Hotspur’s son, after the
    family possessions had been restored to him by Henry V., and it is
    now the only remaining part of the castle which is almost perfect.
    One of the half-ruinous towers remaining is called the Lion Tower,
    from the sculptured lion on its walls; while another rejoices in
    the curious name of Cradyfargus. A strange story is told of a blue
    stone to be seen in the courtyard of the castle. Many years ago, so
    runs the tale, one of the custodians of Warkworth Castle dreamed
    three nights in succession that a large treasure was concealed
    beneath a blue stone in a certain part of the castle grounds. He
    told this dream to a neighbour, and after allowing two or three
    days to pass, finding the dream constantly recurring to his mind,
    he thought he would go to the place indicated, and see what he
    could find. To his disappointment, however, he discovered that some
    one had been there before him; a large hole had been dug, and on
    the edge of it lay the blue stone.

    Needless to say, the hole was empty, nor could the keeper discover
    anything about the treasure in the neighbourhood. It is said that a
    certain family in the village became suddenly rich; and, many years
    afterwards, a large and ancient pot, supposed to have been that in
    which the buried treasure had been contained, was found in the
    Coquet.

    The main street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate
    of the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive
    inhabitants of the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of
    the owners of the castle waxed and waned throughout the many
    centuries in which the lords of Warkworth played a notable part in
    the history of England. They saw Henry Percy, entrusted with a
    share in the safe keeping of the country, set out from Warkworth
    for Durham, to help in winning the victory of Neville’s Cross.

    They saw Hotspur’s force set out for the Cheviots to intercept
    Douglas and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near
    Wooler; and it was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners
    taken on that day which led Hotspur and his father openly to throw
    off their allegiance to Henry IV., so that a few months later the
    peasants of Warkworth saw their idolised young lord set out for
    what was to prove the fatal field of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur’s
    father, the first Henry Percy to receive the title of Earl, (a
    title which had been given him at the coronation of Richard II.)
    set out with a brave force after Hotspur’s departure; and they saw
    his return, almost alone, dejected and broken in spirit, having
    learnt that the help so tardily given had come too late, and the
    life of his gallant son was ended.

    They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the
    castle, directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active
    measures by the open rebellion of father and son, though
    Northumberland had tried to make it appear that he was innocent of
    any treasonable act. After capturing the castle, Bolingbroke
    bestowed it on his third son, John of Lancaster, and the villagers
    saw the young prince riding in and out among them daily so long as
    he made the castle his home.

    Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur’s son,
    Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.;
    and, within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor
    Neville, daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of
    Westmoreland.

    In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of
    fortune, as the tide of victory flowed this way and that. The
    Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides
    twice. The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the
    great Earl of Warwick, the “King-maker” himself, made it his
    headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of
    Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at
    the same time. Eventually, after the Wars of the Roses concluded,
    Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy estates, to its
    original owners.

    Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church
    entered by the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the
    little force, prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and
    General Forster, dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III.
    at the village cross.

    A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln
    spreads over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea. It
    has changed its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of
    Church Hill, instead of to the north as at present. The town of
    Alnmouth, viewed from the train just before entering Alnmouth
    Station, looks very picturesque, especially if the rare sunshine of
    an English summer should be lighting up the bay, bringing out the
    vivid red of the tiled roofs against the grassy hills fringing the
    links which lie on their seaward side, and lighting up, also, the
    yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets edged with white.

    Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on
    the numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting
    shores each summer. Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year
    round, as there is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the
    winter months when their favourite pastime cannot be followed on
    the breezy links. On Church Hill, now crowned by a few old stones,
    once stood a Norman church, dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its
    turn, occupied the site of an older Saxon building, supposed to
    have been the church which Bede refers to as being at Twyford,
    where a great synod of clergy was held in the year 684, and
    Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is a matter of dispute
    whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the two fords
    at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that place.
    The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of
    last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the
    cannon shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a
    neighbouring farm house, doing great damage.

    The coast north of Alnmouth becomes rocky and wild, and very
    picturesque, and the villages along the coast are being sought out
    by holiday makers in increasing numbers, year by year. Boulmer, one
    of these villages, was a famous place for smuggling in the old
    days, and many an exciting scene and sharp encounter took place
    between the smugglers and the King’s men. Not far away is Howick
    Dene, a lovely little glen leading down to the sea from Howick
    Hall, the home of Earl Grey.

    Cullernose Point, a striking crag, is formed by the outcrop of a
    portion of the Great Whin Sill, which from here can be traced to
    the south-west, and thence right across the county.

    At Craster, another fishing village and a favourite holiday haunt,
    is Craster Tower, which has been the home of the family of Craster
    since before the Conquest. Not far to the north is the famous
    Rumble Churn in the rocks below Dunstanborough Castle, where the
    waves roll in and out of the caves and chasms with weird and hollow
    rumblings. There is another Rumbling Churn in the cliffs near
    Howick.

    The famous divine of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus, was born in
    this parish—that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as
    Dunston Hall, or Proctor’s Steads, is supposed to have been his
    birthplace, and a portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen
    there.

    Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
    crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of
    it, Keats’ wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:—
  “Magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery
  lands forlorn.”

    Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the
    poem, is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, “as a
    castle should abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin.” The
    primitive cannon of the days of the Wars of the Roses began to
    shatter those mighty walls, and, unlike Bamborough, it has never
    been strengthened since. Simon de Montford once owned this estate,
    and the next lord of Dunstanborough was a son of Henry III., to
    whom Earl Simon’s forfeited estate was given. His eldest son,
    Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in bringing the
    unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his death.
    Under the King’s anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
    estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already
    owned the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the
    Roses, Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than
    five times, and Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at
    Bamburgh; but apart from these occasions, Dunstanborough has not
    taken nearly so great a part in either local or national history as
    the other Northumbrian castles of Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick,
    though greater in extent than any of them. In 1538 an official
    report describes “Dunstunburht” as “a very reuynous howse”; and the
    process of dilapidation was soon aided by enterprising dwellers in
    the neighbourhood using the stones of the forsaken castle to build
    their own homesteads.

    From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after
    having been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was
    uncovered by the tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough
    but distinct lettering, the name “Andra Barton.” Sir Andrew Barton,
    daring Scottish sea-captain and fearless freebooter, was slain in a
    sea-fight off this part of the coast, in the days of Henry VIII.,
    by the sons of Surrey, one of whom, Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord
    Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure, responsible for the
    defence of the English coast. The loss of his brave sea-captain and
    his “goodly ships” was one of the grievances in the long list which
    led King James IV. to declare war against England, and led to the
    fatal field of Flodden, in which Admiral Sir Thomas Howard and his
    brother took part under the command of their father, the Earl of
    Surrey.

    The wide sweep of grassy common beyond the sands in Embleton Bay
    is, in summer time, covered with a profusion of wild flowers, chief
    amongst them being the wild geranium, or meadow cranes-bill, whose
    reddish-purple blossoms grow in such abundance as to arrest the
    attention of every visitor. A little way back from the sea-shore,
    in the middle of this wide space, lies the village of Embleton,
    which possesses an ancient and interesting church, and a vicarage,
    part of which is formed by an old pele-tower. Embleton would seem
    to have a reputation to keep up in the way of famous churchmen.
    Duns Scotus has been already mentioned; and one of the vicars here
    was a cousin of Richard Steele, the essayist and friend of Addison;
    and he described the country squires of his day in a paper which he
    contributed to the “Spectator” of that date, 1712.

    Another Vicar of Embleton, who lived here from 1874 to 1884, was
    Dr. Mandell Creighton, the learned historian, who became Bishop of
    London.

    The well-known journalist, W.T. Stead, was born in the parish of
    Embleton, though his childhood was passed in very different
    surroundings, in the narrow streets and grimy atmosphere of
    Howdon-on-Tyne. His recent death on the ill-fated _Titanic_ will be
    fresh in the minds of all.

    Newton-by-the-Sea is reached by a pleasant walk along the
    sea-shore. (It is to be understood that in this journey along the
    coast we are moving northward always). There is here a
    cheery-looking white-washed coastguard station standing on the bold
    headland of Newton Point.

    Past this point is Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell
    just beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has
    the unique distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast
    whose mouth faces west, and the short pier, running _inland_ from
    rocks to shore, acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or
    southeasterly seas and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for
    fishing craft or small yachts. The rocks around this bay are very
    interesting, showing the various strata very plainly, and
    containing many fossils. The striking cliff called Ebbe’s Nook is
    supposed to have been named after the Saxon princess Ebba, sister
    to King Oswald, and the ruins which were discovered on the
    headland, to be all that is left of a chapel erected to her memory.

    At Seahouses is an extensive fish-curing establishment, a fact
    which proclaims itself unmistakably as you near the village,
    especially if the day chance to be at all warm. A little distance
    from the shore is another fishing village, North Sunderland, and
    northward from Seahouses is the inn called The Monkshouse, from the
    fact that it once belonged to the community on Lindisfarne.

    Bamburgh Castle, magnificently placed on a lofty crag rising
    perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side,
    and almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east
    sides, lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock “brooding on
    ancient fame.” The voices of children at play on the sands below
    sound faint and far in the still air; the sea birds, with the
    summer sunshine flashing on their outspread wings, sweep round and
    round; in the far distance a trail of smoke low down on the horizon
    marks the track of a passing steamer; and near at hand, southward a
    little way from the castle cliff, the rocky islets of the Farne
    group lie drowsily asleep on the gently-heaving swell of the
    grey-blue waters. Behind the castle lies the pretty old-fashioned
    village with its quaint hostelries and grove of trees; and from the
    higher parts of the new golf-links the player may look round on a
    view which would be difficult to match, comprising as it does, the
    Farne Islands and Dunstanborough to the south, and northward, Holy
    Island, with its castle and abbey and the bluish haze of smoke
    lying over Berwick; while, on the western skyline, on a clear day,
    may be seen the rounded caps of the Cheviots.

    The beginnings of Bamburgh take us back more than a thousand years,
    to that long-ago summer of 547, when the _cyuls_ (keels) of the
    marauding Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the
    shore of our Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not
    slow to grasp the importance of such a commanding site as this
    isolated mass of basaltic crag, and the rude stronghold which
    crowned it. It became in time a formidable fortress, and remained
    for centuries the headquarters of the kings of the North.

    Here reigned Ida and his sons—six of them—for more or less short
    and stormy periods, and Ethelric of Bernicia, who vanquished the
    neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of
    Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was
    Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir
    Lancelot’s castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the
    Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to
    die. The fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in
    Northumberland disposes of the claim of Alnwick.

    “My fair lords,” said sir Launcelot, “wit ye well, my careful body
    will into the earth; I have warning more than I will now say;
    therefore, I pray you, give me my rights.” So when he was houseled
    and eneled, and had all that a Christian man ought to have, he
    prayed the bishop that his fellows might bear his body unto Joyous
    Gard.

    Some men say Anwick, and some men say to Bamborow; “how-beit,” said
    sir Launcelot, “me repenteth sore; but I made mine avow aforetime,
    that in Joyous Gard I would be buried; and because of breaking of
    mine vow, I pray you all lead me thither.” Then was there weeping
    and wringing of hands among all his fellows.

    And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Gard, and there
    they laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and read many
    psalters and prayers over him and about him.... And right thus, as
    they were at their service, there came sir Ector de Maris, that had
    sought seven years all England, Scotland and Wales, seeking his
    brother sir Launcelot.... Then went sir Bors unto sir Ector, and
    told him how there lay his brother sir Launcelot dead.

    And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from
    him; and when he beheld sir Launcelot’s visage, he fell down in a
    swoon; and when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the
    doleful complaints that he made for his brother. “Ah! sir
    Launcelot,” said he, “thou wert head of all Christian knights!”
    “And now, I dare say,” said sir Bors, “that sir Launcelot, there
    thou liest, thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands;
    and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare a shield; and
    thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrod horse;
    and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved
    woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword;
    and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of
    knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever
    eat in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy
    mortal foe, that ever put spear in the rest.”

    Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
  —_Malory’s Morte d’Arthur_.

    Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second
    wife, Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became
    Bamburgh.

    In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was
    the centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the
    Forth, and as Northumbria was at that time the most important
    division of England, the royal city of Bernicia was practically the
    capital of the country. The reign of King Oswald, though shorter
    than that of Edwin, was equally noteworthy from the fact that in
    his days the gentle Aidan settled in Northumbria, and king and monk
    worked together for the good of their people, and Bamburgh became
    not only the seat of temporal power but the safeguard and bulwark
    of the spiritual movement centred on the little isle of
    Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of Ethelfrith,
    had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of Iona,
    living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in
    his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his
    political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come
    and instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk
    named Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any
    impression on the wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom,
    and he soon returned to Iona with the report that it was useless to
    try to teach such obstinate and barbarous people. One of the
    brethren, listening to his account, ventured to ask him if he were
    sure that all the fault lay with the people. “Did you remember,”
    said he, “that we are commanded to give them the milk first? Did
    you not rather try them with the strong meat?” With one accord the
    brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words was the
    man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to
    Oswald’s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria,
    and Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds
    and lives had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history.
    From Aidan’s arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations
    between the king and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or
    Medcaut, soon to be known as Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island,
    were those of friend to friend and fellow-worker, rather than those
    of king and subject.

    After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of
    the Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls
    of Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood
    were laid against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his
    little cell on Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the
    clouds of flame and smoke rolling over the home of his beloved
    patron. Raising his hands to Heaven, he exclaimed, “See, Lord, what
    ill Penda is doing!” Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the
    wind changed, and drove the flames away from Bamburgh, blowing them
    against Penda’s host, who thereupon ceased all further attempts
    against the city.

    Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with
    sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the
    wooden stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year,
    and this time both village and church were burnt, all except, says
    tradition, the beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his
    last moments.

    When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries
    following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In
    the days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl
    of Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with
    his uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William
    of St. Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into
    Northumberland, but the quarrel was adjusted for the time; though
    private strife between the two Bishops led to Mowbray’s driving the
    monks of Durham from the Priory at Tynemouth and replacing them by
    monks from St. Albans.

    Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who
    once more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and
    invested it, but failed to make any impression on that impregnable
    stronghold, within whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the
    Countess Matilda, and his nephew, who was Sheriff of
    Northumberland. Rufus, finding all attempts to carry the fortress
    useless, began to build a wooden fort, called a _Malvoisin_, or
    “Bad neighbour”; and so anxious was he to have it speedily erected
    that he made knights and nobles as well as his men-at-arms take
    part in the work.

    Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name,
    openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had
    expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His
    words gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly
    loyal, and much mortification and vexation to those whom he so
    ruthlessly exposed. Rufus left the “Bad neighbour” to continue the
    siege and went southward.

    Mowbray, led to believe that Newcastle would receive him, and take
    his part, stole away from Bamburgh by sea, and reached Tynemouth.
    On proceeding to Newcastle, however, he found he had been mistaken,
    and hurriedly fled hack to Tynemouth, pursued by his enemies. He
    held out against them for a day or two, but was then captured and
    taken to Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh
    against all assailants; but Mowbray’s capture gave Rufus an
    advantage he was not slow to use. Returning to the North, he
    ordered Mowbray to be brought before the walls of Bamburgh, and
    threatened to put his eyes out if the Countess did not immediately
    surrender. Needless to say, she preferred to give up the castle,
    and Mowbray’s reign as Earl of Northumberland was over.

    Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when
    their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom.
    When Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of
    his rights to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention
    was concluded. In this reign the castle was greatly strengthened.

    In the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the
    Lancastrian nobles of the north country—Percy and Ros—with the Earl
    of Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve,
    1462, to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots
    and the queen’s French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for
    Henry VI. and his courageous queen; but Warwick, “the King-maker,”
    came upon the scene, and after a stout resistance the garrison
    surrendered.

    When the Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, Bamburgh was no
    longer necessary as a defence against the Scots, and its defences
    were neglected. The Forsters, into whose hands it passed in the
    days of James I., were a spendthrift family, and gradually wasted
    their rich estate, until in 1704 it had to be sold, and was bought
    by Lord Crewe. He was Bishop of Durham at the time, having been
    promoted to that position by Charles II., who liked his handsome
    figure and pleasing manners. When at the age of fifty-eight, he
    wished to marry Dorothea Forster, daughter of Sir William Forster,
    of Bamburgh, the lady, who was many years younger, refused him at
    first; but some years later he renewed his suit, and this time was
    accepted. When the Forster estates were sold and their debts paid,
    there was scarcely anything left for the heirs—Lady Crewe and her
    nephew, Thomas Forster, who afterwards became the General of the
    ill-fated Jacobite rising in 1715, and whose escape after his
    capture was contrived by his high-spirited sister, Dorothy Forster
    the second.

    Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found
    the Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The
    most notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the
    moneys in so wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the
    credit is due for the real usefulness of the Crewe charities. These
    include a surgery and dispensary; schools; the relief of persons in
    distress; the clothing and educating of a certain number of girls;
    the maintenance of a lifeboat, life-saving apparatus, and
    everything necessary for the relief of ship-wrecked persons. A
    lifeboat, kept in the harbour at Holy Island, is always ready to go
    out on a signal from Bamburgh Castle.

    The castle was extensively restored and repaired by the late Lord
    Armstrong; but, sad to say, since his death it has been stripped of
    many of its treasures. The church, dedicated to St. Aidan, stands
    at the west end of the village; but there is no vestige remaining
    of the one built in Saxon times, the present building having been
    erected when Henry II. was king. In the churchyard is the grave of
    Grace Darling, and many hundreds come to look on the last resting
    place of the gentle girl who was yet so heroic, when her
    compassionate heart nerved her girlish frame to the gallant effort
    on behalf of her fellow-creatures in dire peril, when she
  “.... rode the waves none else durst ride, None save her sire.”

    The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is
    an exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was
    being injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a
    position inside the church. The duplicate was commissioned by Lord
    (then Sir William) Armstrong.

    The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace’s
    home is the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky
    group of the Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh. The Longstone
    is only about four feet above high-water mark, so that in stormy
    weather the lighthouse is fiercely assailed by the heavy seas, and
    the keepers are often driven for refuge to the upper chambers. To
    the Longstone might with truth be attributed the opening lines of
    Kipling’s poem, “The Coastwise Lights”:—
  “Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
  Our loins are battered ’neath us by the swinging, smoking seas; From
  reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe, The
  coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.”

    There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low
    tide, and very curious are some of their names—The Megstone, The
    Crumstone, The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes
    (Knokys), and The Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the
    nearest to the coast, and is the one to which St. Aidan retired,
    and on which St. Cuthbert made himself a cell, and where he lived
    for some years, leaving Lindisfarne (Holy Island) very often for
    months together, to dwell alone on this almost bare rock and devote
    himself to holy meditation and prayer.

    To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
    Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit
    to accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that
    St. Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him
    signalling the news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by
    means of torches. The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep
    chasms between the high cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the
    columns of foam and spray, from the waters dashing into the chasms
    and over the tops of the cliffs, may be seen from the mainland
    rising high into the air.

    Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a
    coal fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like
    building used as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had
    been used continuously since the days of Charles II. In great
    contrast to this is the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas
    lights and its automatic flash apparatus.

    Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
    called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
    especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the
    islet called the Brownsman.

    Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and
    fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots,
    kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for
    which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection;
    certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.

    Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into
    which runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose
    sandy flats is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport,
    to which Henry III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne,
    “Our isle of Saints, low-lying on the blue breast of the curling
    waters, is hushed and silent in the lightly-purple mists of
    morning, like the wide aisles of a great cathedral at daybreak,
    before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb the solemn
    stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the footprints of
    the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St. Cuthbert have
    passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.”
    (_Galloway Kyle_.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally
    takes train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore,
    and crosses the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the
    mainland. The governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of
    making the journey is the state of the tide, for these sands are
    entirely covered by the sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can
    only be said to be an island at high tide.
  “For with the flow and ebb, its style Varies from continent to isle;
  Dry-shod, o’er sands, twice every day The pilgrims to the shrine find
  way; Twice every day the waves efface Of staves and sandall’d feet
  the trace.”

    There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes
    points out the proper course to be taken.

    We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have
    treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another
    monk of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and
    after Finan came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had
    decided to keep Easter according to southern instead of northern
    usage. St. Cuthbert was Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later,
    the seat of the bishopric was removed from Lindisfarne to York,
    when it was held by that restless and able prelate, Wilfrid, for a
    time. Then the bishopric was divided and a see of Hexham formed, as
    well as that of Lindisfarne, which included Carlisle, out of the
    northern portion of the diocese of York.

    St. Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne for two years, having
    exchanged sees with bishop Eata, who went to Hexham. The stone
    coffin in which St. Cuthbert’s body was pieced, after his death on
    Farne Island, was buried on the right side of the altar in the
    Abbey of Lindisfarne, which by this time had arisen on the little
    island. A later bishop, Edfrid, executed a wonderful copy of the
    Gospels, which was illuminated by his successor, Ethelwald. Another
    bishop enclosed it in a cover of gold and silver, adorning it with
    jewels; and, later, a priest of Lindisfarne, Aldred, wrote between
    the lines a translation into the vernacular, and added marginal
    notes. This precious manuscript, a wonderful example of the
    beautiful work done in monastic houses in the north so many
    centuries ago, is now in the British Museum, where it is known as
    the “Durham Manuscript.”

    When the pirate keels of the Danes appeared off our coasts about
    the end of the eighth century, Lindisfarne Abbey was one of the
    first points of attack; and in 793 it was plundered of most of its
    wealth, and many of the monks were slain. For nearly a century
    afterwards it was left in peace, but in 875 the Danish ships
    appeared again approaching from the south, where they had just
    sacked Tynemouth Priory. The bishop, Eardulph, last of the
    Lindisfarne prelates, and the brethren hastily collected their most
    treasured possessions, and with the body of St. Cuthbert, the bones
    of St. Aidan, and other precious relics, they fled from their
    island home, and journeyed north, west, and south for many years
    before they found a resting place at Chester-le-Street near Durham.
    For seven years they carried with them the body of St. Cuthbert;
    and it is said that the final choice of a resting place for the
    body of their beloved saint was indicated to them by supernatural
    means as they approached Durham.

    In 1069 William the Conqueror marched northward to visit with
    sternest punishment the hardy north-men, who were so long in
    submitting to his authority; and the monks of Durham fled before
    the advance of the relentless Norman, carrying with them, as
    before, the body of St. Cuthbert. They reached Lindisfarne in
    safety to find the Abbey in the ruinous state in which it had been
    left by the Danes two centuries earlier. Thus, once again, the body
    of St. Cuthbert rested on the little island where so many years of
    his life had been spent.

    In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building
    was begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral
    of Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong
    resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was
    deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and
    gradually fell into ruins.

    The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the
    south-east corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many
    miles, whether viewed by land or sea. It is supposed to have been
    built in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when defences were
    commanded to be made to all harbours. If the Castle has had any
    appreciable share of romantic incidents in its history, the records
    thereof seem to be unknown; but one which has come down to us is
    the account of its daring capture by an ardent North-country
    Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, in 1715. The garrison consisted of
    seven men, five of whom were absent. Errington, who was master of a
    small vessel lying in the harbour, discovered this, and immediately
    made his way to the Castle accompanied by his nephew, and
    overpowered the two men who were left in charge, turning them out
    of the Castle. He then signalled to the mainland for
    reinforcements, but none were forthcoming. A company of King’s men
    came instead and re-occupied the place, Errington and his nephew
    escaping, to wander about in the neighbourhood for several days,
    hiding from pursuit, before they got clear away. The Castle was for
    many years the home of the coastguardsmen, who must have found it a
    most advantageous position for their purpose, as they had an
    uninterrupted view of miles of coast line.

    Northward from Holy Island, but on the mainland, lies Goswick, from
    whose red sandstone quarries came the material for building the
    Abbey of Lindisfarne. Further north we come in sight of the coal
    pits and smoke of Scremerston, while beyond it, Spittal and
    Tweedmouth bring us right up to Berwick-on-Tweed itself, that grey
    old Border town which has seen so many turns of fortune, and been
    harried again and again, only to draw breath after each wild and
    cruel interlude, and go calmly on its quiet way until it was once
    more called upon to fight for its very existence.

    Though definitely forming part of English soil since 1482, it is
    not included in any English county, but, with about eight square
    miles around it, forms a county by itself. Hence the addition, to
    any Royal proclamation, of the well-known words “And in our Town of
    Berwick-upon-Tweed.”

    Sir Walter Scott’s description of the Northumbrian coast, in his
    poem of Marmion may well be recalled here. It will be remembered
    that the Abbess of Whitby, with some of her nuns, was voyaging to
    Holy Island, and we take up the description when
  “.... the vessel skirts the strand Of mountainous Northumberland;
  Towns, towers, and halls successive rise, And catch the nuns’
  delighted eyes. Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay, And Tynemouth’s
  Priory and bay. They marked, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton
  Delaval; They saw the Blyth and Wansbeck floods Rush to the sea
  through sounding woods; They passed the tower of Widdrington, Mother
  of many a valiant son; At Coquet-isle their beads they tell To the
  good saint who owned the cell. Then did the Alne attention claim, And
  Warkworth, proud of Percy’s name; And next they crossed themselves,
  to hear The whitening breakers sound so near, Where, boiling through
  the rocks, they roar On Dunstanborough’s caverned shore. Thy tower,
  proud Bamburgh, marked they there, King Ida’s castle, huge and
  square, From its tall rock look grimly down And on the swelling ocean
  frown. Then from the coast they bore away And reached the Holy
  Island’s bay.


  As to the port the galley flew, Higher and higher rose to view The
  castle with its battled walls, The ancient monastery’s halls, A
  solemn, huge, and dark-red pile Placed on the margin of the isle.
  In Saxon strength that abbey frowned, With massive arches, broad and
  round.


  On the deep walls, the heathen Dane Had poured his impious rage in
  vain; And needful was such strength to these, Exposed to the
  tempestuous seas, Scourged by the winds’ eternal sway, Open to rovers
  fierce as they. Which could twelve hundred years withstand Winds,
  waves, and northern pirates’ hand.”

[Illustration]




CHAPTER II. NORTH AND SOUTH TYNE.


  “On Kielder-side the wind blaws wide; There sounds nae hunting horn
  That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat Round banks where Tyne is
  born.” —_A.C. Swinburne_.

    Between Peel Fell and Mid Fell, almost the farthest western heights
    of the Cheviot Hills, a little mountain stream takes its rise, and
    flows to the south and east. This little burn is the North Tyne,
    the beginnings of that stream which, deep, dark, and swift at its
    mouth, bears the mighty battleships there built to carry the
    war-flags of the nations round the world. In the wild and lovely
    district where the North Tyne takes its rise, is Kielder Castle, a
    shooting box belonging to the Duke of Northumberland.

    This neighbourhood is the scene of two romantic ballads; that of
    the “Cowt (colt) of Kielder” and the Ettrick Shepherd’s ballad of
    “Sir David Graeme.” The deadly enemy of the young “Cowt,” so called
    from his great strength, is Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, on the
    Scottish side of the border. The Cowt, with his followers, was
    enticed into the Castle, where Lord Soulis purposed his death; but
    the gigantic youth burst through the circle of his foes and
    escaped. The evil Brownie of the moorland, however, gave to Lord
    Soulis the secret which safeguarded the young Cowt. His coat of
    mail was sword-proof by a spell of enchantment, and he wore in his
    helmet rowan and holly leaves; but these would all be of no avail
    against the power of running water. The Cowt was pursued until, in
    crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he
    recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water
    until he was drowned.

    Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the
    Tyne, a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known
    as the Cowt’s Grave.
  “This is the bonny brae, the green, Yet sacred to the brave, Where
  still, of ancient size, is seen Gigantic Kieldar’s grave.

  Where weeps the birch with branches green Without the holy ground,
  Between two old grey stones is seen The warrior’s ridgey mound.
  And the hunters bold of Kieldar’s train, Within yon castle’s wall, In
  a deadly sleep must aye remain Till the ruined towers down fall.”

    In the ballad of “Sir David Graeme,” by James Hogg, the lady of the
    story watched out of her window in vain for the coming of her
    “noble Graeme,” who had vowed that the hate of her father and
    brothers would not keep him from coming to carry off his fair lady
    on St. Lambert’s night.
  “The sun had drunk frae Kieldar Fell His beverage o’ the morning dew;
  The deer had crouched her in the dell, The heather oped its bells o’
  blue.

  The lady to her window hied, And it opened o’er the banks o’ Tyne;
  An’ “O! alack,” she said, and sighed, “Sure ilka breast is blythe but
  mine?”

    Her forebodings prove only too true, for her lover’s faithful hound
    seeks her out, and with mournful looks induces her to follow him
    over Deadwater Fell, and guides her to a lonely spot where the body
    of the gallant Graeme, slain by her brothers, is lying.

    In the neighbourhood of these desolate Fells are to be found many
    traces of ancient British Camps.

    The little mountain streams which here help to swell the stream of
    the North Tyne are, on the south side, the Lewis and Whickhope
    Burns, and on the north, the Plashetts and Hawkhope Burns. On both
    sides of the Tyne, near the Whickhope and the Hawkhope Burns are
    many remains of an ancient pre-historic forest, the largest being
    near the Whickhope Burn where the abnormally thick stems of trees
    may be seen.

    The little village of Falstone is set amongst trees, in the midst
    of pleasant meadows, a welcome relief from the bare fells and
    moorlands around it; yet this wild scenery has a distinct
    fascination of its own, and adds not a little to the charm of the
    varied landscape within the bounds of our northern county. At
    Falstone a fragment of an ancient cross was discovered, with an
    inscription carved upon it—in Roman letters on one side and in the
    Runes of the Anglo-Saxons on the other. The inscription states that
    a certain Eamer set up the cross in memory of his uncle Hroethbert,
    and asks for prayers for his soul. The existence of a similarly
    inscribed cross is not known, so that the Society of Antiquaries,
    in whose keeping this cross rests, has in it probably a unique
    treasure.

    The Tarset Burn, upon which stands the village of Thorneyburn, runs
    into the Tyne not far from Falstone, and reminds us of the old
    Border-riding days, when the rallying-cry of the men of the
    district in many a feud with neighbouring clans was—“Tarset and
    Tarret Burn, Hard and heather-bred, yet-yet-yet.” Near the spot
    where the Tarset Burn joins the Tyne is a grassy hill on which once
    stood Tarset Castle, a stronghold of that Red Comyn whom Bruce slew
    in the little chapel at Dumfries, and of whose death Bruce’s friend
    Kirkpatrick said he would “mak’ siccar”!

    The village of Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the
    mansion of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old
    reiving plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident
    of the ancient spur of the Charlton’s took place, doubtless many a
    time and oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur
    at dinner as a gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it
    behoved her lord to mount and away to replenish the same,
    preferably with stock from the Scottish side of the border, or if
    not, a neighbour’s cattle would serve equally well.

    The Charltons, Robsons (possibly the lineal descendants of
    “Hroethbert” of the ancient cross) and Armstrongs, held almost
    undisputed sway over this region, and the district teems with
    reminders of their prowess and traditions of their exploits. The
    men of Tynedale (the North Tyne) and Redesdale were known as the
    fiercest and most lawless in all that wild district. Redesdale is a
    district of monotonous, almost dreary, moorlands, and wild, bare
    fells, where sheep graze on what scanty provender the bleak hills
    afford, finding better fare, however, in the valleys near the river
    banks, where the pasture is fresh and green.

    Bellingham is to-day the most considerable village of the
    neighbourhood; it stands conveniently at the foot of the hills
    where the little Belling Burn, or Hareshaw Burn, joins the main
    stream. In Hareshaw woods is the beautiful Hareshaw Linn, where the
    stream falls down through a break in the sandstone cliffs, and
    forms a picturesque waterfall, fringed with ferns and trees and
    cool mosses. It well repays one for the walk of a mile or so
    through tangled underwoods by the side of the burn. Bellingham
    gives its mime to the family of de Bellingham, whose chief seat,
    however, is now in Ireland and no longer in the little
    north-country town.

    The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent
    testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near
    to Scotland in the days of Border warfare. Outside the churchyard
    wall is the well of St. Cuthbert, or “Cuddy’s Well,” which was
    greatly venerated in early days, and many stories are told of the
    miraculous power of its waters. Inside the churchyard a grave is
    pointed out as the burial place of the robber whose tragic end was
    told by James Hogg in his gruesome story of “The Long Pack.”

    The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a
    settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in
    either wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.

    Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most
    noted tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots.
    Rising in the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east,
    through a wild region, passing, while still high up amongst the
    hills, the little village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at
    Catcleugh, where a supply of pure water is stored for the use of
    the dwellers in distant Newcastle. On its way to the Tyne, it
    passes many an old pele-tower, and the Roman stations of Bremenium
    (Rochester) and Habitancum, near Woodburn. The ancient Roman road
    of Watling Street crosses the Rede at Woodburn, leading from
    Habitancum to Bremenium.

    Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown,
    join the Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter
    Burn, by whose banks took place that stirring episode in the
    constant quarrels between the Douglases and Percies known as “Chevy
    Chase,” from which the fierce battle-cries ring down the five
    centuries that have passed since that time, with sounds that echo
    still.

    The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the
    Rede Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the
    rapid little Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main
    stream.

    On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at
    one of the most important fords of the Tyne in former days. Like
    other towns and villages so placed on different streams throughout
    the country, the advantages of its situation have evidently been
    appreciated by the successive inhabitants of the land, for there
    are traces of its occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later,
    the town was the most considerable in Upper Tynedale. During the
    time that this part of England was ceded to the Scottish Kings,
    David and Alexander, it was at Wark that the Scottish law courts
    for Tynedale held their sittings. The mound called the Mote Hill,
    near the river, marks the spot where, in all probability, the
    ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer the rude
    justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their little
    settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later years.
    In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a
    church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.

    A little way up the Wark Burn, above the bridge, there may be seen
    some upright stems of Sigillaria in the exposed face of the cliffs.
    On the opposite side of the river from Wark is Chipchase Castle,
    one of the finest mansions in Northumberland, standing in the midst
    of the beautifully wooded and picturesque scenery which, from this
    point onwards is characteristic of the North Tyne. Of the former
    village of Chipchase scarcely a trace remains, though its name, if
    nothing else, shows that here has been a village or small town,
    important enough to have its well-known, market; for “Chip,” like
    the various “Chippings” throughout England is derived from the
    Anglo-Saxon _ciepan_—to buy and sell, to traffic. In the reign of
    Henry II., Chipchase was the property of the Umfravilles of
    Prudhoe; but later it passed into the hands of the well-known
    Northumbrian family of Heron.

    Not far from Chipchase Castle are the famous Gunnerton Crags,
    formed by an out-crop of the Great Whin Sill. These lofty cliffs
    have been the site of a considerable settlement of the ancient
    British tribes who dwelt in the district in such numbers, as is
    evident from the scores of camps, which may be traced all over this
    part of Northumberland. The naturally strong position on the
    Gunnerton Crags, would be certain to commend itself to a people,
    the first requisite of whose dwelling places was strength and
    consequent safety.

    At Barrasford the making of the railway cutting led to the opening
    up of a large barrow, or burial place, of the ancient Britons; and
    a single “menhir,” supposed to be the solitary survivor of a large
    group of these huge stones, stood near the village school some
    years ago.

    Passing Chollerton and Humshaugh, embowered amongst spreading
    trees, we arrive at Chollerford, the prettiest village of North
    Tyne, lying near the river where it was crossed by the Roman Wall.
    From the bridge which spans the Tyne at Chollerford one of the
    finest views of the river, both up and down the stream, is to be
    seen; and to watch the swift brown stream, after a flood or a
    freshet, foaming through the arches is an exhilarating sight. The
    bridge itself is a modern one, for we know that all the bridges on
    the Tyne, except that of Corbridge, were swept away by the great
    flood of 1771.

    In 1394, that prince of bridge-builders, Bishop Walter de Skirlaw
    of Durham, granted thirteen days’ indulgence to all who should
    assist in rebuilding the bridge at Chollerford; so that already
    there was one here which had evidently fallen into disrepair. Yet,
    in the ballad of “Jock o’ the Side,” the rescuers, with Jock in
    their midst, reach Chollerford, and, after some anxious questioning
    of an old man as to whether the “water will ride,” are compelled to
    swim the Tyne in flood, which their pursuers, coming up, will not
    attempt to do. Now Bishop Skirlaw’s bridges did not usually
    disappear; those of Yarm, Shincliffe, and Auckland have stood until
    to-day, with occasional repairs. Are we then reluctantly to
    question the truth of “Jock o’ the Side”? Surely, if the choice
    remain of the accuracy of the ballad or the fact of the bridge, it
    is the duty of all leal North-country people to swear by the
    ballad. Perhaps the good Bishop did not personally oversee the
    rebuilding of Chollerford Bridge: more probably the Wear and Tees
    do not come down with the angry impetuosity of the Tyne in flood!

    The remains of the great Roman camp of Cilurnum (The Chesters) may
    be seen here within Mrs. Clayton’s park. This was the largest
    military station in Northumberland, Corstopitum, which is very much
    larger, being more of a civil settlement. At some little distance
    below the present bridge some of the piers of the old Roman bridge
    are still to be seen when the river is low.

    Eastward from Chollerford is the little church of St. Oswald,
    standing where the battle of Heavenfield took place. When Penda of
    Mercia, and the British Prince Cadwallon, were warring against
    Northumbria, the greatest Northumbrian King, Edwin, was defeated
    and slain by them; and on their return to the attack, Ethelfrith’s
    eldest son, called back from exile to take the vacant throne, and
    rule in his father’s seat of Bamburgh, also fell before their
    fierce onslaught. His brother Oswald now took command of the
    Bernicians and prepared to lead them against the foe. Oswald posted
    his men in a strong position on the north side of the great Wall;
    and, setting up a huge cross of wood, called upon all his followers
    to bow before the God of whom he had learnt during his exile in
    Iona, and to pray to Him for victory. His army obeyed, and, in the
    battle which followed, Oswald’s forces were completely victorious.
    The Mercians, and their allies, the western Britons, were routed,
    and driven out of Bernicia, and Cadwallon was pursued as far as the
    Denise Burn, and there slain. The Denise Burn is supposed to have
    been the Rowley Burn, which flows into the Devil’s Water, on whose
    banks stands Dilsten Castle. Some time later, on the spot where
    Oswald’s Cross had stood, a church was erected and dedicated to the
    royal Saint. It was served from Hexham Abbey.

    After passing Wall, which, however, is not quite so near the Roman
    Wall as Chollerford is, we come to the pretty village of Warden,
    nestling beneath the woods of Warden Hill; and here, just above
    Hexham, the North Tyne unites with its sister river in the rich
    meadow lands which lie near the old town.

    The South Tyne has journeyed from Cross Fell, where it takes its
    rise, northward through a corner of Cumberland, past Garrygill and
    Alston, until it enters Northumberland where the Ayle Burn on the
    one hand, and the Gilderdale Burn on the other, flow into it. Here
    is Whitley Castle, where was a small Roman station called Alio, and
    Kirkhaugh Church, charmingly placed on the bank of the river, which
    continues its course northward past Slaggyford, Knaresdale, Eals,
    and Lambley, till it flows past the fine Castle of Featherstone,
    and the ruins of Bellister, where it turns eastward to Haltwhistle.

    The little streams which enter the South Tyne up to this point flow
    through wild and romantic glens, two of them owning the Celtic
    names of _Glen Cune_ and _Glen Dhu_.

    The family of Featherstonehaugh is one of the oldest in the North;
    and it was concerning the death of one of this family—Sir Albany
    Featherstonehaugh, who was High Sheriff of Northumberland in the
    days of Henry VIII.—that Mr. Surtees, the antiquary, wrote the
    well-known ballad, which, when Surtees gave it him, deceived even
    Sir Walter Scott into thinking it genuinely ancient. The first
    verse of the ballad shows with what a verve and swing the lines go.
  “Hoot awa’, lads, hoot awa’ Ha’ ye heard how the Ridleys, an’
  Thirlwalls, an’ a’ Ha’ set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh; And taken
  his life at the Deadmanshaw? There was Willimoteswick, And
  Hard-riding Dick, An’ Hughie o’ Hawdon, an’ Will o’ the Wa’ I canno’
  tell a’, I canno’ tell a’ And mony a mair that the de’il may knaw.”

    The ruins of Bellister Castle stand against a sombre background of
    woods, only a little way from Haltwhistle. The Castle once belonged
    to the Blenkinsopp family, who also owned Blenkinsopp Castle, about
    two miles away. The name was formerly spelt Blencan’s-hope—the hope
    being valley or hollow—and the Castle, like many other places, has
    its legendary “White Lady.”

    Haltwhistle is a little straggling town lying on both sides of the
    main road above the South Tyne, where it is joined by the
    Haltwhistle Burn. By going up the valley of this pretty little
    stream we shall arrive near the Roman station of AEsica, on the
    Wall. The town of Haltwhistle is peaceful enough now, but it had a
    stirring existence in the days when Ridleys, Armstrongs, and
    Charltons, to say nothing of the men of Liddesdale and Teviotdale,
    had so strong a partiality for a neighbour’s live-stock and so
    ready a hand with arrow and spear. In the old ballad of “The Fray
    of Hautwessel,” we are told that
  “The limmer thieves o’ Liddesdale Wadna leave a kye in the haill
  countrie, But an[3] we gi’e them the cauld steel, Our gear they’ll
  reive it a’ awaye, Sae pert they stealis, I you saye. O’ late they
  came to Hautwessel, And thowt they there wad drive a fray. But Alec
  Ridley shot too well.”

 [3] But an = unless.

    The most notable feature of present-day Haltwhistle is the finely
    placed parish church, of which the chancel is the oldest part,
    having been built in the twelfth century, so that it was already an
    old church when Edward I. rested here for a night in 1306, on his
    way to Scotland for the last time. When William the Lion of
    Scotland returned from his captivity, after being taken prisoner at
    Alnwick in 1174, he founded the monastery of Arbroath in
    thanksgiving for his freedom, and bestowed on the monks the church
    of Haltwhistle.

    All that remains of the old Castle, or “Haut-wysill Tower,” is the
    building standing near the Castle Hill, which latter has been
    fortified by earthworks. The Red Lion Hotel is a modernised
    pele-tower. The general aspect of the place is singularly bare and
    bleak; but from several points in the town, notably from the
    churchyard terrace, fine views of the river valley may be obtained.

    Henshaw (Hethinga’s-haugh) is a little village which King David of
    Scotland, when he was Lord of Tynedale, gave to Richard Cumin and
    his wife, who afterwards bestowed it on the Cathedral of Durham. It
    lies by the side of the main road to Bardon Mill, which is the most
    convenient station for travellers to alight at who wish to visit
    the Roman Wall and the Roman city of Borcovicus, and the
    Northumberland lakes. Some little distance up the hill from Bardon
    Mill station is a very pretty little village whose name speaks
    eloquently of other invaders than the Romans—the village of
    Thorngrafton (the “ton” or settlement on Thor’s “graf” or dyke).
    Near at hand there are quarries from which the Romans obtained much
    building material for the Wall; and in one of these old quarries
    some workmen discovered a bronze vessel full of Roman coins, a few
    of gold, but most of silver. This was known as the “Thorngrafton
    Find,” and the interesting story of it is told by Dr. Bruce.

    On the opposite side of the South Tyne from Henshaw, Willimoteswick
    Castle stands on the level plains which are as characteristic of
    the south bank of the river as are the steep slopes of the north
    bank. One of the towers of this old Castle yet remains, and forms
    part of the more modern farm-house which stands there.
    Willimoteswick was long in the possession of the Ridleys, and it is
    generally accepted as having been the birthplace of Bishop Ridley,
    though Unthank Hall, nearer to Haltwhistle, and also a home of that
    family, disputes the honour. The Bishop, who suffered death at the
    stake in the troublous times of Queen Mary, in touching letters
    bids farewell to his Cousin at Willimoteswick and his sister and
    her children at Unthank.

    On the same side of the Tyne is Beltingham Church, with some
    wonderful old trees in the churchyard, and Ridley Hall, which takes
    its name from that family, although not now occupied by them. Here
    the Allen flows into the South Tyne, and nowhere in the whole of
    the county is there a more beautiful and romantic scene. By the
    side of the stream the Ridley woods stretch for a mile or two, and
    the delightful mingling of graceful ferns, overhanging trees, tall,
    rugged cliffs, flowering plants, and sparkling waters forms a
    succession of lovely scenes throughout their length, which, with
    the play of lights and shadows on the dimpled surface of the
    stream, and frequent glimpses of grassy glades and cool green
    alleys, make a walk through these enchanting woods an unforgettable
    delight.

    The Allen Burn, which gives its name to the beautiful district of
    Allendale, is, like the Tyne, formed by the junction of two
    streams, the East and West Allen, which rise near each other in
    hills on the border of Northumberland and Durham, down the opposite
    slopes of which run the little streams which feed the Wear. After
    flowing apart for some miles, the East and West Allen unite not far
    from Staward railway station. Both rivers flow, for the first part
    of their course, through a wild and hilly region, rich, however, in
    minerals. On the East Allen are the towns of Allenheads, formerly a
    busy centre of the lead-mining industry, and Allendale Town, which
    lies about 1,400 feet above the sea-level.

    As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its
    attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army
    of visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through
    its woods and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale
    maid whose memory is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little
    poem, “Lucy Gray of Allendale.”
  “Say, have you seen the blushing rose, The blooming pink, or lily
  pale? Fairer than any flower that blows Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.
  Pensive at eve, down by the burn, Where oft the maid they used to
  hail, The shepherds now are heard to mourn For Lucy Gray of
  Allendale.”

    Not far from the village of Catton, the name of “Rebel Hils”
    reminds us that it was a vicar of Allendale, Mr. Patten, who joined
    young Derwentwater in the rising of “The Fifteen,” and was
    appointed chaplain of the little army. He met some half-dozen men
    of the neighbourhood at this hill, when they set off together to
    join the rest of the forces at Wooler.

    On the West Allen is the lonely little hamlet of Ninebanks, with
    Ninebanks Tower, concerning which little is known with certainty;
    and on this stream also are two of the most strikingly beautiful
    places in Northumberland—the delightfully picturesque village of
    Whitfield, and the well-known Staward-le-Peel.

    The ruins of the “Pele” tower stand on a high grassy platform,
    safeguarded on three sides by tall cliffs and tumbled boulders; the
    remains of a ditch may also be traced. From this point a splendid
    view of the river valley, with its steep precipices, overhanging
    pinewoods intermingled with trees of less sombre hue, and the
    bright course of the river, may be obtained. At a point a little
    higher up the valley, where the waters of the stream are held back
    by some huge rocks, they form a deep pool, and then flow onwards
    through a narrow gorge called Cyper’s Linn. Following the stream
    now until it has merged its waters in those of the South Tyne, we
    turn eastward with the main stream and come to Haydon Bridge.

    This considerable village, gradually growing to the proportions of
    a small town, lies on both sides of the river, which is here
    crossed by the substantial bridge from which the village takes its
    name; for the original village of Haydon stood at some distance up
    the hill on the north side of the stream. On the hillside may still
    be seen the ruins of the old church, in which services are
    occasionally held in the summer time. The chancel, apparently
    dating from the twelfth century, and a later little chapel to the
    south of it, are all that are left of the building. Some very
    quaint inscriptions are to be seen in the churchyard, and there are
    many sculptured grave-covers within the church. Many of the stones
    used in the building have evidently been brought from the great
    Wall, or probably from the Roman station of Borcovicus, some six or
    seven miles to the north; and what a rush of bewildering fancies
    crowds upon one’s mind on first discovering that the font was
    originally a Roman altar!

    The old church must have looked down on many a wild and curious
    scene in the days when Scot and Englishman sought only
    opportunities to do each other an injury, and the river-valleys
    were the natural passes through which the tide of invasion, raid,
    and reprisal flowed.

    In the beginning of the reign of Edward III., about 24,000 Scots,
    under Douglas and Murray, crossed the Tyne near Haydon Bridge, and
    rode on to plunder the richer lands that lay to the south and west.
    They reached Stanhope and encamped there for a time. The young king
    set out northwards with a great army to punish these marauders, and
    he was told by his scouts that they had hastily left Stanhope on
    his approach. He and his army pushed on quickly until they reached
    Bardon Mill; and, crossing the Tyne, marched down to Haydon Bridge,
    expecting the Scots to return by the way they went. It was
    miserable weather, and the feeding of so many thousands of men was
    no little problem. They scoured all the country round for
    provisions, getting the most from the Hexham Abbey lands. Meanwhile
    it rained and rained, and no Scots appeared. After a week of
    waiting, Edward, in great disappointment, went to Haltwhistle,
    while his followers reconnoitered in all directions. Finally, he
    had the mortification of learning that the Scots were still at
    Stanhope, but before anything more could be done, they betook
    themselves back to Scotland by a different route, and there was
    nothing left for Edward but to give up the expedition in despair.

    The bridge at Haydon appears to have been the only one for some
    distance up and down the river in the sixteenth century, for we
    read of its being barred and chained, on various occasions of
    marauding troubles in Tynedale, to prevent the free-booters
    re-crossing the river.

    In the days of Charles I. Colonel Lilburn marched to Haydon Bridge
    in command of some troops of the Roundheads, on his way to join
    their comrades at Hexham as a counter-move to the operations of the
    Royalist troops in the North. Little more than thirty years after
    this, when the days of Cromwell’s power had come and gone, and
    Charles II. ruled at Whitehall, the old Grammar School was founded
    at Haydon Bridge in 1685 by a clergyman, the Rev. John Shafto.
    Various changes have taken place in the school from time to time,
    necessitated by the gradual changes and educational needs of the
    passing years; and now, like the Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth
    at Hexham, it has been entirely re-constituted to meet modern
    requirements. John Martin, the famous painter of “The Plains of
    Heaven,” received the beginnings of his education at this school.
    He was born at East Land Ends farm in 1789. In after years the
    authorities of Haydon Bridge Reading Room, wishing no doubt to
    afford a perfect example to future generations of the truth of the
    proverb concerning a prophet and his own country, refused some of
    Martin’s pictures, which the gifted painter himself offered to
    them—an act which their successors have doubtless regretted.

    At a little distance along the Langley Road, which leads past the
    school, a memorial cross is standing. It was erected in 1883 by the
    late Mr. C.J. Bates, the historian of Northumberland, to the memory
    of the last of the Derwentwater family, whose castle of Langley he
    purchased. The inscription on the cross reads:—“To the memory of
    James and Charles, Viscounts Langley, Earls of Derwentwater,
    beheaded on Tower Hill, London, 24th February, 1716, and 8th
    December, 1746, for loyalty to their lawful sovereign.”

    A striking testimony, this, to the fact that freedom in England is
    a reality, and not merely a name. In what other land would an
    inscription such as this have been allowed to remain for more than
    twenty-four hours?

    A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so
    called because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars,
    having been used to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of
    one of these stones in the early days of “The Fifteen.” Every
    evening, as dusk fell, a little figure, clad in green, stole up to
    the ancient altar, which had been slightly hollowed out, and,
    taking out a packet, laid another in its place. The mysterious
    packets, placed there so secretly, were letters from the Jacobites
    of the neighbourhood to each other; and the little figure in green
    was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No wonder that the
    people of the district gave this altar the name of the “Fairy
    Stone.”

    Between Haydon Bridge and Fourstones are both freestone and
    limestone quarries, which latter have supplied many fossils to
    visitors of geological tastes. Halfway between Fourstones and
    Hexham, the two streams of North and South Tyne unite, and flow
    together down to the old town of Hexham, with its quaintly
    irregular buildings clustering in picturesque confusion round its
    ancient Abbey, which dominates the landscape from whatever point we
    approach.

    Warden Village, already mentioned, lies in the angle formed by the
    meeting of the two streams, and has an ancient church which,
    however, has been largely rebuilt. From High Warden, near at hand,
    a delightful view may be obtained for a long distance up the
    valleys of North and South Tyne. On the summit of this hill there
    are the remains of a considerable British camp, showing that they
    had seized upon this point of vantage, and though the ancient
    British name has not come down to us, it is evident from the Saxon
    name of Warden (_weardian_) that Saxons as well as Britons were
    fully alive to the merits of the situation, “guarding” the valley
    at such a commanding point.




CHAPTER III. DOWN THE TYNE.


    The town of Hexham, standing on hilly ground overlooking the Tyne,
    immediately below the point at which the North and South Tyne
    unite, and spreading from thence down to the levels all round, is
    one of the most ancient in the kingdom. To write of Hexham with any
    measure of fulness would require much more space than can be given
    to it within the limits of a small book; only a mere summary can be
    offered here. Britons, Romans, and Saxons, in turn, have dwelt on
    and around the hill which, in Saxon days, was to be crowned with
    Wilfrid’s beautiful Abbey, which, we read, surpassed all others in
    England at that time for beauty and excellence of design and
    workmanship; nor was there another to equal it anywhere on this
    side of the Alps.

    The name of Hexham is generally understood to be derived from the
    names of two little streams, the Hextol and the Halgut, now the
    Cowgarth and the Cockshaw Burns, which here flow into the Tyne; or,
    as Mr. Bates suggests, it may have been the “ham” of “some
    forgotten Hagustald,” which the name perpetuates. In any case its
    name was Hagustaldesham when King Ecgfrith (or Egfrid) of
    Northumbria gave it to his queen, Etheldreda, who wished to take
    the veil. Queen Etheldreda, however, preferred to go to East
    Anglia, which was her home; she retired to a convent at Ely, and
    bestowed the land at Hagustaldesham on Wilfrid, a monk of
    Lindisfarne, clever, ambitious and hardworking, who had become
    Bishop of York, which meant Bishop of all Northumbria.

    Wilfrid had been to Rome, and seen the churches of that city and of
    the lands through which he travelled; and, on his appointment to
    power, he set himself to make the churches of his diocese worthy to
    compare with those of older civilizations. He did much to the
    cathedral of York, and built that of Ripon; but the Abbey of Hexham
    was his masterpiece. He built a monastery and church, dedicating
    the latter to St. Andrew, for it was in the church of St. Andrew at
    Rome that, kneeling, he felt himself fired with enthusiasm for his
    work, in the same church from which Augustine had set out on his
    journey to Britain some fifty years before. The year 674 is
    generally accepted as the date on which this noble Abbey was
    founded.

    Wilfrid lived in great splendour at York, and ruled his immense
    diocese with a firm hand; in fact, he was the first of that line of
    great ecclesiastics who have moved with such proud, and oft-times
    turbulent, progress through the pages of English history. King
    Ecgfrith’s second wife, Ermenburga, was jealous of the great power
    and magnificence of the Northumbrian prelate, and through her
    influence, Archbishop Theodore was induced to divide the huge
    diocese of Northumbria into four portions—York, Hexham, Ripon and
    Withern in Galloway. Wilfrid, naturally indignant, found all his
    protests disregarded, and immediately set out for Rome, to obtain a
    decree of restitution from the Pope. It was given to him, but
    little cared the Northumbrians for that. Wilfrid was imprisoned for
    nine months, and then banished from Northumbria.

    He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard
    work found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and
    where he built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers
    of “Rewards and Fairies” will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid
    in his Sussex wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North
    by King Aldfrith, he returned to Hexham. On the death of Aldfrith,
    the new King, Edwulf, banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to
    leave the kingdom within six days; but the friends of Aldfrith’s
    young son, whom Edwulf had dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy,
    and Wilfrid was re-instated in his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.

    While on his way back from Rome, on his last visit, Wilfrid had a
    severe illness, but was granted a vision in which he was told that
    he had four years more to live, and that he must build a church to
    the honour of the Blessed Virgin. The little church of St. Mary,
    which stood close to the walls of the great Abbey of Hexham, was
    erected in fulfilment of this command.

    In the Abbey church itself, all that was known for centuries of the
    original work of Wilfrid was the famous crypt, which is almost
    unique, that of Ripon, also the work of Wilfrid, being the only one
    like it; but recent excavations have brought much more of the
    ancient cathedral to light, and laid bare, not only its original
    plan, but some of the walls, and part of the very pavement trodden
    by the feet of Wilfrid and his fellows so many centuries ago. The
    tomb of Wilfrid, however, is not at Hexham, but at his other
    foundation of Ripon.

    The ancient Abbey suffered much at the hands of the Danes, and in
    later years from the ravages of the Scots, having been burnt
    several times, notably in 1296, when 40,000 Scots ravaged the North
    of England, plundering, burning, and laying waste wherever they
    went, exactly as the Danes had done four hundred years before. Some
    of the stones of the old Abbey yet bear traces of the fires by
    which the ancient building was so often nearly destroyed, and in
    these frequent conflagrations all records, charters, etc., of the
    Abbey, from which might have been compiled a complete history, not
    only of the Abbey but of much of the provincial and national
    history of the times, were lost.

    The Abbey was restored and rebuilt again and again, but for varying
    reasons was without a nave for some hundreds of years. Within the
    last ten years, however, a complete restoration has been carried
    out, under the loving, and, what is more to the point, the capable
    superintendence of Canon Savage and his colleagues, in the spirit
    and manner, as nearly as possible, of the beautiful portions
    already standing; and several disfiguring so-called “restorations”
    of nineteenth century work, which could only detract from the
    beauty and dignity of the noble building, have been removed
    entirely. This work was completed in 1908, and all who have the
    honour of our famous county at heart must rejoice that its noblest
    church is at last more worthy of its own high rank and glorious
    past.

    Among the many deeply interesting objects to be seen in the Abbey
    is the stone Sanctuary seat—the Frid Stool, or seat of peace—at
    which fugitives, fleeing from their enemies, might find refuge. It
    is believed that this was the “Cathedra” of St. Wilfrid himself.
    The arms and back of the chair are ornamented with a twisted
    knot-work pattern. The right of Sanctuary extended for a mile round
    the Abbey, the boundaries being marked by crosses, one at each
    point of the compass at that distance.

[Illustration: Hexham Abbey from North West Hexham Abbey from North
West]

    Other treasures of the Abbey are the beautiful Old Rood Screen,
    dating from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth
    century; some wonderful old paintings, especially the portraits of
    the early Bishops of Hexham, Alcmund, Wilfrid, Acca, Eata,
    Frithbert, Cuthbert, and John, which date from the fifteenth
    century; the mediaeval carved and painted pulpit, and the tomb of
    good King Alfwald of Northumbria. Many of the stones used by
    Wilfrid’s builders were of Roman workmanship, and seem to have come
    from the Roman city of Corstopitum, at Corbridge. An inscription on
    one of these old stones in the crypt takes us back some centuries
    before even Wilfrid’s time, for it commemorates the Emperor Severus
    and his two sons, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) and Publius
    Septimius Geta, and has the name of the latter erased, as was done
    on all similar inscriptions throughout the Empire, by order of the
    inhuman Caracalla, after his murder of his brother.

    A very interesting feature of the building is the stone stairway in
    the South transept, by which the monks ascended to their
    dormitories above.

    Quite near to the Abbey, at the other side of the Market Place, the
    ancient Moot Hall claims attention. The modern visitor to the old
    town walks beneath the gloomy archway, with its time-worn stones,
    which forms the basement over which the Moot Hall stands. Another
    building, grim and dark, near at hand, is the Old Manor House, in
    which the business connected with the ancient Manor of Hexham was
    transacted.

    An old foundation in the town was the Queen Elizabeth Grammar
    School, which, after having fallen into desuetude for many years,
    has been revived in a form appropriate to modern needs, and housed
    in a worthy building, formally opened by Sir Francis Blake on
    November 2nd, 1910. The site on which the new Grammar School of
    Queen Elizabeth stands is one of the finest in the county,
    commanding, as it does, an uninterrupted view of the river valley
    for some distance, and of the rising ground beyond.

    At the beginning of last century, Hexham was famed for its
    glove-making: but that industry has forsaken the town for many
    years. Now, Hexham is surrounded by acres of market-gardens, from
    which the produce of Tynedale is carried far and wide.

    The spacious stretch of level meadow-land below Hexham, rising
    gradually up to the swelling ridges beyond, is said to have been
    the scene which John Martin had in mind when he painted the “Plains
    of Heaven”; though the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered
    with buildings in John Martin’s time, and then a scene of quiet
    pastoral beauty, also claim that honour.

    Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
    banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
    between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge,
    receiving on its way the Devil’s Water, a sparkling stream which
    flows through scenes of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged
    cliffs and heather clad hills as in its upper course, through the
    graceful overhanging trees and cool green recesses of Dipton woods
    or between rich meadows and green pasture-land where it loses
    itself in the bosom of the Tyne.

    There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the
    woods of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer’s day, when it requires no
    stretch of the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted
    forest, or, on hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the
    outside world filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round
    expecting to see a maiden on a “milk-white steed,” or one of the
    Knights of the Round Table come riding by, in bravery of glistening
    armour and gay surtout, and to find oneself murmuring, “Now, Sir
    Gawain rode apace, and came unto a right fair wood, and findeth the
    stream of a spring that ran with a great rushing, and nigh
    thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He abandoneth his
    high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring that
    lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
    house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood.”

    On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle—two
    spots of more than ordinary historical interest—the Lancastrian
    cause received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though
    the courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at
    Barnet and Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of
    Somerset, was beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with
    several others of rank and station, buried at Hexham. The
    well-known incident of Queen Margaret’s escape into Dipton, or
    Deepdene woods, where she and young Prince Edward met with robbers,
    and afterwards escaped by the aid of another member of that
    fraternity, took place a year before this, after the first battle
    of Hexham in 1463. The year had been one of constant warfare
    between York and Lancaster in the north, the Castles of Alnwick and
    Bamburgh having fallen into the hands of Queen Margaret’s friends
    once more, after having been raptured by Edward of York the year
    before; the Scots with Margaret and King Henry VI., had besieged
    Norham, but were put to flight by the Earl of Warwick and hid
    brother, Lord Montague; the royal fugitives sought safety at
    Bamburgh, whence the Queen, with Prince Edward, sailed for
    Flanders, leaving King Henry in the Castle where he was in no
    immediate danger; Warwick, with his forces, retired southward
    again, and the gentle King remained in his rocky stronghold, and
    enjoyed there nine months of unwonted peace. Shortly after this,
    the Duke of Somerset deserted the cause of York for that of
    Lancaster, and became the leader of the Queen’s forces. In April,
    1464, he and Sir Ralph Percy opposed, at Hedgeley Moor, the troops
    of Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish
    delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of
    York. Sir Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell “I have
    saved the bird in my bosom”—that enigmatic sentence which has given
    rise to so much conjecture, but which is generally held to mean
    that he had saved his honour, by dying at last, after so many
    changes of front, in the service of that King and Queen to whom he
    originally owed allegiance. “Percy’s Cross,” marking the site of
    his death, may be seen by the side of the railway near Hedgeley
    Station, on the Alnwick and Wooler line.

    The rest of the force dispersed, and made their way to Hexham; and
    Lord Montague marching upon them from Newcastle, a sharp engagement
    took place on the Levels, near the Linnels Bridge, with the result,
    as we have seen, of the defeat and death of Somerset, and the
    overthrow of Queen Margaret’s hopes in the north, where she had had
    a strong following.

    The historical interest centred on Dilston Castle brings us to much
    later times, and enshrines a story which possesses a pathetic
    interest beyond that of any other place in Northumberland.
    Originally the home of the family of D’Eivill, later Dyvelstone
    (which explains the name “Devil’s Water”) Dilston Castle came into
    the possession of the Radcliffes by marriage, and in the days of
    the Commonwealth the Radcliffe of the day forfeited his estates on
    account of his loyalty to the house of Stuart. Charles II. restored
    them, and the close attachment between the houses of Stuart and
    Radcliffe continued until the fortunes of both were quenched in
    disaster and gloom. The figure of the young and gallant James
    Radcliffe, last Earl of Derwentwater, holds the imagination no less
    than the heart as it moves across the page of history for a brief
    space to its tragic end. Though born in London, in June 1689, young
    Radcliffe passed his childhood and youth in France in the closest
    companionship with James Stuart, son of the exiled James II. At the
    age of twenty-one he returned to his home in Northumbria, and took
    up his residence there, his charming manners, kind heart, and
    openhanded hospitality speedily endearing him to all classes. His
    servants and tenants, in particular, were passionately devoted to
    him. In the words of the old ballad of “Derwentwater”—
  “O, Derwentwater’s a bonnie lord, And golden is his hair, And
  glintin’ is his hawkin’ e’e Wi’ kind love dwelling there.”

    On his marriage in 1712, the young bride and bridegroom remained
    for two years at the home of the bride’s father, and preparations
    were made for restoring the glories of Dilston on an extensive
    scale. On Derwentwater’s return to his beautiful Northumbrian seat
    in 1714, the death of Queen Anne had excited the hopes of all the
    friends of the house of Stuart, and plots and secret meetings were
    being planned throughout Scotland and the north of England, the
    objective being the restoration of the exiled Stuarts to the
    throne. Derwentwater took little part in these attempts to organise
    rebellion for some time, but at length was drawn into the dangerous
    game, as he was too valuable an asset to be passed over by the
    Jacobite party.

    At last rumours of the projected rising reached London, and a
    warrant was issued for the arrest of Derwentwater, even before it
    was known whether he had actually joined the plotters, his
    well-known friendship with the exiled Prince making it almost
    certain that he would be an important figure in any movement on
    their behalf. For the next few weeks the young Earl found himself
    obliged to remain in hiding, finding safety in the cottages of his
    tenants, and in the houses of friends and neighbours. Finally,
    though his good sense warned him that he was embarking on an almost
    hopeless enterprise, he decided to throw in his lot with the
    Jacobites.

    Tradition has it that his decision was brought about by the taunts
    of his Countess, who, like the rest of the Jacobite ladies, was
    more enthusiastic than the men. Throwing down her fan, she
    scornfully offered that to her husband as a weapon, and demanded
    his sword in exchange. The immediate result was seen on that
    October morning when Derwentwater and his little band of followers
    rode over the bridge at Corbridge with drawn swords, on their way
    to Beaufront, which was their first rendezvous; and from there
    proceeded to Greenrigg, near the great Wall, which had been
    appointed as a general meeting-place.

    There they were joined by Mr. Forster, of Bamburgh, with his
    contingent, and a few from the surrounding district. Rothbury next
    saw the little army, which was joined on Felton Bridge by seventy
    Scots; and thereafter Warkworth, Alnwick, and Morpeth heard James
    Stuart proclaimed King under the title of James III.

    Newcastle was to have been their next objective, but, hearing that
    the city had closed its gates, and intended to hold out for King
    George, the Jacobite force, after some indecision, returned
    northward to Rothbury, where they were joined by a large company of
    Scottish Jacobites under Lord Kenmure. Northward again they marched
    to Kelso, where more than a thousand Scots joined forces with them.

    The little army numbered now almost 2,000, and a council was held
    to determine what their next step should be. On its being resolved
    to enter England, some hundreds of the Highlanders returned home,
    leaving an army of about 1,500 to march southwards to Lancashire.
    On their way they put to flight at Penrith a motley force which was
    raised to oppose them; and, elated with a first success, moved
    forward to Preston, grievously disappointed on the way at the
    failure of the people of Lancashire to rise with them, for they had
    been given to understand that thousands in that county were only
    awaiting an opportunity to declare for “King James.”

    At Preston they barricaded the principal streets, and repulsed
    General Willis; but the arrival of General Carpenter from Newcastle
    changed the face of affairs. Young Derwentwater had fought
    valiantly and worked arduously at the barricades, but Forster—whose
    appointment as General had been made in the hope of attracting
    other Protestant gentry to the Jacobite cause—offered to submit to
    General Carpenter under certain conditions. Carpenter’s reply was a
    demand for unconditional surrender, and the hopeless little
    tragi-comedy was played out. The last scene took place on Tower
    Hill three months later, when the gallant young Earl, then only
    twenty-six years old, laid down the life which, after all, had been
    spent in the service of others, with no selfish purpose in view,
    and which was offered him, together with wealth and freedom, if he
    would forsake his faith and throw aside his allegiance to the house
    of Stuart. Refusing to purchase life at such a price, he was
    condemned, and executed on Tower Hill on February 24th, 1716.

    His brother Charles, who had been by his side throughout the
    rising, had the good fortune to escape from Newgate Prison, and
    passed most of his life abroad. Thirty years later, on his return
    to take up arms on behalf of James’ son Charles—“bonnie Prince
    Charlie”—when he also drew the sword in an attempt to regain the
    throne of his fathers, Radcliffe was captured and beheaded. (For
    account of a monument to the memory of these two brothers see in
    previous chapter paragraph relating to Haydon Bridge.)

    The story of General Forster’s escape from Newgate is told by Sir
    Walter Besant, as all readers of his novel, “Dorothy Forster” know,
    though the author has taken those minor liberties with unimportant
    facts which are by common consent allowable in fiction.

    James Radcliffe’s friends were allowed to have his body, though
    they were forbidden to carry it home for burial; for such were the
    love and esteem borne for the young Earl in the hearts of all his
    North-country friends and dependents, that the authorities feared a
    disturbance of the peace should his body be brought amongst them
    while their rage and grief were still at their height.
    Notwithstanding the prohibition, however, the body was brought
    secretly to Dilston, and buried in the vault of the chapel, which,
    with the ruined tower, are all that remain of the home of the
    Radcliffes. Standing amidst luxuriant foliage, and overlooking a
    romantic dell, the ruins of tower and chapel remain as they fell
    into decay on the death of their luckless owners. The confiscated
    estates were bestowed on Greenwich Hospital, whose agents
    administer them still, with the exception of certain portions
    purchased from time to time by various landowners. No other family
    took the place of the Radcliffes in the deserted halls; but
    tradition holds that the unfortunate Earl and his sorrowful lady
    still revisit their ancient home. The Earl’s body is now at
    Thorndon, in Essex. Below is Surtees’ beautiful ballad, “Lord
    Derwentwater’s Farewell.”

  LORD DERWENTWATER’S FAREWELL

  “Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, My father’s ancient seat; A
  stranger now must call thee his, Which gars my heart to greet.
  Farewell each kindly well-known face My heart has held so dear; My
  tenants now must leave their lord Or hold their lives in fear.
  No more along the banks of Tyne I’ll rove in autumn grey; No more
  I’ll hear, at early dawn, The lav’rocks wake the day; Then fare thee
  well, brave Witherington, And Forster ever true; Dear Shaftsbury and
  Errington, Receive my last adieu.
  And fare thee well, George Collingwood, Since fate has put us down;
  If thou and I have lost our lives, Our king has lost his crown.
  Farewell, farewell, my lady dear, Ill, ill thou counsell’dst me; I
  never more may see the babe That smiles upon thy knee.
  And fare thee well, my bonny gray steed, That carried me aye so free;
  I wish I had been asleep in my bed The last time I mounted thee; The
  warning bell now bids me cease, My trouble’s nearly o’er; Yon sun
  that rises from the sea Shall rise on me no more.
  Albeit that here in London Town It is my fate to die; O carry me to
  Northumberland, In my father’s grave to lie. There chant my solemn
  requiem In Hexham’s holy towers; And let six maids of fair Tynedale
  Scatter my grave with flowers.
  And when the head that wears the crown Shall be laid low like mine;
  Some honest hearts may then lament For Radcliffe’s fallen line.
  Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, My father’s ancient seat; A
  stranger now must call thee his, Which gars my heart to greet.”

    Near to Corbridge the waters of the Tyne lave the ancient piers of
    the old Roman bridge which led to Corstopitum, the most
    considerable of the Roman stations in this region. The recent
    careful excavations have laid bare the evidence of what must have
    been a most imposing city, and many treasures of pottery, coins and
    ancient jewellery and ornaments, together with large quantities of
    the bones of animals, some of them identical with the wild cattle
    of Chillingham, have been brought to light. The famous silver dish
    known as the Corbridge Lanx, which was found at the riverside by a
    little girl in 1734, had evidently been washed down from
    Corstopitum. It is now preserved at Alnwick Castle. The antiquity
    of Corbridge is thus superior to that of Hexham, as far as may be
    known; but on the other hand, while Hexham in Saxon times grew to
    power, Corbridge declined. Yet, in its time, it was more than the
    home of a famous Abbey; it was a royal city, albeit the date of its
    elevation to royal rank coincided with the decline of the kingdom
    of which it was the final capital. When the fierce and ruthless
    internal quarrels, which rent Northumbria after Edbert’s glorious
    reign, had weakened it so that it fell a prey to the gradual
    encroachments of its northern neighbours, the once royal city of
    Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon family, and the
    court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode of the
    kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no
    longer. The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge
    was the capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder
    and bitter feud, not against outside foes, but between one family
    and another, noble against king, king against relatives of other
    noble houses, amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to
    succeed him, or to murder him in order to bring about his own more
    speedy elevation to a precarious throne.

    So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court
    the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the
    Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by
    this time, had begun their ravages in the land. Amongst the rulers
    of Northumbria in those days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was
    called “the Friend of God,” shines out with enduring light across
    the stormy darkness of that terrible period; yet even his just and
    merciful rule and noble life could not save him from the hand of
    the assassin. He was buried with much mourning and great pomp in
    the Abbey at Hexham; and during the recent excavations the fact of
    a Saxon interment was verified as having taken place beneath the
    beautiful tomb which tradition has always held to be that of King
    Alfwald the Just. This fact also helped to demonstrate the extent
    of the original Abbey.

    There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is
    supposed to have been founded by St. Wilfrid. Of the four churches
    which were erected in later times, only one survives—the parish
    church of St. Andrew, which occupies the site of the early
    monastery. In this ancient church may be seen part of the original
    Saxon work, and many stones of Roman workmanship are built up in
    the structure.

    Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at
    the hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may
    be seen on some of the stones.

    King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which
    was to end at the “Battle of the Standard,” at Northallerton,
    encamped at Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were
    committed in the district by his followers. In the next century,
    King John turned the little town upside down in his efforts to find
    treasure which he was convinced must be concealed somewhere in the
    houses; but his search was fruitless. In the days of the three
    Edwards, during the long wars with Scotland, Corbridge suffered
    terribly, being fired again and again; on one occasion, in 1296,
    the destruction included the burning of the school with some two
    hundred hapless boys within its walls.[4]

 [4] _See_ Bates, p. 149.

    Those heroes of our childhood’s days, William Wallace and Robert
    Bruce, were far from guiltless in these cruelties, though in
    justice to them personally, the wild and lawless character of the
    men who formed their undisciplined hosts must be remembered; and we
    know that Wallace tried to save the holy vessels in Hexham Abbey,
    but, as soon as his back was turned, they were swept away in the
    very presence of the officiating priest.

    During these terrible years most of Northumberland was a desolate
    waste; and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between
    Newcastle and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time.
    After the battle of Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible,
    and all the north lay in fear of the Scots, but from time to time
    spasmodic efforts at retaliation were made by the boldest of the
    Northumbrian landowners. In the reign of Edward III., however, many
    of these great landowners thwarted the King’s designs by making a
    traitorous peace with their turbulent neighbours.

    David II. of Scotland encamped at Corbridge for a time during his
    second attempt to invade England but this expedition ended in his
    defeat and capture at Neville’s Cross. Thereafter the north had
    rest for some years, and Corbridge seems to have been left in
    peace. The Wars of the Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in
    Stuart days also, except for an unimportant skirmish; and the only
    part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite rising of “The Fifteen” was the
    little cavalcade from Dilston which clattered over the old bridge
    on its way to Beaufront. That bridge is the same which we cross
    to-day; the date of its erection, 1674, may be seen on one of its
    stones, and it was the only one on the Tyne which withstood the
    great flood of 1771, when even the old Tyne Bridge at Newcastle was
    swept away.

    Quite close to the church there is an old pele-tower, which is in
    an excellent state of preservation, little of it having disappeared
    except the various floors. The vicars of Corbridge must have been
    often thankful for such a refuge at hand, where they could bid
    defiance to marauding bands, whether of Scottish or English
    nationality. In the Register of the parish church may be seen a
    most interesting entry, showing the Earl of Derwentwater’s
    signature as churchwarden.

    At a little distance from Corbridge, to the northward, is the
    fortified manor-house of Aydon Castle, standing embowered in trees
    where the Cor burn runs through a little rocky ravine, down whose
    steep sides Sir Robert Clavering threw most of a marauding band of
    Scotsmen who had attacked the grange; the place known as “Jock’s
    Leap” obtained its name from one of the Scots who escaped the fate
    of his comrades by his leap for life across the ravine. The Castle,
    or hall, as it is variously called, has not suffered such
    destruction as might have been expected, seeing that it dates from
    the thirteenth century; but the thickness of its walls, and the
    arrow-slits and narrow windows are obvious proof of the necessity
    for defence which existed when it was first erected in the days of
    Edward I. Many features of great interest, notably the ancient
    fireplaces, remain in the interior of the building.

    Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by
    the side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling
    over the shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream
    of swifter current, and flows between green meadows and leafy
    woods, fern-clad steeps and level haughs, all the way down to
    Ryton, where the picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it
    becomes an industrial waterway. On this reach of the river are
    several places of considerable interest.

    Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by
    steep hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by
    Minsteracres and Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere
    Street, leading down the long slope of the country from
    Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne turned westward to Corstopitum.
    Further down the stream is Stocksfield, where the aged King Edward
    I. halted on his last journey into Scotland, on that expedition
    which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon the Scots; he
    journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at Newbrough,
    where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey by
    Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.

    On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely
    village of Bywell, a “haunt of ancient peace,” “sleeping soft on
    the banks of the murmuring Tyne.” This little peaceful spot was at
    one time a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale;
    in the Middle Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all
    the necessities for a people who spent a great part of their lives
    upon horseback, especially in the making of the ironwork
    required—“bits, stirrups, buckles, and the like, wherein they are
    very expert and cunning.” The Nevilles, lords of Raby and earls of
    Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that it was in the
    hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the Bruces, were
    Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and
    Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined
    foes.

    Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by
    St. Wilfrid, and in it—St. Andrew’s or the “White” Church—Egbert,
    twelfth bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop
    Eanbald in the year 803. More than a thousand years afterwards, in
    1896, an Ordination service was again held at Bywell, in St.
    Peter’s church, when five deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob.
    And in times yet more remote than Wilfrid’s age, Roman legionaries
    crossed the Tyne at this point over a bridge of their own
    construction, of which the piers might be seen until our own day.
    Bywell, too, had its “find” of Roman silver; in 1760 a silver cup
    was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription “Desidere vivas”
    around the neck of the vessel.

    When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to
    build a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the
    ancient tower still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy,
    was the gate-house of the intended fortress. On the rebellion of
    the northern earls in 1569, Westmoreland’s forfeited lands passed
    to the crown, so that Bywell was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year
    or two, until she sold the estate to a branch of the Fenwick
    family.

    Bywell is unique in Northumberland in possessing two churches side
    by side yet in different parishes. The town of Bywell, we are told
    by the same authority before quoted, lay in a long line by the
    north bank of the Tyne, and was “divided into two separate
    parishes” even then, so that there ought to be traces of former
    buildings westward from the present village. In connection with the
    two churches which adjoin each other so closely, tradition tells
    the well-known story of the two quarrelsome sisters who could not
    agree on the building of a church and therefore each built one. One
    might have imagined, with some show of reason, that there being two
    parishes, the two churches were placed there in sheltering
    proximity to the castle, were it not for the fact that the churches
    were in existence long before the stronghold of the Nevilles was
    contemplated.

    St. Andrew’s, called the “White” church from the fact of its being
    served in later days by the White friars, is the more ancient of
    the two. As we have seen, a church erected by St. Wilfrid stood on
    this site, and a goodly portion of the Saxon work remains in the
    tower. The hagioscope, or “squint” in this church, and the “leper”
    window in St. Peter’s are interesting relics of the Middle Ages.

    St. Peter’s, or the “Black” church which once belonged to the
    Benedictines or Black friars, is of much later date than its
    neighbour, though still an ancient building, being supposed to date
    from the eleventh century. Its most interesting possessions are two
    very old bells, bearing Latin inscriptions, one announcing “I
    proclaim the hour for people rising, and call to those still lying
    down,” and the other reading “Thou art Peter.”

    Bywell suffered greatly in the flood of 1771, when the bridge was
    swept away, many houses destroyed, several people drowned, and both
    churches greatly damaged.

    It is not surprising that this tranquil little village—“the retreat
    of the old doomed divinities of wood and fountain, banished from
    their native haunts,” to quote Mr. Tomlinson’s happy phrase—has
    always been beloved of artists, many of whom have transferred to
    their canvasses the beauties of its mingled scenery of graceful
    woods and sparkling waters, ancient fortress, peaceful meadows, and
    gray old towers. Many noteworthy and fine old trees are to be found
    in and around this artists’ haunt.

    On the opposite side of the river, Bywell’s younger sister,
    Stocksfield, grows apace, reaching out towards the lulls and along
    the eastward lanes, though not as yet in such measure as to cover
    the hillsides with any semblance of a town, being still almost
    hidden amongst the profusion of trees that clothe most of the
    district in their leafy greenery. On the north bank of the stream
    the village of Ovingham now rises into view, its name telling us
    plainly that there was a settlement here in Saxon times “the home
    of the sons of Offa”; and the slope above the river is fittingly
    crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose tower, with its
    curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon builders of
    the original church. The rest of the building, except some Saxon
    work at the west end of the nave, dates from early Norman days.
    Here is the burial place of the famous brothers John and Thomas
    Bewick, who were born at Cherryburn House, just across the river.
    In this delightful spot the boy Thomas Bewick grew up, absorbing
    unconsciously the natural beauties that are to be found here by the
    Tyne and in the little ravine through which the Cherry Burn flows,
    which beauties he so lovingly reproduced on his engraving blocks
    later in life.

    At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under
    General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into
    Durham, leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle.

    The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers
    dominate the valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand
    on a commanding rocky ridge above the Tyne. The lands of Prudhoe
    were given, soon after the Norman Conquest, to one of Duke
    William’s immediate followers, Robert de Umfraville; and it was
    Odinel de Umfraville who built the present castle in the twelfth
    century. Its strength was soon put to the test, for a few years
    after it was built William the Lion of Scotland found that the
    place baffled all his attempts to capture it. In his anger he
    determined to reduce the fortress of Odinel, who had spent much
    time at the Scottish court in his youth, the Kings of Scotland
    being at that time lords of Tynedale. The attempt ended in total
    failure, the greatest harm the Scots did on that occasion being to
    destroy the cornfields and strip the bark from the apple trees near
    the Castle; while, a day or two afterwards, Odinel de Umfraville,
    with Glanvile and Balliol, captured the Scottish monarch himself at
    Alnwick.

    Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of
    Nafferton, on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to
    erect a fortress much too near Umfraville’s own. He sent a petition
    to the King on the subject and King John commanded Philip de
    Ulecote’s building operations to cease. The unfinished castle,
    known as Nafferton Tower, remains to this day as Philip’s masons
    left it so many centuries ago.

    Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at
    Bannockburn, when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to
    kneel in prayer. Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to
    Umfraville, exclaimed “See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy.” “You say
    truth, sire,” answered the knight of Prudhoe; “they ask mercy—but
    not of you.”

    The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess
    Maud, who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into
    the hands of that family, in whose possession it still remains.

    When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle,
    every one in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and
    all lent their aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to
    the church of St. Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was
    freed by charter from the duty of castle building, or any other
    feudal service excepting such as were rendered to the Prior of
    Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite of the angry surprise of
    the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held to their charter,
    and not all Odinel’s threats or persuasions moved them one whit.

    The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway
    station, divides this part of the county of Durham from
    Northumberland, so that from Wylam to the sea the south side of the
    Tyne is in the county of Durham. The most noteworthy object at
    Wylam, or, to be precise, a little way along the old post-road,
    leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the red-tiled cottage in which
    George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands on the north bank of
    the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from passing trains. Its
    neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed, but Stephenson’s
    cottage remains unaltered.

    Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the
    nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of
    locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before
    George Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At
    Newburn, just four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed
    many years of his youth; here he learned to read and write, when he
    was old enough to earn a man’s wage and could afford the few pence
    necessary; and here, in the parish church, may be seen, with an
    interval of twenty years between them, the entries of his two
    marriages.

    Newburn is important nowadays for its steel works, within whose
    workshops is incorporated an old building formerly known as Newburn
    Hall; but in days long past its importance arose from its being on
    the ford of the Tyne nearest to Newcastle. This ford was frequently
    made use of, notably by the Scots in the reign of Charles I. Their
    chief camping ground is pointed out to us by the name of Scotswood,
    which also describes what Scotswood was like in those days—a great
    contrast to its present appearance, when the lines of brick and
    mortar stretching out uninterruptedly from Newcastle make it
    practically one with that town. In 1640, the Scottish army, under
    General Leslie, faced the Royalist troops, under Lord Conway, on
    the south side of the river. The Scots mounted their rude cannon on
    Newburn Church tower, and the English raised earthworks along the
    bank of the river, which was here fordable in two places. The two
    armies calmly watered their horses on opposite banks of the stream
    all the next morning, but a shot at a Scottish officer from the
    English ranks precipitated the battle; and the Scottish army,
    having made a breach in both earthworks with their artillery, waded
    across the fords and drove the Royalist troops up the bank, after
    one spasmodic rally, which, however, failed to check the Scottish
    advance. The way was now open for the Scottish army to continue
    down the south bank of the Tyne and attack Newcastle from
    Gateshead. It had been Lord Conway’s task to prevent this, but
    owing to his incapacity or want of whole-hearted enthusiasm for his
    cause, he failed entirely.

    Not until 1644, however, was a Scottish attack on Newcastle
    actually made, for on this occasion Leslie, as we have already
    seen, led his men across the fords higher up the river and marched
    southwards. The earthworks thrown up by Conway’s troops may still
    be seen on Stella Haughs.

    It is supposed that the Romans had a fort here, commanding the
    passage of the river; indeed it would have been strange had this
    not been the case, for the Romans were not the people to disregard
    any point of strategical importance, especially one so near their
    stations of Pons AElii and Condercum. Many stones of Roman
    workmanship have been used in the building of the Newburn church.

    From this point to its mouth, nearly fifteen miles away, both banks
    of the Tyne present an unbroken scene of industry. Between the
    steel works of Newburn and the iron and chemical works, the brick
    and tile works of Blaydon and past the famous yards of Elswick,
    down to the wharves and shipyards of North and South Shields, the
    Tyne rolls its swift dark waters through a scene of stirring
    activity; the air is dusky with soot and smoke, and reverberant
    with the clang of hammers and the pulsing beat of machinery. Some
    old and world-famed works have been closed or removed, like Hawks’
    and Stephenson’s, but others, many others, have opened; and the map
    of the positions of Tyne industries, published under the auspices
    of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, is a record of
    resolute toil and brilliant achievement in the many aspects of
    industrial life represented on the river.

    And, apart from the mere prosperity and commercial supremacy of the
    district, there is another cause for pride in the many notable
    inventions which hail from Tyneside; from the locomotive and the
    “Geordie” lamp of Stephenson, the hydraulic machinery and the big
    guns of Armstrong, to the wonderful turbine engines of Parsons; the
    invention of water-ballast, too, belongs to the Tyne, for it was
    the idea of a Gateshead man, and first used at Jarrow.

    And, in connection with ships and seafarers, though not in any
    commercial sense, we may proudly recall the fact that the first
    Lifeboat was launched on the Tyne and named after the river; and
    the first Volunteer Life Brigade was formed at Tynemouth. The Worth
    Eastern Railway is carried across the Tyne by the Scotswood Bridge;
    and it was on this part of the river that the boat-races, for which
    the Tyne was once famous, were rowed. At Newcastle, the river is
    bridged by four huge structures—The Redheugh Bridge, the new King
    Edward VII. bridge, the High Level, and Swing Bridges,—all
    connecting Newcastle with the sister town of Gateshead. An
    interesting sight it is to see the Swing Bridge gradually turning
    on its central pivot, until it lies in a straight line up and down
    the stream, allowing some huge liner to pass, or some new
    battleship, fresh from Elswick, to sail down the river, on its way
    to make its trial trip over the “measured mile” in the open sea at
    the mouth of the river, and thereafter to take its place among the
    armaments of the nations.

    The High Level Bridge allows ships of any height to pass under its
    lofty and graceful arches, which look so light, but are yet so
    strong. This splendid bridge is an enduring monument of Robert
    Stephenson, whose work it was; and the story of its erection, at
    the cost of nearly half a million of money, makes most interesting
    reading. It took nearly two and a half years to build, and was
    opened for traffic in 1849—little more than three years after the
    first pile was driven in. A few months later, in 1850, the newly
    built Central Station, with its imposing portico, was opened by
    Queen Victoria.

    Passing down the Tyne from Newcastle, which requires separate
    notice, and Walker, with its reminiscences of “Walker Pit’s deun
    weel for me,” we arrive at Wallsend, which in twenty-five years has
    grown from a colliery village with a population of 4,000 to a town
    of 23,000 inhabitants. Here are great shipbuilding and repairing
    yards, chemical works and cement works; here, too, are Parsons’
    Steam Turbine Works, where was designed and built the little
    “Turbinia,” on which tiny vessel the early experiments were made
    with the new engines; and here are the famous mines which have made
    “Best Wallsend” a synonym for best household coal all over the
    land. These mines, after having been closed for many years, were
    reopened at the beginning of the century, and now turn out upwards
    of one thousand tons of coal per day.

    The church of St. Peter, at Wallsend, is little more than a hundred
    years old; the old Church of Holy Cross, now long disused, was
    built towards the end of the twelfth century. But Wallsend itself,
    as all the world knows, is of much greater antiquity, for was it
    not, as its name proclaims, situated at the end of the Great Wall?
    Its name then, however, was not Wallsend but Segedunum.

    Willington Quay, further down the river, was, for a time, the home
    of George Stephenson, and here his son, Robert, was born. At
    Howdon, which used to be known as Howdon Pans, from the salt-pans
    there, the painter John Martin and his brothers once worked when
    boys, being employed in some rope-works. Here, too, the Henzells, a
    family of refugees who settled in the district in the days of
    Elizabeth, founded some glass works, for which industry the Tyne
    has been famous from that day to this.

[Illustration: The River Tyne at Newcastle (showing Swing Bridge
Open).]

    Before the railway on the south side of the river was laid down,
    passengers who wished to reach Jarrow had to alight at Howdon and
    cross the river; and a racy dialect song—“Howdon for Jarrow” with
    its refrain of “Howdon for Jarra—ma hinnies, loup oot”—commemorates
    the fact. Willington Quay and Howdon carry on the line of
    shipbuilding yards to Northumberland Dock and the staithes of the
    Tyne Commissioners, where the waggon ways from various collieries
    bring the coal to the water’s edge. Tyne Dock, just opposite, and
    the Albert Edward Dock near North. Shields, provide abundance of
    shipping accommodation, besides what is afforded by the river
    itself; and now the river flows between the steep banks of North
    and South Shields. As the names declare, these two growing and
    prosperous towns once consisted of a few fishermen’s huts, or
    “shielings”; but that was long ago, when the north shore of the
    Tyne was owned by the Prior of Tynemouth, and the southern shore by
    the Bishop of Durham, and the citizens of Newcastle complained to
    King Edward I. that these two ecclesiastics had raised towns,
    “where no town ought to be,” and that “fishermen sold fish there
    which ought to be sold at Newcastle, to the great injury of the
    whole borough, and in detriment to the tolls of our Lord the King.”
    These quarrels between Newcastle and the other settlements on the
    Tyne continued with varying results, until in the days of Cromwell,
    Ralph Gardiner of Chirton, a little village close to North Shields,
    took up the cudgels for the growing towns; and by dint of great
    perseverance, and in spite of much persecution and ill-will,
    succeeded in getting most of the unjust privileges of their
    stronger neighbour abolished.

    There were salt-pans, too, on both sides of the mouth of the Tyne,
    which were worked in connection with the monasteries from very
    early days; and Daniel Defoe, when he visited the north in 1726,
    declared that he could see from the top of the Cheviot “the smoke
    of the salt-pans at Sheals, at the mouth of the Tyne, which was
    about forty miles south of this.”

    North Shields clings haphazard to the steep bank of the Tyne, and
    spreads away up and beyond it, reaching out towards Wallsend on the
    river shore and Tynemouth along by the sea, the older parts by the
    river looking black and grimy to the last degree; but there is a
    silver lining to this very black cloud—not visible, it is true, but
    distinctly audible—in the great shipbuilding and repairing works
    known as Smith’s Dock, one of the largest concerns of the kind in
    Great Britain, where so many hundreds of men earn their daily
    bread; and in the fishing industry, which was the foundation of the
    town’s prosperity, and bids fair to be so for many years to come,
    as it is increasing year by year. The Fish Quay at North Shields is
    a sight worth seeing; and, in the herring season, it is
    increasingly frequented by Continental buyers.

    The fortunes of South Shields and Jarrow, though these towns are
    not in Northumberland, are yet so bound up with the story of the
    Tyne that no one would ever think of that river without them.
    Especially is this the case with Jarrow, which “Palmer’s” has
    raised from a small colliery village to a large and flourishing
    town. In those famous yards, everything that is necessary for the
    building of the largest ironclad, from the first smelting of the
    ore until the last rivet is in place, can be done. All
    Northumbria—Northumbria in the ancient and widest sense of the
    word—owes a debt of gratitude to Jarrow, for was it not the home of
    Bede? The monk of Jarrow, who spent all his long life in the same
    monastery by the Don, coming to it when he was a child of ten, made
    that spot of Northumbrian ground famed to the farthest limits of
    the civilized Europe of his day; and scholars from all over the
    Continent came to learn at the feet of the Northumbrian teacher.
    Beloved and revered by all, and in harness to the last hour of his
    busy life, he died in the year 735, just one hundred years after
    the coming of Aidan to Lindisfarne. “First among English scholars,
    first among English theologians, first among English historians, it
    is in the monk of Jarrow that English literature strikes its
    roots.”—_J.R. Green_.

    The Jarrow of to-day, and all its neighbours of industrial
    Tyneside, possess no beauty of aspect such as the towns that are
    more fortunately situated on the upper reaches of the river; they
    are muffled in clouds of smoke and soot, and darkened by the
    necessities of their toil in grimy ores and the ever-present coal.
    But no one who has ever looked on these smoky reaches of the Tyne
    with a seeing eye, or steamed down the river on a day either of
    gloom or sunshine, can refuse to acknowledge that it has a certain
    grandeur, a stern beauty of its own, that can stir the heart and
    the imagination more deeply than any mere prettiness.

    From the numberless hives of activity on both sides of the river
    clouds of smoke roll heavily upward, and jets of steam from panting
    machinery leap up in momentary whiteness on the dark background;
    the white wings of flocks of wheeling gulls flash in the occasional
    sunshine which lights up the scene, and between the clouds there
    are glimpses of blue sky. Towards sunset, the evening mists drape
    the darkening banks and crowded shipping in a soft robe of gray,
    which, together with the glowing sky behind, produces most
    wonderful Turneresque effects; and the fall of night on the river
    only changes the aspect without diminishing the interest of the
    scene. The blaze from a myriad workshops and forges glows against
    the darkness, the lamps twinkle overhead on the steep banks, and
    the lights from wharf and steamer are reflected in a thousand
    shimmering lines on the dark water, which flows on soundlessly,
    like the river of a dream.

    On a day of wind and sun all these beauties are intensified a
    thousandfold; the smoke is blown hither and thither in flying
    clouds, the current seems to rush more swiftly, and a sense of
    vigorous life permeates the whole scene, giving to the beholder a
    feeling of keen exhilaration, as of new life rushing through his
    veins. Especially is this the case on reaching the mouth of the
    river and meeting the dancing waters of the open harbour, where the
    twin piers of South Shields and Tynemouth reach out sheltering
    arms. Within the wide bay they enclose, the storm-driven vessel may
    always find comparatively smooth water, how wildly soever the waves
    may rage and roar outside.

    It is difficult to believe that so lately as the years 1858-60, the
    “bar” at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all
    but vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for
    days, and sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a
    tide high enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of
    sand-banks, and little islands stood here and there—one in
    mid-stream, where the ironclads are now launched at Elswick. Three
    or four vessels might be seen at once bumping and grounding on the
    “bar” unable to make their way over. Well might the old song say—
  “The ships are all at the bar, They canna get up to Newcastle!”

    An old map of the Tyne shows a number of sand-banks down the lower
    reaches of the river, with ships aground on each, of them.

    But the River Tyne Commissioners have changed all that, and their
    implement of warfare has been the hideous but necessary dredger. No
    longer need vessels of heavy tonnage desert the Tyne for the Wear,
    as they were perforce driven to do during the first half of the
    nineteenth century, for the Wearsiders had set about deepening and
    widening their river long before the Tynesiders did the same by
    theirs. Considerable and continuous pressure had to be brought to
    bear on the civic authorities at Newcastle before they finally took
    action; but having once done so, the future of the Tyne was
    assured. Now it ranks second only to the Thames in the actual
    number of vessels entering and leaving, and owns only the Mersey
    its superior in the matter of tonnage.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV. NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.


  “Her dusky hair in many a tangle clings About her, and her looks,
  though stern and cold, Grow tender with the dreams of by-gone days.”
  —_W.W. Tomlinson_.

    The outward signs of “by-gone days,” in the Newcastle of to-day,
    with the one notable exception of the Castle, must be diligently
    sought out amongst the overwhelming mass of what is often called
    “rampant modernity,” of which the town to-day chiefly consists. The
    modernity, however, is not all bad, as this favourite phrase would
    imply; much of it is doubtless regrettable and a very little of it
    perhaps inevitable; but no one will deny either the modernity or
    the beauty of Grey Street, one of the finest streets in any English
    town; or the fine appearance of Grainger Street, Blackett Street,
    Eldon Square, or any other of the stately thoroughfares with which
    Grainger and Dobson enriched the town within the last eighty
    years—no one, that is, who has learned to “lift his eyes to the
    sky-line in passing along a thoroughfare” instead of keeping them
    firmly fixed at the level of shop windows.

    The grim old building which, when it was new, gave its name to the
    town, is one for which no search needs to be made; its blackened
    and time worn walls are seen from the train windows by every
    traveller who enters the city from the south. So near is it to the
    railway, that in the ultra-utilitarian days of sixty or seventy
    years ago, it narrowly escaped the ignoble fate of being used as a
    signal-cabin. It was rescued, however, by the Society of
    Antiquaries, and carefully preserved by them—more fortunate in this
    respect than the castle of Berwick, for the platform of Berwick
    railway station actually stands on the spot once occupied by the
    Great Hall of the Castle.

    The site of the New Castle, on a part of the river bank which
    slopes steeply down to the Tyne, had been occupied centuries before
    by a Roman fort, constructed by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who
    visited Britain A.D. 120. He also constructed a bridge over the
    Tyne at this spot, fort and bridge receiving the name of Pons
    AElii, after the Emperor (Publius AElius Hadrianus). This became
    the second station on the Great Wall erected by Hadrian’s orders
    along the line of forts which Agricola had raised forty years
    before. This station shared the fate of others on the abandonment
    of Britain by its powerful conquerors, who had now for more than
    two hundred years been its no less powerful friends and protectors.
    Pons AElii fell into ruins; but so advantageous a site could not
    long be overlooked, and we read of a Saxon settlement there,
    apparently that of a religious community, from which fact it was
    known as Monkchester. All the records of this period seem to have
    perished, for we hear nothing of the settlement during the Danish
    invasions; but a Saxon town of some kind was evidently in existence
    at the time of the Conquest, though in 1073 three monks from the
    south who came to York, and, obtaining a guide to “Muneche-cester,”
    sought for some religious house in that settlement, could find
    none, and were prevailed upon by the first Norman Bishop of Durham,
    Walcher, to stay at Jarrow. The years from 1069 to 1080 were evil
    years for Northumberland, for at the first-named date the Conqueror
    devastated the North, and left neither village nor farm unscathed;
    and, as the desolated land was beginning to recover again, Odo of
    Bayeux and Robert of Normandy relentlessly laid it waste once more,
    partly in revenge for the murder of Bishop Walcher at Gateshead,
    and partly to punish Malcolm of Scotland for his invasion of Norman
    territory.

    It was on his return from this expedition, which had penetrated as
    far north as Falkirk, that Robert, by his father’s orders, raised a
    stronghold on the Tyne on the site of the old Roman fort, in the
    year 1080. His brother, William Rufus, erected a much stronger and
    better one, the Keep of which, re-built by Henry II., stands to-day
    dark and grim, looking out over river and town, as it has stood
    since the Red King ruled the land, and, like his father, the
    Conqueror, found it desirable to have a stronghold at this northern
    point of his turbulent realm, around which a town might grow up in
    safety.

    The roof and battlements of the Keep are modern, but the rest of
    it—the walls, 12 to 18 feet thick; the dismal dungeon, or guard
    chamber, with iron rings and fetters still fastened to the walls
    and central pillar; the beautiful little chapel, with its
    finely-ornamented arches; the little chambers in the thickness of
    the walls; the well, 94 feet deep, sunk through the solid masonry
    into the rock beneath; the arrow slits in the walls; the stones in
    the roof scored with frequent bolts from the besiegers’ crossbows,
    one of which bolts is firmly embedded in the wall opposite one of
    the narrow windows; the ancient weapons and armour—all these
    breathe of the days when the Red King’s castle took its part in the
    doings of our hardy ancestors in those stormy times in which they
    lived and fought.

    The last time the old Keep was called upon to act as fortress and
    refuge in time of war was in Stuart days, after the ten weeks siege
    of Newcastle by the Scottish General Leslie, Earl of Leven, in
    1644, when brave “Governor Marley” and his friends held out in the
    castle for a few days longer, after the town was taken. In memory
    of this stout defence and long resistance King Charles gave to the
    town its motto—_Fortiter defendit triumphans_, which Bates gives as
    having originally been _Fortiter defendendo triumphat_—“She glories
    in her brave defence.”

    Two of the original fireplaces still remain in the Castle, and
    there are besides many objects of great interest which have been
    bestowed there from time to time for safe keeping; and many more
    are to be seen at the Black Gate, formerly the chief entrance to
    the Castle Hall and its surroundings. The Great Hall of the Castle,
    in which John Baliol did homage to Edward I. for the crown of
    Scotland, stood on the spot now covered by the Moot Hall. The Black
    Gate, the lower part of which is the oldest part of the building,
    which has many times been altered and repaired, is now used as a
    museum. There were nearly a dozen rooms in it, and not so many
    years ago the Corporation of Newcastle let these out in tenements,
    until this building also was rescued from degradation by the
    Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, who took down most of the
    dividing walls, and converted it into a museum. Here may be seen
    stored many sculptured stones, altars, and statues, which have been
    brought from the various Roman stations in the north.

    Around the walls of one room are to be seen facsimiles of the
    famous Bayeux tapestry; there is also a model of the Castle as
    originally built, and there are many more exhibits and loans of the
    very greatest interest.

    Of the walls of Newcastle only fragments remain, the most
    considerable portion being found between Westgate Road and St.
    Andrew’s Churchyard; here are also remains of several of the
    watch-towers that stood at intervals around the walls—the Heber
    Tower, the Mordaunt or Morden Tower, and the Ever Tower. Between
    the two first named towers may be seen a little doorway, walled up,
    once used by the Friars, who obtained from Edward II. permission to
    make the doorway in order that they might the more easily reach
    their gardens and orchards outside; but they had to be ready to
    build it up at a moment’s notice on the approach of an enemy. One
    of the towers—the Carliol or Weaver’s Tower—was pulled down to make
    room for the Central Free Library, opened in 1881. Many little
    fragments of the Castle wall are to be seen near the High Level
    Bridge, incorporated in other walls, as far as the South Postern of
    the Castle, which is said to be the only remaining Norman postern
    in England and is the oldest remaining part of the Castle.

    The old streets of Newcastle are fast disappearing to make room for
    the ever-increasing needs of commerce; at the moment of writing it
    is being proposed to pull down more of the historic street called
    the Side, to make room for new printing offices. At the head of
    this curious old street, which curves downward from the Cathedral
    to the river, stood the birthplace of Cuthbert Collingwood, who was
    to become Admiral Lord Collingwood, and second in fame only to
    Nelson himself. Both this house and the one where Thomas Bewick had
    his workshop, near the Cathedral, have gone to make room for new
    buildings.

    At the foot of this street, where it curves to the river front, is
    the Sandhill, facing the Swing Bridge. Here are several old houses
    remaining, with many-windowed fronts, looking out on the river. One
    of these was the house of Aubone Surtees, the banker, whose
    daughter Bessie, in 1772, stole out of one of those little windows,
    and gave herself into the keeping of young Jack Scott, who was
    waiting for her below. The adventurous youth became Lord Chancellor
    of England, and is best known as Lord Eldon; his brother William
    became Lord Stowell, and was for many years Judge of the High Court
    of Admiralty.

    Opposite the old houses of the Sandhill, close to the river bank,
    is the old Guildhall, greatly altered in appearance from the time
    when John Wesley preached from its steps to the keelmen and
    fishermen of the town. It was here that a sturdy fishwife put her
    arms round him, when some boisterous spirits in the crowd
    threatened him with ill-usage, and, shaking her fist in their
    faces, swore to “floor them” if they touched her “canny man.”

    This spot, where the Swing Bridge unites the lower banks of the
    stream, seems always to have been the most convenient point for
    crossing the river, for the present bridge is the fifth that has
    spanned the Tyne at this point: Hadrian’s bridge, Pons Aelii; a
    mediaeval bridge destroyed by fire in 1248; the Old Tyne Bridge,
    swept away in the flood of 1771; the successor of this, which was
    found too low to allow of the passage of such large vessels as were
    able to sail up the Tyne after the deepening of the river bed; and
    the present Swing Bridge, which is worked by hydraulic machinery,
    the invention of Lord Armstrong. We do not know how long Hadrian’s
    bridge lasted, but William the Conqueror, when returning from his
    expedition into Scotland in 1071, was obliged to camp for a time at
    “Monec-cestre,” as the Tyne was in flood, and there was no bridge.

    Some ancient houses are to be found in Low Friar Street, one of
    which, with winged heads and dolphins carved on it, is said to be
    the oldest house in Newcastle. Turning up an opening on the west
    side of this street, all that is left of the ancient Blackfriars’
    Monastery may be seen; some of its rooms are used as the meeting
    places of various Trade Guilds, and the rest form low tenement
    houses, in the walls of which are many Gothic archways and ancient
    window-openings built up. Over the door of the Smith’s Hall is a
    carving of three hammers, and the inscription:—
  “By hammer and hand All artes do stand.”

    This Hall was formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here
    Edward Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland.
    Nun Street, leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days
    when the Nunnery of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town,
    and the Nun’s Moor was part of the grounds belonging to the
    establishment. In High Friar Street, which was not then the
    dilapidated lane it now appears, Richard Grainger was born.

    Another part of the town which has fallen from its former high
    estate is the Close, which lies along the river front, westward
    from the Sandhill. Here, at one time, lived many of the principal
    inhabitants of Newcastle—Sir John Marley, Sir William Blackett, Sir
    Ralph Millbank, and others equally important; and here, too, was
    the former Mansion House of the city, where the Mayors resided, and
    where they could receive distinguished visitors to the town.
    Amongst those who have been entertained there were the Duke of
    Wellington and the first King of the Belgians. But in 1836 the
    Corporation of Newcastle sold the house, with the furniture, books,
    pictures, plate, and everything else it contained.

    Eastward from the Sandhill is Sandgate, immortalised in the
    “Newcastle Anthem”—The Keel Row. Its present appearance is very
    different from the green slope and sandy shore of former days; the
    keelmen, too, have vanished, and their place in the commercial
    economy of the Tyne is taken by waggon-ways and coal-shoots. The
    old narrow alleys of the town, called “chares,” are fast
    disappearing; the best known is Pudding Chare, leading from Bigg
    Market to Westgate Road. Many and various are the explanations that
    have been offered to account for its curious name, but the true one
    does not seem yet to have appeared.

    Pilgrim Street owes its name to the fact that it was the route of
    the pilgrims who came in great numbers to visit the little chapel
    or shrine of Our Lady of Jesmond, and St. Mary’s Well. In Pilgrim
    Street was the gateway of a stately mansion, surrounded by
    beautiful gardens, called Anderson Place, from a Mr. Anderson who
    bought it from Sir Thomas Blackett in 1783. It had been built by
    another Mr. Anderson in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the site
    where once stood the monastery of the Grey Friars; he, however, had
    named his mansion “The Newe House.” In this house Charles I. lived
    when a prisoner in Newcastle. Anderson Place no longer exists, but
    the Newcastle of to-day has a constant reminder of its last owners,
    for Major George Anderson, son of the Mr. Anderson who purchased it
    in 1783, gave to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the great bell—known
    on that account as “The Major”—whose deep reverberant “boom” can be
    heard for a distance of ten miles. The bell was re-cast in 1891,
    and in 1892 a new peal of bells was consecrated by Canon Gough.

    Westgate Road is another interesting street; the old West Gate
    stood near the site of the present Tyne Theatre, and from this
    point onward the street follows, almost exactly, the line of the
    Roman Wall.

    Some noteworthy houses in Newcastle are—No. 17, Eldon Place, where
    George and Robert Stephenson lived in the years 1824-25; No. 4, St.
    Thomas’ Crescent, where the celebrated artist, Wm. Bell Scott lived
    when he was headmaster of the School of Art, and to whom Swinburne
    wrote a fine memorial poem; the Academy of Arts, in Blackett
    Street, built for the exhibition of pictures by those well-known
    painters T.M. Richardson and H.T. Parker, and for a short period
    the home of the Pen and Palette Club, which, both here and in its
    new home at Higham Place, has entertained many people distinguished
    in letters, art, and travel who have visited the town of late
    years; and No. 9, Pleasant Row, the birthplace of Lord Armstrong,
    which has only recently been destroyed to make way for the N.E.R.
    Company’s new ferro-concrete Goods Station in New Bridge Street.

    The list of important buildings in Newcastle, exclusive of the
    churches, is a long one; one of the most prominent is the Library
    of the Literary and Philosophical Society, familiarly known as the
    “Lit. and Phil.,” which stands at the lower end of Westgate Road, a
    little way back from the roadway. It is built on the site of the
    town house of the Earls of Westmoreland; and its fine Lecture
    Theatre was a gift to the Society from Lord Armstrong. It is the
    centre of the intellectual life of the city as a whole, apart from
    the work of the justly famed Armstrong College, a teaching
    institute of University rank. This was formerly known as the Durham
    College of Science, and, with the Durham College of Medicine, forms
    part of the University of Durham.

    Other seats of learning in the town are the Rutherford College, in
    Bath Lane, and the Royal Grammar School, which dates from the reign
    of Henry VIII. It was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth, and has had
    many changes of abode. At one time it occupied the buildings of the
    Convent of St. Mary, which covered the space where Stephenson’s
    monument now stands. While the Grammar School was located there,
    the boys Cuthbert Collingwood, William Scott, and John Scott, who
    afterwards became so famous, attended it; and other distinguished
    scholars were John Horsley, author of _Britannia Romana_, and John
    Brand and Henry Bourne, the historians of Newcastle. The school is
    now situated in Eskdale Terrace and its splendid playing fields
    stretch across to the North Road.

    One of the most interesting buildings in Newcastle is the Hancock
    Museum of Natural History, at Barras Bridge. It contains a
    matchless collection of birds, and some unique specimens of extinct
    species; also the original drawings of Bewick’s _British Birds_,
    and other works of his. The famous Newcastle naturalist, John
    Hancock, presented his wonderful collection, prepared by himself,
    to the museum. Here, too, is a complete set of fossils from the
    coal measures, including some fine specimens of Sigillaria. These
    are only a few of the treasures contained in the museum, which was
    built chiefly through the generosity of the late Lord and Lady
    Armstrong, Colonel John Joicey of Newton Hall, Stocksfield, and Mr.
    Edward Joicey of Whinney House.

    The new Victoria Infirmary, on the Leazes, is a magnificent
    building, and was opened by King Edward VII. in 1906. It was
    erected by public subscription, and when £100,000 had been
    subscribed, the late Mr. John Hall generously offered a like sum on
    condition that the building should be erected either on the Leazes
    or the Town Moor. Arrangements were made to do so, and another
    £100,000 given by the present Lord and Lady Armstrong.

    But fine as all these buildings are, the pride of Newcastle is one
    much older than any of them—the Cathedral church of St. Nicholas,
    with its exquisitely beautiful lantern steeple. This wonderful
    lantern was the work of Robert de Rhodes, who lived in the
    fifteenth century. The arms of this early benefactor of the church
    may yet be seen on the ancient font. The present church was
    finished in the year 1350, says Dr. Bruce; but there was a former
    one on this site to which the crypt is supposed to belong. It has
    undergone many alterations at different times, and has sheltered
    within its walls many and various great personages.

[Illustration: Newcastle-upon-Tyne.]

    In 1451, a treaty between England and Scotland was ratified in the
    vestry. In the reign of Henry VII., his daughter, Princess
    Margaret, attended mass here, with all her retinue, when she stayed
    in the town on her way to Scotland to be married to the gallant
    young king James IV. She was entertained at the house of the Austin
    Friars, which stood where now stands the Holy Jesus Hospital at the
    Manors, near to the Sallyport Tower. When James I. became king of
    England, he attended service here, as he passed through Newcastle
    on his way to his southern capital. In the reign of his ill-fated
    son, Charles I., Newcastle was occupied by the Scots, under General
    Leslie, for a year after the battle of Newburn in 1640; and again
    in 1644 was besieged by them for ten weeks. On this occasion the
    town nearly lost its chief ornament and pride—the lantern of the
    church; for “There is a traditional story,” says Bourne, “of this
    building I am now treating of, which may not be improper to be here
    taken notice of. In the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had
    besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at
    first from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of
    the town, and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or
    he would immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.

    “The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
    certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up
    to the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
    confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
    purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but
    would to the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St.
    Nicholas was indeed a beautiful and magnificent piece of
    architecture, and one of the great ornaments of the town, but yet
    should be blown to atoms before ransomed at such a rate; that,
    however, if it was to fall it should not fall alone; that at the
    same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he should bathe
    his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed there on
    purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with it.
    This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
    during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was
    fired against it.”

    In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a
    year (from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church
    he attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
    “admonishing” of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs
    the oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers
    wound up his discourse by giving out the metrical version of the
    fifty-second Psalm, with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:—
  “Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad, Thy wicked works to praise?”

    Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm
    instead:—
  “Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray, For man would me devour.”

    The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter
    Psalm, doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.

    Gray, who published his _Chorographia_, or Survey of
    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
    Nicholas’ as having “a stately, high, stone steeple, with many
    pinakles, a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone
    arches, builded by Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of
    Majesty, as high above the rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low
    Shrubs.”

    The church underwent a terrible despoliation at the hands of the
    Scots in 1644; but more terrible still were the injuries it
    received, a little more than a century later, from those who ought
    to have been its friends. In the years 1784-7 there were many
    alterations made in the building, during which almost all the old
    memorials and monuments perished, or were removed; those which were
    not claimed by the living representatives of the persons
    commemorated being ruthlessly sold, or destroyed; and the brasses
    were disposed of as old metal. The modern alterations and
    restorations have been more happy in their effect, and one of the
    notable additions to the church is the beautiful carved oak screen
    in the chancel, the work of Mr. Ralph Hedley.

    There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many
    memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk
    who have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of
    worship. The Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all;
    the brave Admiral’s body, as is well known, lies beside that of his
    friend and commander, Nelson, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this
    memorial of him is fittingly placed in the Cathedral of his native
    town, within whose walls he worshipped as a boy. There are two
    monuments by Flaxman—one of the Rev. Hugh Moises, the famous master
    of the Grammar School when Collingwood was a boy; and the other of
    Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813. Of the newer monuments,
    those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of the beloved and
    lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.

    Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a
    Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, “Christ
    washing the feet of the Disciples”; this was presented to the
    church by Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more
    things of interest in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a
    wonderful MS. Bible, incomplete, it is true, but beautifully
    written and illuminated by the monks of Hexham, and other
    manuscript treasures carefully kept in the care of the authorities.

    The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew’s, supposed to have
    been built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch
    was Lord of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered
    greatly in the struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on
    the Leazes, did it great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting,
    at the final capture of the town, took place close by, where a
    breach was made in the walls. In such a battered condition was it
    left that the parish Registers tell us that no baptism nor “sarmon”
    took place within its walls for a year (1645). But a marriage took
    place, the persons wedded being Scots, who, we learn from the same
    authority, “would pay nothing to the Church.”

    In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and
    Mary, his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town
    Moor to the people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A
    fine picture of the “Last Supper,” by Giordano, presented by Major
    Anderson in 1804, hangs in the church.

    St. John’s Church ranks next to St. Andrew’s in point of age; there
    are fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to
    have been standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age
    worn stones, stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than
    does any other building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern
    shops and offices. The memories it evokes, and the past for which
    it stands, are such as the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly
    let die; and when, a few years ago, a proposal was made for its
    removal, the proposition aroused such a storm of popular feeling
    against it that it was incontinently abandoned.

    All Saints’ Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older
    building which was in existence in 1296, and which became very
    unsafe. Here is kept one of the most interesting monuments in the
    city—the monumental brass which once covered the tomb of Roger
    Thornton, a wealthy merchant of Newcastle, and a great benefactor
    to all the churches. He died in 1429. He gave to St. Nicholas’
    Church its great east window; but, on its needing repair in 1860,
    it was removed entirely, and the present one, in memory of Dr.
    Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of Thornton’s window is
    a small circular piece inset in a plain glass window in the
    Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.

    Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the
    town, Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the
    Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned
    for him the title of “Doctor Subtilis,” owned Northumberland as his
    home, and received his education in the monastery of the Grey
    Friars, which stood near the head of the present Grey Street. He
    returned to this monastery after some years of study at Oxford; in
    1304 he was teaching divinity in Paris.

    Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose
    Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted,
    received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle,
    and on going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he
    was the ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and
    judgment. As is well known, he died at the stake in 1555.

    William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of
    the seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so
    greatly in advance of the education of their times that they met
    with little encouragement or sympathy in their labours.

    Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St.
    John’s in 1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas’.

    It was he to whom Browning referred in the lines—
    
                               “On the list Of worthies, who by help of
                               pipe or wire, Expressed in sound rough
                               rage or soft desire, Thou, whilom of
                               Newcastle, organist.”

    These lines have been carved on his tombstone in St. Andrew’s
    churchyard. He is best known as the composer of the anthem “Sound
    the loud timbrel.”

    Mark Akenside, the poet, was born in Butcher Bank, now called after
    him Akenside Hill. His chief work “The Pleasures of Imagination,”
    is not often read now, but it enjoyed a considerable reputation in
    an age when a stilted and formal style was looked upon as a true
    excellence in poetry.

    Charles Hutton, the mathematician, was born in Newcastle in 1737.
    He began life as a pitman; but, receiving an injury to his arm, he
    turned his attention to books, and taught in his native town for
    some years, becoming later Professor of Mathematics in the Royal
    Military Academy at Woolwich.

    John Brand, the antiquary and historian of Newcastle, was born at
    Washington, County Durham, but came to Newcastle as a child. After
    attending the Grammar School, he went to Oxford, by the aid of his
    master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. He was afterwards curate at the
    church of St. Andrew.

    Robert Morrison, the celebrated Chinese scholar, was born near
    Morpeth, but his parents came to Newcastle when the boy was three
    years of age. He died in China in 1834.

    Thomas Miles Richardson, the well-known artist, was born in
    Newcastle in 1784, and was at first a cabinetmaker, then master of
    St. Andrew’s Free School, but finally gave up all other work to
    devote himself to his art.

    Robert Stephenson went to school at Percy Street Academy, which for
    long has ceased to exist. There he was taught by Mr. Bruce, and had
    for one of his fellow-pupils the master’s son, John Collingwood
    Bruce, who afterwards became so famous a teacher and antiquary.

    Newcastle is not, as most southerners imagine, a dark and gloomy
    town of unrelieved bricks and mortar, for, besides possessing many
    wide and handsome streets, it has also several pretty parks, the
    most noteworthy being the beautiful Jesmond Dene, one of the late
    Lord Armstrong’s magnificent gifts to his native town. The Dene,
    together with the Armstrong Park near it, lies on the course of the
    Ouseburn, which is here a bright and sparkling stream, very
    different from the appearance it presents by the time it empties
    its murky waters into the Tyne. Besides these there are Heaton
    Park, the Leazes Park, with its lakes and boats, Brandling Park,
    and others smaller than these; and last, but most important of all,
    the Town Moor, a fine breezy space to the north of the town, of
    more than 900 acres in extent.

    Of statues and monuments Newcastle possesses some half-dozen, the
    finest being “Grey’s Monument”—a household word in the town and
    familiarly known as “The Monument.” It was erected at the junction
    of Grey Street and Grainger Street in memory of Earl Grey of
    Howick, who was Prime Minister at the passing of the Reform Bill.
    The figure of the Earl, by Bailey, stands at the top of a lofty
    column, the height being 135 feet to the top of the figure. There
    is a stairway within the column, by which it can be ascended, and a
    magnificent view enjoyed from the top.

    In an open space near the Central Station, between the _Chronicle_
    Office and the Lit. and Phil., there is a fine statue of George
    Stephenson, by the Northumbrian sculptor, Lough. It is a full
    length representation of the great engineer, in bronze, with the
    figures of four workmen, representing the chief industries of
    Tyneside, around the pedestal—a miner, a smith, a navvy, and an
    engineer. At the head of Northumberland Street, on the open space
    of the Haymarket, stands a beautiful winged Victory on a tall
    column, crowning “Northumbria” typified as a female figure at the
    foot of the column. This graceful and striking memorial is the work
    of T. Eyre Macklin, and is in memory of the officers and men of the
    North who fell in the Boer War of 1899-1902. Two other noteworthy
    statues in the town are those of Lord Armstrong, near the entrance
    to the Natural History Museum at Barras Bridge, and of Joseph
    Cowen, in Westgate Road.

THE KEEL ROW

  As I came thro’ Sandgate, Thro’ Sandgate, thro’ Sandgate, As I came
  thro’ Sandgate, I heard a lassie sing “O weel may the keel row, The
  keel row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row That my laddie’s in
  “O who is like my Johnnie, Sae leish,[5] sae blithe, sae bonnie; He’s
  foremost ’mang the mony Keel lads o’ coaly Tyne He’ll set and row sae
  tightly, And in the dance sae sprightly He’ll cut and shuffle
  lightly, ’Tis true, were he not mine!
  “He has nae mair o’ learnin’ Than tells his weekly earnin’, Yet,
  right frae wrang discernin’, Tho’ brave, nae bruiser he! Tho’ he no
  worth a plack[6] is, His ain coat on his back is; And nane can say
  that black is The white o’ Johnnie’s e’e
  He wears a blue bonnet, Blue bonnet, blue bonnet, He wears a blue
  bonnet, And a dimple in his chin O weel may the keel row, The keel
  row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row That my laddie’s in.”

 [5] Leish = lithe, nimble.

 [6] Plack = a small copper coin, worth about one-third of a penny.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V. ELSWICK AND ITS FOUNDER.


  Sailed from the North of old The strong sons of Odin; Sailed in the
  Serpent ships, “By hammer and hand” Skilfully builded.


  Still in the North-country Men keep their sea-cunning; Still true the
  legend, “By hammer and hand” Elswick builds war-ships.
  —(_Northumbriensis_).

    For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch
    the world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present
    gigantic proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half
    acres in 1847. In that year two fields were purchased as a site for
    the new works about to be started to make the hydraulic machinery
    which had been invented by Mr. Armstrong.

    In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several
    prominent Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
    inventions—Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin,
    and Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country
    village some distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the
    riverside between the two places was a favourite one with the
    people of the town. In midstream there was an island, where stood a
    little inn called the “Countess of Coventry”; and on the island
    various sports were often held, including horse-racing.

    The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on
    the green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and
    Mr. Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he
    have carried out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to
    stop until he made Elswick Hall the centre of the town.

    Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr.
    Armstrong’s hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works
    in the High Bridge.

    All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the
    autumn work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in
    Hood Street, as he was superintending his machinery construction in
    High Bridge, as well as the building operations at Elswick. On some
    of the early notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a
    picture of Elswick as it was then, showing the first shops, the
    little square building in which were the offices, the green banks
    sloping down to the waterside, and the island in the middle of the
    shallow stream, while the chimneys and smoke of Newcastle are
    indicated in the remote background. Along the riverside was the
    public footpath.

    The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6;
    and amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle
    Chronicle_, for hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press.
    The new machinery rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines,
    docks and railways poured in to the Elswick firm, which soon
    extended its works.

    In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was
    requested to devise some submarine mines which would clear the
    harbour of Sebastopol of the Russian war-ships which had been sent
    there. He did so, but the machinery was never used.

    At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention
    to the question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were
    very little better than those which had been used during the
    Napoleonic wars; and Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was
    made at his workshops. It was a 3-pounder, complete with
    gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to be seen at Elswick.

    With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider
    anything new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the
    superiority of the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial
    proved that superiority to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted.
    And then Mr. Armstrong showed the large-minded generosity which was
    so marked a feature of his character. Holding in his hand—as every
    man must, who possesses the secret of a new and superior engine of
    destruction—the fate of nations, to be decided at his will, and
    with the knowledge that other powers were willing and eager to buy
    with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr. Armstrong presented
    to the British Government, as a free gift, the patents of his
    artillery; and he entered the Government service for a time, as
    Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the benefit
    of his skill and special knowledge.

    A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties
    as Sir William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at
    Elswick, and the Government promised a continuance of orders above
    those that the Arsenal at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went
    well for a time, but after some years the connection between the
    Government and Elswick ceased; the Ordnance and Engineering works
    were then amalgamated into one concern, and Mr. George Rendel and
    Captain Noble—now Sir Andrew Noble, and one of the greatest living
    authorities on explosives—were placed in charge of the former.

    Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
    Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now
    began to roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly,
    until suddenly there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a
    nine hours day, in 1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a
    half months, work was resumed; but the old genial relationship
    between masters and men had received a rude strain, and was never
    the same as before.

    Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
    earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell’s yard
    at Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the “Staunch,” built
    for the Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united
    to the Elswick enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was
    also opened.

    Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in
    artillery, and in 

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