Kitabı oku: «A Month in Yorkshire», sayfa 3
I looked northwards for Flamborough Head, but Dimlington Hill, which lies between, though not half the height, hides it completely. Beyond Dimlington lies Withernsea, a small watering-place, the terminus of the Hull and Holderness Railway, to which the natives of the melancholy town betake themselves for health and recreation, tempted by a quadrille band and cheap season-tickets. Adjoining Withernsea is all that remains of Owthorne, a village which has shared the doom of Kilnsea. The churches at the two places were known as ‘sister churches;’ that at Withernsea yet stands in ruins; but Owthorne church was swept into the sea within the memory of persons now living. The story runs that two sisters living there, each on her manor, in the good old times, began to build a church for the glory of God and the good of their own souls, and the work went on prosperously until a quarrel arose between them on the question of spire or tower. Neither would yield. At length a holy monk suggested that each sister should build a church on her own manor; the suggestion was approved, and for long years the Sister Churches resounded with the voice of prayer and praise, and offered a fair day-mark to the mariner.
But, as of old, the devouring sea rushed higher and higher upon the land, and the cliff, sapped and undermined, fell, and with it the church of Owthorne. In 1786, the edge of the burial-ground first began to fail; the church itself was not touched till thirty years later. It was a mournful sight to see the riven churchyard, and skeletons and broken coffins sticking out from the new cliff, and bones, skulls, and fragments of long-buried wood strewn on the beach. One of the coffins washed out from a vault under the east end of the church contained an embalmed corpse, the back of the scalp still bearing the gray hairs of one who had been the village pastor. The eyes of the villagers were shocked by these ghastly relics of mortality tossed rudely forth to the light of day; and aged folk who tottered down to see the havoc, wept as by some remembered token they recognised a relative or friend of bygone years, whom they had followed to the grave—the resting place of the dead, as they trusted, till the end of time. In some places bodies still clad in naval attire, with bright-coloured silk kerchiefs round the neck, were unearthed, as if the sea were eager to reclaim the shipwrecked sailors whom it had in former time flung dead upon the shore.
But, to return to the lighthouse. According to Smeaton’s survey this extremity of the spoon comprehends ninety-eight acres. It slopes gently to the sea, and is somewhat altered in outline by every gale. At the time of my visit, rows of piles were being driven in, and barriers of chalk erected, to secure the ground on the outer side between the tower and the sea; and a new row of cottages for the life-boat crew, built nearer to the side where most wrecks occur than the old row, was nearly finished. Beyond, towards the point, stands a public-house, in what seems a dangerous situation, close to the water. There was once a garden between it and the sea; now the spray dashes into the rear of the house; for the wall and one-half of the hindermost room have disappeared along with the garden, and the hostess contents herself with the rooms in front, fondly hoping they will last her time. She has but few guests now, and talks with regret of the change since the digging of ballast was forbidden on the Spurn. Then trade was good, for the diggers were numerous and thirsty. That ballast-digging should ever have been permitted in so unstable a spot argues a great want of forethought somewhere.
The paved enclosure around the tower is kept scrupulously clean, for the rain which falls thereon and flows into the cistern beneath is the only drinkable water to be had. “It never fails,” said the keeper, “but in some seasons acquires a stale flavour.” He was formerly at Flamborough, and although appointment to the Spurn was promotion, he did not like it so well. It was so lonesome; the rough, trackless way between, made the nearest village seem far off; now and then a boat came across with visitors from Cleathorpes, a seven miles’ trip; there had been one that morning, but not often enough to break the monotony. And he could not get much diversion in reading, for the Trinity Board, he knew not why, had ceased to circulate the lighthouse library.
The lesser tower stands at the foot of the inner slope, where its base is covered by every tide. Its height is fifty feet, and the entrance, approached by a long wooden bridge, is far above reach of the water. This is the third tower erected on the same spot; the two which preceded it suffered so much damage from the sea that they had to be rebuilt.
About the time that ambitious Bolingbroke landed, a good hermit, moved with pity by the number of wrecks, and the dangers that beset the mouth of the estuary, set up a light somewhere near Ravenser. But finding himself too poor to maintain it, he addressed a petition to the “wyse Commons of Parliament,” for succour, and not in vain. The mayor of Hull, with other citizens, were empowered “to make a toure to be up on daylight and a redy bekyn wheryn shall be light gevyng by nyght to alle the vesselx that comyn into the seid ryver of Humbre.”
In the seventeenth century, Mr. Justinian Angell, of London, obtained a license to build a lighthouse on the Spurn. It was an octagonal tower of brick, displaying an open coal fire on the top, which in stormy weather was frequently blown quite out, when most wanted. Wrecks were continually taking place; and it is only since Smeaton completed his tower, and the floating-light was established in the offing, and the channel was properly buoyed, that vessels can approach the Humber with safety by night as well as by day.
It was full tide when I returned along the chalky embankment, and the light spray from the breakers sprinkled my cheek, giving me a playful intimation of what might be expected in a storm.
I was passing a tilery near Welwick, when a beery fellow, who sat in the little office with a jug before him and a pipe in his mouth, threw up the window and asked, in a gruff, insolent tone, “A say, guvner, did ye meet Father Mathew?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say to ye?”
“He told me I should see a fool at the tileworks.”
Down went the window with a hearty slam, and before I was fifty yards away, the same voice rushed into the road and challenged me to go back and fight. And when the owner of the voice saw that the stranger took no heed thereof, he cried, till hidden by a bend in the road, “Yer nothin’ but t’ scram o’ t’ yerth!—yer nothin’ but t’ scram o’ t’ yerth!”
Thinking scram might be the Yorkshire for scum, I made a note of it for the benefit of philologists, and kept on to Patrington, where I arrived in time for the last train to Hull, quite content with six-and-twenty miles for my first day’s walk.
CHAPTER IV
Northern Manners—Cottingham—The Romance of Baynard Castle—Beverley—Yorkshire Dialect—The Farmers’ Breakfast—Glimpses of the Town—Antiquities and Constables—The Minster—Yellow Ochre—The Percy Shrine—The Murdered Earl—The Costly Funeral—The Sister’s Tomb—Rhyming Legend—The Fridstool—The Belfry.
Journeying from Hull to Beverley by ‘market-train’ on the morrow, I had ample proof, in the noisy talk of the crowded passengers, that Yorkshire dialect and its peculiar idioms are not “rapidly disappearing before the facilities for travel afforded by railways.” Nor could I fail to notice what has before struck me, that taken class for class, the people north of Coventry exhibit a rudeness, not to say coarseness of manners, which is rarely seen south of that ancient city. In Staffordshire, within twenty miles of Birmingham, there are districts where baptism, marriage, and other moral and religious observances considered as essentials of Christianity, are as completely disregarded as among the heathen. In some parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire similar characteristics prevail; but rude manners do not necessarily imply loose morality. Generally speaking the rudeness is a safety-valve that lets off the faults or seeming faults of character; and I for one prefer rudeness to that over-refinement prevalent in Middlesex, where you may not call things by their right names, and where, as a consequence, the sense of what is fraudulent, and criminal, and wicked, has become weakened, because of the very mild and innocent words in which ‘good society’ requires that dishonesty and sin should be spoken of.
If we alight at Cottingham and take a walk in the neighbourhood we may discover the scene of a romantic incident. There stood Baynard Castle, a grand old feudal structure, the residence of Lord Wake. When Henry VIII. lay at Hull, he sent a messenger to announce a royal visit to the castle, anticipating, no doubt, a loyal reception; but the lord instead of pride felt only alarm, for his wife, whom he loved truly, was very beautiful, and he feared for the consequences should the amorous monarch set eyes on her beauty. He resolved on a stratagem: gave instructions to his confidential steward; departed at dead of night with his wife; and before morning nothing of the castle remained but a heap of smoking ruins. The king, on hearing of the fire, little suspecting the cause, generously sent a gift of two thousand pounds, with friendly words, to mitigate the loss; but the wary lord having evaded the visit, refused also to receive the money. And now, after lapse of centuries, there is nothing left but traces of a moat and rampart, to show the wayfarer where such an ardent sacrifice was made to true affection.
Even among the farmers, at whose table I took breakfast at the Holderness Hotel, at Beverley, there was evidence that broad Yorkshire is not bad Dutch, as the proverb says:
“Gooid brade, botter, and cheese,
Is gooid Yorkshire, and gooid Friese.”
The farmers talked about horses, and, to my surprise, they ate but daintily of the good things, the beef, ham, mutton, brawn, and other substantial fare that literally burdened the table. Not one played the part of a good trencherman, but trifled as if the victim of dinners fashionably late; and still more to my surprise, when the conversation took a turn, they all spoke disdainfully of walking. That sort of exercise was not at all to their liking. “I ha’n’t walked four mile I don’t know when,” said one; and his fellows avowed themselves similarly lazy. My intention to walk along the coast to the mouth of the Tees appeared to them a weakminded project.
Beverley has a staid, respectable aspect, as if aware of its claims to consideration. Many of the houses have an old-world look, and among them a searching eye will discover unmistakable bits of antiquity. A small columnar building in the market-place is called the market-cross; beyond it stands a rare old specimen of architecture, St. Mary’s church, the scene of the accident recorded by the ancient rhymer:—
“At Beverley a sudden chaunce did falle,
The parish chirche stepille it fell
At evynsonge tyme, the chaunce was thralle,
Ffourscore folke ther was slayn thay telle.”
Beyond the church, one of the old town gates, a heavy stone arch, bestrides the street. At the other end of the town, screened by an ancient brick wall, you may see the house of the Black Friars—more venerable than picturesque—besides little glimpses of the middle ages on your straggling saunter thither. Among these are not a few of that sort of endowments which give occasion for abuses, and perpetuate helplessness. And of noticeable peculiarities you will perhaps think that one might be beneficially imitated in other towns. A Constable Lives Here is a notification which you may read on sundry little boards, topped by a royal crown, nailed here and there over the doors.
But the minster is the great attraction, rich in historical associations and architectural beauty. The edifice, as it now appears, has all been built since the destruction by fire, in 1138, of an older church that stood on the same spot. The style is diverse, a not uncommon characteristic of ancient churches: Early English at the east end, Decorated in the nave, and Perpendicular in the west front and some minor portions. This western front is considered the master-work, for not one of its features is out of harmony with the others—a specimen of the Perpendicular, so Rickman signifies, not less admirable than the west front of York Minster of the Decorated. The effect, indeed, is singularly striking as you approach it from a quiet back street. I found a seat in a favourable point of view, and sat till my eye was satisfied with the sight of graceful forms, multiplied carvings, the tracery and ornament from base to roof, and upwards, where the towers, two hundred feet in height, rise grandly against the bright blue sky.
However much you may admire yellow ochre on door-steps, door-posts, and in the passages and on the stairs of dwelling-houses, you will think it out of place when used to hide the natural colour of the masonry in a noble church. For me, the effect of the interior was marred by the yellow mask of the great pillars. The eye expects repose and harmony, and finds itself cheated. Apart from this, the lofty proportions, the perspective of the aisles, the soaring arches, the streaming lights and tinted shadows, fail not in their power to charm. Your architect is a mighty magician. All the windows, as is believed, were once filled with stained glass, for the large east window was glazed in 1733 with the numerous fragments that remained after the destroyers of ecclesiastical art had perpetrated their mischief. The colours show the true old tone; and the effect, after all, is not unpleasing.
The Percy shrine on the north side of the choir is one of the monuments to which, after viewing the carved stalls and the altar screen, the sexton will call your special attention. It is a canopied tomb of exquisite workmanship, enriched with various carvings, figures of knights and angels, crockets and finials; marking the resting-place, as is supposed, of the Lady Idonea Clifford, wife of the second Lord Percy of Alnwick. The Percys played a conspicuous part in Yorkshire history. Another of the family, grandson of Hotspur, reposes, as is said, under a tomb in the north transept. He was not a warrior, but a prebend of Beverley. Then, at the east end, the Percy chapel, which has lost its beauty through mutilation, commemorates Henry, the fourth Earl of Northumberland, who was massacred at his seat, Maiden Bower, near Topcliffe, in 1489. Authorized by Henry VII. to answer the appeal of the leading men of his neighbourhood against a tax which levied one-tenth of their property, by a declaration that not one penny would be abated, he delivered his message in terms so haughty and imperious, that the chiefs losing patience, brought up their retainers, sacked the house and murdered the earl. The corpse was buried here in the minster; and the funeral, which cost a sum equivalent to 10,000l. present value, is described as of surpassing magnificence. Among the numerous items set down in the bill of charges is twopence a piece for fourteen thousand “pore folk” at the burial.
In the south aisle of the nave stands another canopied tomb, an altar tomb of elegant form, covered by a slab of Purbeck marble, which appears never to have had a word of inscription to tell in whose memory it was erected. Neither trace nor record: nothing but tradition, and Venerable Bede. St. John of Beverley had only to send a cruse of water into which he had dipped his finger to a sick person to effect a cure. He once restored the wife of Earl Puch, who lived at Bishop Burton, a few miles distant. The lady drank a draught of holy water, and recovered forthwith from a grievous sickness. She had two daughters who, overawed by the miracle, entered the nunnery at Beverley, where they won a reputation for holiness and good works. It was they who gave the two pastures on which freemen of the town still graze their cattle. The rest of their story is told in the ballad: it was Christmas-eve, says the rhymer, the customary service had been performed in the chapel; the abbess and her nuns slowly retired to pursue their devotions apart in their cells, all save two, who lingered and went forth hand in hand after the others. Whither went they? On the morrow they were missing; and
“The snow did melt, the Winter fled
Before the gladsome Spring,
And flowers did bud, the cuckoo piped,
And merry birds did sing:
“And Spring danced by, and crowned with boughs
Came lusty Summer on:
And the bells ring out, for ’tis the eve,
The eve of blessed St. John.
“But where bide they, the sisters twain?
Have the holy sisters fled?
And the abbess and all her nuns bewail’d
The sisters twain for dead.
“Then walk they forth in the eventide,
In the cool and dusky hour;
And the abbess goes up the stair of stone
High on the belfry tower,
“Now Christ thee save! thou sweet ladye,
For on the roof-tree there,
Like as in blessed trance y-rapt,
She sees the sisters fair.
“Whence come ye, daughters? long astray:
’Tis but an hour, they tell,
Since we did chant the vesper hymn,
And list the vesper bell.
“Nay, daughters, nay! ’tis months agone:
Sweet mother, an hour we ween;
But we have been in heaven each one,
And holy angels seen.”
A miracle! cries the rhymer; and he goes on to tell how that the nuns repair to the chapel and chant a hymn of praise, after which the two sisters, kneeling, entreat the abbess for her blessing, and no sooner has she pronounced Vade in pace, than drooping like two fair lilies, two pale corpses sink to the floor. Then the bells break into a chime wondrously sweet, rung by no earthly hand; and when the sisters are laid in the tomb, they suffer no decay. Years passed away, and still no change touched those lovely forms and angelic features:
“And pilgrims came from all the land,
And eke from oversea,
To pray at the shrine of the sisters twain,
And St. John of Beverley.”
Another noteworthy object is King Athelstan’s Fridstool, or chair of peace; the centre of a sanctuary which extended a mile from the minster in all directions. Any fugitive who could once sit therein was safe, whatever his crime. When Richard II. encamped at Beverley, on his way to Scotland, his half-brother, Sir John Holland, having aided in the atrocious murder of Lord Ralph Stafford, fled to the Fridstool, nor would he leave it until assured of the king’s pardon. “The Countess of Warwick is now out of Beverley sanctuary,” says Sir John Paston, writing to his brother in June, 1473—the days of Edward IV. The chair, hewn from a single block of stone, is very primitive in form and appearance; and as devoid of beauty as some of the seats in the Soulages collection. Athelstan was a great benefactor to the church. You may see his effigy, and that of St. John, at the entrance to the choir and over a door in the south transept, where he is represented as handing a charter to the holy man, of which one of the privileges is recorded in old English characters:
Als Fre make I The
As hert may thynke or Egh may see.
Such a generous giver deserved to be held in honour, especially if the eye were to see from the height of the tower, to the top of which I now mounted by the narrow winding-stair. While stopping to take breath in the belfry, you will perhaps be amused by a table of ringer’s laws, and a record of marvellous peals, the same in purport as those exhibited at Hull. You can take your time in the ascent, for sextons eschew climbing, at least in all the churches I visited in Yorkshire.
CHAPTER V
A Scotchman’s Observations—The Prospect—The Anatomy of Beverley—Historical Associations—The Brigantes—The Druids—Austin’s Stone—The Saxons—Coifi and Paulinus—Down with Paganism—A Great Baptism—St. John of Beverley—Athelstan and Brunanburgh—The Sanctuary—The Conqueror—Archbishop Thurstan’s Privileges—The Sacrilegious Mayor—Battle of the Standard—St. John’s Miracles—Brigand Burgesses—Annual Football—Surrounding Sites—Watton and Meaux—Etymologies—King Athelstan’s Charter.
“On my first coming to England I landed at Hull, whose scenery enraptured me. The extended flatness of surface—the tall trees loaded with foliage—the large fat cattle wading to the knees in rich pasture—all had the appearance of fairy-land fertility. I hastened to the top of the first steeple—thence to the summit of Beverley Minster, and wondered over the plain of verdure and rank luxury, without a heathy hill or barren rock, which lay before me. When, after being duly sated into dulness by the constant sight of this miserably flat country, I saw my old bare mountains again, my ravished mind struggled as if it would break through the prison of the body, and soar with the eagle to the summit of the Grampians. The Pentland, Lomond, and Ochil hills seemed to have grown to an amazing size in my absence, and I remarked several peculiarities about them which I had never observed before.”
This passage occurs in the writings of the late James Gilchrist, an author to whom I am indebted for some part of my mental culture. I quote it as an example of the different mood of mind in which the view from the top of the tower may be regarded. To one fresh from a town it is delightful. As you step on the leads and gaze around on what was once called “the Lowths,” you are surprised by the apparently boundless expanse—a great champaign of verdure, far as eye can reach, except where, in the north-west, the wolds begin to upheave their purple undulations. The distance is forest-like: nearer the woods stand out as groves, belts, and clumps, with park-like openings between, and everywhere fields and hedgerows innumerable. How your eye feasts on the uninterrupted greenness, and follows the gleaming lines of road running off in all directions, and comes back at last to survey the town at the foot of the tower!
Few towns will bear inspection from above so well as Beverley. It is well built, and is as clean in the rear of the houses as in the streets. Looking from such a height, the yards and gardens appear diminished, and the trim flower-beds, and leafy arbours, and pebbled paths, and angular plots, and a prevailing neatness reveal much in favour of the domestic virtues of the inhabitants. And the effect is heightened by the green spaces among the bright red roofs, and woods which straggle in patches into the town, whereby it retains somewhat of the sylvan aspect for which it was in former times especially remarkable.
Apart from its natural features, the region is rich in associations. The history of Beverley, an epitome of that of the whole county, tempts one to linger, if but for half an hour. It will not be time thrown away, for a glimpse of the past may beneficially influence our further wanderings.
Here the territory of the Brigantes, which even the Romans did not conquer till more than a hundred years after their landing in Kent, stretched across the island from sea to sea. Here, deep in the great forest, the Druids had one of their sacred groves, a temple of living oaks, for their mysterious worship and ruthless sacrifices. Hundreds of tumuli scattered over the country, entombing kysts, coffins, fragments of skeletons, and rude pottery, and not less the names of streets and places, supply interesting testimony of their existence. Drewton, a neighbouring village, marks, as is said, the site of Druid’s-town, where a stone about twelve feet in height yet standing was so much venerated by the natives, that Augustine stood upon it to preach, and erected a cross thereupon that the worshipper might learn to associate it with a purer faith. It is still known as Austin’s Stone.
The Saxon followed, and finding the territory hollow between the cliffs of the coast and the wolds, named it Höll-deira-ness, whence the present Holderness. It was in the forest of Deira that the conference was held in presence of Edwin and Ethelburga, between the missionary Paulinus and Coifi, the high-priest of Odin, on the contending claims of Christianity and Paganism. The right prevailed; and Coifi, convinced by the arguments he had heard, seized a spear, and hurrying on horseback to the temple at Godmanham, cursed his deity, and hurled the spear at the image with such fury that it remained quivering in the wall of the sacred edifice. The multitude looked on in amazement, waiting for some sign of high displeasure at so outrageous a desecration. But no sign was given, and veering suddenly from dread to derision, they tore down the temple, and destroyed the sacred emblems. Edwin’s timorous convictions were strengthened by the result, and so great was the throng of converts to the new faith, that, as is recorded, Paulinus baptized more than ten thousand in one day in the Swale. According to tradition, the present church at Godmanham, nine miles distant, a very ancient edifice, was built from the ruins of the Pagan temple.
St. John of Beverley was born at Harpham, a village near Driffield—Deirafeld—in 640. Diligent in his calling, and eminently learned and conscientious, he became Archbishop of York. In 700 he founded here an establishment of monks, canons, and nuns, and rebuilt or beautified the church, which had been erected in the second century; and when, after thirty-three years of godly rule over his diocese, he laid aside the burden of authority, it was to the peaceful cloisters of Beverley that he retired. “He was educated,” says Fuller, “under Theodorus the Grecian, and Archbishop of Canterbury, yet was he not so famous for his teacher as for his scholar, Venerable Bede, who wrote this John’s life, which he hath so spiced with miracles, that it is of the hottest for a discreet man to digest into his belief.” He died in 721, and was buried in his favourite church, with a reputation for sanctity which eventually secured him a place in the calendar.
Was it not to St. John of Beverley that Athelstan owed the victory at Brunanburgh, which made him sole monarch of Northumbria? The fame of the “great battle” remains, while all knowledge of the site of Brunanburgh has utterly perished, unless, as is argued in the Proceedings of the Literary and Historical Society of Liverpool, it was fought near Burnley, in Lancashire. It was celebrated alike in Anglo-Saxon song and history. Greater carnage of people slain by the edge of the sword, says the ancient chronicle, had never been seen in this island, since Angles and Saxons, mighty war-smiths, crossed the broad seas to Britain. Athelstan, in fulfilment of his vow, laid up his sword at the shrine of St. John, and added largely to the revenues and privileges of the church. A stone cross, erected on each of the four roads, a mile from the minster, marked the limits of the sanctuary which he conferred. One of these yet remains, but in a sadly mutilated condition.
When the Conqueror came and laid the country waste from Humber to Tees, trampling it into a “horrible wilderness,” he spared Beverley and the surrounding lands, yielding, as was believed, to the miraculous influence of the patron saint. One of his soldiers, who entered the town with hostile intent, became suddenly paralysed, and smitten with incurable disease; and a captain falling, by accident, as it seemed, from his horse, his head was turned completely round by the shock. These were warnings not to be disregarded; and Beverley remained a scene of fertile beauty amid the desolation.
One of John’s successors, Archbishop Thurstan, took pleasure also in fondling Beverley. He cut the canal, a mile in length, from the river Hull to the town: he gave to the inhabitants a charter of incorporation conferring similar privileges to those enjoyed by the citizens of York, whereby they were free from all fines and dues in England and Normandy; had the right to pontage—that is, a toll on all the barges and boats that passed under a bridge, as well as on the vehicles over it; and to worry debtors as rigorously as they chose, without fear of retaliation. In these anti-church-rate days it is surprising enough to read of the power exercised by an archbishop in the twelfth century. Thurstan had rule over the baronies of Beverley and five other places, with power to try and execute criminals, and punish thieves without appeal. In all the baronies the prisons were his; to him belonged the gibbet, pillory, and cucking-stool in the towns; the assize of bread and beer; waifs and wrecks of the sea; the right to ‘prises’ in the river Hull, diligently enforced by his watchful coroners; besides park and free warren, and all his land released from suit and service.
That taking of prises, by the way, was a standing cause of quarrel between the burghers of Hull and Beverley. The right to seize two casks of wine from every vessel of more than twenty tons burthen that entered the river, one before, the other behind the mast, was a grievance too much akin to robbery to be borne with patience. The merchants, wise in their generation, tried to save their casks by discharging the cargoes into smaller vessels before entering the port; but the coroners detected the evasion, and took their prises all the same. Hence bitter quarrels; in which the Beverley ships, dropping down the stream to pursue their voyage, were many times barred out of the Humber by the men of Hull. Once, when the archbishop appeared at the port to defend his right, the mayor, losing temper, snatched the crosier from the dignitary’s hand, and, using it as a weapon, actually spilt blood with the sacred instrument.
Never was the saint’s influence more triumphantly felt than when Thurstan’s fiery eloquence roused the citizens of York to march against David of Scotland. The Scottish king, to support Maud’s claim against Stephen, ravaged Northumbria with such ferocious devastation, that it seemed but a repetition of the Norman havoc, and provoked the Saxon part of the population to join in repelling the invader. After threatening York, David moved northwards, followed by the Yorkshire army, which had rendezvoused at the castle of Thirsk. To inspire their patriotism, a great pole, topped by a crucifix, and hung with the standards of St. John of Beverley, St. Peter of York, and St. Wilfred of Ripon, was mounted on wheels, and placed where every eye could behold it. The Scottish army was overtaken three miles beyond Northallerton, on the 22nd of August, 1138. The king, seeing the threefold standard from afar, inquires of a deserter what it means; whereupon he replies, in the words of the ballad:
