In the Border Country

But it is ever the darkest hour that precedes the dawn. It was impossible that England should lose her faith and fall back under the rule of a mere heathen conqueror. After the "thoughtful Edwin, mightiest of all the kings of the isle of Britain," as he has been called (he was, by the way, the founder of Edinburgh), there arose another champion of the new light in the person of Oswald, Edwin's nephew. Oswald's history connects him with Columba the Irishman, and "Apostle of Scotland," to whose splendid work the nation owed its first real religious advance. About 563, when in his forty-second year, and accompanied by twelve companions, Columba found a resting-place on the little island of Hy or Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, whence he set himself to the great work of his life—the conversion of the Pictish tribes beyond the Grampians. At Iona Oswald had sheltered during the home troubles, and many valuable lessons he must have learned for the strenuous life that lay in front of him. Called to lead his countrymen against their oppressors, Oswald literally fought his way to the throne. On a rising ground, a few miles from Hexham, near the Roman Wall, he gathered in 634 a small force, which pledged itself to become Christian if it conquered in the engagement. Causing a cross of wood to be hastily made, and digging a hole for it in the earth, he supported it with his own hands while his men hedged up the soil around it. Then, like Bruce at Bannockburn years afterwards, he bade his soldiers kneel with him and entreat the true and living God to defend their cause, which he knew to be just, from the fierce and boastful foe. This done they joined battle, and attacked Cadwallon's far superior forces. The charge was irresistible. The Welsh army fled down the slope towards the Deniseburn,—a brook near Dilston which has been identified with the Rowley Burn,—and Cadwallon himself, the hero of fourteen battles and sixty skirmishes, was caught and slain. This was the battle of Hefenfelt, or Heaven's Field, as after-times called it. Not only was the last hero of the old British races utterly routed, but Oswald, King of once more reunited Bernicia and Deira, proved himself to the Christian cause all that Edwin had been, and more, a prince in the prime of life, and fitted by his many good qualities to attract a general enthusiasm of admiration, reverence, and love. Resolved to restore the national Christianity, and to realize the ambitions of his exile life, he turned naturally to Iona and to the teachers of his youth for missionaries who would accomplish the holy task. At his request, Aidan, one of the fittest of the Columban band, was sent to carry on the work of evangelization in Northumbria, which happy event may be reckoned as the first permanent planting of the Gospel in the Eastern Border. The light which he kindled was never afterwards quenched. And as Columba had chosen Iona, so for Aidan there was one spot to which his heart went out above all others. This was the island-peninsula of Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast, so called from the little river Lindis, which here enters the sea, and the Celtic fahren, "a recess." Bede has a fine passage which is worth quoting:—"On the arrival of the Bishop (Aidan) King Oswald appointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Lindisfarne, as he desired. Which place as the tide flows and ebbs twice a day, is enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island; and again, twice in the day, when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land. The King also humbly and willingly in all cases giving ear to his admonitions, industriously applied himself to build and extend the church of Christ in his kingdom; wherein, when the Bishop, who was not skilful in the English tongue, preached the gospel, it was most delightful to see the King himself interpreting the Word of God to his commanders and ministers, for he had perfectly learned the language of the Scots during his long banishment. From that time many of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word to those provinces of the English over which King Oswald reigned, and those among them that had received priest's orders, administered to them the grace of baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; money and lands were given of the King's bounty to build monasteries; the English, great and small, were, by their Scottish masters, instructed in the rules and observance of regular discipline; for most of them that came to preach were monks." (Eccl. Hist. Bk. iii., c. 2). Than Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, as it came to be called, there is no more sacred spot in Northumbria—in England even. Its history is coeval with that of the nation, and it was from that hallowed centre of Christian activity that the gospelizing of both sides of the Border was planned and prayed over many an anxious hour and day. Aidan's missionaries went forth planting churches in various places. One of the best known of these settlements was Old Melrose, the original shrine by the beautiful bend of the Tweed, a mile or two down the river from the second and more celebrated Melrose. Here Eata, "a man much revered and meek;" and Boisil, who gave his name to the neighbouring St. Boswells; and Cuthbert, the most illustrious of them all, served God with gladness. Of the latter, certainly the most conspicuous Borderer of his day, something more must be said. Three kingdoms claim his birthplace. The Irish Life of the Saint alleges him to be sprung of her own blood royal; he is affirmed also to have come of noble Northumbrian descent; whilst the Scottish tradition makes him the child of humble parents, born and reared in Lauderdale, one of the sweetest valleys of the Border. It is a fact, at any rate, that when the light of record first falls upon him the youthful Cuthbert is seen as a shepherd lad by the Leader; he is religiously inclined, and whilst his comrades sleep, he spends whole nights in prayer and meditation. One day he hears voices from out the unseen calling to him. Another night it is a vision of angels that he fancies he beholds bearing the soul of the sainted Aidan to the skies. Such was Cuthbert, a kind of mystic, a dreamer of strange dreams, destined apostle and Bishop, and next to Augustine himself the most illustrious figure in the annals of English monasticism. The church of Channelkirk (anciently Childeschirche) dedicated to the Saint, probably indicates his birth-spot. The Leader valley is full of legends of his boyhood, the whole west of Berwickshire, indeed, being haunted ground for Cuthbert's sake. Other great names in the history of early Border Christianity are those of Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of Jarrow and Monk Wearmouth; Wilfrid, the founder of Hexham; and the Venerable Bede—the "father of English learning"—whose "Church History of the English People" is the greatest of the forty-five works that bear his name.

By far the most flourishing epoch in the religious development of the Border was the founding of the great Abbeys under David I.—"St. David"—as he is often called, though he was never canonized. Whilst still a Prince, he founded a monastery at Selkirk, and after his accession to the throne, there arose the four stately fanes of Kelso (1128), Melrose (1146), Jedburgh (1147), and Dryburgh (1150)—those rich and peaceful homes of art and intellectual culture whose ruins now strike us with marvel and regret. There is probably no other country district equally small in area that can boast a group of ruins at once so grand and interesting as those that lie within a few miles of each other along the banks of the Tweed and Jed. Founded almost contemporaneously, they were destroyed about the same time, by the same ruthless hands. The story of each is the story of all—burned and rebuilt, then spoiled and restored again, time after time, until finally at the dismal Hertford Invasion, in 1545, they all received their death-stroke. Other religious centres on the Scottish side were Coldingham in Berwickshire, founded in 1098 by King Edgar, son of Canmore and St. Margaret; Dundrennan, in Kirkcudbrightshire, founded in 1142 by Fergus, Lord of Galloway; and Sweetheart or New Abbey, founded in 1275 by Devorgoil, great-great-granddaughter of David the First. On the English side, the Church had a less vigorous growth, having no such munificent patron as King David, but there, too, it could boast of Carlisle Cathedral, the Abbey of Alnwick, the Priories of Lanercost, and Hexham, and the still more renowned and classic Lindisfarne. The history of the latter began, as we saw, with the year 635, when Saint Aidan accepted the invitation of King Oswald to teach the new faith to the Northumbrians. Aidan's church, built of wood, and thatched with the coarse bents of the links, could not long withstand the storms or the brands of the wild sea-rovers. And of the stone sanctuary reared under the rule of succeeding bishops no portion of the present ruin can be considered as forming a part. Sir Walter Scott has thrown the spell of his genius around the picturesque ruins, but the tragical story of Constance of Beverley has no foundation in fact.

PLATE 4

HOLY ISLAND CASTLE:
HARVEST-TIME

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 32 , 33 , 36 )

BORDER WARFARE

Of Border warfare it were impossible to treat within the limits of a library. In no part of the kingdom was the fighting and raiding spirit more rampant. The Border clans were constantly at war with one another, the slightest excuse provoking an attack, and not unfrequently was there no raison d'être whatever for the accompanying ruin and desolation. It ran apparently in the blood of those old Borderers to live on unfriendly terms with their neighbours, and to seize every possible opportunity against them. The record of the raids does not lean more to one side than another for aggressiveness, though generally the Scot has been credited for this quality. But as a matter of fact both sides were equally at fault and equally determined. And the onslaughts were often of the most savage and persistent kind, and were almost entirely unchecked by the legal restraints which were set in force. The division of the district into East, West and Middle Marches, with a sort of vice-regal Warden appointed over each, was not always conducive to peace and good feeling. At certain times, a day of truce was held when the Wardens of both sides met and settled any questions that might be in dispute between their followers, but occasionally the decision was anything but harmonious—as in the case of the Reidswire, for instance. In the "Debateable or Threep Lands," which lay partly in England and partly in Scotland, between the Esk and the Sark, no end of worry and difficulty was experienced. "Its chief families were the Armstrongs and Grahams, both clans being noted as desperate thieves and freebooters. They had frequently to be dealt with by force of arms till in the 17th century, the Grahams were transported to Ireland, and forbidden to return upon pain of death. Other districts of the Borders from time to time called forth hostile visitations from the Scottish kings or their commissioners, when great numbers of the robbers were frequently seized and hanged. So late as 1606, the Earl of Dunbar executed as many as 140 of them. The Union of the Crowns removed some obvious grounds of contention between the English and Scottish people, and after the middle of the 17th century the Borders gradually subsided into a more peaceful condition."

It was doubtless due to the exigencies occasioned by those frequently recurring wars and raids from the 13th to the 16th century that the whole country on both sides of the frontier became so thickly studded with castles and peel-towers, the numerous ruins of which still form a distinctive feature in Border scenery, although from times much earlier the castles and strongholds were characteristic elements in the old Scottish landscape. Alexander Hume, of Polwarth, the poet-preacher of Logie, near Stirling, in his fine description of a "Summer's Day," thus refers to them:—

Generally these towers were planted on heights overlooking the river-valleys, and, as a rule, within sight of one another, in order that the signals of invasion or alarm—flashed by means of the bale fire—might be the more rapidly spread from point to point. Very few of them are now entire—the best-preserved on the Scottish side being, perhaps, Barns, at the entrance to the Manor valley; Bemersyde, still inhabited; and Oakwood on the Ettrick, incorporated in the present farm buildings; and on the English side, Corbridge and Doddington and Whittingham. From a return made in 1460 we find that Northumberland alone possessed 37 castles and 78 towers, and the Scottish side was equally well strengthened and defended. Amongst the larger and more important fortresses on the English side were the Castles of Alnwick, Bothal, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Coupland, Dilston, Elsdon, Etal, Ford, Naworth, Norham, Prudhoe, Wark, Warkworth; and on the Scottish side, Berwick, Branxholme, Caerlaverock (the true Ellangowan of "Guy Mannering"), Cessford, Ferniherst, Hermitage, Hume, Jedburgh, Neidpath, Peebles, Roxburgh, Threave, Traquair, besides, as has been said, hundreds of peel and bastle-houses scattered all over the country.

It would be a quite impossible task to chronicle the incessant clan-raids of the Border, and to narrate all the invasions that took place on either side would be to repeat in great measure the general history of England and Scotland. But at least two authentic reports, covering little more than a year, may be quoted as showing the extraordinary havoc and destruction caused by the latter. "In 1544 Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, with an English army, invaded the Scottish Border, and between July and November they destroyed 192 towns, towers, barmkyns, parish churches, etc.; slew 403 Scots and took 816 prisoners; carried off 10,386 head of cattle, 12,492 sheep, 1296 horses, 200 goats, and 850 bolls of corn, besides an untold quantity of inside gear and plenishing. In one village alone—that of Lessudden (now St. Boswells)—Sir Ralph Evers writes that he burned 16 strong bastle-houses. Again in September of the following year, the Earl of Hertford a second time invaded the country, and between the 8th and the 23rd of that month, he razed and cast down the abbeys of Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh, and Melrose, and burned the town of Kelso. At the same time he destroyed about 30 towns, towers and villages on the Tweed, 36 on the Teviot, 12 on Rulewater, 13 on the Jed, 45 on the Kale, 19 on the Bowmont, 109 in the parishes of Eccles and Duns in Berwickshire, with 20 other towns and villages in the same county. The places destroyed are all named in the report to the English king, along with a classified list of that terrible sixteen days' destruction, embracing 7 monasteries and friars' houses, 16 castles, towers and peels, 5 market-towns, the immense number of 243 villages, with 13 mills, and 3 hospitals."

It cannot be forgotten that upon Border soil were fought at least six of the great historical battles of the nation, viz., Halidon Hill (1333); Otterburn (1388); Homildon Hill (1402); Flodden (1513); Solway Moss (1542); and Ancrum Moor (1544). Of mere internal contests there are the fight at Arkinholm (Langholm, 1455), between Scotsmen, where James II. broke the power of the Douglases; the battle of Hedgeley Moor (1464), and of Hexham (1464) between the English adherents of Lancaster and York, when the Lancastrians were defeated; the affair of Melrose (Skirmish Hill, 1526) between Borderers under the Earl of Angus and Buccleuch; and Philiphaugh (1645) when Leslie drove Montrose from the field. Of what were purely faction fights and deeds of daring such as the Raid of the Reidswire (1575), and the rescue of Kinmont Willie (1596), the ancient ballads will keep their memory green for many a year to come.

PLATE 5

VIEW OF NORHAM
CASTLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 39 , 60 , 93 )

Two great incidents of Border warfare stand out before all others—Otterburn and Flodden. Old Froissart has told the story of Otterburn. The Scottish barons, tired of the fickleness and inactivity of their king, determined to invade England, met at Aberdeen, and arranged the preliminaries for a great gathering at Southdean, beyond Jedburgh. On the day appointed the best blood in Scotland was assembled. "There had not been for sixty years so numerous an assembly—they amounted to twelve hundred spears and forty thousand other men and archers." The Earl of Douglas, the Earl of March and Dunbar, and the Earl of Moray, with three hundred picked lancers and two thousand infantry, burst into Northumberland, rode south as far as Durham, and laid waste the country. In one of their encounters before Newcastle-on-Tyne the Earl of Douglas had a hand-to-hand combat with Sir Henry Percy—- Hotspur,—who was overthrown, Douglas seizing his pennon—the silken streamer bearing his insignia, which was fastened near the head of his lance. In triumph he exclaimed: "I will carry this token of your prowess with me into Scotland, and place it on the tower of my castle at Dalkeith, that it may be seen from afar." "By God, Earl of Douglas," replied Hotspur, "you shall not even bear it out of Northumberland; be assured you shall never have this pennon to boast of." "You must come then," answered Douglas, "this night and seek for it. I will fix your pennon before my tent, and shall see if you will venture to take it away." On the following evening the Scottish army "lighted high on Otterburn," in Redesdale, and there Sir Henry and Ralph Percy, with six hundred spears of knights and squires and upwards of eight thousand infantry, fell upon the Scots, who were but three hundred lances, and two thousand others. The fight that followed was one of the most spirited in history, and ended in the death of Douglas, the capture of Hotspur, the serious wounding of his brother, and the killing or capture of one thousand and forty Englishmen on the field, the capture of eight hundred and forty others in the pursuit, and the wounding of a thousand more. The Scots lost only one hundred slain and two hundred captured. "It was," says Froissart, "the hardest and most obstinate battle ever fought." The tragic incidents of this encounter have been kept alive not historically but poetically. It is the immortality of song which preserves the memory of Otterburn. No contest was more emphatically the "ballad-singer's joy." Two ballads, the one Scots, the other English, give their respective versions of the event with those natural discrepancies between the two, which may easily be accounted for on patriotic grounds. That given in Scott's "Minstrelsy" is unquestionably the finer, and contains the lines so often quoted by Scott himself, and at no occasion more pathetically than during his visit—pretty near the end—to the old Douglas shrines in Lanarkshire, the locality of "Castle Dangerous":

The story of Flodden is the darkest, perhaps, on the page of Scottish history, and like Otterburn, has been written in strains grand and majestic, and certainly the most heart-moving in the whole realm of northern minstrelsy. There Scotland lost her King, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, James's natural son, two abbots, twelve earls, seventeen lords, four hundred knights, and fifteen thousand others, all sacrificed to the fighting pride of James IV. of Scotland. Pierced by several strong arrows, the left hand hacked clean from the arm, the neck laid open in the middle, James's body was carried mournfully to Berwick. He had died a hero's death, albeit a foolish one. His last words have lived in the lines of the rhymer:

The era of Blood and Iron on the Borders has passed long since. Peace and prosperity prevail on both sides of the Tweed. Old animosities are seldom spoken of, and hardly ever remembered. A cordial amity and good-will and co-operation evidence the strength of the cementing element which no loyal heart, either north or south, can ever desire to see broken.

PLATE 6

TWIZEL BRIDGE OF THE
XIV. CENTURY

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(Famous in connection with Flodden Field)

II. THE ENGLISH BORDER

A line drawn from Berwick to Carlisle, and across England to the Coquet, thence north again, coast-wise, to the old Tweedside borough will give us, for all practical purposes, the English Border Country. Only a part of the Roman Wall, as far as Crag Loch and Borcovicus (Housesteads), will come within the present purview, which excludes Newcastle itself and the "coaly Tyne." We are to deal with rural Northumberland rather, and with a little corner of Cumberland, the immediate and true Border. Even at this time of day much of the English Border is still a kind of terra incognita to the tourist and holiday-maker. For travelling facilities have not been of the best hitherto. But it is a new order of things now, and even the most outlying spots can be reached with a wonderful degree of comfort impossible not so very long ago. Bewcastle, for instance, and the once wild and trackless "Debateable Land" between Canonbie and the Solway, have come within comparatively easy distance of railroad and coaching centres. The crossing of the Solway Moss by the Caledonian Route, and the opening out of the line from Alnwick to Wooler and Cornhill, together with the numerous driving tours that are in daily operation during the summer at least, have become the open sesame to a district practically shut up even less than a half century since. It is now possible to breakfast in Carlisle, or Newcastle, or much further south for that matter (or north), and within an hour or two to be revelling in the most delightful rusticities at the foot of the Cheviots, or in the very heart of them. The remotest localities are rendered accessible even for a single day's outing, and a holiday on the English Border is not likely to be a disappointing one. There is something to suit every taste. If one is archaeologically inclined, for instance, Northumberland has one of the finest collections of military antiquities in the kingdom, from the rude circular camps and entrenchments of the primitive inhabitants to the great castles and peel-towers of mediæval times. The Romans have left a mighty monument of their power—none more significant—in the huge barrier thrown across the lower half of the county, and in the stations and roads connected with it. In some respects the Roman Wall may be accounted Northumberland's principal attraction, and a pilgrimage between Tyne and Solway must always repay itself. If one is artistically inclined, there are beauty-spots for all canvases—as befits the birthplace of such masters as Bewick and Foster. And as an angler's paradise the Cheviot uplands have long been popular. The historical memories of the English Border are outstanding. For centuries this little fringe of country was a continuous warring-ground for the two nations that are now happily one. Upon its soil were fought some of the bloodiest, and it must be added, some of the most fool-hardy and unjustifiable fights on record. In its religious story it has much to boast of. By its missionaries and by its sword it won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. The development of the monastic system in Northumbria did more than anything else to civilise and colonise the entire realm, Scotland included. "Its monasteries," as Green says, "were the seat of whatever intellectual life the country possessed, and above all, it had been the first to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes of the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a century to accustom them to a national life out of which England as we have it now was to spring."

The physical conditions, generally speaking, are similar on both sides of the Border. Wide arable expanses, well-wooded and fertile, cover the chief valleys and much of the Northumbrian coast-line. But in the main, the landscape is purely pastoral for miles, showing few signs of human life, and the nearest habitation often at a considerable distance. The Northumbrian uplands are confined chiefly to the Cheviots, the Pyrenees on a small scale; two-thirds of their whole three hundred square miles are in the county, constituting perhaps the loveliest cluster of pastoral hills in the island. Of this group, Cheviot—to be more distinctive, the Cheviot—(2676 feet) sits in the centre almost, dignified and massive, the "recumbent guardian of the great lone moorland." Others, taking them according to height, are Cairn Hill (2545), Hedgehope (2348), Comb Fell (2132), Cushat Law (2020), Bloody Bush Edge (2001), Windy Gyle (1963), Dunmore (1860), Carter Fell (1600), and Yeavering Bell (1182)—a graceful cone overlooking the pretty hamlet of Kirknewton. A climb to the broad back of the Cheviot, or the rounded top of Yeavering, should be made by every tourist who rambles along the Border. Both are reachable from the Scottish and English sides, as by Bowmont and Colledge Waters, or by that loveliest of all the upland dales, Langleeford. Despite the somewhat quagmire character of its flat summit, the view from the Cheviot, as one might expect, is a truly inspiring one, comprising the whole coast-line between Berwick and Tynemouth, and the vast inland expanse from Midlothian to the Solway—the Scottish Border in toto. The Cheviots are hills rather than the "mountains blue" of poetic licence. Yet all are imposing to a degree, and exhibit an excellent contour against the sky-line. They have none of the wildness and savagery of the Highland ranges, and even the steepest are grass-grown from skirt to summit, being easy of ascent, and commanding the most varied and brilliant prospects.

Robert Crawford sings of them as "Cheviot braes so soft and gay," and Gilpin likens the hirsels browsing on the most acclivitous to pictures hung on immense green walls. From time immemorial those charming uplands have been grazed by the quiet, hardy, fine-wooled, white-faced breed of sheep which bear their name; and in the days of the raids (for this is the true "raider-land" of history) they were resonant, more than any other part of Scotland, with the clang of freebootery and the yell of strife. Mrs. Sigourney's apostrophe to the present day flocks may be quoted:

PLATE 7

FLODDEN FIELD AND
THE CHEVIOT HILLS

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 40 , 48 , 99 , 103 , 121 )

Of the river valleys running south of the Border line, the chief are the Breamish, or the Till, as it is termed from Bewick Brig—the "sullen Till" of "Marmion"; the Aln, from Alnham Kirk to the sand-banks of Alnmouth, a glen emphatically rich in legendary lore; the Coquet, the most picturesque and most popular trouting-stream in the North of England; and Redesdale, redolent of "Chevy Chase," rising out of Carter Fell, and joining the North Tyne at Redesmouth, a little below the pleasant market-town of Bellingham. The chief towns are Berwick and Alnwick, Hexham being outside our present delimitation. Many of the smaller places, and the villages, are models of their kind. Wooler, at the base of the Cheviots, is a choice mountaineering and angling centre, from which, by way of Langleeford, is the favourite route to Cheviot top. It was at the Whitsun Tryst or Wooler sheep fair, that Scott's grandfather spent his old shepherd's thirty pounds in buying a horse instead of sheep, but with such happy results in the sequel. And hither came Scott himself in August, 1791, to imbue his mind with the legends, the history, and scenery of the neighbourhood. "Behold a letter from the mountains," he writes to his friend William Clerk, "for I am very snugly settled here, in a farmer's house (at Langleeford), about six miles from Wooler, in the very centre of the Cheviot hills, in one of the wildest and most romantic situations, which your imagination, fertile upon the subject of cottages, ever suggested. 'And what the deuce are you about there?' methinks I hear you say. Why, sir, of all things in the world, drinking goat's whey; not that I stand in the least need of it, but my uncle having a slight cold, and being a little tired of home, asked me last Sunday evening if I would like to go with him to Wooler; and I, answering in the affirmative, next morning's sun beheld us on our journey through a pass in the Cheviots, upon the backs of two special nags, and man Thomas behind with a portmanteau, and two fishing-rods fastened across his back, much in the style of St. Andrew's cross. Upon reaching Wooler we found the accommodation so bad that we were forced to use some interest to get lodgings here, where we are most delightfully appointed, indeed. To add to my satisfaction we are amidst places renowned by feats of former days; each hill is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn; and in no situation can you be near more fields of battle—Flodden, Otterburn, and Chevy Chase. Ford Castle, Chillingham Castle, Coupland Castle and many another scene of blood are within the compass of a forenoon's ride. Out of the brooks with which the hills are intersected, we pull trouts of half a yard in length, as fast as we did the perches from the pond at Pennicuik, and we are in the very country of muirfowl.... My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I understood it was brought to his bedside every morning at six, by a very pretty dairymaid. So much for my residence. All the day we shoot, fish, walk, and ride; dine and sup on fish struggling from the stream, and the most delicious heath-fed mutton, barn-door fowls, pies, milk cheese, etc, all in perfection; and so much simplicity resides amongst those hills that a pen, which could write at least, was not to be found about the house, though belonging to a considerable farmer, till I shot the crow with whose quill I write this epistle." (See Lockhart, chapter vi.). In this passage we have an interesting glimpse of what Northumberland was a hundred years ago, and of the great author enjoying a holiday while yet reading for the law, and before fame began to blow her trumpet in his praise.

Sweeter villages than Etal and Ford could scarcely be imagined out of Arcadia. Etal Castle was destroyed by James IV. previous to Flodden, and has never been restored. Ford Castle, built originally in 1287, has been frequently renovated and enlarged, and is now a most excellent example of the military style of architecture plus the modern mansion house. Formerly held by the Herons, its chatelaine figures in "Marmion" as the syren who detained the King when he ought to have been in the field. The frescoes in Ford schoolroom, painted by the late Lady Waterford, are objects not only of good art but of a well-conceived philanthropy. Ancroft and Lowick, Chatton and Chillingham are delightful summer resorts. Chillingham is famous for its Elizabethan Castle, but still more so, perhaps, for its herds of wild cattle, the survivors of the wild ox of Europe, and the supposed progenitors of our domestic cattle. Other summer resorts are Belford and Doddington, but the whole coast-line, indeed, is dotted with the most desirable holiday-nooks in the county.

PLATE 8

VIEW OF WARKWORTH

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp.39 ,51 ,52 ,56 )

The Coquet bears the palm for picturesqueness amongst Northumbrian valleys, and is about forty miles in length. From Alwinton, the first village after crossing the Cheviots, where the Alwine joins the Coquet—"a place of slumber and of dreams remote among the hills"—to Warkworth Castle, the stream carries history and romance in every league of its course. Here are such names as Biddlestone, the "Osbaldistone," of "Rob Roy" (there are other claimants such as Chillingham and Naworth); Harbottle, a hamlet of venerable antiquity; Holystone, mentioned already in connection with Paulinus; Hepple, with the remnant of a strong peel tower of the Ogles; and Rothbury, the capital of Upper Coquetdale, a snug township in the midst of an amphitheatre of the wild, stony Simonside hills. In the old days it was a reiving centre of notoriety. All this part of Northumberland, indeed, was a constant freebooting arena, neither Scots nor English being content without some fray on hand. There is not a village, or a town, or farmhouse even, but has some tale to tell of that uncanny period. Cragside, Lord Armstrong's palatial seat, reclaimed, like Abbotsford, from the barren mountain side, is within a mile of Rothbury. Then come Brinkburn Priory, "an ancient fabric awful in repose," founded by William de Bertram, lord of Mitford, in the reign of Henry I.; Felton, a neat little village, where Alexander of Scotland received the homage of the Northumbrian barons; and Warkworth, "proud of the Percy name," one of the quaintest and oldest towns in Northumberland, and teeming with historical and romantic associations. So near the sea, and with some of the rarest river scenery in the county close at hand, the place is in high favour as a holiday resort. A Saxon settlement, all interest centres around its dismantled Castle, believed to have been built by Roger Fitz-Richard, to whom Henry II. granted in 1158 the manor of Warkworth. Strengthened from time to time, it became a Percy possession, and was the chief residence of the family to the middle of the 15th century. At the height of its power it must have been well-nigh impregnable, encircled on three sides by the winding banks and overhanging woods of the Coquet, and on a commanding eminence above it; and though time and many devastating hands have long since riven its ancient walls, the pile still presents a splendid example of a baronial stronghold, second to few on the Borders.

Among Northumbrian towns, Alnwick (the county town) ranks next to Newcastle. But whilst the rise of the latter and its prosperity and colour have been each affected by the great industrial changes of the century, Alnwick's development has been very different. Lying peacefully amidst pastoral hills, by the side of a river unpolluted by modern commerce, this ancient Border town still presents the plain and austere aspect which it wore when the great stage-coaches passed through on their way from London to Edinburgh. In Newcastle, despite its numerous relics of antiquity, one's mind is ever dominated by the potent Present, whereas in Alnwick, it is ever under the spell of the dreamy Past. The quaint, irregular stone-built houses are touched with the sober hues of antiquity, and seem to take their character from the great baronial relic of feudal times. The history of the town is chiefly a record of

It was founded by the Saxons, who styled it Alainwick, "the town on the clear water." Like Carlisle, its history is largely one of attack and retaliation. The Scottish Sovereigns were peculiarly unfortunate at Alnwick. For here Malcolm Canmore was speared to death in 1093, and William the Lion made prisoner in 1174, and inside the castle of to-day with its gilded ceilings, luxurious upholstery, and majestic mantels of Italian workmanship and marbles, are still to be seen the dour dungeons in which many a Scot died miserably while the Percy and his retainers feasted above. King John burned Alnwick to the ground in 1216, David I. besieged and captured it. Each of the Edwards visited the place. It was again devastated by the Scots in 1427. In 1463, it was held for Edward IV., and in 1464 it fell into the hands of Queen Margaret. Royalists and Roundheads occupied Alnwick during the wars between Charles and his Parliament, but after 1700 it settled down to comparative quiet. The Castle, of course, dominates the place. There is what William Howitt calls "an air of solemn feudality" overhanging the whole town. Streets and buildings, and the general tone harmonize well with the prevailing conditions. Only one of its four gates survives—the gloomy, old, weather-beaten Bondgate, built by the haughty Hotspur about the year 1450. The Cross dates from the same period. The most interesting and venerable structure is the Church of St. Mary and St. Michael, founded about the beginning of the 14th century, Perpendicular in style, and abundant in Percy memorials. But the chief object of interest is the Castle with the Castle enclosure (some five acres in extent). The Castle itself is the most magnificent specimen of a feudal fortress in England, a verdict in which all who see it will agree. What an extraordinarily fascinating and profoundly impressive place, from the very stones of the courtyard to the defiant-looking warrior figures on the battlements of the barbican, and elsewhere. What an endless succession of towers and turrets (some of them with distinctive names, Hotspur and Bloody Gap) archways and corridors, walls and embrasures, and all the grim massive paraphernalia of the past, apparently as doggedly determined as ever. Perhaps, as one writer puts it, only a Percy could live quite at his ease as master of Alnwick Castle. One cannot imagine the average man making himself congenially at home here. But the inside comforts are an overflowing compensation for a somewhat forbidding exterior. We are told that even the towers at the angles of the encircling walls are museums of British and Egyptian antiquities, and game trophies, collected by members of the family. The fourth Duke has left much to show for the quarter of a million he lavished upon the building—exquisite wood carving, frescoes, marbles, and canvases. Mantovani, who restored the Raphael frescoes in the Vatican, was not too great a man to be hired by a Percy to adorn his Border castle. The walls of the grand staircase are panelled with beautiful marbles. There are unique paintings: the dining-room, a noble apartment, is pompous with Percys in fine frames, bewigged, robed and plain; the first Duke and his wife, who helped him to a dignity neither his money nor his courtly manners could have won for him, hang suitably in the place of honour above the hearth. Vandyck, Moroni, and Andrea del Sarto are worthily represented in the castle. Giorgione, who did so well the comparatively little he had time for, is here in his "Lady with the Lute." Raphael, Guido, and Titian are also within these swarthy outer walls, Titian's landscape contribution being specially notable, like Giovanni Bellini's "The Gods enjoying the Fruits of the Earth." One looks from it to the fair Northumberland country beyond the windows and then at the splendour and taste of the castle, and fancies, inevitably, that the Percys themselves have in these later days obtained quite their share of the privileges of Bellini's gods. Nothing that makes for domestic pleasure is lacking at Alnwick Castle. There is a stately library of some 15,000 books, with chairs for dreaming and chairs for study; and, not to slight meaner comforts, there is a kitchen that is a model of its baronial kind, about fifty yards distant from the dining-hall, with which it communicates by an underground passage. The first English possession acquired by the house of Percy north of the Tees was Dalton, afterwards called Dalton-Percy. Then came Alnwick, originally owned by the De Vescis, and purchased from them about 1309; Warkworth; Prudhoe-on-Tyne, one of the most picturesque of Northumbrian fortresses; Cockermouth; and Keeldar, in the Cheviots. And what of the Percys who ruled, and still rule, at Alnwick in their day of might? Very ancient is the name, numbering among its early patriarchs such grand old heroes as Manfred the Dane, and