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

The pedigree traces the descent of Angus de Perci up to Manfred, and that of Josceline de Louvain up from Gerberga, daughter and heiress of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, to Charlemagne, and in the male line to the ancient Dukes of Hainault. This same Josceline, who was brother-in-law to King Henry I., married in 1168, Agnes, the great Percy heiress, and assumed the name of his wife:

Their youngest son, Richard de Percy, then head of the family, was one of the chief barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John, and the ninth Lord, Henry, gave much aid to Edward I. in the subjugation of Scotland. It was he who purchased Alnwick. His son—another Henry—defeated David II. at Neville's Cross (1346); his grandson fought at CrÉcy; his great-grandson, the fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick, was marshal of England at the coronation of Richard II., and was created the same day Earl of Northumberland. By far the greater part of the romance of the Percys has centred round Harry Hotspur (eldest son of the preceding), whom the dead Douglas defeated at Otterburn, and who fell himself at Shrewsbury (1403) fighting against Henry IV. The soubriquet of Hotspur was given him because "in the silence of the night, when others were quietly sleeping, he laboured unwearied, as though his spur were hot."

PLATE 9

VIEW OF ALNWICK
CASTLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 38 , 49 , and 53 to 58 )

The first Earl was slain at Bramham Moor (1408). The second Earl fell fighting for Henry VI. at St. Albans in 1455. The third at Towton (1461), and it was his brother the fourth Earl who comforted himself as he lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464) that he had "saved the bird in his bosom." The fifth Earl was murdered in 1489. The sixth Earl was the lover of Anne Boleyn, maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and had King Henry VIII. for his rival, who in great wrath commanded Cardinal Wolsey to break off the engagement between them. The seventh Earl for espousing the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1572. The eighth Earl in 1585 was found dead in bed with three pistol shots through his breast, whether by suicide or murder. The ninth Earl was imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower on a baseless suspicion of being privy to the Gunpowder Plot. The tenth Earl fought on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and with the death of Josceline, the eleventh Earl, in 1670, the male line of the family came to an end. The eleventh Earl's only child—an heiress—married the Duke of Somerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth, and Earl of Northumberland, with remainder (having no male issue) to his son-in-law Sir Hugh Smithson, of Stanwick, a Yorkshire knight who in his youth had been an apothecary in Hatton Gardens. Sir Hugh succeeded to the Earldom in 1750, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland. The seventh Duke succeeded in 1899.

From Alnwick it is fourteen miles to Bamborough, "King Ida's castle, huge and square." No traveller along the great north road between Alnwick and Berwick can fail to be struck with an object so boldly prominent as Bamborough. Far and wide it meets the vision, and is the more conspicuous from the flat character of its surroundings and the very open coast. Its base is an almost perpendicular mass of basaltic rock overlooking the sea, at a height of 150 feet. Founded in 547, it suffered many a siege, most of all at the hands of the Danes in 933. In the years that followed it was being constantly rebuilt, and as constantly stormed and broken again. As the great bombards left it in the fourth Edward's reign, so it lay dismantled for centuries. In 1720, Lord Crewe, the philanthropic Bishop of Durham, purchased the Castle and bequeathed it for charitable purposes—the reception and care of the poor, etc. In 1894 it was acquired by the late Lord Armstrong, at a cost of a quarter of a million, and fitted up as a convalescent home. The charming village of Bamborough, nestling within easy distance, has some celebrity as a health resort. The church in which St. Aidan died is one of the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace Darling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are easily visible from the shore. There are seventeen in all, forming three distinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It was from the lighthouse on this latter island that the noble maiden of barely twenty-two descried the wreck of the Forfarshire, the 7th September, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. "He that goes out and sees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at the desperate nature of the attempt," crowned by an almost superhuman triumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of retirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from shrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition well-known. "For the space of seven years," says Reginald of Durham, "Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men through trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a hospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents." Further, we are told how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone church at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to Melrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the Lowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the head-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; passing westward to Carlisle in Cumberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into Lancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and finally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when

"MERRIE CARLISLE"

A glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its founders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old Brigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole lie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The river-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the origin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns—Hawick, Selkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompassing streams—the Eden, the Caldew, and the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral hills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been aptly called "the city of the waters." Its situation certainly is all but perfect, whilst the picturesqueness and the extensiveness of its surrounding scenery are the admiration of all who see it. Built upon a hill which its walls once enclosed but which would now shut out its most populous suburbs, Carlisle commands a prospect only limited by the lofty mountain chain that encircles the great basin in which Cumberland lies. From the summit of the Cathedral or from the Keep of the Castle, the eye sweeps without interruption a vast prepossessing landscape, rich in wood and water and fertile valleys, over which the light and shade are ever gambolling, and the seasons spreading their variegated hues. Southward, across this fair expanse, the majestic Skiddaw rears his noble crest, and Helvellyn his wedge-like peak, radiant with the first and last rays of the sun. Saddleback, and the lesser hills, link the apparently unbroken chain with Crossfell and the eastern range; while further to the left the Northumberland fells bound the horizon. Then come the uplands by Bewcastle and the Border and the pastoral Cheviots. Away round to the west, the magnificent belt is terminated by "huge Criffel's hoary top" standing in solemn grandeur above the Solway.

PLATE 10

VIEW OF PRUDHOE-ON-TYNE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 39 and 56 )

There are few fairer or wider panoramas in Britain, and none more permeated with the very spirit of romance. What Lockhart said of Sandyknowe is equally true of this singularly fascinating view-point. To whichever hand we turn we may be sure there is "not a field but has its battle, and not a rivulet without its song."

Unlike Melrose, which may claim to be the literary capital of the Border Country, Carlisle is the fighting capital. Its most stirring memories are of raiders and rescues, and its very air is

Despite its Cathedral, Carlisle is really more Scottish than English. A town which proclaimed the Pretender must be Scottish enough. No other English town fills so large a place in Scottish history. And even its present manners and customs, and no little part of its dialect, are coloured with Scottish sentiment and tradition. For which it cannot be a whit the worse! Walk about Carlisle, and one is charmed with the exquisite pleasantness of the place, the sense of comfort and prosperity that reigns in its streets and suburbs, the steady flow of traffic running through it, and the welcome geniality of its inhabitants. What a delightful spot is Stanwix yonder, for instance! And the banks of the Eden have something of those "Eden scenes" about them which Burns claimed for the Jed. That Bridge is not unlike Rennie's at Kelso. The public buildings are worth a more minute examination than the passing stranger usually gives. An atmosphere of delicious semi-antiquity is the crowning feature of "Merrie Carlisle," and one feels instinctively that under the inevitable modernity of the place there is an older story written on its stones—

It is so old a town that one cannot be certain of its origin. The name is apparently British, derived probably from Caer Lywelydd, or simply Caer Lywel, "the town or fort of Lywel," but whether this was a tribal, or local, or personal name it would be hazardous to say. By the Romans it was known as Luguvallium or Luguballia, possibly "the town or fort by the Wall." This the Saxons abbreviated and altered to Luel, the original name, with the prefix Caer, hence Caer-Luel, Caerleil, Carleol, Karluil, Karliol, Carliol, Carlile, and Carlisle.

"No English city," says Bishop Creighton, "has a more distinctive character than Carlisle, and none can claim to have borne its character so continuously through the course of English history. Carlisle is still known as 'the Border city,' and though the term 'the Border' has no longer any historical significance, it still denotes a district which has strongly marked peculiarities and retains a vigorous provincial life. There was a time when the western Border was equally important with the Border on the north, when the fortress on the Dee had to be stoutly held against the foe, and when the town which rose among the scrub by the upper Severn was a place of conflict between contending races. But this struggle was not of long duration, and Chester and Shrewsbury ceased to be distinctly Border towns. On the north, however, the contest continued to be stubbornly waged, till it raised up a population inured to warfare, who carried the habits of a predatory life into a time when they were mere survivals of a well-nigh forgotten past. Of this period of conflict Carlisle is the monument, and of this lawless life it was long the capital. Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could venture to share its glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a town; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time between the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a castle, but less than a town, an accidental growth of circumstances, scarcely to be classed as an element of popular life. Carlisle, on the other hand, traces its origin to times of venerable antiquity, and can claim through all its changes to have carried on in unbroken succession the traditions of an historic life. It was the necessary centre of a large tract of country, and whether its inhabitants were British or English its importance remained the same. It was not merely a military position, but a place of habitation, the habitation of a people who had to trust much to themselves, and who amidst all vicissitudes retained a sturdy spirit of independence. This is the distinguishing feature of Carlisle; it is 'the Border city.' But though this is its leading characteristic which runs through all its history, it has two other marks of distinction, when compared with other English towns. It is the only town on British soil which bears a purely British name; and it is the only town which has been added to England since the Norman Conquest."

PLATE 11

VIEW OF CARLISLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 44 , and 60 to 70 )

Briefly, the headlines of Carlisle's history are these. Founded originally by the Britons, it was held by the Romans for close on four centuries. Many Roman remains (coins, medals, altars, etc.) have been unearthed, and Hadrian's big Wall (murus and vallum) is still traceable in several quarters. A sad spoliation by Pict and Scot followed the Roman withdrawal. They scarcely left one stone on another. Then came the Saxon supremacy under the good King Egfrith, with the spiritual oversight under Saint Cuthbert, to whom and his successors at Lindisfarne were bestowed in perpetuity the city with fifteen miles around it. But for Egfrith's death fighting the Picts on the far-off moorland of Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) Carlisle might have risen early and rapidly to a sure place as one of the leading cities in the land. From 685, however, to the Conquest (1066) the place was virtually extinct. It was only then that a new epoch arose for the broken city as for the whole of England. The Conqueror himself is said to have commenced the rebuilding of Carlisle, but the town owes its restoration rather to his son William the Red, who, on his return from Alnwick, after concluding a peace treaty with the King of Scotland in 1092, "observed the pleasantness of its situation, and resolved to raise it from its ruins." The Castle, the Priory, the once massive city walls, were all the work of the Rufus regime, completed by Henry I., who gave cathedral dignity to the church at Carlisle. David I., the "Sair Sanct," raided Carlisle in 1136, and kept court for a time within its walls, which he heightened. It was at Carlisle that his death took place in 1153. From that date to the 'Forty-five, Carlisle's history is mainly that of a kind of "buffer-state" between the two kingdoms. Few cities recall so many martial memories. It was Edward's base of operations in his Scottish wars. It was besieged by Wallace in 1298, by Bruce in 1315—the year after Bannockburn, and again in 1322. Queen Mary's captivity at Carlisle in 1568; Buccleuch's daring and gallant rescue of Kinmont Willie in 1596, immortalised in the best of the Border ballads; the protracted siege by General Leslie in 1644 during the Parliamentary War; and the Pretender's short-lived triumph—these are the rest of its leading events.

Of the historic Carlisle little is left, the Castle, the Cathedral, and the Guildhall being almost the sole relics of a long and notable past. Yet how vastly changed the place is from the quiet little Border town of a century ago even! Then it had barely ten thousand inhabitants, now there are over forty thousand. As the county town of Cumberland, and next to Newcastle the greatest railway centre in the north of England, its prosperity has grown by leaps and bounds. It is the terminus of no fewer than eight different lines, and its busy, never-at-rest Citadel Station is known all the world over. Gates and walls have long since vanished from "Merrie Carlisle." The streets are wide and airy, and altogether it presents a most comfortable and thriving appearance. At 40, English Street, the chief thoroughfare, Prince Charlie slept for four nights during the '45. And from 79 to 83, Castle Street, the corner building (now a solicitor's office), between Castle Street and the Green-market, Scott led Miss Carpenter to the altar. Carlisle Castle, a huge, irregular reddish-brown stone structure, grim and defiant, with its almost perfect specimen of a Norman Keep, and battlements frowning towards the north, is still a place to see.

But it is the Cathedral which is Carlisle's chief glory. Rising in the centre of the city, high above all other buildings except the factory chimneys, there is an air of importance about it not altogether justifiable. The building is small and not of very great account, the reason being that Carlisle was only erected into a See in 1133, and then out of Durham. The result was that the parish church was promoted to the dignity of a cathedral. Nevertheless, it has several striking features—a delightful Early English choir and magnificent east window, reputed to be unsurpassed by any other in the kingdom, if indeed in the world. From 1092, the date of the original building, to 1400-19, in Bishop Strickland's time, when the north transept was restored and the central tower rebuilt, and down to the present day, the edifice contains every variety of style, from Norman to Perpendicular, with admirable specimens of nineteenth century work. Of the original Norman minster the only parts remaining are two bays of the nave, the south transept, and the piers of the tower. How long the church remained in its pristine state it is impossible to say. The first alteration was probably the enlargement of the choir, towards the middle and close of the thirteenth century, immediately before the great fire of 1292, the worst the cathedral has experienced in its four burnings. The work of reconstruction after 1292 appears to have been somewhat slow, so slow that little was done till the year 1352, when Bishop Welton and his successor set themselves in earnest to the task. "The king, the city treasury, and the leading families of the neighbourhood contributed towards the restoration, in response to the urgent appeals of the bishops and to the indulgences issued for the remission of forty days' penance to such laity as should by money, materials, or labour, contribute to the pious work." Towards the close of the reign of Edward III. the renovated pile rose from it ruins. To this period belongs the entire east end, with its grand window, the triforium, the carved capitals of the arches, and the Decorated windows of the clerestory. The ceiling was painted and gilded and panelled, the intersections glowing with the armorial bearings of the rich donors by whose liberality the work had been carried to completion. The windows were filled with stained glass, and the nine lights of the east window with figures.

PLATE 12

VIEW OF NAWORTH
CASTLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 39 and 74 )

In this state the cathedral appears to have remained till 1392, when another fire occurred, which destroyed the north transept. A lack of funds was again felt, and it was not till the lapse of nine or ten years that the restoration was completed. Only about a century later, however, Carlisle shared the fate of the monastic institutions, and was suppressed, and the church shorn of many of its enrichments. The Civil Wars witnessed the worst acts of spoliation, when nearly the whole of the nave, the chapter-house and cloisters were destroyed, the materials being used for guard-house purposes in the city. The reign of the "Puritan patchwork" may then be said to have begun, with plaster partitions here and there in horrifying evidence, the niches emptied of their treasures, and the fine old stained glass removed from the windows—and all, as was declared, in the spirit of "repairing and beautifying." "A great, wild country church," is its description about this time, "and as it appeared outwardly, so it was inwardly, ne'er beautify'd, nor adorn'd one whit." Not till 1853-57 was a general restoration, costing £15,000, inaugurated. Both internally and externally the edifice underwent a total renovation. Old and crumbled portions were pulled down and rebuilt; other parts were fronted anew; missing ornaments were supplied; ugly doorways were blocked up, and one grand entrance made befitting the church. The renaissance was complete as it was judicious. There was just sufficient of the old left to show the original structure, and sufficient of the new imparted to save the venerable fane from crumbling to pieces. Externally, the east is certainly the finest part of the building, with its unrivalled window—58 feet high and 32½ feet wide, of nine lights, gracefully proportioned, the head filled with the most exquisite tracery-work, comprising no fewer than 263 circles. A uniquely ornamented gable, with a row of crosses on either shoulder, and a large cross at the apex, completes a highly finished centre. On either side stands out, in massive relief, a majestic buttress, containing full length statues of St. Peter, St. Paul, St James, and St. John, above which are light and elegant pinnacles. These great buttresses are flanked by the lesser ones of the aisles, tapering upwards with chastely carved spires—the whole forming an eastern front of great beauty and richness. The main entrance by a new doorway in the south transept is a triumph of the sculptor's skill. The great tower, 112 feet high, has been thoroughly renovated, and much of its former ornamentation restored. Of the interior, the nave is in length 39 feet, and in width about 60 feet. The Scots are said to have destroyed 100 feet of it in 1645, but that is quite uncertain. It has never been rebuilt, and has a serious effect on the general proportions, inducing a feeling of want of balance. Up to 1870 the nave was used as the parish church of St. Mary, and it was here—close by the great Norman columns—that Sir Walter Scott was married to Charlotte Carpenter, on December 24th, 1797. The spot might well be indicated by a small memorial brass. The richly-decorated choir, in no respect inferior to that of any other English cathedral, is 134 feet long, 71 feet broad, and 75 feet high. The warm red of the sandstone, the blue roof powdered with golden stars, the great east window filled with stained glass, and the dark oak of the stalls, make up a picture that enforces attention before the architectural details can receive their due admiration.

The Cathedral contains several interesting monuments. Here is the tomb of Archdeacon Paley (1805), author of the "Evidences of Christianity" and "HorÆ PaulinÆ," both written at Carlisle, and the richly-carved pulpit inscribed to his memory. There are tablets to Robert Anderson (1833), the "Cumberland Bard;" to John Heysham, M.D. (1834), the statistician, and compiler of the "Carlisle Tables of Mortality;" George Moore (1876), the philanthropist; M. L. Watson (1847), the sculptor; Dean Cranmer (1848), Canon Harcourt (1870), and Dean Close (1882). Several military monuments are in evidence. One of the windows commemorates the five children of Archbishop Tait (then Dean), who died between March 6th and April 9th, 1856. Recumbent figures of Bishop Waldegrave (1869), Bishop Harvey Goodwin (1891) and Dean Close are by Acton Adams, Hamo Thorneycroft, R.A., and H. H. Armistead, R.A., respectively. The older altar-tombs and brasses to Bishop Bell, Bishop Everdon, and Prior Stenhouse, should not be overlooked, and attention may be drawn also to the quaint series of fifth-century paintings from the monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and to the misereres of the stalls.

Scarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate neighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness does it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found some of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too, is all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the Liddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible as a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite Hoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old Waste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the Irthing, the dividing-point betwixt Cumberland and Northumberland, the district is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and the historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its memory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., "the Hammer of the Scots," having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle, vowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province, was forced to succumb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond the Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman Wall. Arthuret has its name from the "Flower of Kings," one of whose twelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong, jester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on the Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river "shouther to shouther," as Lady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had dried themselves. Netherby, the locale of "Young Lochinvar," Lady Heron's song in "Marmion," is in the near neighbourhood. So are Gilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green, that once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once bleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large extent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie Lea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of moss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border history. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circumference, is not likely to be forgotten—by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of the Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart.

PLATE 13

VIEW OF LANERCOST
PRIORY

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 36 and 74 )

The Irthing valley is replete with historical remains and literary associations. Over there, to the north of Bewcastle (Beuth's Castle), there is a celebrated Runic Cross nearly fifteen feet high, of the Caedmon order, similar to that at Ruthwell. The Irthing flows through the wide moorish wilderness known as Spade-Adam, or the Waste, crosses the Roman Wall at Gilsland, thence courses amongst some of the richest scenery in Cumberland until it meets the Eden. Gilsland Spa has long been noted for the excellence of its waters and the remarkable salubrity of the district. Scott stayed at the old Shaw's Hotel in July, 1797, not the present palatial Convalescent Home (as it now is) which was rebuilt after a fire about fifty years since. Charlotte Carpenter was a guest at Wardrew House, directly opposite. They met often, and the result was love and marriage. On a huge boulder by the banks of the Irthing, where the glen comes to its steepest and wears its most enchanting aspect, Scott is said to have "popped the question," and the "Kissing Bush" where the compact was sealed is also pointed out close by. At Gilsland it is interesting to recall that one is to some extent in "Guy Mannering Land." A small private dwelling adjoining the Methodist Chapel claims to stand on the site of the notorious Mumps Ha', "a hedge ale-house, where the Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves and their nags on their way to and from the fairs and trysts in Cumberland." It was there that young Harry Bertram first met Dandie Dinmont and the weird figure of Meg Merrilies, who, by the way, was not buried at Upper Denton, as the guide-books say. It was the treacherous landlady, Meg Mumps or Margaret Carrick, who is there interred. The more important Meg—the real heroine of the story—was drowned in the Eden at Carlisle. Gilsland is a centre for some delightful excursions. Much of the Roman Wall may be visited from this centre, its two chief stations Borcovicus (Housesteads) and Burdoswald being within easy distances. The little Northumberland lakes, and the prettiest of them all, Crag Loch, the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, seen from the Shaws with fine effect, Thirlwall and Blenkinsop Castles, Haltwhistle Church, all to the east, are objects of deep and abiding interest. Westward are Burdoswald—the Roman Amboglanna—covering an area of 5½ acres, and overlooking a singularly graceful bend of the Irthing (not unlike that on the Tweed at Bemersyde); Lanercost Priory[A], founded by Robert de Vaux about 1166, frequently plundered by the Scots, and used now partly as the parish church and burial-place of the Carlisle family; Naworth,[B] the historic seat of the Earl of Carlisle, whose ancestor, Lord William Howard, was the famous "Belted Will" of Border story, who died in 1640:—

and Triermain Castle, all but vanished, whence Scott's "Bridal of Triermain"—

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