I ssss n roapg^ :■:> ■■■' ■ ■ ' K*8l Xxhrk Bra MVwSOO r : »'•. ^ mmM mm Y * W. Louis Shiptoim, Buxton. c35P<*^*^S Eisftii2^ff7//-^ ~^JI J* 'fll ^Svti ft^ ^\ -^- K tIPW Illy] j^}'A,'"'?%i aM A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE. Ex Libris C K. OGDEN POPULAR COUNTT HISTORIES. HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE. BY JOHN PENDLETON, AUTHOR OF 'OLD AND NEW CHESTERFIELD.' LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1886. DA (,16 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY , TFo S/, CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. The County's Characteristics CHAPTER I. Derby — Its Early History — A Brave Princess — Pestilence — Some Important Events — Notable Buildings and Strange Stories — Celebrated Citizens — A Humorous Ballad — Modern Progress ----- CHAPTER II. Ashbourne — A Quaint Town — An Illustrious Family — The Sculptor's Art — Dr. Johnson— Canning — Tom Moore — Ham — Dovedale and its Beauties CHAPTER III. Wirksworth and its Borders — Singular Mining Customs — The Church and its Monuments — A Curious Epitaph — Homely Folks — George Eliot and ' Dinah Bede ' — Weil- Dressing — A Giant's Tooth — Tradition — Old English Life — A Marvellous Escape — Cromford and Sir Richard Arkwright ------ TACE xi CHAPTER IV. 29 - 40 Matlock Bath— Man's Energy— The Bath Years Ago— Lord Byron — The Water Cure — Rocks and Caverns — Matlock and its Church — A Remarkable Woman - - - 54 vi Contents. CHAPTER V. PAGE Darley Dale — Its Scenery — A Poetic Tradition — A Curious Will — The Darley Yew Tree — A Great Frost — The Pea- cock at Rowsley — Old Butcher the Angler — Which Way ? 61 CHAPTER VI. Old Chatsworth — Mary Queen of Scots — The First Duke of Devonshire — Pulling a Colonel's Nose — The Revolu- tion of 1688 — New Chatsworth and its Treasures of Art and Literature — The Gardens and Park — Edensor and its Historic Graves - - - - - 70 CHAPTER VII. Haddon— A Feudal Mansion—' The King of the Peak '— Rough Justice — A Quaint Place of Worship— A Roman Altar— The Banqueting-Hall — The Dining-Room and its Carvings — The Long Gallery — A Night Flight - - 84 CHAPTER VIII. Bakewell— A Quiet Country Town — Its History — A Noted Church — Some Famous Tombs and Curious Epitaphs — The Stone Cross — A Strange Petition — An Extraordinary Marriage — Living without Food — A Pathetic Ballad — An Heroic Exploit - - - - - - 93 CHAPTER IX. Some Peak Villages— Ashford and its Customs— Little Longstone — Hassop — A Brave Royalist — Baslow — The Dog Whipper — Scenery and Health — A Pretty Valley — Stony Middleton — Chief Justice Denman — Rocky Grandeur — A Love-Sick Maiden's Leap - - - 107 CHAPTER X. Eyam — An Ancient Village — Its Geological Peculiarities — A Hideous Pestilence — A Singular Story — The Eyam Cross — Eminent People — Quaint Customs — Eccentric Characters - - - - - - - t 17 Contents. vii CHAPTER XI. PAGE Tideswell— 'The Cathedral City of the Peak'— A Curious Tenure — The Church — A Good Bishop — An Eminent Vocalist— The ' Drunken Butcher of Tideswell '—An Amusing Ballad - - - - - - 125 CHAPTER XII. Castleton— Peveril of the Peak— A Tournament— An Old Custom — A ' Breeches ' Bible — An Enthusiastic Geologist — The Devil's Cave — The Speedwell Mine — Eldon Hole and a Peasant's Adventure — The Blue John Mine — The Winnats and Mam Tor — Ferns and Fossils— A New Railway - - - - - - - 137 CHAPTER XIII. Buxton Once an Ocean's Bed — St. Anne and Lord Crom- well's Crusade against Crutches — The Ancient Baths — Curious Charges — Distinguished but Thirsty Visitors in Elizabeth's Reign — Mary Queen of Scots and the Tepid Waters — The Town's Popularity— Monsal and Miller's Dale - - - - - - - 147 CHAPTER XIV. Around Kinderscout— A Sad Episode — ' Under the Snow ' — 'The Apostle of the Peak'— A Staunch Royalist — Famous John Bradshaw — The Titan of the Peak— An Uncommon Occurrence — A Merchant and his Monu- ment — Glossop — A Pretty Custom and a Curious Wedding — Over the Moors to Ashopton - - -159 CHAPTER XV. Hathersage — Little John's Grave— A Sorrowful Ballad— A Wild Country— A British Fort— Fox House— Beauchief Abbey— Banner Cross— A Glimpse of Sheffield - - 175 viii Contents. CHAPTER XVI. PAGE Toil and Smoke— A Thorough People— Sheffield Men and the Picturesque — A Pretty Glen — The Wyming Brook —A Moorland Path — Another Look at the Peak- - 186 CHAPTER XVII. Sheffield Years Ago— The Cutlers' Feast— A Crestfallen Dignitary — The Parish Church — Singular Incidents — Poetry and Sculpture — Ruskin's Museum — The Mappin Gallery — ' Less Black than Painted ' - - - 194 CHAPTER XVIII. In Derbyshire Again — A Region of Iron and Coal — Chantrey's Birthplace— Unlucky Dronfield— A Strange Tradition— A Famous Cottage - - - 208 CHAPTER XIX. Taking Life Easily— The Revolution House — England Two Centuries Ago — The Conspirators at Whittington — The Dash for Liberty— An Historic Picture— A King's Flight - - - - - - - 214 CHAPTER XX. The Benefits of the Revolution — A Memorable Centenary — Festivities a Hundred Years Ago — The Coming Bi-Centenary — A Rollicking Song ... 224 CHAPTER XXI. Chesterfield in the Past— Some Obsolete Customs— About the Streets— The Memorial to George Stephenson— The Grammar School and its Noted Scholars — The Old Church — A Crusader's Prowess — The Crooked Steeple and its Traditions ------ 232 CHAPTER XXII. Bolsover — A Tranquil Village — The Norman Fortress — Ivy-clad Ruins — Feasting a King — Sir Charles Cavendish — Another Railway ..... 247 Contents. ix CHAPTER XXIII. PAGE Hardwick Hall— The Old House— An Illustrious ' Shrew ' — The Elizabethan Mansion — Its Relics of the Past — Some Old Pictures, and the Stories they Tell - - 256 CHAPTER XXIV. Wingerworth Hall — A Valiant Race — Curious License to Travel— The Roundheads at Ashover— A Frank Letter — Wingfield Manor — A Queen's Prison — Babington's Pitiful Prayer— The Civil War— Back to Derby - - 267 INTRODUCTION If Oliver Goldsmith's ' Discontented Wanderer ' had continued his travels into Derbyshire, he would have been a happier man. The modest loveliness of the lowland meadows and country lanes would have calmed his querulous spirit. The wilder and grander beauty of the northern part of the county would certainly have excited his admiration even more than the writings of Confucius, which seem to have been his only luggage. True, he could not have met with such wonders as Othello spoke of to Desdemona — ' The anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders ;' but there are some strange sights in the Peak that could not have failed to excite his curiosity and admiration. Side by side with the flashing Dove, the rippling Wye, and the broader waters of the Derwent, are grotesquely shaped caverns, walled by glistening spar, and roofed by snow-white stalactites. xii Introduction. Great limestone crags, on whose rugged breasts lichens, and ferns, and wild flowers find scanty foot- hold, rear their huge heads high above the eddying streams and tender greenery of the picturesque dales in which they stand, like giants on guard against some Titanic foe. And away on the dark moorland that borders glen, and gorge, and wide-sweeping valley, are fantastic masses of hoary gritstone, within the grim circles of which the Britons gathered and buried their fallen heroes. An erratic divine, bubbling with admiration for Derbyshire, once stated that it was a goodly land, where faction and division could not thrive, and the people delighted in love-feasts ! The county has not, however, always had this character for amiability and peace. The successive races of Roman, Saxon, and Norman did rude work among the inhabitants in the earlier days of its history, and at a later period the sword of the Royalist and the pole-axe of the Puritan were far from idle, for the Civil War raged here as fiercely as in any other part of the land. With one, at least, of the greatest events in England's history, Derbyshire is linked, for in it the Revolution of 1688 was planned, the plotters meeting secretly at Whittington, in a cottage that still stands, apparently so loth to fall into ruins that it might be conscious of the part it played in elevating the Prince of Orange to the throne. The humble dwelling, old and moss-grown, is, however, only one of many historic houses in this Introduction. xiii county. Philip Kinder, who, in the sixteenth cen- tury, said the country women were ' chaste and sober, very diligent in their housewifery, hating idleness, and loving and obeying their husbands,' also remarked that ' no countie in England hath so manie princelie habitations,' and there was no exaggeration in this assertion. Derbyshire, so interesting by reason of its scenery, antiquities, peculiar strata, rare fossils, and stores of lead, iron, and coal, is rich in castles and mansions associated not merely with legend and romance, but with the names of celebrated men and famous women. ' Peveril's place in the Peke,' though shattered and roofless, still clings to its precarious site high above the mouth of Castleton Cavern ; Haddon Hall, grey and ivy-clad, yet exists to tell the tale of Sir George Vernon's hospitality, and to give reality to the familiar love-story that ended in the flight of his daughter, Dorothy Vernon. Chatsworth, the home of painting, sculpture, and literature, is associated with the lives of warriors and statesmen, and with a Queen's captivity. The fortress at Bolsover, with its thick walls and pillared chambers, carries the mind back to the time when the amuse- ments of the nobility were the chase and the tourna- ment — to the period of the Conquest when many of the Saxons, ' utterly refusing to sustain such an intolerable yoke of thraldom as was daily laid upon them by the Normans, chose rather to leave all, both goods and lands, and, after the manner of outlaws, got them to the woods with their wives, children, xiv Introduction. and servants ;' and the ruin on the grass-grown terrace close by the turreted castle is quite as eloquent of pageant as the other part of the castle is of strife, for Charles I. feasted and revelled in its banqueting-hall. Only domestic feuds have disturbed the serenity of Hardwick Hall ; and this mansion, neither mutilated by soldiery nor dismantled for some senseless whim, is as perfect now as on the day it left its builder's hands. The Elizabethan mansion raised by ' Bess of Hardwick' to allay the super- stitious fear created in her mind by a gipsy's prophecy, is ' a picture in stone.' Lord Bacon did not like it ; and grumbling about its numerous windows, said : ' One cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun or cold ;' but his petulant com- plaint has not interfered with its beauty, and the great house, mellowed by time, and hallowed by many historic memories, is one of the most at- tractive mansions in the county — a house of vast, stately rooms, adorned with curious carvings, old paintings, rare tapestry, and needlework done by Mary Stuart, about whom we are told, ' All day she wrought with her nydill, and the diversity of the colours made the work seem less tedious ; but she contynued so long at it, till very payne made her to give over.' Wingfield Manor, again, is another of the historic houses in which the county is so exceptionally rich ; in it Mary Queen of Scots found another of her many prison-houses, which she only left on her Introduction. xv last journey to Tutbury, Chartley, Fotheringay, and the scaffold. Elvaston Castle, the seat of the Stanhopes, Earls of Harrington; Bretby Castle, owned by the same family, and known to history as connected with the ' Earl of Chesterfield's Letters;' Melbourne Hall, from which the title of Lord Melbourne, and through that the name of the Australian capital Melbourne, is derived, are also conspicuous among the noted houses of the county. Derbyshire has not only a history, but a literature of its own — a literature of ballads and songs, which, as is shown by the late Mr. Jewitt, in his ' Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire,' is whimsically imaginative, humorous, and pathetic. It is a county prolific in traditions and in legendary lore ; and many customs, simple and quaint, prevail in its out-of-the-way villages. Even superstition lurks in the more remote parts of the Peak, where to some minds a white cricket leaping across the hearth bodes ill-fortune, and the howling of the Gabriel hounds is the herald of death. But in marked contrast to the ignorant credulity that exists off some of the beaten tracks, Derbyshire's real, practical life stands out boldly. To this county the first introduction of the silk manufacture into England owes its origin ; to it the world should be thankful for the invention of the cotton ' spinning Jenny ;' and it was for a long time the most successful centre of porcelain manufacture, producing the finest wares, perhaps, of any locality. xvi Introduction. Indeed, Derbyshire is insignificant neither in inven- tive power nor manufacturing progress, and reveals, like Yorkshire, as dauntless a courage in the face of its mining dangers as that of the bravest knight who ever rode with visor down, and lance in rest, to perilous encounter. HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE. CHAPTER I. D er by — it s Early History — A Brave Princess — Pestilence- Some Important Events — Notable Buildings and Strange Stories— Celebrated Citizens— A Humorous Ballad — Modern Progress. REPTON, the little Derbyshire village, noted for its ancient school — that successfully vies with those of Eton, Harrow, and Rugby — was once the capital of Mercia and the burial-place of Mercia's kings. But while it has for many generations been sleeping peacefully, like a wearied child, or a patriarch worn out with life's struggles, Derby, the county town, has been gradually but surely increasing, and steadily revealing the vitality that makes great cities. Stand- ing - on the western banks of the Derwent, in the heart of the Midlands, it is known as ' The Gateway to the Peak,' and not inaptly so, for it lies on the borders of the county's loveliest scenery — the huge limestone rocks, and fern-sprinkled chasms, and quiet restful valleys that were in Lord Byron's eyes as picturesque as Switzerland. History of Derbyshire. ' A buck couchant in a park ' is the chief feature of the borough arms ; but there is uncertainty as to how the town got its name. The Saxons and the Danes knew it as NortJnvorthigie, the northern market, and Deoraby, the abode of deer ; some students say the name comes from the Celtic, Dtvr, water, and the A.S., bye, a habitation ; and other philologists cling to the belief of its derivation from Derventio, the name given by the Romans to their station at Little Chester ; or Derwentby, the town by the Derwent side. Derby is a sort of Methuselah among towns, with this exception — it grows younger and more vigorous as its gets older. Centuries ago the rapidly expanding borough was noted for its wool and malt marts, and its brewings of ' Darby Ale.' As far back as 874, and again in 918, it was familiar with strife, and was the arena of rival invaders. The Danes, giving free license to their rapacity, had early conquered the place; but Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred, and princess and leader of the Mercians, bringing her forces across the river near the site of St. Mary's Bridge, fought a desperate battle, and not only drove the Danes behind their castle walls, but battered their stronghold and made the chieftain fly. It was not, however, until some years later that Derby was entirely liberated from the irksome dominion of the Danes by Athelstan's brother, King Edmund, and their acts of cruelty were well remembered, for it was long the custom of the Saxons to terrify their A Brave Princess. children into good behaviour by saying ' The Danes are coming !' Notwithstanding the anxiety and fear prevailing among the inhabitants at this troublous period, they did not lose sight of ' the main chance.' A royal mint was established ; like the builders of the Temple, the Saxons fought with one hand and worked with the other, and eventually commerce won, developing even beyond payment in kind, for coins of Athelstan's and Edgar's reigns have been discovered, and they bear the name 'Deoraby.' In 1066, when King Harold vainly endeavoured to stop William the Conqueror's progress, Derby sent her sons freely to defend the land, and the town was drained of its best archers, many of whom fell at the battle of Hastings. In 1204 Derby (which had been a royal borough since Edward the Confessor's time) was granted additional privileges, ' such as Nottingham had,' and these included the monopoly of dyeing cloth, the creation of a merchant guild, and the freedom of serfs unclaimed by their lords after one year's residence. In 1257 t ne burgesses joyfully paid ten marks into the royal exchequer for the luxury of expelling the Jews from the town ; and early in the same century they sent members to Parliament, the first representatives of whom any returns have been found being Johannes de la Cornere and Radulphus de Makeneye, who were sent as representatives to the Parliament of 1295. The Sheriff of Nottingham and Derby, in the reign 1 — 2 History of Derbyshire. of Edward III., was commanded to provide 200 white bows and 500 arrows for the King's use in the French wars. In 1556 Joan Waste, a poor blind woman, learnt that the bitterest of all persecution is religious per- secution, for she was burnt to death at Windmill Pit because of ' certain heresies.' In 1585, Mary Queen of Scots rested a night at Derby, on her way, as a captive, from Wingfield Manor to Tutbury Castle ; and there have been many other royal visits both before and since that time. Charles I. visited the borough in 1635, and the corporation gave the Earl of Newcastle, by whom he was attended, a fat ox, a calf, six fat sheep, and a purse of money, ' that he might keep hospitality.' And in 1665 came a more powerful visitor, bringing death and sorrow as his attendants. That visitor was the Plague, and the ' Headless Cross,' still preserved in the Arboretum, tells its own story by the following engraved inscription : ' Headless Cross or market-stone : This stone formed part of an ancient cross at the upper end of Friargate, and was used by the inhabitants of Derby as a market-stone during the visitation of the Plague, 1665.' Hutton, speaking of the calamity, says : ' The town was forsaken ; the farmers declined the market-place ; and grass grew upon that spot which had furnished the supports of life. To prevent a famine, the inhabitants erected at the top of Nun's Green, one or two hundred yards from the buildings, now Friar Gate, what bore the name of the Headless Cross, consisting of about four quad- Some Important Events. rangular steps, covered in the centre with one large stone. . . . Hither the market people, having their mouths primed with tobacco as a preservative, brought their provisions, stood at a distance from their property, and at a greater from the townspeople with whom they were to traffic. The buyer was not suffered to touch any of the articles before purchase, but when the agreement was finished he took the goods and deposited the money in a vessel filled with vinegar set for the purpose.'* In the Civil War, Derby gave comparatively little countenance to the Royalists, and Sir John Gell, who was so eager to harass King Charles's forces, had pretty much his own way in Cromwell's cause. The Earl of Devonshire in 1688, after the secret meeting at the little roadside ale-house, the 'Cock and Pynot,' known in later history as the Revolution House, at Whittington, chose Derby as the place in which to express his sentiments in favour of the Prince of Orange. With his retinue of 500 men he marched boldly into the market-place, and declared that they were prepared to their utmost ' to defend the Protestant religion, the laws of the kingdom, and the rights and the liberties of the people.' Yet, strange as it may seem in the light of after events, the mayor was afraid to billet the Prince's soldiers, and they were, according to Simpson's History, taken to The same historian mentions as a singular fact that the Plague 'never attempted the premises of a tobacconist, a tanner, or a shoemaker.' History of Derbyshire. their quarters by ' a spirited constable of the name of Cooke.' In 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the 'Young Pretender/ penetrated as far as Derby and on to the picturesque old bridge at Swarkestone, from which familiar angling haunt he began the memorable retreat that ended in the battle of Culloden, and his own flight to the rocks and caverns of the Scottish coast. The rising of poor stockingers and hand-loom weavers in Derbyshire in 18 17 makes a sad page in the county's history. Of work there was little ; men wanted bread, and they went about demanding it with pikes and swords in their hands. Jeremiah Brandreth, their leader, incited them to violence, saying ' No bloody soldiers must we dread, We must turn out and fight for bread. The time is come, you plain must see, The Government opposed must be.' An insurrection, so foolish that it might have been born in Barnaby Rudge's brain, was planned. Not- tingham and Derby were to be attacked ; but after the rash men had forcibly entered several farm-houses, committed a few acts of pillage, and shot a labourer, their foolish enterprise came to a sorry ending. The most prominent insurgents were arrested and tried for high treason. ' Some of them appeared in court in smock frocks, and others evinced by their clothing that they were the sons of poverty.' Misery had rendered these men desperate, and all were pitied. But pity did not save them ; and according to one chronicler, when Brandreth, the ringleader, had been executed, Notable Bidldings and Strange Stories. 7 ' a grim fellow stood up, and raised high with both his hands the head of the chief criminal, pronouncing, in different directions, " The head of a traitor." ' The Reform Bill riots in 1831 resulted in the de- struction of much property in Derby ; the flood in 1842 was also very disastrous; but in 1846 a still greater hardship (in the opinion of many) had to be borne — the Shrovetide football carnival was sup- pressed. Great was the disappointment at the mandate forbidding the historic game. Football was the breath of life to the vigorous men and youths of the town, and they fought as heroically for a goal as the Athenians did for a laurel wreath. Business was suspended for this battle of strength, agility, and endurance, between the parishes of All Saints' and St. Peter's. And what stern resolve, and persistent effort, and reckless daring were exhibited by the football champions, who, ignoring bruised shins and broken heads, sometimes swam along the freezing Derwent, or penetrated into the slimy drains of the town in their anxiety to obtain the victory ! And how sweet was the victory ! — the conquerors became almost delirious with delight ; and ' there is a tradition that on one occasion, when St. Peter's men and lads both won, the joy was so great, that both balls were hung by blue ribbons on one of the pinnacles of St. Peter's church tower.' ' Time consecrates ; and what is gray with age becomes religion.' So says Schiller, and the senti- ment is particularly applicable to many noted build- ings in Derby. Its ancient castle, dismantled by the 8 History of Derbyshire. Saxons in 918, has become as intangible as ' a castle in the air ;' its old county gaol, erected ' in a river, and exposed to damp and filth, as if they meant to drown the culprit before they hanged him,' has been superseded by a more modern and better arranged structure. But here and there in the rapidly improving town remain, almost untouched by the march of progress, many mansions, houses, churches and other buildings that carry the mind back to the past, with its ruder customs and ofttimes stirring history. One of the oldest is the time-worn Free School, in St. Peter's Churchyard, founded in 1 1 60 by Walter Durdant, Bishop of Coventry, who established it in connection with the monastery of St. Helen, which had been founded by Robert de Ferrers and removed to Darley, where a fine abbey was raised. When the Liversage Charity Trustees laid down a new floor some time back, several skeletons were found beneath the plaster, and there is little doubt that the playground was formerly a part of the church- yard. St. Peter's, close by, with its gray tower and crumbling walls and creeping ivy, quite comes up to Schiller's ideal. It is one of the most picturesque churches in the county, and were it in some quiet old-world village, instead of on the borders of Derby's chief street, one could easily imagine it had inspired Gray's elegy. The Gothic edifice, given in the reign of Stephen to Darley Abbey, is an interesting study to the antiquary ; and in the chancel is a fine old Flemish chest, that looks as if it contained faded manuscripts and worn charters telling of its ancient Notable Buildings and Strange Stories. 9 foundations. In 1530 'Robert Liversagc, a dyer of Derby,' says Hutton, ' founded a chapel in this church, and ordered divine service to be said once a week, on Friday ; in which were to attend thirteen people, of either sex, each to be rewarded with a silver penny ; as much, then, as would have supported a frugal person. The porches, like those of Bethesda, were crowded with people, who waited for the moving of the doors, as the others for that of the waters. While the spiritual serjeant beat up for volunteers at a penny advance, recruits would never be wanting. A sufficient congregation was not doubted ; nor their quarrelling for the money. The priest found his hearers in that disorder which his prayers could not rectify ; they frequently fought ; but not the good fight of faith.' The bridge chapel of St. Mary's, a relic of the period when travellers stopped awhile to pray for their own welfare, is another of the older existing remains of the town. Of it the Rev. J. C. Cox, in his interest- ing work, ' The Churches of Derbyshire,' says : ' The bridge of St. Mary's would undoubtedly in the old days have a gate-house, for the purposes of defence as well as for the levying of tolls and other town dues, and it seems to us that this stood at the left-hand side of the chapel on leaving the town, with one side built into or formed by the chapel itself. It would be on this gate-house, if not on the actual chapel, that the heads and quarters of the priests who were martyred at Derby, on July 25, 1588, were impaled, and shortly afterwards piously io History of Derbyshire. stolen for burial by two " resolute Catholic gentle- men." ' Exeter House, in Full Street, where the Pretender stayed two nights, was thoughtlessly pulled down in 1854 or '55 ; and Babington House, that sheltered Mary Queen of Scots on her journey from Wingfield Manor to Tutbury, has also been destroyed ; but Derby has not lost all its old houses. In the Wardwick is the remaining half of a charm- ing old-fashioned dwelling, dated 161 1, the other highly picturesque half of which was, not many years back, pulled down for the formation of a new street — Becket Street ; in Tenant Street is a highly picturesque Elizabethan habitation ; and around the Market Place are several business places, originally the man- sions of noble families. One of these houses, noted for its painted ceiling, is also ' historic on account of rendering quarters to the heroic ladies who followed the hazardous fortunes of bonnie Prince Charlie. Among these were Lady Ogilvie and Mrs. Murray, who were taken prisoners after the battle of Culloden in their ball-dresses, as they were about to celebrate the victory of the Young Chevalier ' — a victory that turned out to be a decisive defeat when the truth was known. Both Thackeray and George Augustus Sala have written gracefully of the time when the stage coach, the sedan-chair, and the link-boy were conspicuous features of English life, and the old assembly-room at Derby was in the zenith of its career when these institutions flourished. It was opened in 17 14, and its balls and card-parties, to which only the county Notable Buildings and Strange Stories. 1 1 families had invitation, were very magnificent, and so select, that the traders and plebeians never saw beyond the threshold of the ballroom. In 1752 this curious entry was made in the account book kept in the building which so frequently echoed with revelry : ' August 4th. — Delivered up the assembly-room to the Right Hon. the Countess of Ferrers, who did me the honour of accepting it. I told her that trade never mixed with us ladies. — A. Barnes.' And this frank admission was quite true, so far as Mrs. Barnes was concerned, for during the eleven years she was lady patroness, the accounts got hope- lessly 'mixed,' and the funds became exhausted. The new assembly-room, built in 1763, on the east side of the Market Place, has grown somewhat old, too ; but it is elegantly appointed, and, like its pre- decessor, often opens its portals to the well-born and the wealthy. The idea that it is possible to get to heaven by good works seems to have been deeply rooted in the minds of our ancestors, for they were ever leaving money to the poor, and establishing almshouses. Derby has obtained its share of these benefits. In Full Street are the Devonshire Almshouses for eight poor men and four poor women, which were founded in 1599 by Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as ' Bess of Hardwick,' the direct ancestress of the Dukes of Devonshire, by one of whom, in 1777, they were rebuilt and further endowed. 1 2 History of Derbyshire. The little timbered cottages called the ' Black Almshouses,' that formerly stood in Bridge Street, were founded by Robert Wilmot, of Chaddesden, for ' six poor men and four poor women of good and honest life.' The peculiar condition of this charity was that the people enjoying it should wear a black gown, faced with red, and that the men should don a red cap. The old cottages, like their donor, have disappeared ; but the charity still lives, and its recipients, housed in more modern dwellings, are now clad in less con- spicuous apparel. Derby had once a Grey-Coat Hospital, something after the fashion of ' Grey Friars,' in which kindly Colonel Newcome ended his blameless life ; and it yet owns the Liversage Almshouses, one of the most wealthy and best conducted of charities, opposite the Infirmary, and Large's Hospital forClergy- men's Widows in Friar Gate — a wide, aristocratic- looking old street, although it has been robbed of some of its quietude and loveliness by railway enterprise. At the bottom of St. Mary's Gate, hiding away, as it were, from notice, is the County Hall, full of assize memories, of stern judges, of abject prisoners, and gaily dressed trumpeters playing the herald to justice. Only the facade of the original building remains, and vast changes have been made in the courts since the days when trees, as well as barristers, flourished in the quadrangle. The old hall, built in 1660, was 'long the pride of the Midland Circuit, longer the dread of the criminal and the client, but the delight of the lawyer.' And the new one, opened in 1829, possesses just the same characteristics; nevertheless, the more Derby s Pride. 13 recent improvements in the Courts, maintaining as they do the reputation of the hall as ' the pride of the Midland Circuit/ have been carried out with every consideration for the prisoners, who may at least console themselves with the thought that they have more accommodation than anyone else, be he judge, barrister, witness, pressman, or spectator. Opposite the head of the dreamy thoroughfare — St. Mary's Gate — in which the Assize Courts are trying to conceal themselves, is All Saints' Church, which is looked upon as ' Derby's pride.' Its tower (174 feet high, exclusive of the pinnacles, which are 36 feet more to the top of the vane, thus giving a total height of 210 feet), 'stands as a prince among subjects, a giant among dwarfs ;' and is distinguished not merely for loftiness, but for beauty of outline and delicate tracery. On the tower, which was completed about 1527, is the mystifying inscription, in old English characters, ' Young men and Maydens.' 4 Popular tradition has it that the steeple was erected by the voluntary subscriptions of the youth of both sexes ; and that when any maiden born in the parish was married, the bachelors always rang the bells in All Saints' tower.' The body of the church is in a style of architecture ' lamentably incongruous with the tower ;' and the interior of the edifice, notwithstanding its judges' seats, oak carvings, and alabaster slabs, has appa- rently few charms in the eyes of the archaeologist, for Mr. Cox writes that the visitor had better spare himself the trouble of getting the keys, unless he 14 History of Derbyshire. wishes to see ' Bess of Hardvvick's ' monument. Beneath this mural splendour also lie the bones of her son, Colonel Charles Cavendish, of whom a romantic historian remarks : ' This gallant and accomplished gentleman was killed at the battle of Gainsborough. Many fair eyes almost wept them- selves blind for his loss, and his mother never re- covered the sore heart-break of his death.' The church, although erected for a sacred purpose, has somehow become associated with many comic inci- dents. ' In 1732 an extraordinary feat was performed by a man who, having attached one end of a long rope to the top of the tower of All Saints', and the other end to the bottom of St. Michael's, slid down it with his arms and legs extended, and during his transit, which occupied eight seconds, he blew a trumpet and fired a pistol.' Hutton, the historian, says : ' This flying rage was not cured till August, 1734, when another diminutive figure appeared, much older than the first ; his coat was in dishabille ; no waistcoat ; his shirt and his shoes worse for wear ; his hat, worth threepence ex- clusive of the band, which was packthread, bleached white by the weather ; and a black string supplied the place of buttons to his waistband. He wisely considered, if his performances did not exceed the others, he might as well stay at home — if he had one. His rope, therefore, from the same steeple, extended to the bottom of St. Mary's Gate, more than twice the former length. He was to draw a wheelbarrow after him, in which was a boy of thirteen. After this Exciting Scenes. 15 surprising performance an ass was to fly down, armed as before with a breastplate, and at each foot a lump of lead about half a hundredweight. The man, the barrow and its contents arrived safe at the end of their journey, when the vast multitude turned their eyes towards the ass, which had been braying several days at the top of the steeple for food, but, like many a lofty courtier for a place, brayed in vain. The slack- ness of the rope, and the great weight of the animal and his apparatus, at setting off, made it seem as if he was falling perpendicular, The appearance was tremendous ! About twenty yards before he reached the gates of the County Hall, the rope broke : from the velocity acquired by the descent, the ass bore down all before him. A whole multitude was over- whelmed ; nothing was heard but dreadful cries ; nor seen, but confusion. Legs and arms went to destruc- tion. In this dire calamity, the ass, which maimed others, was unhurt himself, having a pavement of soft bodies to roll over. No lives were lost. As the rope broke near the top, it brought down both chimneys and people at the other end of the street. This dreadful catastrophe put a period to the art of flying. It prevented the operator from making the intended collection, and he sneaked out of Derby as poor as he sneaked in." Nor have scenes of excitement taken place outside the church only. On the accession of George I., the interior of the edifice presented a picture of disorder almost as great as that in another Derbyshire church during the Civil War when the Royalists were so 1 6 History of Derbyshire. adroitly surprised and captured by Sir John Gell's soldiery. The vicar was the cause of the uproar. First he prayed for King James— then, eating his words, he said, ' I mean King George.' The congrega- tion, enraged at his elastic conscience, loudly execrated him ; indeed, ' the military gentlemen drew their swords and ordered him out of the pulpit, into which he never returned.' Derby is peculiarly rich in old buildings and his- toric houses, but some of its most ancient churches have been superseded by new edifices — even St. Alkmund's, in which reposed the bones of the patron saint of the town. The parish register remains, how- ever, and among others is this significant entry: '1592. The Plague began. Ninety-one died of the Plague in this parish. 1593. Oct. 4. The Plague terminated. Thanks be to God.' Derby has been prolific in noted and also in eccentric men. John Flamstead, although not born at Derby, may be considered a native, for his parents only removed temporarily from the town to Denby, to escape the Plague. Born in 1646, he was educated at the Free School in St. Peter's Churchyard, and became a celebrated astronomer and mathematician. He was the first Astronomer-Royal, and ' gave us innumerable observations of the sun, moon, and planets, which he made with very large instruments, exactly divided by the most exquisite art, and fitted with telescopical sights.' Newton, Halley, and Cassini were among his friends, and he was, too, the associate of the wits of the time. Celebrated Citizens. i 7 A facetious guest once gave the following astronomical description of one of his dinners : ' We here are invited to a Zodiac of mirth, Where Aries and Scorpio do give it birth ; Here Leo ne'er roars, nor Taunts ne'er bellows, But, Gemini-like, we commence merry fellows ; Here Cancer and Pisces agree with our wishes, Whilst all round the table we drink here like fishes ; Let Libra fill wine without old Aquarius, Whilst quivers of wit fly from Sagittarius ; And to crown all our mirth we will revel in Virgo, And Capricorn he shall supply us with cargo.' It was thought by the illiterate that Flamstead could foretell events, and a poor laundress, who had lost a parcel of linen, requested him to use his art so that she might find the property. With much mystery he began to draw circles and squares, and then told her, with the air of an oracle, that she would find the linen in a certain dry ditch. Gladly she went, and found what she sought. No one was more surprised than himself, and he said, ' Good woman, I am heartily glad you have found your linen ; but I assure you I knew nothing of it, and intended only to joke with you, and then to have read you a lecture on the folly of applying to any person to know events not in the human power to tell ; but I see the devil has a mind I should deal with him. I am determined I will not, so never come or send anyone to me any more on such occasions, for I never will attempt such an affair whilst I live.' Edward Foster, born in 1762, at Derby, was not only a centenarian, but an artist of repute. In the 2 1 8 History of Derbyshire. earlier part of his career he was a soldier, and accom- panied Sir Ralph Abercrombie to Egypt ; but he left the army on the day Nelson was killed at Trafalgar, and devoted himself to art. Queen Charlotte was his friend, and after his appointment as ' miniature painter to the Royal Family,' he was frequently asked to join the Royal circle at whist. A man of culti- vated taste and great ingenuity, he invented a machine for taking portraits, and his cleverness has been immortalized in rhyme : ' But how to form machines to take the face, With nice precision in one minutes' space ; To paint with bold unerring certainty The face profile, in shades that time defy, Where all allow the likeness to agree — This honour, Foster, was reserved for thee.' He was a patriarchal rebuke to all bachelors, for he lived to the age of 102, although married five times ! In the days when Sir Joshua Reynolds was a youth, before he had even begun to dream of art, or of the fame he was to win in his studio, another boy, destined to become a noted painter, was born in Derby. Like Reynolds, he was placed under Hudson's tuition, and Joseph Wright — known as ' Wright of Derby ' — studied and worked until he achieved celebrity. ' Some of his landscapes are equal to those of Wilson and Claude,' and his portraits and historical pictures reveal at once great talent and versatility. When forty years old he visited Italy, ' the artist's paradise,' then fixed his easel at Bath, but eventually settled in his native town, where he died in 1797. Celebrated Citizens. 19 Not long ago, at Derby, there was a ' Wright Exhibition,' when nearly everybody admired his work ; and in 1885 his fame reached Burlington House. It is admitted that the man, who in 1781 declined the honour of R.A., was a genius, and he has hero-worshippers as enthusiastic if not so numerous as Turner. Certainly no man has painted Derbyshire scenery like him ; his pictures of the High Tor, at Matlock, are a revelation — marvellous reflections on canvas of the limestone rocks, strangely riven, and foliage-clad, that rise high above the rushing waters of the Derwent ; and there is a great fascination in his best known work, ' The Orrery,' with its wondrous light and shadows playing on the faces and forms of those who are listening so intently to the philosopher's lecture. Edward Blore, the architect ; Cubley, the portrait painter ; Rawlinson, the artist ; Francis Bassano, the herald painter; William Billingsley, and John Keys, the flower painters ; and many other artists of high repute, were also associated with this town. In literary characters Derby has been rich in gifted men. Among these are Dr. Lemaire, physician to Henry VII. ; the Rev. C. Allestry, divine and author ; Sir Hugh Bateman, political writer; Benjamin Robin- son, a presbyterian minister, who wrote in defence of the Trinity; Samuel Richardson, the novelist, and author of ' Pamela,' ' Sir Charles Grandison ' and 'Clarissa;' Cotton, the puritan divine; Griborne and Milner, the poets ; Robert Bage, the novelist ; the Rev. Thomas Bott, a skilful pamphleteer, who was 2 — 2 20 History of Derbyshire. born in 1688 ; and William Hutton, the historian and antiquary, who at the age of seventy-eight took a journey of 600 miles on foot, and traversed the entire extent of the Roman wall. Derby has not been devoid of eccentric men. Among these, three may be named, ' Jacky Turner,' the walking stationer, was perhaps the most notori- ous. He was usually attired in a scarlet coat (adorned with gold lace), a blue waistcoat, leather breeches, and a hat with brim broad enough to delight William Penn. The penny press, with its insatiable thirst for news, did not then exist. But the people were always eager for intelligence, and when any great event occurred broadsides were printed, and sold in the street. It was then that Jacky Turner, leavening his eccentricity with shrewd- ness, made his harvest, for he had no difficulty in selling his papers, so humorously wagged his tongue. Here is a specimen of his style : ' Come and buy. This is a thing that is witty, comical, and diverting, being a dialogue between the white coal-heaver and black dusty miller. Here's six- pennyworth of fun, twelve-pennyworth of laughing, and one-and-sixpenceworth of diversion, all for the small charge of one halfpenny.' The broadside re- lated to some citizen who was both a coal merchant and a miller.* Turner also sold almanacs, and 55 There is no scarcity of newspapers now in Derby ; nor has the town any need to complain of lethargy on the part of its press. The county papers published there — ' The Derby Mer- cury,' established in 1732 ; ' The Derby Reporter,' first issued in Eccentric Characters. 21 shouted through the thoroughfares ' Almanacs, almanacs, Poor Robin's almanacs ! almanacs new, more lies than true !' Rowland Millington, another strange character, who always went about with a huge bag on his back and a brush in his hand, was a familiar figure in Derby streets about 1760, and was known as ' Old Rowley.' John Hallam, who lived in the county town at the time when Methodism was struggling into life, was very singular in his habits, but he was a friend to the poor, and obtained the noble distinction of being considered ' the most honest man in Derby.' Of him it is related that walking along Sadlergate one day, he saw some object glittering on the pavement. He picked it up, found it was a sixpence, and saying ' It's not mine,' laid the coin on the causeway again. He was so honest, indeed, that he never forgot to return the books he borrowed ; consequently the best libraries in the town were open to him, and he frequently entered gentlemen's houses, chose any book he required, and ' walked off without saying a word.' But he does not seem to have many 1823 ; and 'The Derbyshire Advertiser,' in 1846 — have rapidly developed, greatly increasing in size, and vastly improving in all the departments that make a newspaper attractive. Indeed, all the old-established papers are conducted with much enter- prise and literary ability. Two excellent evening papers are also issued — the oldest in connection with ' The Derby Reporter,' and the other from the office of ' The Mercury;' and 'Jacky Turner,' the walking stationer, would have a poor chance now with his broadsheets, however glibly he wagged his tongue. 22 History of Derbyshire. descendants — how the race of book-borrowers has degenerated ! Justice Bennett, although scarcely coming under the category of an eccentric character, was not without originality. George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, said of him: ' Justice Bennett, of Derby, was the first that called us Quakers, because I bid him tremble at the Word of the Lord, and this was in the year 1650.' Bennett no doubt gave a very different version of the story, for it is asserted that he styled them ' Quakers ' because of the trembling accents used in their exhortations. Noah Bullock, the barber, who lived in Derby in 1676, not only named his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but lived in an ark on the Derwent, just above St. Mary's Bridge. Nothing so singular had been heard of since the flood, and Noah was frequently asked when he expected the second deluge ? Slyly he smiled at all badinage, for his little ship was a coiners' den, which he kept afloat until he received a polite hint from Sir Simon Degge as to the nature of his ' new occupation.' Some of the ballads of Derby are as singular as some of its men were eccentric. These have been collected by Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, and published in an attractive volume entitled 'The Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire.' ' The Unconsionable Batchelors of Derby,' describing how several mercenary suitors pawned their sweethearts at Nottingham Goose Fair ; ' The Derby Hero,' extolling a famous pedestrian ; and ' The Nun's A Humorotis Ballad. 23 Green Rangers,' detailing the triple alliance between an old sergeant, a tinker, and a bear, are all exceed- ingly amusing: but the most striking and imaginative ballad is 'The Derby Ram,' descriptive of the exploits of a marvellous animal that had been associated in verse and song with the town's history for more than a century : ' As I was going to Derby, sir, All on a market-day, I met the finest Ram, sir, That ever was fed on hay. Daddle-i-day, daddle-i-day, Fal-de-ral, fal-de-ral, daddle-i-day. ' This Ram was fat behind, sir, This Ram was fat before ; This Ram was ten yards high, sir — Indeed, he was no more. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' The wool upon his back, sir, Reached up unto the sky ; The eagles made their nests there, sir, For I heard the young ones cry. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' The wool upon his belly, sir, It dragged upon the ground ; It was sold in Darby town, sir, For forty thousand pound. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' The space between his horns, sir, Was as far as a man could reach ; And there they built a pulpit For the parson there to preach. Daddle-i-day, etc. 24 History of Derbyshire. ' The teeth that were in his mouth, sir, Were like a regiment of men ; And the tongue that hung between them, sir, Would have dined them twice and again. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' This Ram jumped over a wall, sir ; His tail caught on a briar — It reached from Darby town, sir, All into Leicestershire. Daddle-i-day, etc. . ' And of this tail so long, sir — 'Twas ten miles and an ell — They made a goodly rope, sir, To toll the market bell. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' This Ram had four legs to walk on, sir ;' This Ram had four legs to stand ; And every leg he had, sir, Stood on an acre of land. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' The butcher that killed this Ram, sir, Was drownded in the blood ; And the boy that held the pail, sir, Was carried away in the flood. Daddle-i-day, etc. 'All the maids in Darby, sir, Came begging for his horns, To take them to coopers To make them milking gawns.* Daddle-i-day, etc. ' The little boys of Darby, sir, They came to beg his eyes To kick about the streets, sir, For they were football size. Daddle-i-day, etc. 8 Milk-pails. Modern Progress. 25 ' The tanner that tanned its hide, sir, Would never be poor any more, For when he had tanned and retched it, It covered all Sinfin Moor. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' The jaws that were in his head, sir, They were so fine and thin, They were sold to a Methodist parson For a pulpit to preach in. Daddle-i-day, etc. ' Indeed, sir, this is true, sir, I never was taught to lie ; And had you been to Darby, sir, You'd have seen it as well as I. Daddle-i-day, daddle-i-day, Fal-de-ral, fal-de-ral, daddle-i-day.' This ballad was set to music, as a glee, by Dr. Calcott, and is still occasionally sung both as a glee and to its old humdrum ballad melody at public dinners in the town. Rich as Derby has been in ancient houses, old thoroughfares, and historical associations, it has not allowed itself to rest idle in the lap of antiquity, but has progressed with a rapidity that few other boroughs have equalled. The town is, indeed, remarkable for its steady progress. In 1637 Charles I. granted the burgesses a new charter, and under it the corporation consisted of a mayor, nine aldermen, fourteen brethren, and fourteen capital burgesses, and it remained the governing Derby races were formerly held on Sinfin Moor, which is only a few miles from the town. 26 History of Derbyshire. charter until the passing of the Municipal Corpora- tions Act in 1835. The first mayor under Charles I.'s charter was Henry Mellor, of whom the Derbyshire poet, Bancroft, in 1637 wrote : 1 You seem the prime bough of an ample tree, Whereon if fair expected fruits we see ; Whilst others' fame with ranke reproaches meete, As Mel or manna shall your name be sweete.' The first mayor under the Municipal Corporations Act, which came into force in 1835, was Mr. Joseph Strutt, to whose munificence the town is indebted for the Arboretum ; and his portrait adorns the Council Chamber, along with those of the Duke of Devon- shire, and Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., whose gifts to the town were princely. The official insignia are interesting. The mace, which is of silver gilt, bears the arms of the borough, the date 1660, and motto, ' Disce moriamundo vivere disce Deo.' The chain, a massive collar of SS.S., was the official collar of the late Lord Denman when Lord Chief Justice of England. ' In the Town Hall are also preserved some interesting documents and MSS. of an early date, many of them with the original seals still attached. There is also a curious and in- teresting old measure of the time of Queen Eliza- beth. In the front of this quaint cup is a knot with the letters " E. R.," and the date 1601.' In Queen Anne's reign Derby had a population of 4,000, and Woolley, the historian, says at that time (about 1712) it possessed much valuable property, and many of the residents were people of quality, Modern Progress. 27 who ' kept coaches.' The town has vastly improved since then. It has within the past few years added to its many buildings a fine Drill Hall, where private assemblies and public meetings are held ; an Art Gallery stored with choice pictures ; a School of Art of faultless arrangement ; a pretty Theatre ;* the Masonic Hall, and the Free Library and Museum. The latter, a very graceful structure in the Domestic Flemish-Gothic style, was presented to Derby by Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., and is crowded with art and literary treasures. In one part of the library is arranged the large collection of books given by the Duke of Devonshire ; and the walls of the committee-room are decorated with the oak panelling taken from the old house in Full Street where Prince Charles Stuart held his last council of war before retreating across the border. The Museum is a fine storehouse of knowledge, each gallery being devoted to a distinct branch of study, and the object of the curator has been to arrange the museum ' so as to enlighten the most illiterate, and convert dry technical details into Tennyson's fairy tales of science.' * The Grand Theatre, erected by Mr. Melville at a cost of .£10,000, had unfortunately only a very short life. It was opened on March 25, 1886, and destroyed by fire on the night of May 6 in the same year. Two lives were lost — those of Mr. J. W. Adams, of Bradford, a promising young actor, who was to have taken the part of Dr. Titus in the comedy, ' In Chancery,' and James Loxley, a stage carpenter. The former, in endeavouring to escape from the burning building, fell from the gallery into the pit, and was terribly injured. 28 History of Derbyshire. Defoe styled Derby ' a town of gentry rather than trade ;' but its vast railway works and its trade in porcelain, silk, and iron have given the ancient borough another character. Derby, with its 81,000 inhabitants, is developing daily ; it is extending its industries, replacing narrow ways and tumble- down houses with fine, broad streets and handsome shops ; indeed, it is instinct with commercial vigour, and is one of the most important centres of business life in the Midlands. CHAPTER II. ASHBOURNE— A Quaint Town— An Illustrious Family — The Sculptor's Art — Dr. Johnson — Canning — Tom Moore — Ham — Dovedale and its Beauties. Ashbourne, the quaint old market-town north-west of Derby, has changed little since John Wesley preached from the steps on the east side of the market-place. In the reign of Edward VI. it con- tained 1,000 ' houselying people of sixteen years of age and upwards,' and its entire inhabitants now only number between 4,000 and 5,000. Yet few would like it to develop faster, for a hurrying, bust- ling throng would be out of character with its sub- stantial red brick buildings, ancient streets, and comfortable, easy-going residents. The town, stand- ing, as it were, on the threshold of Dovedale, has the distinction of being ' in the very centre of England,' but it has no thrilling history to boast of. War and cruelty have seldom played their hideous game there. In 1644 a battle was fought near Ashbourne, in which the Royalists were defeated by Cromwell's soldiers ; and in the following year King Charles History of Derbyshire. himself was at Ashbourne, and attended divine service at the church before continuing his march with his 3,000 men to Doncaster. In 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the ' Pretender,' passed through the town on his way to Derby, was proclaimed at the Market Cross, and with his principal officers took possession of Ashbourne Hall. He also passed through again on his retreat from Derby. There is a local tradition that during this retreat some Derbyshire men ' caught a Highlander, slew him, and found his skin so tough that it was tanned, and made excellent leather.' In 1803 General Rochambeau and about 300 French officers were sent to Ashbourne as prisoners of war; and in 1817 the most stalwart of the inhabitants, sworn in as special constables, stopped the progress of the Manchester blanketers, who were going through the country to present a petition to the Prince Regent. But Ashbourne has been linked rather with art and poetry than turmoil and rapacity. The grand old Gothic church, with its wondrous spire, was dedicated in 1241 to St. Oswald, and is a treasure- house of sculpture as well as religion. Its monu- ments of the Cokayne family tell a long story of the past. There are effigies of John Cokayne, in a gentleman's dress of 1372 ; of Edmund Cokayne, armour-clad, who fell in battle at Shrewsbury ; of Sir Thomas Cokayne, who was knighted by Henry VIII. at the siege of Tournay ; and under the marble monument, near the north window, reposes the dust of his grandson, ' the author of a short treatise on A Quaint Town. 31 hunting, compiled for the delight of noblemen and gentlemen.' It was to this family that Sir William Cokayne, Lord Mayor of London in the time of James I., belonged, and more than one statesman has borne their ancient name. In 1671 the Cokaynes sold their old-fashioned mansion, Ashbourne Hall, to Sir William Boothby, one of whose descendants was famous for her cultured friendship for Dr. Johnson, and drew from Miss Seward the scornful expression, ■ Johnson had always a metaphysic passion for one princess or another.' ' Penelope,' the little girl whose white marble monument is the sculptured glory of Ashbourne Church, was the daughter of Sir Brooke Boothby. ' She was in form and intellect most exquisite ;' and when she died, in 1791, her parents, almost heart-broken with grief, inspired Banks, the sculptor, to chisel his masterpiece — the lovely childlike figure before which even Chantrey stood and wondered, and from which he designed his celebrated group, the two sleeping children, in Lichfield Cathedral. ' Nobody ever ought to overlook this tomb, as it is perhaps the most interesting and pathetic object in England. Simplicity and elegance appear in the workmanship ; tenderness and innocence in the image. On a marble pedestal and slab, like a low table, is a mattress, with a child lying on it, both being cut out of white marble. Her cheek, ex- pressive of suffering mildness, reclines on a pillow ; and her fevered hands gently rest on each other, near to her head. The plain and only drapery is a 2)2 History of Derbyshire. frock, the skirt flowing easily out before, and a ribbon sash, the knot twisted forward as it were by the restlessness of pain, and the two ends spread out in the same direction as the frock. The delicate naked feet are carelessly folded over each other, and the whole appearance is as if she had just turned, in the tossings of her illness, to seek a cooler or easier place of rest. The man whom this does not affect wants one of the finest sources of genuine sensibility ; his heart cannot be formed to relish the beauties either of nature or art.' The Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth, founded by the ' Virgin Queen ' in 1585, by Royal Charter, is one of noteworthy excellence and of high repute, having had masters of exceptional eminence, and turned out from its students many men of mark. In other ways too, not only the intellectual but the material needs of the inhabitants have received some consideration from the well-to-do who have passed away. The town is well provided with alms- houses ; and some of the benefactors are exceedingly curious, ' one person leaving money for the purchase of gold-headed canes ;' another for a ' solemn peal of bells,' to be rung annually ; and a third, who bequeathed a mill to the place, did not lose his customary forethought on his death-bed, for in his will he actually left money for repairing the mill- dam. With the exception of the commodious Town Hall there is no pretentious public building in Ashbourne, and the florid style of archtecture, glaring A Quaint Town. 33 in stucco, is not favoured by the people, who meet in the market-place, the cattle market, and the fair, instead of on the exchange, and do their business in an old English fashion, leisurely and prosperously, undisturbed by the commercial hurricanes that now and then sweep over larger and busier towns. The quietude of Ashbourne pleased Dr. Johnson, and when temporarily tired of coffee-house life and shambling down Fleet Street, his thoughts often turned to the secluded Derbyshire town, where his old school-fellow, Dr. Taylor, who lived near the church, always gave him a sincere welcome. Boswell says : ' There came for us an equipage, properly suited for a wealthy beneficed clergyman. Dr. Taylor's large roomy post-chaise, drawn by four stout horses, and driven by two steady, jolly postilions, which conveyed us to Ashbourne, where his house, garden, stable — in short, everything was good, no scantiness appearing ; and his size, figure, countenance, and manner were those of a hearty English squire, with the parson superinduced ; and I took particular notice of his upper servant, Mr. Peters, a decent good man, in purple clothes and a large white wig, like the butler or major-domo of a bishop.' Some of Johnson's brightest hours were passed in the society of his old friend, to whom he confided many a story of his early struggles. And there were one or two exciting scenes in the parson's study, when Langley, the Grammar School master, dropped in, ' a Rupert of debate,' and fearlessly argued with the great lexicographer. One can fancy 3 34 History of Derbyshire. Johnson's thundering ' No, sir,' vibrating through the room until the glasses jingled, and Peters, not- withstanding his dignity, being nearly frightened out of his wits. It is easy to imagine Johnson's rugged visage, and Langley's angry face ; and also to picture Dr. Taylor, with a cloud of perplexity flitting across his jovial countenance, as he tried to make peace. No talk at the Mitre ever excelled these eloquent jousts in the Peak. In 1772 Johnson, writing from Ashbourne to Mrs. Thrale, says : ' Yesterday I was at Chatsworth. It is a very fine house. They com- plimented me by playing the fountain, and opening the cascade ; but I am of my friend's opinion, that when one has seen the ocean, cascades are very little things.' In 1775 and 1777 Johnson was again at Ashbourne, and Boswell, speaking of the latter visit, tells how he took a post-chaise from the Green Man Inn, the mistress of which, a mighty civil gentle- woman, presented him with an engraved sign of her house. Landladies were very kindly and considerate creatures then, and pushed business in a very grace- ful way, for the card contained these words : ' M. Killingley's duty waits upon Mr. Boswell ; is exceeding obliged to him for this favour ; whenever he comes this way, hopes for a continuance of the same. Would Mr. Boswell name the house to his extensive acquaintance, it would be a singular favour conferred on one who has it not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks and sincerest prayers for his happiness in time and a blessed eternity. — Tuesday morning.' An Illustrious Family. 35 Canning, the statesman, was often a guest of the Boothbys at Ashbourne Hall, and before he became premier, and his heart was lighter, he gave them many evidences of his fun and irony. It was he who wrote the humorous skit upon the ' Willy,' the old coach that plied from Derby to Manchester : ' So down thy slope, romantic Ashbourne, glides The Derby Dilly, carrying six i?isides.' 1 Perhaps the most beloved of all the eminent men associated with Ashbourne was Thomas Moore, the poet, who composed his famous Oriental poem, ' Lalla Rookh,' in his little cottage at Mayfield, gracefully acted as steward at the Ashbourne Wellington Ball, and was ever ready to sing his own sweet songs at the genial country parties where his society was so much sought. The Derbyshire nook in which he passed so many working hours is still known as ' Tom Moore's Cottage,' and by some, ' The Poet's Corner '; and writing of its surroundings he said, ' This is a beautiful country, where every step opens valleys, woods, parks, and all kinds of rural glories upon the eye — this is paradise/ A pleasant life the poet led here, gathering friends around him with his kindly ways and melodious voice ; yet sometimes courting solitude, as on the night when, impressed with the tender music of the Ashbourne chimes, he penned the pathetic, touching song, ' Those Evening Bells.' Not far from Ashbourne, too, lived Jean Jacques Rousseau, when he was visited by David Hume, 3—2 36 History of Derbyshire. and wrote portions of his ' Confessions ;' Ward, the writer of ' Tremaine ;' and Graves, the author of the ' Spiritual Quixote.' Ham Hall, which is four miles from Ashbourne, is a beautiful house in the Elizabethan style, and especially during the life of Jesse Watts Russell, its late owner, when it was enriched by many rare paintings, was widely known to art lovers. In the grounds of Ham Congreve wrote his ' Mourning Bride ;' and of the lovely country surrounding the mansion, Rhodes said, ' No glen in the Alps was ever more beautiful, more picturesque, or more retired.' Near the hall is the church, built by Jesse Watts Russell, and noted for Chantrey's skilful work in marble, the death-bed scene of David Pike Watts ; and close by runs Dovedale, than which ' Europe does not yield another picture so sweet in sylvan beauty,' with its rippling river, and high fantastic rocks, and thick foliage, and lovely glades, where ferns and flowers find shelter from the boisterous wind's rude touch. What a prospect there is from Thorpe Cloud ! About the summit of the ' Little Mountain' the mist still hovers, as if reluctant to be driven away ; but in the dale the sunshine lights up the rugged features of the limestone cliffs, and plays on the red gravel and layers of black marble upon which the Dove has made its bed. Only when exhausted with its own glee or its own petulance does the stream stay to rest a little in the deep pools. Its pace, like that of modern Dovedalc and its Beauties. $7 life, is rapid, and full of difficulties. How determined the river seems as it dashes against the sharp rocks and smooth stones that stand in its path ; how it works itself into tiny foam-flecked fury, and leaps angrily against the stony-hearted obstacles that would bar its progress ; then, glad of its escape, how joyously it races along past wooded slopes, and moss-covered banks, and strange-looking caves, and gigantic crags, talking merrily as it goes to the birch, the ash. the honeysuckle, the wild-rose, to the numberless trees and flowers that edge its banks, and trail their branches or their petals in its waters. Unmoved by the Dove's frolics, how impressively grand are the great rocks standing like sentinels in the sinuous dale that now narrows into rugged straits, and anon widens into pretty breadths. What an infinity of ingenuity was possessed by the Titanic architect who placed these rocks here, for the mighty blocks of mountain limestone resemble towers, churches, and grotesque figures, one of which is popularly known as 'The Lion's Head.' And are not the names of the other stony wonders of the dale familiar — ' Tissington Spires,' ' The Abbey, ' Reynard's Cave,' ' The Dove- holes,' and ' The Watch-box ; ? How they remind one of pleasant days passed in delightful wanderings in the glens, gorges, and caverns of this picturesque haunt, along which some of the country people be- lieve ' Noah's flood once roared' ! Near the dale the Izaak Walton hostelry welcomes alike artist, angler, tourist, and traveller. It was kept for many years, from father to son, by a family 38 History of Derbyshire. named Prince, noted for their kindness and courtesy. Their ' visitors' book' overflowed with gratitude, even as the larder overflowed with plenty; and during the ' Widow Prince's' reign, the following amusing lines were written in the house's praise : ' King David said, " In Princes put no trust, Nor in the sons of men, who are but dust." Perhaps these warning words of inspiration In David's day required no confirmation ; But we, in light of higher social graces, With deference suggest " conditions alter cases." Could Israel's king, when by his son o'erthrown, Wandering o'er Kedron's brook, this vale have known, And had he been induced this spot to halt on, He would have rested at the Izaak Walton ; Here, soothed by rest and free from tribulation, He'd judge of men with kinder moderation ; And taking down his harp, so long unstrung, His new experience would thus have sung : " Bless'd is the man who much frequents this dell, But thrice blest he whose home is this hotel ; Here reigns a Prince whom you may safely trust : Her laws are kindness and her charges just." : In Dovedale — or rather in Beresford Dale — is the cave in which Charles Cotton hid from his creditors ; and not far away stands the greystone fishing-house erected by Cotton for Izaak Walton's use. The little edifice, which peeps out of the trees on a tiny peninsula, bears over its door the inscription ' Pisca- toribus Sacrum, 1674,' and the initials of the two friends. It was a charming retreat alike for the angler and the poet, and to Cotton's description of it Izaak Walton modestly adds the opinion, ' Some part of the fishing-house has been described, but the Dove dale and its Beauties. pleasantness of the river, mountains, and meadows about it cannot, unless Sir Philip Sidney, or Mr. Cotton's father, were alive to do it.' Of the beauties of the river and of the dale, Cotton never tired of vaunting ; and when he wrote — ' O my beloved nymph, fair Dove, Princess of rivers, how I love Upon thy flowery banks to lie, And view thy silver stream When gilded by a summer beam ; And in it all thy wanton joy Playing at liberty !' or, ' Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show, The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po ; The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine ; Are puddle-water, all compared to thine. And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are With thine, much purer, to compare ; The rapid Garonne, and the winding Seine, Are both too mean, Beloved Dove, with thee To vie priority ; Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoined, submit, And lay their trophies at thy silver feet ' — he fully felt the force of the words he was writing, and gave but a true picture of the loveliness of his favourite stream. CHAPTER III. WlRKSWORTH AND ITS BORDERS— Singular Mining Customs — The Church and its Monuments— A Curious Epitaph — Homely Folks — George Eliot and ' Dinah Bede ' — Well- Dressing— A Giant's Tooth— Tradition— Old English Life— A Marvellous Escape — Cromford and Sir Richard Arkwright. Even more picturesque than Ashbourne is Wirks- worth, a patriarchal-looking town, with its irregular streets, odd nooks and corners, and houses dusky with age and the weather's freaks. It lies in a quiet, fertile valley, edged about with great limestone rocks ; and although not many miles from Derby, it gives one the impression that it has been entirely overlooked by the eager go-ahead world outside, until you stumble upon the modest branch-line that connects the town with the Midland Railway system. As far back as 1086, Wirksworth possessed ' a priest and a church,' and was a place of some industrial prosperity. Its population, then number- ing about 1,000 people, were chiefly engaged in lead-mining and in smelting, the ore being placed in wood-fires on the hills. Fuller says that Derbyshire lead is the best in England ; good-natured metal, Wirksworth and its Borders. 41 not curdling into knots and knobs ; and if this be true, Wirksworth must have done a good business even at the time the manor belonged to the Nunnery of Repton. There is a curious record that in 714 the abbess of this religious house sent to Croyland in Lincolnshire a sarcophagus of Wirksworth lead, lined with linen, to receive the remains of the esteemed and dearly loved saint, St. Guthlac. What tons of ore, of gleaming lead, and glittering spar have been turned out of the King's Field (the chief mining tract) since that time. A hundred years ago the produce of the mines was so great that the vicar's tithe alone reached a princely sum. Many quaint laws have sprung up (and some have died out again) since the Romans first worked these mines. Edward Manlove, one of the stewards of the Bargh- moot Court, composed a poem, published in 1653, descriptive of some of the liberties and customs ; and it begins : ' By custom old, in Wirksworth wapentake, If any of this nation find a rake,* Or sign, or leading to the same, may set, In any ground, and there lead ore may get. They may make crosses, holes, and set their stowes,t Sink shafts, build lodges, cottages, or coes ;J But churches, houses, gardens, all are free From this strange custom of the minery.' * The ' rake ' does not refer to a person of dissolute habits, but means a perpendicular vein of lead. f ' Stowes ' are small windlasses ; also pieces of wood placed together to indicate possession of the mine. % ' Coes ' are small buildings over the shafts, generally used for dressing the ore. 42 History of Derbyshire. Afterwards the poet grows satirical about the vicar's tithe, saying the good man daily ought to pray ; for f though the miners lose their lives, their limbs or strength, he loseth not, but looketh for a tenth.' The most singular part of this interesting mining record, however, is that dealing with the punishment for dishonesty ; a punishment barbaric in its cruelty, and now happily obsolete : ' For stealing ore twice from the minery, The thief that's taken fined twice shall be ; But the third time that he commits such theft, Shall have a knife stuck through his hand to the haft Into the stow, and there till death shall stand, Or loose himself by cutting loose his hand.' Ore is not so plentiful now at Wirksworth ; and such mines as 'Goodlack,' and others with odd but familiar names, have been ruthlessly stripped of their riches ; but the Moothall, where the courts for the regulation of trade have been so long held, still exists, and con- tains the famous ' Miners' Standard Dish.' This brazen vessel, which, according to Lowpeak custom, measures fourteen pints, was made in the reign of Henry VIII., with the consent of the lead-getting toilers, and has ' to remayne in the moote hall at Wyrksworth, hangyng by a cheyne so as the mer- chauntes or mynours may have resorte to the same at all times to make the true measure after the same.' Notwithstanding its restoration, from Sir Gilbert Scott's designs, there is an air of great antiquity about Wirksworth Church, which is dedicated to St. Mary. Its numerous monuments are full of Wirksworth and its Borders. 43 interest, giving as they do some idea of the lives and work of those who bore distinguished local names. Against the east wall is a tablet setting forth that Anthony Gell, late of Hopton, and some- time of the Worshipful Company of the Inner Temple, who died in 1583, founded at his only cost the free Grammar School, and Almshouses for five poor persons ; while on the same wall is another tablet in memory of bluff Sir John Gell, the first baronet, who rode hither and thither with such zeal, and fought with such avidity wherever he found King Charles's soldiers, in the war that ended in Cromwell's victory and sent a monarch to the block. The memorials to the Wigwells, Lowes, and Blackwells are also curious and instructive. The latter is a very ancient Wirksworth family, and flourished long before 1524, when Thomas Blackwell, anxious about the future welfare of himself and relatives, left £10 to a priest to say mass for him, for the souls of his parents, and for the soul of his brother Henry, alter- nately at St. Edmund's altar and Our Lady's altar, Wirksworth, for three years from his death. On one of the buttresses outside the church is this whimsical epitaph : ' Near this place lies the body of Phillip Shallcross, once an eminent quildriver to the attorneys of this town. He died on the 17th of November, 1787, aged 67. Viewing Phillip in a moral light, the most prominent and remarkable features in his character were his real and invincible attachment to dogs and cats, and his unbounded 44 History of Derbyshire. benevolence towards them, as well as towards his fellow-creatures. In addition to the ancient sculptured stone (repre- senting in one part Christ bathing His disciples' feet), there is much food for the antiquary in and around this cruciform edifice, which possesses, moreover, a parish-register full of peculiar entries, such as, ' Paid to old Bonsall of Alderwastle, for a fox-head, one shilling ;' and, ' 1688, June 14, for ale to ringers at birth of Prince of Wales, nine shillings.' Wirksworth has the honour of being the place where the first Derbyshire county match was played ; but it has apparently little ambition, nor does it grow hastily. The population in 1881 numbered 3,678, and had increased by 75 in the last ten years! The people who are born there like the peaceful health-giving town so well that they seldom leave it to seek better (or perhaps more harassing) fortune elsewhere. They are in the main content to grow up amid the scenes of their childhood, and to follow in the footsteps of their fathers. ' It is remarkable how the descendants of those who formerly lived and toiled in the dale three or four hundred years ago still live there. In the days of King Henry VIII. there lived the Steers and Vallances, the Elses and the Cadmans. The Steers have merged lately into the Wardman family. The Vallances are still there, and likely to be ; also the Elses, strong enough in numbers to supply a regiment almost. These are a few instances which show the strong instinct and liking the families have for the haunts of their fore- George Eliot. 45 fathers, and also for their employment, as they are all connected with the lead business or getting of stone.' It was among these homely folks that George Eliot came, and found the germ of her most striking character — the earnest woman who preached so fervently on the hill-sides of Derbyshire. The novelist's relatives, Mrs. Samuel Evans and her hus- band (whom Wirksworth people maintain were the 'Dinah Morris' and ' Seth Bede' of George Eliot's most popular story), then lived at Millhouses, just outside the town, and the authoress was only seven- teen when she first visited their ' humble cottage.' But the impressions she got of her aunt, Mrs. Evans, were very vivid and lasting ; for writing twenty years afterwards, she says : ' I was delighted to see my aunt. Although I had only heard her spoken of as a strange person, given to a fanatical vehemence of exhortation in private as well as public, I believed that I should find sympathy between us. She was then an old woman, above sixty, and I believe had for a good many years given up preaching. A tiny little woman, with bright small dark eyes, and hair that had been black, I imagine, but was now grey ; a pretty woman in her youth, but of a totally different phy- sical type from " Dinah." ' George Eliot contended, too, that the preacheress she sketched was dif- ferent in individuality also ; yet there is such a similarity in the real life of Mrs. Samuel Evans and the fictional career of ' Dinah Morris,' that the inha- bitants of Wirksworth may be forgiven for thinking that one is a poetic ideal of the other. ' Both wore 4 6 History of Derbyshire. a Quaker's bonnet; "Dinah Morris" preached on Hayslope Green, Elizabeth Evans on Roston Green ; the former stayed in prison with " Hetty Sorrell" when she was lying under charge of murdering her child ; the latter stayed in prison with a young woman accused of a similar crime.' Elizabeth Evans died at Wirksworth on the gth of May, 1849, an d the following interesting appeal for contributions towards a tablet to perpetuate her memory and that of her husband was made in 1873 : "'Dinah Bede." ' A generation has nearly passed away since the death of Airs. Elizabeth Evans, who was dis- tinguished for extraordinary piety and extensive usefulness. The remarkable circumstances of her personal history, her preaching talents, and her phil- anthropic labours have since been immortalized by a popular author in our standard literature. The name and doings of " Dinah Bede " are known over the whole world, and yet no memorial whatever of her has been raised in towns where she lived and laboured, or on the spot in Wirksworth churchyard where her ashes repose. We, whose names are here- unto placed, having an imperishable recollection of Mrs. Evans' gifts, grace, and goodness, are desirous of placing a memorial tablet in the Methodist Chapel at Wirksworth to perpetuate the memory and useful- ness of the so-called " Dinah," and of " Seth Bede," her honoured and sainted husband. If you have any wish to participate in this graceful memorial George Eliot and ' Dinah Bcde.' 47 and monument of these honoured servants of Christ and benefactors of mankind, and desire to contribute even the smallest sum for this object, be so good as to communicate your intention to any of the under- mentioned ministers and gentlemen as early as possible: Adam Chadwick, Steeple Grange; William Buxton, North End ; Charles Wall, the Causeway ; and Timothy Clarke, North End, Wirksworth.' The appeal commended itself so thoroughly that subscriptions were obtained without difficulty, and now on the walls of the Wesleyan Chapel at Wirks- worth is a tablet bearing the inscription : ' Erected by numerous friends to the memory of Elizabeth Evans, known to the world as " Dinah Bede," who during many years proclaimed alike in the open air, the sanctuary, and from house to house, the love of Christ. She died in the Lord May 9, 1849, aged 74 years. And of Samuel Evans, her husband, who was also a faithful local preacher and class leader in the Methodist society. He finished his earthly course Dec. 8, 1858, aged 81 years.' One of the daughters of this noted Elizabeth Evans, living now at Sheffield, preserves with great care the Quaker bonnet, the white net cap, and the spun-silk shawl that were worn by ' Dinah Morris ' when she went preaching. This descendant well remembers George Eliot's visit to her mother in 1837 '■> an d until recently had in her possession a bundle of letters sent by the novelist to her parents at Millhouses. Being privileged to peruse these letters soon after George Eliot's death, we wrote of them at the time : ' The letters are signed by the talented authoress in her maiden name, " Mary Ann 48 History of Derbyshire. Evans," and they are written from Griff and Foleshill, near Coventry, at which places she lived with her father during the years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Some of them are brown with age, and much worn at the edges, and in the folding creases. Others are in better preservation. The letters, at least those despatched in 1839, were sent to Wirksworth just a year before Sir Rowland Hill's scheme of penny postage was carried into effect, and before envelopes had come into common use. They are written on old-fashioned post-paper, and the address, " Mr. S. Evans, the Millhouses, Wirksworth," appears on the outer sheet. Most of the epistles are addressed to " My dear uncle and aunt," and all reveal George Eliot's great talents. The style is elegant and grace- ful, and the letters abound in beautiful metaphor ; but their most striking characteristic is the religious tinge that pervades them all. Nearly every line denotes that George Eliot was an earnest Biblical student, and that she was, especially in the years 1839 and 1840, very anxious about her spiritual condition. In one of the letters, written from Griff to " Dinah Morris" in 1839, sne savs sne * s living in a dry and thirsty land, and that she is looking for- ward with pleasure to a visit to Wirksworth, and likens her aunt's companionship and counsel to a spring of pure water, acceptable to her as is the well dug for the traveller in the desert.' These communications, eloquent with the ardent feeling that distinguished George Eliot's earlier life, are now in the possession of Mr. Cross, and should he IV ell- Dressing. 49 give them to the public, they will shed consider- able light on the most impressionable part of his wife's career, when ' Dinah Morris ' was her friend, and she did not hesitate to write ' that love of human' praise was one of her great stumbling-blocks.' At Wirksworth, and other places in Derbyshire, following in the wake of Tissington, the pretty, innocent custom of decking the wells with flowers is fostered even in this practical age, and gives a very pardonable excuse for a bright, mirthful holiday. At Wirksworth, however, the custom is not in con- nection with natural springs as at Tissington, but is, as it is called, a ' Tap-Dressing' of the water-supply of the town. Seneca said : ' Where a spring or a river flows there should we build altars and offer sacri- fices ;' and it is possible that from a spirit of thank- fulness for the gift of pure water arose this innocent practice, which, as education spreads, is becoming a more delicate and beautiful art. The floral de- signs, the chaplets, and garlands, that decorate the Wirksworth taps and pipes on Whit-Wednesday are as attractive in their simple loveliness as the offerings the shepherds threw to the goddess Sabrina in Milton's ' Comus,' or ' the thousand flowers of pale lilies, roses, violets, and pinks,' the nymphs in Dyer's ' Fleece ' spread on the surface of ' the dimpled stream.' And they have this advantage over the floral tributes of the poet's dream: they bring useful prizes that still further encourage a love of flowers. The rocks and caves around the town have yielded something more marvellous than lead ore. Who 4 50 History of Derbyshire, shall say, after knowing what wonders have been imbedded in their depths, that geology has no charm ? George Mower, a miner, discovered in a cave in the mountain limestone, at Balleye, near Wirksworth, in 1663, the bones and molar teeth of an elephant, and in a startling description of ' how the giant's tooth was found,' wrote : 'As they were sinking to find lead ore upon a hill at Bawlee, within two miles of Wirksworth, in the Peake, about the year 1663, they came to an open place as large as a great church, and found the skeleton of a man standing against the side, rather declining. They gave an account that his braine-pan would have held two strike of corn, and that it was so big they could not get it up the mine they had sunk without breaking it. Being my grandfather, Robert Mower, of Wood- seats, had a part in this said mine, they sent him this toothe, with all the tines of it entire, and it weighed 4 lbs. 3 oz.' Nor has this been the only geological prize obtained in the locality, for in another lead mine, poetically known as ' The Dream Cave,' about a mile from Wirksworth, was found in 1882 the skeleton of a rhinoceros, whose bones ' were in a high state of preservation.' Within a stone's-throw, as it were, of the place in which George Eliot wandered in her youth, lie two historic mansions — Alderwasley Hall and Wigwell Grange. The former has long been the residence of the old county families, the Lowes and the Hurts, and a singular tradition attaches to a part of the estate Old EnglisJi Life. 51 called 'The Shining Cliff' — that it was granted to a previous owner by the King, in these words : ' I and mine Give thee and thine Milnes Hay and Shyning Cliff, While grass is green and berys ryffe.'* Wigwell Grange has sheltered some illustrious people, and Sir John Statham's description of it, more than a century ago, has never been excelled, so straightforward were the brusque knight's words. In the district, he said, • was all the convenience of life — wood, coal, corn of all sorts, park venison, a warren for rabbits, fish, fowl in the utmost per- fection, exempted from all jurisdiction; no bishops, priests, proctors, apparators, or any such vermin could breathe there. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes, went to bed, sat up, rose early, got up late, all easy. In the park were labyrinths, statues, arbours, springs, grottoes, and mossy banks ; and if retirement became irksome, on notice to Wirksworth, there were loose hands, gentlemen and clergymen, ever ready at an hour, willing to stay just as long as you'd have 'em and no longer.' Kindly John Statham. He understood the secret of hospitality, and although 'the vile calumnies and envenom'd arrows' of his enemies now and then excited his wrath, he did not let them interfere much with his pleasures. Near the road leading from Wirksworth to Crom- ford is a famous mine, the scene in 1797 of a * Plentiful. 4—2 52 History of Derbyshire. disaster which gave not only a new illustration of the perils of lead-getting, but showed how great is the tenacity of human life. While Job Boden and Anthony Pearson were at work in the mine, the one at a depth of twenty yards, and the other at forty- four yards, there was a huge fall of earth, and a rush of water. The mine was choked to a depth of over fifty yards, and it seemed almost incredible that the men beneath could escape death. Yet, eager with hope, the miners not in the workings laboured for three days in emptying the mine of debris, and then discovered Pearson, who was standing in an upright posture, dead. At the end of eight days' digging they reached Boden, who, to their surprise, was still living, although he had been entirely without nourish- ment from the moment he was buried in the mine. When brought out he was terribly emaciated, but ultimately recovered from the effects of his adventure, and lived for many years to tell the story of his marvellous rescue. Cromford lies amid charming scenery, and is within easy distance of Via Gellia, of the bold grit- stone rocks that singularly overlap the limestone at Stonnis, and the pretty village of Bonsall, where the rivulet, rippling past the cottages and beneath each doorstep, has prompted the saying that the hamlet has 150 marble bridges. But after all, Cromford is not so celebrated for its scenery as for its association with Richard Arkwright, the lowly barber and itinerant hair merchant, who invented spinning by rollers, and erecting his first cotton-mill in Matlock Cromford and Sir Richard ArkwrigJU. 53 Dale, in 1771, made such additional improvements in the process of carding, roving, and spinning, that despite grievous difficulties his ingenuity and perseverance were rewarded by wealth and fame. The manor of Willesley, which belonged in the time of Henry VI. to Richard Minors, was purchased by the successful cotton spinner in 1782, and four years afterwards he was knighted. And it seemed as if some good fairy had determined that he should have money enough to uphold the title, for his 'riches increased to such an enormous extent, that besides possessing, exclusive of his mill property, one of the largest estates in England, he was able on several occasions to present each of his ten children with £10,000 as a Christmas box.' Wffl£$£fa&IM£ ;§£^ "^/"ipn^ WMl 1^3 5^^^ J~L } Ww^iFW?^ P^^#"'"r W§M ®Mft'***-*"' sS^ f8 "-*~5^>^ /^^^^■'i^^^^ Fpfii) iB2 s^^^S&SB vi v ' 5^£ ^ ipOT^. i\C |^^5^g5^®> Jr.<::Xy!- imW£ >£2I2s ggg ■ -^S- 3Ei& CHAPTER IV. Matlock Bath— Man's Energy— The Bath Years ago— Lord Byron — The Water Cure — Rocks and Caverns — Matlock and its Church — A Remarkable Woman. No such comfortable, contented serenity as satis- fies Wirksworth is tolerated at Matlock Bath. There the inhabitants do not fold their hands and sit wrapt in admiration of the beauties of nature. They believe in ' making hay while the sun shines,' use nature to their own profit, and their enterprise is so great that ' no man knoweth ' what delights may be in store for the excursionist in years to come ! Matlock Bath's chief street is fringed with fine shops, in which are displayed many clever examples of the spar worker's art ; its petrifying wells and caverns reveal marvels of nature, and show man's ingenuity in turning them to profitable account ; and its attractive pavilion, recently erected, indicates that the inhabitants are thoroughly cognisant of the needs of the time. But all this energy is almost entirely modern. Like the parvenu who secretly bewails his lack of blue-blood ancestry while he sports his sham crest, Matlock Bath is linked with few famous deeds, The Bath Years Ago. 55 and has little history. It was not until about 1690 that the place sprang at all into notice, and then not so much because of the wild beauty of its scenery as the possession of mineral waters, which, bubbling out of subterranean chambers, wrought such cures upon the debilitated and enfeebled that the people mar- velled. Hitherto the dale scarcely contained any habitations except a few miners' huts, and ' presented only the appearance of a narrow gorge, walled in by stupendous crags and lofty eminences, overgrown with tangled brushwood and shrubs, beneath which flowed the dusky waters of the Derwent, seldom seen by the eye of man.' But with the discovery of the warm springs, ' raised in vapour by subter- ranean fires deep in the earth,' Matlock Bath awoke from its long sleep. The first bath, built and paved, it is said, by Mr. Fern, of Matlock, and Mr. Heyward, of Cromford, was ultimately purchased by Messrs. Smith and Pennel, of Nottingham, who not only erected two large commodious buildings, but ' made a coast-road along the river-side from Crom- ford, and improved the horseway from Matlock Bridge.' ' This bath,' said Defoe, however, writing in the eighteenth century, ' would be much more fre- quented than it is if a bad stony road which leads to it, and no accommodation when you get there, did not hinder.' Nevertheless, its development had begun. And the place had much improved in Lord Byron's time, for he wrote gracefully of Matlock Bath's loveliness, and spoke in praise of his quarters. 56 History of Derbyshire. It was here that the distinguished poet, the gifted writer of ' Childe Harold/ met Mary Chaworth, the heiress of Annesley, and indulged in the hapless love-dream that only ended in — farewell. ' Had I, he regretfully said, ' married Miss Chaworth, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different.' Since the days when Lord Byron looked joyously through love's spectacles at the bold cliffs and gently gliding river, Matlock Bath has become a kind of Pool of Bethesda, to which the grievously afflicted, and those who suffer for luxury and satiety, go in hope of finding relief. Matlock Bank and Matlock Bridge, modern offshoots of the older Mat- lock, are as thickly studded with baths as Rome during Diocletian's reign of splendour; and Smedley, the local pioneer of hydropathy, and the builder of Riber Castle, on the summit of Riber, has had a host of imitators, who are gradually increasing the number of believers in the water-cure. Lady Mary Wortley said her little chalet at Avignon commanded the finest land prospect she had ever seen, except Wharncliffe ; and Derbyshire people, with equal truth, might affirm that Wales, with its tree-crowned heights, and mist-capped mountains, and swirling streams, contained the finest pictures of nature's loveliness, except Matlock. 'The great rent in the strata of Derbyshire,' which has made the county so rich in crags, and peaks, and sheltered dales, exciting the zeal of the geologist and the wonder of the tourist, ' first manifests itself in the neighbourhood of Matlock.' And familiarity is The Heights of Abraham. 57 powerless to breed contempt of the beauteous gorge, with its gigantic masses of limestone, towering high above the white roads, and the petrifying wells, and the wooden boathouses. How mighty and rugged in its grandeur is the High Tor, rising perpendicularly more than 300 feet above the river's brink, its brow fringed with thick foliage, and its face brightened by mosses and ferns that have struggled into existence in crevices and rifts far beyond man's reach ! Less rugged in character, but equal in beauty, are the Heights of Abraham ; and they have in- spired much poetry — spontaneous and sincere, if not over-brilliant tributes to nature's lavish gifts. Robinson, in his ' Derbyshire Gatherings,' gives an example, remarking that in an alcove on the heights about twenty-five years since, some would-be poet, no doubt after cudgelling his brains severely for a verse, wrote : ' He who climbs these heights sublime, Will wish to come a second time.' But he goes on to say that beneath these words was added in another handwriting the scathing couplet : 'And when he comes a second time, I hope he'll make a better rhyme.' What myriads of tourists have climbed these heights since the old mountain went by the name of Nestes, or Nestus, and Matlock was a Liliputian hamlet in the King's manor of Metesforde ! Much of the tangled undergrowth and gnarled wood have been cleared from its steep sides, and about the zig- 58 History of Derbyshire. zag paths that lead to the lofty tower. Cottages cluster, tier on tier, like the dwellings of an Alpine village. And higher still, nearer the summit of the pine-clad heights, far away from the chief street, are lovely walks, from which may be obtained delightful views of the loftier crags of Masson, of bold cliffs, wooded dells, and bits of emerald meadow skirting the gleaming river ; while stretching beyond the dale is a pretty picture of hill and valley, of moor- land and rich pasture, not framed by the horizon until the eye has roamed over five counties. Then its subterranean mysteries are curious and almost fear-inspiring. The great caverns, reached through little doors in the mountains' side, remind one of the mysterious cavity into which the Pied Piper of Hamlin decoyed the children with sweet music and fair promises of a chimerical Garden of Eden. In their natural darkness these vast chambers, particularly the Rutland, the Devonshire, and the Cumberland, help one to realize the meaning of Chaos ; but when illuminated by the candle's or the lamp's fitful gleam they reveal striking beauties of vaulted arch, of brightly flashing minerals, of trick- ling waters, of huge pyramids of stone, of gruesome recesses, and walls of such strange shape that they seem to be studded with grotesque faces. Nay, the thought arises — are they the faces of indiscreet miners, petrified just as they were chuckling, or indulging in grimaces ? Remembering its surface and underground beauties and wonders, there is little exaggeration in the Matlock and its Church. 59 poetical description of Matlock Bath as ' the fairy- land that wins all hearts, the paradise of the Peak.' The modern resort of the health-seeker, Matlock Bath, stands on the western margin of the Dervvent ; the old village of Matlock, which Glover says is as ancient as the Conquest, is on the opposite side of the river, and cut off from the Bath by the huge Tor and its chain of connecting rocks. Both are thriving places now, and this is not to be wondered at, considering that such a vast number of tourists pour into the district during at least four months of the year, swooping down upon nearly every habitation and driving the caterers sometimes to their wits' end. Although the older portion of Matlock (which in- cludes Matlock Bridge) has grown with some rapidity, it still adheres pretty much to its former ways of life. But the church, like many others in Derbyshire, has been restored, and the tower is the only part of the old edifice remaining. It is a ' good example of the Perpendicular style at the beginning of the sixteenth century,' and contains six bells. One of these, bearing the letters O.P.N, (oro pro nobis), was evi- dently cast before the Reformation, and Mr. Jewitt says it ' is one of the oldest as well as most interest- ing bells in the county.' In the church itself there is comparatively little to interest the antiquary, with the exception of an old chest, to which is attached a chain that formerly secured the parish Bible. But there is a tablet in this place of worship that might be studied with 60 History of Derbyshire. advantage by all cynical bachelors who believe married life is made up of embarrassments and annoyances not conducive to longevity. The tablet is in memory of Adam Wolley, and Grace, his wife. They were married at Darley in 1581, and continued in wedlock 76 years. Adam did not die until 1657, when he had reached the age of 100, and Grace lived to be no. In the vestry are several relics of a pathetic custom — six white paper garlands carried years ago at the funerals of young maidens, and left in the church, in memoriam, by grief-stricken friends. A very thin partition separates tears from laughter, so Phoebe Bown may be very appropriately intro- duced here. She was a remarkable woman who resided in a cottage near High Tor, and obtained considerable local celebrity. Hutton, the historian, who visited Matlock in the early part of the present century, says she was five feet six in height, had a step more manly than a man's, could walk forty miles a day, hold the plough, drive a team, and thatch a barn ; but her chief avocation was breaking in horses at a guinea a week : and with all these masculine tendencies she combined a taste for the works of Milton, Pope, and Shakespeare, and had a passionate love of music, playing the flute, the violin, and the harpsichord. She died in 1854, and her epitaph is almost as curious as her life : ' Here lies romantic Phcebe, Half Ganymede, half Hebe ; A maid of mutable condition, A jockey, cowherd, and musician.' CHAPTER V. Darley Dale — Its Scenery — A Poetic Tradition — A Curious Will — The Darley Yew Tree — A Great Frost — The Peacock at Rowsley — Old Butcher the Angler — Which Way ? One of the fairest of Derbyshire haunts is Darley Dale. It stretches in peaceful, sylvan loveliness from Matlock up to Rowsley, where, dividing, the one arm, along which the Derwent flows, extends to and indeed beyond Chatsworth gates, and the other, through which the Wye winds, beyond Haddon Hall up to Bakewell ; and in whatever garb it appears, whether clothed in the bright freshness of spring, the rich glory of summer, the deep russet- tints of autumn, or the hoar-frost and feathery snow of winter, it is always beautiful. Like a pleasing tranquil face upon which ordinary troubles make no impress, it never loses its charm. But perhaps it is most inviting in the spring-time, when the sun- light, coquetting with the Derwent, makes the river glisten like a streak of silver, when, the ' gold of the buttercup and the green of the grass ' mingle, in the fertile meadows, and the hedges are powdered with sweet-smelling hawthorn. 62 History of Derbyshire. The Duke of Rutland's old shooting-box of Stan- ton Woodhouse stands on one of the wooded slopes that rise from the plain ; nearly opposite to it is Sir Joseph Whitworth's residence, Stancliffe Hall; while in another part, on the verdure-covered Oker — a lofty hill rising at its threshold from the Matlock end — are two solitary trees that have grown up in an atmosphere of tradition : ' 'Tis said that on the brow of yon fair hill Two brothers clomb, and, turning face from face, Nor one more look exchanging, grief to still Or feed, each planted on the lofty place A chosen tree. Then eager to fulfil Their courses, like two new-born rivers they In opposite directions urged their way Down from the far-seen mount. No blast might kill Or blight that fond memorial. The trees grew And now entwine their arms ; but ne'er again Embraced those brothers upon earth's wide plain, Nor aught of mutual joy or sorrow knew, Until their spirits mingled in the sea That to itself takes all— Eternity.' The venerable church of St. Helen, with its fine sepulchral slabs and its Crusaders' and other monu- ments, poses picturesquely in the bed of Darley dale. It is a very ancient structure, but for all that it is but a youth when compared with the patriarch by its side — the world-famed ' Darley Yew.' The enormous girth of thirty-three feet round its stem has this ancient tree that casts its shadows across the churchyard. About four feet up, the trunk divides, and two separate trees rise from it, throwing The Darky Yciv Tree. 6 o out a great labyrinth of branches, that overhang and shelter many a grave. Its life, like that of the 'Wandering Jew,' seems endless; but, unlike his restless career, the tree's existence has been one of almost unbroken quietude and peace. This yew, which is supposed to be 2,000 years old, saw the early inhabitants of the soil subdued by the Roman invaders, and they in turn by the Saxons and Danes, and it must have been in its prime when William the Conqueror made his victorious landing in Britain! If this yew could speak, like Tennyson's ' Talking Oak,' what a thrilling tale it could tell of the invader's progress, of joy and sorrow, of changing manners and customs, of the great frost that began at Martinmas, 1676, and lasted until January 3, 1677, when 'ye Derwent was actually frozen, and att ye dissolving of the frost a great flood and incredible quantities of ice were brought out of the water banks into tollerable inclosed grounds, and up to the churchyard steps ;' and it could tell, too, of much family history — of the time, for instance, when the eccentric Peter Columbell, of Darley, made the curious will leaving all his household goods to his son Roger, on the peculiar condition that the young man never touched tobacco. ' Whatever may be the age of this tree,' says Mr. Cox, ' there can be little doubt that it has given shelter to the early Britons when planning the con- struction of the dwellings that they erected not many yards to the west of its trunk ; to the Romans who built up the funeral pyre to their slain comrades 64 History of Derbyshire. just clear of its branches ; to the Saxons, converted, perchance, to the true faith by Bishop Dinma be- neath its pleasant shade ; to the Norman masons chiselling their quaint sculptures to form the first stone house of prayer erected in its vicinity ; and to the host of Christian worshippers who, from that day to this, have been borne under its hoary limbs in women's arms to the baptismal font, and then on men's shoulders to their last resting-place in the soil that gave it birth.' No one will deny that it is the king of English yews. The Fortingal yew, in Perthshire, when vigorous, had a girth of fifty-six feet, but it is now only a skeleton of its former greatness. At Tis- bury, in Wiltshire, there is a yew tree thirty-seven feet in circumference ; but the Darley yew far excels it ' in great stretch of limbs and luxuriant foliage.' A number of unthinking people, with a liking for relics, and a desire to hand down their names to posterity, began some years back to lop off its branches and cut their initials on its bark, but ' The Old Yew Tree ' had a champion, who wrote to the Times in 1863, drawing attention to this Vandalism. The letter, which was written as if the tree was a human being, and could speak for itself, ran as follows : ' I am a helpless and much ill-used individual, and my friends have advised me to make my grievances known to you, as the most able and likely source to supply redress. To make my tale short, I belong to that class of national property which guide books The Darley Yew Tree. 65 call" objects of interest," of which this old historic country possesses so large a share ; but I am not an old abbey, nor an old tower, nor even an old cairn. I am simply an old tree. My residence is in a churchyard in a lovely valley in Derbyshire, called Darley Dale. From the reverence that has been paid to me for more generations than I care to name, and from the admiration which pilgrims from all parts of the world who come to see me bestow upon me, I perceive that I am no common tree. My trunk alone girths thirty-three feet, but from within the memory of men I have stretched my arms across one entire side of the churchyard, and forty •years ago the young urchins of the parish used to climb from the outer wall into my branches, and from my branches on to the church leads. My age is fabulous, and learned naturalists now calculate that I must have been born 300 years before the Gospel was preached in this country ; in which case I was probably associated with an old pagan building, the foundations of which are still discovered in digging graves in my immediate neighbourhood. If my memory did not fail me, of course I could tell all about this better than the naturalists ; but age has made me somewhat lazy in that respect, so I must leave my origin to the genealogists to settle. Well, sir, with all these claims to reverence, is it not shameful that in this year of grace 1863 men should cut, break, and mutilate my poor old person in all inconceivable ways ? Until tourists began to multiply, and excursion trains to run, I had scarcely 5 1 66 History of Derbyshire. a single scar, other than time and tempest had left on my body ; but now the Snookeses and Tomkinses, and Joneses, have begun to immortalize themselves (as is the fashion of that race) by cutting their names all over my bark; and on Thursday last two fellows of this tribe commenced a still more cruel process. While one of them smoked his pipe and watched, the other drew out a saw, and actually set to work to cut out a great slice of my very flesh, which, but for the lucky intervention of the clerk, he would soon have accomplished. You may believe me, sir, when I tell you that I quite dread the sight of an excursion train ; and from all that I hear I am not alone in these apprehensions. My fellow " objects of interest " are crying out on every side of me, and all over the land, that the Goths are coming again. Oh, sir, can you not repel these bar- barians ? The foe of all abuses, will you not make your potent voice heard to put an end to this abuse ?' The consciences of the Snookeses and Tomkinses were pricked by this touching protest, and the Darley yew is no longer a victim to the tourist's pocket-knife or the marauder's pitiless grasp. A couple of miles or so from Darley Dale Church is the village of Rowsley, where the Wye and the Derwent meet ; and the ivy-clad Peacock Inn, with its old-fashioned gables, mullioned windows, and curiously pretty garden, gladdens the wayfarer's heart. In this widely known hostelry, travellers from all parts of the world have found not only a tran- quil resting-place, but a cheerful home ; it was once a The Peacock at Rowslcy. 67 farmhouse, now it is perhaps the prettiest inn in Eng- land. Its wide hall, broad staircase, cosy breakfast- room, and smoker's retreat, are familiar to some of our greatest men, who at one time or other have sought temporary rest beneath its roof away from the noise of political strife and the whirl of ambition. ' An album kept at the inn,' says Mr. Jewitt, 'contains many dis- tinguished names ; among them is that of the poet Longfellow ; also the travelling name of Maximilian, sometime Emperor of Mexico, who spent here the last night of his sleep in England, previous to em- barkation on his fatal voyage.' People of every nation visit the Peacock, and the American touring through the country in a spirit of restless inquiry is as much at home there as the angler, the painter, and the pressman. In the autumn, when jaded legislators have deserted St. Stephen's, and ' society ' has fled from London, the quiet inn is a refuge — a sort of rural club — to many a metropolitan toiler ; and the rods and creels, the sketch-books, and the pages of manuscript lying about, are tell-tale evi- dences of the character of its guests. One of the local 'worthies' who often passed through the porch of the Peacock was George Butcher, the angler, carpenter, and preacher, who for so many years attended the fishermen on the banks of the Wye and Derwent. He was an autho- rity upon angling, and was styled ' The Walton of the Peak.' ' Old Butcher knew every kind of fly upon the water, and all the places where fish lay. He was insensible to fatigue, and thought nothing 5—2 68 History of Derbyshire. of walking from Curbar to Rowsley to attend an angler — some eight miles — walk about on the banks of the river all day, and at night walk back to Curbar.' His mind was stored with anecdote and proverbial philosophy ; and when the trout declined to rise, he never let the angler's spirits droop. Of him, Mr. John Hall, a Yorkshire poet, has written : ' Old Butcher is young ; though he's nigh fourscore He can tramp twelve miles across a moor ; He can fish all day, and wade up stream, And at night as fresh as the morning seem. ' Old Butcher is young ; he can make a fly With as steady a hand and as calm an eye As though he were still in manhood's prime, And never had known the ravage of time. ' He can spin a yarn, or a sermon preach, Or on special occasions spout a speech ; He can fast or feast like a monk of old, Though he likes the latter much best, I'm told. ' He knows each pool of the stream about, And every stone that conceals a trout ; Some say that he knows the fish as well, Both where they were born and where they dwell. ' To those who have wandered in Baslow Vale, Through Chatsworth's meadows and Darley Dale, Or skirted the banks of the silvery Wye, Where Haddon's grey towers rise steep and high, ' His form and garb will familiar seem As the guardian deity of the stream, With his oval face and his grizzly locks, And his smile like that — of a sly old fox.' When old Butcher died, in 1875, there was sorrow Old Butcher the Angler. 69 in many a fisherman's heart ; and over his grave, in Curbar Churchyard, his friends have placed as. a tribute of regard an epitaph, in which he is spoken of as one ' who for many years of his life, amidst the beautiful works of creation, followed as a fisherman the humble occupation of Christ's disciples.' So rich in the antiquarian, the historic, and the picturesque is the region about Rowsley, that tourists occasionally stand on the inn steps, per- plexed and wondering which route to take. Up the hill, opposite the Peacock, lies Stanton Moor, with its stone circle, the 'Nine Ladies,' and its other Celtic remains. Near it is Birchover, with its famed Roo Tor Rocks, and the Bradley Rocks ; and within a sparrow's flight as it were, are Cratcliffe Rocks with Hermitage ; Robin Hood's Stride, or Mock Beggar Hall ; Winster, with its quaint old Market-house ; the remote village of Youlgreave, a place that clings tenaciously to old English life, and is full of interesting Derbyshire character studies ; and beyond the time-worn Ar- borlows, a miniature Stonehenge, over which numberless archaeologists have puzzled their brains. On the banks of the Wye, to the right, nestles grey Haddon Hall, with its historic memories and air of romance. Over the bridge, to the left, is the road leading through Beeley to Chatsworth, the Duke of Devonshire's ' Palace of the Peak.' To which of these mansions will you go ? To Chats- worth ! xuznznxmHE ^ii-iiiTiiiiininiiw CHAPTER VI. Old Chatsworth— Mary Queen of Scots— The First Duke of Devonshire — Pulling a Colonel's Nose — The Revolution of 1688 — New Chatsworth and its Treasures of Art and Litera- ture—The Gardens and Park — Edensor and its Historic Graves. 'Derbyshire,' says a quaint old writer, 'is a country wherein nature sports itself, leaping up and down as it were in pleasant variety, until, being weary, it recreates itself at Chatsworth, Boulsover, and Hard- wicke.' Adopting this poetic imagery, it must be admitted by all who know these Derbyshire seats, that nature (especially human nature) shows its dis- crimination by recreating in such pleasant places. All three mansions are rich in history, tradition, and picturesque surroundings ; but Chatsworth, with its palace of art-treasures, the most powerfully attracts both the scholarly and the illiterate, for the latter as well as the former have often a delicate sense of beauty. The existing mansion is not the house Sir William Cavendish began to build, and which his widow, the famous ' Bess of Hardwick,' completed. That old English home, which superseded the more Old Chatsworth. 7 1 ancient hall of the Leches and Agards, was a quadrangular building, with square towers, rude and mediseval in look compared with the modern fabric adorned by the art of Verrio, Laguerre, and others. Still it had great historic interest, for it was one of the prison-houses of Mary Queen of Scots ; and the moated, ivy-covered bower by the riverside yet recalls the days of her captivity, when, under the surveillance of the Earl of Shrewsbury, she was not allowed to ' take the air on horseback more than one or two miles from the house, except it be one of the moors.' The old hall was, too, the birthplace of the unfortunate Arabella Stuart ; and in the Civil Wars it resounded with the clank of armed men ; for Sir John Gell's soldiers and the Duke of Newcastle's cavaliers have both been on the defensive there. It is authoritatively stated that one of the Duke of Devonshire's ancestors, Sir John Cavendish, esquire of the body to Richard III. and Henry V., killed Wat Tyler in his conflict with Sir William Walworth, for which gallant conduct he was knighted by the King in Smithfield. Chatsworth was purchased from the Agards by Sir William Cavendish, who by this act set a very commendable example of honesty in a some- what lax age. Since then the noble house of Cavendish, which has Cavcndo Tutus for its motto, has played a conspicuous part in the political and social life of the country. But among the long line of warriors, scholars, and statesmen who have borne 72 History of Derbyshire. the name of Cavendish, none have been more gifted or celebrated than the fourth Earl and first Duke of Devonshire, who built the present mansion. Bishop Kennet says : ' He was singularly accomplished ; he had a great skill in languages ; was a true judge in history, a critic in poetry, and had a fine hand in music. In architecture he had a genius, skill, and experience beyond any one person of any age.' Like Henry V., however, he interspersed his youth with frolic, and one of his adventures bordered on tragedy, for he was nearly slain in the Opera House at Paris, in an encounter with three of the King's guards. Later in life his high spirits and courage did not desert him. When he dabbled in State affairs, and was insulted in the Court of James II. by Colonel Culpepper, he led that officer out of the presence-chamber by the nose ; but he is particularly remembered because of the important part he played in the Revolution of 1688. The fourth Earl of Devonshire, although often bedizened in ruffles and lace, was no mere drawing-room soldier. He was one of the noblemen who invited the Prince of Orange to this country, and on William's arrival at Torbay, the Earl marched his tenantry to Derby and Nottingham, prepared, if need be, to uphold his Protestant principles with his sword. But the necessity did not arise ; and his lordship, after escorting Princess Anne to Oxford, returned to Chatsworth, where he began to pull down the old house, and ' erect these well-loved halls in the year of English freedom.' New Chatsworth and its Treasures. 73 And to the poor, who often toil and strive for so little, it must seem as if he had Aladdin's riches when he did it. What beauty, wealth, and delicate art are revealed even in the great hall, with its floor of polished marble, and walls and ceiling adorned with historical paintings ! Beyond, the state-room and library stories contain treasures enough to arouse a Monte Christo's envy. In the sketch gallery are a multitude of rare original drawings by Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaelle, Correggio, Salvator Rosa, and many other great masters. The state dressing-room is noted not only for Verrio's painting illustrating ' The flight of Mercury on his mission to Paris,' but for the most exquisite wood-carving. Here is what is known as ' Grinling Gibbons's masterpiece,' and the cravat of point-lace, the woodcock, the foliage, and medal of which it consists are wondrous evidences of the wood-carver's skill. Horace Walpole said : ' There is no instance of a man before Gibbons who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements with a free disorder, natural to each species.' And if this group was the work of Gibbons, his panegyrist has been guilty of little exaggeration. Richer in appointment, and far more historic, is the state bedroom. Its walls are hung with leather arabesque, its ceiling represents ' Aurora chasing away the Night,' and over the doorways the talented wood-carver has been busy. One of the most valued pieces of furniture in this apartment is the state 74 History of Derbyshire. chair and crimson velvet canopy so deftly em- broidered and curiously figured by Christian, the wife of the second Earl of Devonshire, and close by are the chairs and footstools used in the coronation of George III. and his Queen Charlotte, and of William IV. and Queen Adelaide — pretty relics of past pageants and of courtly ceremonial in which high-bred dames and gallant gentlemen took part. Very different from the 'Cave of Harmony' in which Pendennis passed such agreeable nights is the music-room, decorated with mythological figures, and carvings of fruits, flowers, and musical in- struments. Hanging over the door leading to the gallery is a marvellous violin. But no one can play it ; no one can lift it off the peg. It is only a fiddle created by the painter's brush ; but it is, as Mr. Jewitt expresses it, ' a fiddle painted so cleverly on the door itself as to have, in the subdued light of the half-closed door, all the appearance of the instrument itself hanging on the peg. The tradition at Chatsworth is that this matchless piece of paint- ing was done by Verrio to deceive Gibbons ;' he pro- bably did not realize what chagrin, fun, surprise, and disappointment that fiddle would yield to a tantalized posterity. Numberless fingers, of nearly all nation- alities, have endeavoured to grasp it ; but they might as well have tried to catch a sunbeam, or a shadow. Gobelin's tapestry, Verrio's painting, Watson's wood-carving, and Chantrey's sculpture, beautify the state drawing and dining rooms, which are charac- terized by great splendour, both of furniture and New Chatsworth and its Treasures. 75 general adornment. The latter room contains a much-treasured curiosity, the rosary worn by Henry VIII. ' Upon the four sides of each bead are four circles, within which are carved groups, each taken from a chapter in the Bible. Nothing can surpass the exquisite beauty of the workmanship of this relic of other days. Every figure is perfect, notwithstanding the extreme minuteness of their size ; and the whole is from the design of Holbein, who has painted Henry in these identical beads.' Did the bluff King, after so inconsiderately beheading his wives, succeed in quieting his conscience with these beads ? If so, it must have been a wonderful rosary. At the back of the fireplace, in the dining- room, is a simple but equally interesting memento — the arms, supporters, motto, and coronet of the first Duke of Devonshire, bearing the date of 1695, a year after he, the fourth Earl (who so fearlessly declared himself ' a faithful subject to good sovereigns, inimical and hateful to tyrants') was created Marquis of Hartington and Duke of Devonshire by William of Orange. ' The King and Queen,' says the patent, ' could do no less for one who deserved the best of them ; one who in a corrupt age sinking into the basest flattery, had constantly retained the manners of the ancients, and would never suffer himself to be moved either by the insinuations or threats of a deceitful Court.' Not the least novel apartment in Chatsworth House is, however, the ' Sabine-room,' which is covered — walls, doors, and ceiling — with cleverly J 6 History of Derbyshire. painted figures, the principal subject being ' The Rape of the Sabines.' When the doors are closed the room makes a complete picture, most adroitly treated : and the occupant, whoever he or she may be, must feel thoroughly enveloped by art. In Bol- sover Castle are two rooms adorned in a similar style ; but the figures, representative of Happiness and Misery, have been blurred, and in some instances nearly obliterated, by a coating of whitewash laid on thickly by some stupid Vandal. In the gallery of paintings and the grand drawing- room it is easy to believe Miss Thackeray's assertion that pictures ' are strange, shifting things, before which people stand to wonder, envy, and study.' Dead and gone Cavendishes, who have been dis- tinguished in the senate, the field, and the sea-fight, look with steady, unflinching gaze out of the canvas. In the drawing-room is Sir Joshua Reynolds's pic- ture of ' The Beautiful Duchess of Devonshire,' the intellectual and fascinating lady who was so eager to secure Fox's election that, according to tradition, she consented to accept a butcher's kiss for the sake of securing his vote. Among the art- treasures in this apartment, too, are Rembrandt's ' Head of a Jewish Rabbi,' Titian's painting of Philip II., Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII., Zucchero's picture of Mary Queen of Scots, and the famous sculptured figure of Hebe, by Canova, Toretti's precocious pupil, who at the age of twelve placed upon the table of the lord of Passagno the form of a lion modelled in butter. New Chatsworth and its Treasures. J 7 The rich men of ancient Rome had living libraries (trained slaves), who could repeat the ' Iliad ' from memory ; but the Duke of Devonshire has greater advantages than were ever possessed by these volup- tuaries, for he is dependent neither on the caprices of slaves nor the monotony of the ' Iliad ' for in- tellectual recreation. Like Charles Lamb, nearly all the Cavendishes have had an intense love of books ; and the great library in the east wing of Chatsworth House is crowded with literature collected by successive generations of this noble race. There are books here that belonged to Sir William Cavendish, the husband of ' Bess of Hard- wick ;' there are black-letter books, volumes of ancient poetry, rare manuscripts, and multitudes of standard works in splendid bindings. One of the greatest gems in this rich library is Claude Lorraine's collec- tion of original designs, purchased by William, second Duke of Devonshire, and valued at no less than £20,000. The great painter, who began life as a pastrycook, was so passionately fond of art that he studied in the fields from sunrise to sunset. He was ' in the habit of taking a faithful sketch of every landscape he painted, and on the back of each sketch he noted in his own handwriting the date of the painting, and the customer for whom it was painted. These sketches he kept in a book called " Libro di Verita," and which, at his death in 1662, he left, entailed, to his nephews and nieces. Louis XIV. tried in vain to buy it through Cardinal d'Es- trees. The Duke of Devonshire, however, after 7 8 History of Derbyshire. considerable difficulty, succeeded in securing this Koh-i-noor of art as soon as the entail came to an end and the last owner was able to sell it.' The student of history, the archaeologist, the scientist, the theologian, and the lover of romance would delight to revel in this literary paradise ; which contains, among other treasures, the rare Anglo-Saxon MS. of Caedmon, the Benedictionale done for JEthelwold, Bishop of Winchester; and the prayer-book given by Henry VII. to his daughter, Margaret, Queen of Scotland, the latter bearing the King's autograph and the words, ' Remember y r kynde and lovyng fader in yo r good prayers. Henry R.' Literature and art are very nearly akin, and it is not singular that a mansion like Chatsworth should contain many examples of the sculptor's skill. Arte- musWard,the humourist, ridiculed the 'bust business/ and pilloried in fun those who made images of 'Bona- parte and other great men.' But if, as John Ruskin says, sculpture is the foundation and school of paint- ing, ambitious wielders of the brush might find it advantageous to become more familiar with the sculpture gallery at the Duke of Devonshire's chief seat, for in it, on pedestals of porphyry and granite, stand or recline figures so exquisitely chiselled that, like Pygmalion's statue of Galatea, they seem to need only one other virtue — that of being endowed with life. Of rare beauty are Canova's figure of Endymion asleep; Schadow's statue of the spinning- girl ; Albacini's wounded Achilles ; and Tererani's Venus, out of whose foot Cupid is extracting the New Chatsworth and its Treasures. 79 thorn. And at least two famous sculptors of lowly origin have works in this gallery : Thorwaldsen, the son of the Icelandic sailor, who carved figure-heads for vessels to obtain a livelihood ; and Chantrey, the Norton farmer's boy, who declined to be a grocer, and during his apprenticeship to carving and gilding worked so assiduously in his humble studio at Sheffield that he was enabled ultimately to rely upon his pencil and chisel. What noble lessons of perse- verance and ceaseless endeavours the lives of these men teach ! Thorwaldsen struggling for the grand prize in the Academy at Copenhagen, and carefully modelling the statue of 'Jason,' that landed him on the threshold of fame ; Chantrey digging clay out of a brick-hole in the steel-making city in his eager- ness to attempt busts and figures, and finally gaining knighthood, as well as fame, by his art. The Derbyshire home of the Chancellor of Cam- bridge University has many other charms and points of interest. It is delightful to wander in the orangery, and to loiter in the chapel, which is enriched with marble figures and wood-carving ; but perhaps the greatest treat is to get a privileged peep into the private library, in which the bookcases are sur- mounted by medallion portraits of the poets whose names are familiar in nearly every English house- hold. Shakespeare is indicated by the phrase, ' Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new ;' Milton is 'A poet blind, yet bold ;' and Byron ' The wander- ing outlaw of his own brave land.' Humour revels on book-backs in this literary retreat, for on the 8o History of Derbyshire. doors are painted fictitious volumes with fictitious titles, the outcome of Tom Hood's wit. The student, with eyes eagerly ranging over the books that fill the shelves, suddenly learns that his Grace possesses some very curious works, such as ' Wren's Voyage to the Canaries ;' ' Minto's Coins ;' ' Dyspepsia and Heartburn, by the Bishop of Sodor ;' ' Merry's Gay ;' ' Ray's Light of Reason ;' ' Macadam's Roads,' and ' Beveridge on the Beer Act ;' — but, like Verrio's painted fiddle in another part of the house, they can- not be taken down. The rugged, bramble-choked vale at Alton-Towers was converted into a luxuriant garden by the fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, and the inscription on the ceno- taph erected to his memory appropriately says, ' He made the desert smile.' A similar tribute might be paid with equal justice to the owners of Chatsworth. Thomas Hobbes, the author of ' Leviathan,' early described how, behind the house, guarded by a lofty mountain from the rough east wind, ' a pleasant garden doth appear.' And Charles Cotton, after speaking of the wild prospects that gird the noted mansion, says : ' On the south side the stately gardens lye, Where the scorn'd peak rivals proud Italy.' When Izaak Walton's friend wrote his poem on the geological and physical beauties of North Derby- shire, these gardens, in which Dr. Johnson has wandered, and Queen Victoria has planted an oak, were very pretty ; but they grew lovelier still under The Gardens and Park. 8r Sir Joseph Paxton's care, and contain some of ' the sweetest walks the world can show,' whether one chooses to saunter into the quaint French garden, with its bust-crowned foliage-clad pillars ; past the great cascade, flowing over a temple's dome ; by the artificial willow-tree, which, like some hypocrites, can shed tears at will ; near the mighty Emperor's fountain, whose waters, rising nearly three hundred feet high, look in the sunlight like a column of crystal, shining through a canopy of lovely spray-showers ; along the broad paths of the Italian garden ; through the avenue of exotics in the great conservatory ; or in the humbler and more rustic ways, bordered by fern-dells, moss-covered rocks, and trailing plants. Vast changes have been effected since the old gar- dens were laid out by George Loudon, in 1688; and the skilful horticulturist and landscape-gardener have made this cultured vale south of Chatsworth House a paradise, ' shut in,' as Charles Cotton said, ' by black heaths, wild rocks, bleak crags, and wooded hills.' St. Evremond, in one of his letters, said : ' I now write to you from the Earl of Devonshire's, where I have been this fortnight paying my devotions to the genius of Nature. Nothing can be more romantic than this country, except the region about Valois ; and nothing can equal this place in beauty except the borders of the lake.' And there are few lovelier pictures than Chatsworth Park, with its bright grass-clad acres, and ancient trees beneath whose friendly branches the startled deer find shelter. On 6 82 History of Derbyshire. the wooded height that fringes the moorland stands the turreted hunting-tower, built in Queen Bess's days ; so that the fair sex, and the gallants who hovered near them, could enjoy the chase without its fatigues and dangers. A short distance away is the Swiss Cottage, half hidden in the trees that skirt the lake ; and on the opposite side of the park, be- yond the grand old bridge, designed by Michael Angelo, is Edensor, the Duke's model village, an ideal village of beauty, peace, and contentment, such as the author of ' Modern Painters,' Ruskin, would possibly like for his Arcadian Guild. In the churchyard, beneath a simple tombstone, lie the remains of ' the Good Duke/ who was always found ' on the side of humanity, justice, and popular rights.' On the accession of the Emperor Nicholas to the throne of Russia, he was the British ambassador entrusted with the message of congratu- lation to that Court ; and his horses, equipages, and the magnificence of his retinue dazzled the people of Derbyshire as well as the subjects of the Czar. At St. Petersburg his Grace gave a ball to the Imperial family, and it was characterized by the greatest splendour. And throughout his delicate mission the Duke comported himself with such dignity that the 'Devonshire manner' became a current phrase among the Russian nobility. By his side, in an equally lowly grave, Lord Frederick Cavendish is buried ; his loyal life cut short by the assassin's knife. A dread scene was that in Phcenix Park, on May 6th, 1882 — a tragedy Edensor and its Historic Graves. 81 o that robbed the Duke of Devonshire of one of his sons, and sent a thrill of mingled indignation and sympathy through the land ; no nobler man has been 'sacrified to Erin.' In Edensor church, built a few years back on the site of the old edifice, is a curious monument in alabaster. It is to the memories of Henry Cavendish, who distinguished himself among the English Volunteer commanders in the campaign in the Netherlands in 1578, and William, the first Earl of Devonshire, and the husband of ' Bess of Hard- wick.' The armour of the one and the state-robes of the other are sculptured in niches, and on the altar-tomb in front their effigies are calculated to remind the most thoughtless that life is fleeting, for Henry is represented as a skeleton, and William as wrapt in a winding-sheet. The most historic relic in the church, however, is the monumental brass to John Beton, grandson of Cardinal Beton, and taster and comptroller of the household to Mary Queen of Scots. ' He, with others, bravely liberated the Queen from the chains of a cruel tyrant at Loch Leven ;' and during the captivity of his royal mistress at Chatsworth he was still devoted to her interests, and died there in her service in 1570. A steadfast servant was John Beton ; a reproach to many modern servants, who scoff at fidelity, and prey like vultures on those they have promised to serve. 6—2 CHAPTER VII. Haddon— A Feudal Mansion — 'The King of the Peak : — Rough Justice — A Quaint Place of Worship — A Roman Altar — The Banqueting-Hall — The Dining-Room and its Carvings —The Long Gallery— A Night Flight. ' As the crow flies,' Chatsworth is not far from Haddon Hall ; but the two mansions are a very great distance apart in their characteristics. The one is a modern treasure-house of art and refinement; the other a sturdy relic of a ruder age, when the baron was absolute master on his own domain, and the vassal was the slave of his will. Both places are intensely interesting, but in widely different ways ; and the grey-stone turreted hall, rising, ivy- clad, among the trees on the eastern bank of the Wye, appeals particularly to the antiquary and to those who delight in romance and tradition. Its history ' has from the first,' as is well remarked by Mr. Jewitt, ' been one of peace and hospitality, not of war, feud, and oppression ;' and its early lords, though their manners were rough and their culture slight, had kindly, generous hearts beating beneath their leather jerkins, and frequently gained the respect of their retainers. H addon. 85 At the ' time of taking the Domesday Survey, when Bakewell belonged to, and was held by, the King, Haddon was a berewite of the Manor, and their one carucate of land was claimed by Henry de Ferrars. To whom Haddon belonged in the Saxon period is not clear, the first known owner being this Henry de Ferrars, who in 10S6 held, by grant of the Conqueror, no less than 114 manors in Derby- shire alone, built Dumeld Castle, and founded the Church of the Holy Trinity, near the Castle of Tut- bury.' It was afterwards held by tenure of knight's service by William Avenell, who, while lord of Haddon, gave a portion of his land to the monks of Roche Abbey, the gift being prompted, maybe, in a spirit of propitiation to Him who is Lord of all. It is, indeed, a very conspicuous fact that these medieval knights, brave as Hector in battle, were filled with vague terrors about their ultimate destination, and not unwilling to lighten their pockets for the sake of their souls. It was by marriage with pretty Avice, one of William de Avenell's daughters, that Richard de Vernon became possessor of Haddon Hall ; and his family, one of great antiquity, held the property for three centuries, until, by another and far more romantic marriage, it passed to the family of Manners. Beneath the old gateway, and just behind the thick nail-studded door that gives ingress to the lower courtyard, is the huge rim of a brewing-pan — a memento of the time when Sir George Vernon 86 History of Derbyshire. reigned there, and the mansion was filled with an almost perpetual odour of feasting. Succeeding to the estates in 1515, this hospitable knight, who understood the secret of getting to a man's heart by- way of his stomach, was neither niggardly with his banquets nor turned the hungry away. As was said of Welbeck Abbey at a later period, ' Then, indeed, the porter had his work with carriages at the gate, and the trenchers in the servants' hall knew no peace.' In such a liberal style did Sir George Vernon live, and so great was his sway, that he obtained from the people among whom he dwelt the title of ' The King of the Peak,' and occasionally he acted as if he were a despotic monarch. ' It is related that a pedlar who had been hawking his wares in the neigh- bourhood was found murdered in a lonely spot. He had been observed the evening before to enter a cottage, and was never seen alive again. As soon as Sir George heard of the crime, he had the body of the pedlar removed to Haddon, laid in the hall, and covered with a sheet. He then sent for the cottager, and questioned him as to the whereabouts of the pedlar who entered his house on the previous night. The man denied all knowledge of the stranger, when Sir George uncovered the body, and commanded all present to touch it in succession, and solemnly de- clare their innocence of the murder. The suspected man, when his turn came, declined to touch the body, and rushed out of the hall, running swiftly through Bakewell towards Ashford. Sir George ' The King of the Peak! Sy ordered his retainers to chase the fellow, and to hang him. The murderer was caught in a field opposite the Ashford toll-bar, and at once hanged. Sir George was summoned to London for thus indulging in lynch law, and when he appeared in Court was called upon to surrender as " The King of the Peak." But he declined to answer to that name, and was then called on as Sir George Vernon, when he stepped forward and said, " Here am I." As he had been summoned in the name of "The King of the Peak," the indict- ment fell through, and Sir George was merely admonished, and allowed to depart to his own domain.' The chaplain's room, a little to the right of the gateway, contains several reminders of the past — a pair of jack-boots, a leather doublet, a warder's horn, and some fire-dogs ; and in the south-west corner of the building, at the further end of the quiet, moss-grown courtyard, is the chapel, with its Norman nave and pillars, and font of the same period. A worm-eaten staircase leads to the quaint gallery or rood-loft, and in the chancel are two curious, high-railed family pews, that look uncom- fortable enough now, however cosy they may have been in the olden times, when fair ladies and brave knights worshipped there. Some portions of the chapel date as far back as 1160, and everything about this retired place of worship is very ancient. On the east window is an inscription to Sir Richard Vernon, who was ' Treasurer of Calais, Captain of Rouen, and Speaker of the Parliament of Leicester 88 History of Derbyshire. in 1426/ and the walls are relieved by old-fashioned paintings, the centre figure of one being the infant Jesus. On a bench in the porch across the courtyard is a worn Roman altar, bearing the inscription, ' deo MARTI BRACIACE OS[lT]TIVS CAECILIANVS PRAEF coh I aqvitano V s ;' which has been rendered, ' To the God Mars, Braciaca, Osittius, Caecilianus, Pre- fect of the first Cohort of the Aquitani, in perform- ance of a vow.' This altar, which is an object of great interest to archaeologists, was dug up near Bakewell many years ago, and its mutilated inscrip- tion has puzzled the brains of numerous Solons, who have, after all, found more satisfaction in deciphering it than Pickwick and his friends when they made their famous archaeological discovery. On the left of the porch, at the end of a gloomy passage, ingress is obtained to the big baronial kitchen, with its huge fireless grate, and large chopping-block, and gigantic salt-box; and on the right is the famous banqueting-hall, the scene of much bygone conviviality. Its stone floor is uneven, its fire-bars are broken, the pictures of the servitors on the walls are mildewed, and going to decay ; but this hall, which has so often echoed with loyal shouts, and hearty laughter, and minstrel lays, still contains two evidences of its former uses. One of these is the rusty handlock on the screen — an ingenious con- trivance by which those who refused good liquor were punished. How? is the inquiry that naturally springs to the reader's lips. Every guest who The Banqueting- Hall, So. declined the wine-cup had his wrists slipped into V the handlock, and the nectar he hesitated to send Vown his throat was poured into his sleeve. A bar- barous practice, a clumsy jest, you will say ; but it was seldom resorted to, for there were few Good Templars in that age, and precious little wine went down anybody's sleeve. The other evidence of this hilarious epoch, when men often reversed the adage, ' Live not to eat, but eat to live,' is the old oak banqueting-table, on the dais at the upper end of the hall. It is no longer a festive board, and may never be ornamented with the boar's head and the baron of beef again. It has out- lived all its friends, and stands in desolate pride alone. Mr. Jewitt says, ' This table is one of the finest examples of its kind yet remaining anywhere in existence. It is now worm-eaten and decayed, like those who once feasted around it ; but still it stands a proud monument of those ancient times so long gone by.' The dining-room, near the banqueting-hall, is a quaintly eloquent apartment elaborately wainscoted. Over the fireplace appears the motto : ' Drede God and honor the Kyng;' and the panels around the room are adorned with heraldic devices. The re- cess, which has a delightful outlook through an oriel window upon the moss-grown terrace and pretty lawn, is relieved with grotesque carvings of Will Somers the jester, Henry VII., and his Queen, Elizabeth of York, none of whom (presuming these heads are likenesses) were distinguished for personal 90 History of Derbyshire. beauty. The wood-carver, indeed, was no respecter of persons, for he has made his Majesty's face as whimsical as the Court fool's. Considering so much trouble has been taken to adorn the wainscot, it is surprising that so little attention was paid to the doors, which are ill-fitting and of the rudest workmanship, worse almost than the jerry-building which is the curse of some modern habitations. In the ArchcEologia a reason is given for this careless carpentry. ' The doors,' it says, ' were concealed everywhere behind the hangings, so that the tapestry was to be lifted up to pass in and out ; only for convenience there were great iron hooks (many of which are still in their places), by means whereof it might be held back. The doors being thus concealed, nothing can be conceived more ill- fashioned than their workmanship ; few of these fit at all close ; and wooden bolts, rude bars, and iron hasps are in general their only fastenings.' The drawing-room and the Earl's bedroom are both noted for the beauty of their tapestry ; but the ball-room, or long gallery, is far more celebrated than these apartments, not merely for its noble dimensions, but for its romantic associations. The semicircular steps of oak leading to it were, it is said, cut from one tree felled in Haddon Park ; and this king of the woodland, if tradition may be relied upon, also yielded timber enough for the floor of the ball-room. This magnificent apartment is 109 feet long, and 18 feet wide. What a noble gallery it is, rich with wainscot carvings of the boar's head, A Night Flight. 91 the crest of the Vernons, and the peacock, the crest of the Manners ! What soft nothings have been whispered near the recessed windows ! What love- making has gone on here under the eyes of the Queen of the Scythians, who is toying with the head of Cyrus, in a picture on the wall ! What a flutter of excitement reigned in this room among the high-bred dames and courteous cavaliers on the memorable night when Dorothy Vernon stole away from the ball given in honour of her sister's marriage. Nearly everybody knows the story — Edward Stanley's futile wooing of Dorothy ; her secret attachment to John Manners ; the beautiful girl kept almost a prisoner by an angry stepmother ; the night of fes- tivity ; the rustle of a lady's dress in the lord's par- lour ; the drawing back of bolt and bar ; the meeting of the lovers on the terrace, and then the wild ride — the scamper across the country-side to the altar : ' It is night with never a star, And the hall with revelry throbs and gleams ; There grates a hinge — a door is ajar — And a shaft of light in the darkness streams. 'A pale sweet face, a glimmering gem And then two figures steal into light ; A flash and darkness has swallowed them, So sudden is Dorothy Vernon's flight.' Haddon has many other apartments of interest to the student of history and the antiquarian. The state bedchamber with its historic bedstead and faded tapestry, and the roughly appointed archer's room, in which is the wooden frame formerly used 92 History of Derbyshire. for stringing bows, are among these ; but visitors linger longest in the lord's parlour, through which Dorothy Vernon stealthily glided, with fluttering heart, in her flight from home. The old door she unbarred, the threshold she crossed, are there still ; and the terrace, on which she joined her lover, is almost the same as on the night she left it — except that it has a more softened beauty, a beauty of rare old yew trees, deep-green turf, moss-grown steps, and ivy-twined balustrade such as defies the artist's pencil and the poet's rhapsody. CHAPTER VIII. BAKEWELL— A Quiet Country Town — Its History — A Noted Church — Some Famous Tombs and Curious Epitaphs — The Stone Cross — A Strange Petition — An Extraordinary Mar- riage — Living without Food — A Pathetic Ballad — An Heroic Exploit. Bakewell, ' the metropolis of the Peak,' is not a bit like a metropolis. It has no gigantic workshops, filled with pale-faced, half-stifled artisans ; it has little of the business anxiety, the perpetual unrest, the great wealth, and the repulsive squalor that distinguish a capital. It has a quaint market-place, an historic church, some good public buildings, a prosperous-looking bank, and many comfortable inns. It is a clean town, consisting chiefly of two long streets, bordered by old-fashioned buildings ; a town through which healthy moorland breezes sweep, and on the borders of which the Wye gently flows, making incessant music against the buttresses of the old bridge as it passes by. Except on market- day, or during some election campaign, Bakewell is a quiet place. Like the Haddon meadows through which it is reached, the town's aspect is peaceful; its 94 History of Derbyshire. talk is principally of agriculture and angling; its thoroughfares are chiefly busy when tourists come in shoals to besiege the church, to wander through Haddon, or to explore the sweet dale of Lathkil. Although only about an hour's railway ride from Derby, Bakewell has not become greatly imbued with the county town's go-ahead spirit ; and has made comparatively little progress through its long quiet life, extending very slowly, and increasing in popu- lation only at a snail's pace. After an existence that dates back to the time of the Romans, it is com- paratively a small place yet, containing about 2,500 inhabitants. But, like Ashbourne, Bakewell seems perfectly satisfied with itself, and perhaps would not, if it could, emerge out of its ancient chrysalis into a city of stucco, and tramcars, and late hours. Bakewell has long been celebrated for the purity and medicinal quality of its waters ; and its Baths and Bath Gardens, opposite the stately Rutland Arms, are a modern development of the more ancient baths, which were known to the legions of Rome, and probably relieved some of the warlike centurions from attacks of rheumatism. For a thousand years or so there has been little to disturb the even tenor of Bakewell's way. In 924, Edward the Elder, after fortifying Nottingham, marched into Peakland, to the old town which de- rived its name from the Badecanwyllan, or bathing- well, and 'commanded a castle to be placed nigh there into, and garrisoned.' In 1280, John Peckham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, finding that the deacon A Noted Church. 95 and subdeacon of the Church of Bakewell were so ill-provided for that they were obliged to beg their bread, ordained that they should eat at the vicar's table. And, according to an old record preserved at Derby, the witches of Bakewell were hanged in 1608. These are the three most prominent events in the town's history ; but the fine cruciform church, still bearing the impress of Norman and Early English builders, contains many memorials linked with BakewelFs past, of illustrious persons whose names are imperishable in the Peak. One of the most ancient monuments is an altar- tomb, bearing the recumbent effigy in alabaster of Sir Thomas de Wendesley, who was slain at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 ; and in the nave is an elaborate but delicately chiselled monument to Sir Godfrey Foljambe and Avena his wife, who founded the chantry of the Holy Cross in 1366. The Sir Thomas de Wendesley just spoken of was an exceedingly despotic knight, judging from the follow- ing strange petition in the Parliamentary Rolls : ' To the most wise Lords of the Council of our Lord the King, most humbly prays a poor and plain esquire, Godfrey Rowland, of the County of Derby, and complains of Sir Thos. Wendesley, knight, and John Deen, vicar of the Church of Hope, for that the said Thos. and John, with John Shawe, Richard Hunt, Reginald Wombewell, John de Sutton, Thos. Swynscowe, and John Swynscowe, his son, with many others of their bad associates, armed in a war- like manner, on the Monday next before the Feast 96 History of Derbyshire. of the Translation of St. John of Beverley, in the 23rd year of the reign of King Richard, formerly King of England, came feloniously to the house of the said petitioner, at Mikel Longesdon, and the said house with force and arms broke into, and despoiled, and all his goods and chattels there found, as well living as dead, to the value of two hundred marks, took and carried away ; and the said petitioner out of his said house, took and brought with them to the Castle of High Peak, and there imprisoned him for six whole days without giving him any meat or drink ; and after six days they brought him out of the said Castle, and cut off his right hand wrongfully and against the peace, and to the perpetual injury and loss of the said petitioner ; therefore be pleased in your most wise discretion to consider the shame- ful trespass and the bad example of those, the poverty and loss of the said petitioner, and to order said petitioner proper and hasty remedy according to your wise discretion, for God, and as a work of charity.' The Vernon Chapel, however, possesses generally the greatest interest to all strangers, especially if familiar with the story of Dorothy Vernon's run- away marriage. In this chapel, which is divided from the south transept by a rare open screen of oak, lie the remains of Sir George Vernon, the ' King of the Peak ;' and not far from the sturdy knight's altar-tomb is the monument to Sir John Manners and Dorothy his wife. Their romance is over. There is no reckless resolve in Sir John's Famous Tombs and Curious Epitaphs. 97 heart ; no flutter of hope or fear in Dorothy's breast. Some three hundred years have elapsed since they were both buried ; but posterity does not intend to let the story of their attachment die. People — particularly sentimental people — come long distances to look at the two kneeling figures, and read the inscription : 1 Here lyeth Sr John Manners, of Hadclon, Knight, second sonne of Thoas. Erie of Rutland, who dyed the 4 of June, 161 1, and Dorothie, his wife, one of the daughters and heires to Sr George Vernon, of Haddon, Knight, who deceased the 24 day of June, in the 26 yere of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth, 1584.' On the monument are various shields of arms of the quarterings of the families of Manners and Vernon, and the lower part is occupied by the effigies of four children of Sir John Manners and Dorothy Vernon, his wife. There are other tombs 'sacred to the memory' of the Vernons and the Manners ; and about the edifice itself and in the churchyard are many curious inscriptions recording the demise and characteristics of humbler but perhaps not less known individuals. One of these, in remembrance of John Dale, barber- surgeon, of Bakewell, and his two wives, Elizabeth Foljambe and Sarah Bloodworth, 1737, thus curiously ends : ' Know posterity, that on the 8th of April, in the year of grace 1737, the rambling remains of the above said John Dale were, in the 86th yeare of his pilgrimage, laid upon his two wives. 1 This thing in life might raise some jealousy, Here all three lie together lovingly, But from embraces here no pleasure flows, Alike are here all human joys and woes ; 7 98 History of Derbyshire. Here Sarah's chiding John no longer hears, And old John's rambling Sarah no more fears ; A period's come to all their toilsome lives, The good man's quiet ; still are both his wives.' Another epitaph, ' blending in a remarkable manner business, loyalty, and religion,' is as follows : ' To the memory of Matthew Strutt, of this town, farmer, long famed in these parts for veterinary skill. A good neigh- bour and a staunch friend to Church and King. Being church- warden at the time the present peal of bells were hung, through zeal of the House of God, and unremitting attention to the airy business of the belfry, he caught a cold, which terminated his existence, May 25, 1798, in the 68 year of his age.' Not only the churchwarden but even the parish clerk of Bakewell seems to have been a man of superior ability, for the tablet ' erected to the memory of Philip Roe,' who died in 1815, bears these lines, which remind one, by-the-bye, that the 'Amen ' of the parish clerk is fast dying out at all our country churches : 'Erected to the Memory of Philip Roe, who died 12TH September, 1815, aged 52 Years. ' The vocal Powers, here let us mark, Of Philip, our late Parish Clerk In church, none ever heard a Layman With a clearer Voice say Amen ! Oh ! none with Hallelujah's Sound, Like Him can make the Roofs resound. The Choir lament his Choral Tones, The Town — so soon here lie his Bones. Sleep undisturbed, within thy peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with such tones as thine.' A Singular Wedding. 99 Near the south transept of the church is one of the greatest curiosities Bakewell possesses — a so- called 'Runic cross,' that has been, and is still, a source of great interest to antiquaries. Although greatly defaced, it has yet much beauty, and bears on its front and back groups illustrative of Christ's life, foliage in graceful scrolls, and figures of men and various animals. It is a remarkably fine ex- ample of Anglo-Saxon sculpture. In the last, as in the present century, disparity of age was no bar to matrimony, and there were some singular weddings, especially in the out-of-the-way villages of Derbyshire. At Sheldon, near Bakewell, in January, 1753, a widow aged eighty was married to a boy of fourteen. The bride, owing to her infirmities, had to be chaired to the altar; but on her return she was preceded by a band of music and the Duke of Rutland's hornpipe-player. Unable to dance, she beat time to the music with her hands, and on get- ting home shuffled about by the aid of her crutches, commanding her husband meanwhile to join in the festivities. The populace were ' soundly drenched with showers of excellent liquor,' and there was much rejoicing at this strange union, which did not last long, however, for in the same month the old lady died, and was buried in Bakewell churchyard, the funeral sermon being preached by the clergyman ' who had lately performed the nuptial ceremony.' The famous fasting girl, Martha Taylor, was born and lived at Over Haddon, near Bakewell. She began to do without food when she was eighteen, 7—2 ioo History of Derbyshire. and did not eat anything for fifty-two weeks. The very approach of meat or drink was a great trouble to her ; and once, when out of curiosity or a desire to eat if possible, she did swallow part of a fig, it so upset her digestive organs that she narrowly escaped with her life. An old pamphlet, printed in 1668, during her fast, styles the girl 'a wonder of all wonders,' and says that ' this maid is still alive, and hath a watch set over her by the Earl of Devon- shire.' Her death, according to an entry in the parish register, took place in 1684, but whether she went on fasting to the end is not revealed. Bakewell is linked with a most pathetic Derby- shire ballad, ' The Parson's Torr,' descriptive' of the fate of the Rev. Robert Lomas, a former rector of Monyash, a little village a few miles off. The in- cumbent, during a perilous night-ride in 1776, fell over a lofty cliff, and was found dead at the foot of the rock. The ballad, written by the Rev. W. R. Bell for Mr. Jewitt's ' Reliquary,' and afterwards introduced into his ' Ballads and Songs of Derby- shire,' is vivid in description, and runs as follows : ' The parson of Monyash, late one eve, Sat in his old oak armchair ; And a playful flame in the low turf fire Ofttimes shewed him sitting there. ' What was it that made the kind-hearted man Sit pensively there alone ? Did other men's sorrows make sad his heart, Or say — a glimpse of his own ? ' Black dark was that night and stormy withal, It rained as 'twould rain a sea ; A Pathetic Ballad. 101 And round and within the old parsonage-house The wind moaned piteously. 1 Still sat he deep musing till midnight hour, And then in a waking dream — He quailed to hear 'mid the tempest a crash, And eke a wild piercing scream. ' " Oh, mercy !" cried he, with faltering breath, " What sounds are these which I hear ? May evil be far from both me and mine ! Good Lord, be Thou to us near !" ' No longer sat he in the old armchair, But prayed and lay down in bed ; And strove hard to sleep and not hear the storm That scowled and raged o'er his head. 'S* 1 But sleep seldom comes when 'tis most desired — And least to a troubled mind ; And the parson lay wake long time I ween Ere soft repose he could find. ' As the dark hours of night passed slowly on, He slept as weary man will ; But light was his sleep and broken his rest, And sad his foredread of ill. ' Thus restless he lay, and at early dawn He dream'd that he fell amain, Down, down an abyss of fathomless depth, Loud shrieking for help in vain. 1 He woke up at once with a sudden shock, And threw out his arms widespread ; " Good heavens I" he gasped ; " what ill omen is this ? Where am I ? — with quick or dead !" ' Right well was he pleased to find 'twas a dream — That still he was safe and sound ; With the last shades of night fear passed away, And joy once more again came round. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CA T.TFORNL SANTA BARBARA io2 History of Derbyshire. ' The morning was calm, and the storm was hushed, Nor wind nor rain swept the sky ; And betimes he arose, for bound was he To Bakewell that day to hie. ' Old Hugh brought his horse to the garden gate, And saw him all safe astride ; " Good-bye," quoth the parson ; quoth Hugh " Good-bye ! I wish you a pleasant ride !" ' Forth rode he across the lone trackless moor, His thoughts on his errand bent, And hoped he right soon to come back again The very same way he went. ' The journey to Bakewell he safely made A little before midday ; But vicar and people were all at church, Where they were oft wont to pray. 1 " I'll put up my beast," quoth the parson, "here At the White Horse hostelry f' And go up to church, that when prayers are done The vicar I there may see." 'But ere he could reach the old Newark doorf Both priest and people were gone ; And the vicar to soothe a dying man To Over Haddon sped on. ' 'Twas three past noon when the vicar came back, The parson he asked to dine ; And time stole a march on the heedless guest — Six struck as he sat at his wine. ' Up rose he from table, and took his leave, Quite startled to find it late ; He called for his horse at the hostelry, And homeward was soon agate. 8 Now the Rutland Arms, t The south transept door. A Pathetic Ballad. 103 ' As he rode up the hill, past All Saint's Church, The moon just one glance bestowed, And the weird-like form of the old stone cross In the churchyard dimly showed. ' Still higher and higher he climbed the hill, Yet more and more dark it grew ; The drizzling rain became sleet as he climbed, And the wind more keenly blew. ' Ah ! thick was the mist on the moor that night — Poor wight ! he had lost his way ! The north-east wind blowing strong on his right, To the left had made him stray. ' And now he was close to lone Haddon Grove, Bewildered upon the moor ; Slow leading his horse that followed behind, Himself groping on before. 1 Still onward and leeward, at last he came To the edge of Harlow Dale ; From his cave* Latkil a warning roared, But louder then howled the gale. ' On the brink of Fox Torr the doomed man stood, And tugged the bridle in vain ;> But his horse would not move ; then quick started back, And snap went each bridle rein ! 1 Then headlong fell he o'er the lofty cliff : He shrieked and sank in the gloom ; Down, down to the bottom he swiftly sped, And death was his dreadful doom. ' The dead man lay cold on the blood-stained rocks — The darkness did him enshroud ; And the owls high up in the ivy-clad Torr Bewailed him all night full loud. * The Latkil is a noted trout stream, and flows out of a cavern opposite the Torr. io4 History of Derbyshire. ' Oh, little they thought in the old thatched cot Hard by the parsonage gate, Their master they never again should see, Nor ope to him soon or late. ' " This night is no better than last," quoth Hugh, " And master has not come back ; I hope he is hale, and safe housed with friends, And has of good cheer no lack." ' Quoth Betty, " I liked not his morning ride ; I fear he's in evil plight ; A Friday's venture's no luck, I've heard say — God help him if out this night !" ' At dawn of next day old Betty went forth To milk the cow in the shed, And saw him sitting upon a large stone, All pale and mute, with bare head ! 1 But a moment she turned her eyes away, A fall she heard and a groan ; She looked again, but no parson was there — He'd vanished from off the stone ! ' Soon spread the dread tale through Monyash town- They made a great hue and cry ; And some off to this place and some to that To seek the lost man did hie. ' Bad tidings from Bakewell— no parson there — No parson could else be found ; 'Twas noon, yet no tidings — they still searched on, And missed they no likely ground. ' At last the searchers went into the dale : And there at the foot of Fox Torr They found the parson, all cold and dead, 'Mong the rocks all stained with gore. ' They took up his corse, and six stalwart men Slowly bore it along the dale ; And they laid the dead in his house that night, And many did him bewail. A Pathetic Ballad. 105 ' When time had passed over — a day or twain, They buried him in the grave ; And his bones now rest in the lone churchyard Till doomsday them thence shall crave. 1 Oh, dread was the death of the luckless man, Not soon will it be forgot ; The dismal story, for ages to come, Will often be told, I wot. ' You may not now see in Monyash town The dead man's sear tuft of grass ; But still it is there in memory stored, And thence it never shall pass. ' You may not now find Fox Torr by that name — The swain thus knows it no more ; But pointing thereat from Latkil grot, He'll show you the Parson's Torr.' Very different in sentiment from ' The Parson's Torr' is the humorous ballad 'The Tailor's Ramble,' the hero of which, a man named Eyre, thoroughly revealed by his valiant feat in 1797 the falsity of the adage that a tailor is only the ninth part of a man. This also we quote, as follows, from Mr. Jewitt's ' Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire ': ' Come all you gallant heroes, of courage stout and bold, And I'll tell you of a Taylor that would not be control'd ; It happened in Derbyshire, as you may understand, Five troops of the cavelry to take this noble man. ' So now I do begin to tell you of the fun : Full twenty miles that morning this Taylor he had run ; And when he came to Ashford, the people they did cry, " Make haste, my jovel lad, for your enimies are nigh !" 106 History of Derbyshire. ' This Taylor was a mighty man — a man of wonderous size, And when he came to Entcliff* Hill you would have thought he would have reached the skies ; And when he did climb those rocks that was so wondrous high, The cavelry came all round, and the Taylor they did spy. ' They loaded their Pistols with Powder and Ball, All for to take this Taylor that was both stout and tall ; He was near four feet high, and a mighty man indeed — You'd a laugh'd to have seen the cavelry ride after him full speed. ' In lighting from their horses, their valour for to show, Five of them upon the ground this Taylor he did throw ; They being sore affrighted, saying, " We would shoot him if we durst !" But their Carbines would not fire, for their Balls they had put in first. ' Their captain, as commander, he ordered ranks to form, All for to take this Taylor the Entcliff rocks to storm : " Prime and load !" then was the word their captain he did cry; " Cheer up, my jovel lads ; let us conquerors be or die !" £ These valiants being reinforced, they took the Tailor bold, And guarded him to Bakewell, the truth I will unfold ; At the White Horse Inn in Bakewell, as you may understand, It took full fifty of their troops to guard this noble man. ' The battle being over, the Taylor they have won, And this is the first prank our cavelry has done ; I tell you the truth, they cannot refuse, They are ten times worse than the runaway blues. ' Here's a health unto the Taylor, of courage stout and bold, And by our noble cavelry he scorns to be control'd ; If he'd but had his goose, his bodkin, and his shears, He would soon have cleared Bakewell of those Derby volun- teers.' * Entcliff is about a mile from Bakewell on the way to Ashford. ■ .miiMiininuiiiiiliHiijml i liiiniimiMllrlimiiMiiFumiinimiiMimin iii M i m i in jiuiih jiii iniiiirjiiijiinii. Jf CHAPTER IX. Some Peak Villages. — Ashford and its Customs — Little Longstone — Hassop — A Brave Royalist — Baslow — The Dog Whipper — Scenery and Health — A Pretty Valley — Stony Middleton — Chief Justice Denman — Rocky Grandeur — A Love-Sick Maiden's Leap. Some half-dozen Peak villages, old-world places, with old-fashioned inhabitants, and simple customs lingering on from generation to generation, cluster around Bakewell. Ashford-in-the-Water, with its clever workers in marble, lies a little to the north- west in a pretty fertile valley. It was a royal manor, and granted in the first year of his reign by King John to Wenunwen, Lord of Powisland. By Edward III. it was granted to Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, and passed, by marriage of his daughter Joan, into the Holland family, from whom, on the death of Edmund Holland, Earl of Kent, in 1408, it passed to his sister, the wife of Lord Nevile. From Henry Nevile, Earl of Westmorland, about 1550, it was bought by Sir William Cavendish, and still forms part of the possessions of the Duke of Devonshire. A castellated residence, inhabited successively by the Plantagenets, Hollands, and Neviles, once stood 10S History of Derbyshire. in the village, but has, time out of mind, been demolished. In the church, which has superseded a more ancient one, is part of the old porch, ' on which is sculptured a wild boar and another animal, some- thing resembling a wolf in a couchant position under a tree, which is thought to be allegorical of the ancient Peak forest, it being infested with those animals at the time the church was erected.' A tablet in the same edifice records the death, in 1786, of Henry Watson, of Bakewell, who ' established the marble-works near this place, and was the first who formed into ornaments the fluors and other fossils of this county.' Ashford long kept alive the custom of carrying funeral garlands in front of the coffins of girls who died unmarried, and some of these memorials still hang in the church, where loving hands so long ago placed them. The custom of ' sugar- cupping ' was also observed here on Easter Sunday, when both young and old 'had the habit of taking sugar and water in bottles, and sitting on the banks around the village, drinking this mixture.' William Harris, the founder of the Free Grammar School, was particularly anxious not only about the education of the children, but the eternal welfare of their parents, for by his will, dated 6th September, 1630, he ' left the annual sum of twenty marks, to be issuing yearly for ever, out of the new grounds lying in the parish of Alfreton, in trust, that twenty Little Longstone. — Hassop. 109 nobles, parcel of the said twenty marks, should be paid yearly for ever towards the maintenance of a free school, to be kept in Ashford, where the testator was born, for the instruction of poor children ; and the said testator gave £50 towards building a school- house and appointed that the other twenty nobles, the residue of the said sum, should be paid yearly for twenty sermons to be made yearly in the Chapel of Ashford or in the Chapel of Sheldon ... in the parish of Bakewell, which the said trustees should think most expedient, they allowing to the preacher for every sermon six-and-eightpence !' Not far from Ashford, are not only Taddington, Sheldon, Great Longstone, but Little Longstone, with its numerous subjects for the artist's pencil and its old stone stoopes, the remnant of the degrading stocks, in which many a drunkard has sat until he became sober, jeered at and teased meanwhile by the rosy-cheeked children of the village. In the same neighbourhood, again, is Hassop, with its antiquated grey-stone cottages, surrounded by evergreens, rose-trees, and flowers. Its noted hall — which was garrisoned for King Charles, in 1643, by Colonel Eyre, conspicuous for his bravery at the siege of Newark — the seat of the Earls of New- burgh, and to which, and other estates of the Eyres, many ' claimants ' have arisen, is an unostentatious residence, and near by is the Roman Catholic chapel, resorted to from the surrounding Peak villages. Baslow, one of the prettiest of Derbyshire villages, no History of Derbyshire. lies only an hour's walk from Bakewell, along the pleasant tree-shaded road to the left of the worn bridge that crosses the Wye. Long before the pedestrian reaches the village, he can see it stretch- ing a little way into the valley, and extending along the wooded hillside to the north ; and through the meadows at his feet flow the clear waters of the Derwent, on whose verdant banks ' proud Chats- worth towers.' Baslow, once visited, makes an in- delible impression upon the mind. It is quiet, rural, picturesque ; and its hoary church, moss-grown graveyard, primitive shops, and homely cottages, brightened inside by out-of-date pictures and grand- motherly ornaments, and outside by laburnums, lilacs, and roses, make it an ideal English village, the repose of which has so far been undisturbed by the modern spirit of spoliation. It is true that lately a fine hydropathic establishment has been built on the slope fronting Chatsworth House, an establish- ment furnished in a somewhat aesthetic style ; but it is almost too grand for the grey-suited tourist whose boots are white with the dust of the limestone roads. So, as a rule, he prefers the old inns — the ivy-clad Peacock, the well-known Devonshire Arms, and the Wheat Sheaf, with its homely rooms and secluded, foliage-bordered bowling-green. The church, dark and sombre with age, stands just off the main road through the village. ' In the vestry,' says Mr. Cox, in his work on the Churches of Derbyshire, ' there still remains the weapon of the ancient parish functionary of whom we read in The Dog Whipper. 1 1 1 so many churchwardens' accounts in almost every county of England — the dog-whipper. It was his duty to whip the dogs out of church, and generally to look after the orderly behaviour of both bipeds and quadrupeds during divine service. The whip in question has a stout lash some three feet in length, fastened to a short ash-stick with leather bound round the handle. It is said there are persons yet living in the parish who can remember the whip being used. We believe it to be a unique curiosity, as we cannot hear of another parish in which the whip is still extant.' This church was not at all singular in its possession of a dog-whipper. In the Youlgreave register there is an entry showing that in 1609 the sum of sixteenpence was paid to Robert Walton ' for whipping ye dogges forth of ye church in time of Divyne service ;' and at Castleton, in 1722, ten shillings were paid to the ' sluggard-waker,' a still more startling functionary, whose duty it was to awake drowsy members of the congregation by tap- ping them on the head with a long wand. Baslow is noted not only for the beauty of the village itself, but for the rugged character of the hills that shelter it from the east and north winds. On the fringe of the hamlet, high above the wooded slopes, great rocks stand grandly out against the sky- line ; and one of these, ' the Eagle Stone,' was once a rock idol, the object of much adoration among the Druids. In a humble sort of way, Baslow is a health-resort, and in the spring, when the little gardens are bright with flowers, nearly every cottage 1 1 2 Histoiy of Derbyshire. puts up its well-worn card, ' Lodgings to Let,' and every coach brings family groups, parents and children, joyous with the prospect of a long holiday. But Baslow is chiefly used as the northern portal to Chatsworth, and all the year round it is fre- quented by Sheffield people who eagerly forsake the forge, the furnace, and the cutler's shop for a day in the Peak. In summer they come in thousands, often tramping the entire distance, toiling up the steep to Owler Bar, and trudging past long stretches of moorland, either by the low road, or the more picturesque Froggatt Edge, with its winding tree- shadowed highway and glorious prospect, shouldered in the distance by the dark-looking hills that hob-nob with Kinder Scout. The view here is magnificent, so diversified is the scenery, the blending of hill and dale, of moorland glen and green fields, of tiny brooklet and broad river, of hardy trees growing, as it were, out of the stony hearts of scarped rocks, and of tender-looking plants that seem to thrive, like Micawber, upon nothing. Of this stretch of beautiful country, as seen from the road that dips towards Baslow, we have previously written : ' On the left, Froggatt Edge rises above us bold and rugged. Out of its rough side jut huge rocks, giving shelter to thick foliage, ferns, and wild flowers. One of these rocks is said to resemble Mr. Gladstone's profile, and another, boat-shaped, is known as " Noah's Ark." Over the moss-grown wall on the right of the roadway a finely-wooded declivity merges A Pretty Valley. 1 1 o several hundred feet below into the wide-sweeping valley — one of Nature's brightest jewels set in a wilderness of rock and heath. ' How restful and pleasing to the eye is the graceful expanse of fertile meadows, dotted here and there with grey stone cottages and modest farm- steads, and how toy-like the little gardens look far down in this sleepy hollow. The Derwent winds through the fields ; and the white roads, forsaking the river at whimsical angles, lead one in fancy to the shadowed glades of Ashopton, and the old-world village of Eyam, an out-of-the-way paradise of health and beauty now — two hundred years ago a plague- stricken hamlet, in which the clergyman, Mompesson, taught posterity the real meaning of self-sacrifice. The rocky fringe of Bamford, the lofty peak of Win- hill, and the wave-like bend of dale on the opposite slope, make a lovely background to this splendid landscape, this charming picture of shifting lights and shadows, and varied colours tinting ridge and dell, of wooded hills, and flower-sprinkled pastures, and gleaming river.' The Chequers Inn, a homely resort for artists and anglers, stands within the shadow of the rocks lower down the road ; and either from this point or from Baslow, the secluded village of Stony Middleton is soon reached. The place is appropriately named. It is very stony ; there is stone everywhere, and the habitations, like the house of the wise man in the parable, are built upon a rock. Very picturesque the cottages look, rising irregularly one above an- 8 ii4 History of Derbyshire. other on the ridges of the mountain-side ; but the lead-miner and the labourer, climbing to their eyrie- like homes, high above the roadway, think more" about their aching backs and tired legs than the scenery. The Duke of York, who had a weakness for marching his men to the top of the hill and marching them down again, would very soon have grown weary of the pastime at Stony Middleton. ' The hill in this town is so steep,' wrote Dr. Pegge, ' that it is said when Mr. Ashton was sheriff in 1664, he had no coach, and the judge asked why he did not bring one. He replied there was no such thing as having a coach where he lived, " for ye town stood on one end." ' On the threshold of the village stands Middleton Hall, the seat of Lord Denman. The mansion is not attractive, except for its associations. The dull-looking habitation formerly belonged to the Fynney family, and passed by the marriage, in 176 1, of Elizabeth, one of the coheiresses of Richard Fynney, gent., with Joseph Denman, M.D., of Bakewell. Dr. Joseph Denman was brother to Dr. Thomas Denman, the eminent London physician, who, marrying Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Brodie, became father of Thomas Denman, Solicitor- General to Queen Caroline during her trial. This Thomas Denman was made Lord Chief Justice, and called to the House of Lords as Baron Denman of Dovedale. He married Theodosia, daughter of the Rev. R. Veners, and was father of the present Lord Denman ; of Admiral Denman ; and of the present Chief Justice Demnan. 115 Judge Denman. The Lord Chief Justice was noted alike for his legal knowledge, political power, and fine sense of justice. He dared even to brave the House of Commons itself in the cause of right, and one of his judgments contained those memorable words : 1 Most willingly would I decline to enter upon an inquiry which may lead to my differing from that great and powerful assembly. But when one of my fellow-subjects presents himself before me in this court demanding justice for an injury, it is not at my option to grant or withhold redress. I am bound to afford it him if the law declares him entitled to it. Parliament is said to be supreme. I most fully acknowledge its supremacy. It follows, then, that neither branch of it is supreme when acting by itself.' Nor is this fearless independence an un- common trait in men brought up among the Derbyshire hills, though they may lack the talent that accompanied it in Lord Denman's mind. At the opposite end of the village (which contains a hot spring said to have been used by the Romans) stretches Middleton Dale, conspicuous for its rocky grandeur. On the right, bordering the road, the massive limestone crags tower to an impressive height, and give scanty shelter to the pertinacious foliage that clings to their rugged breasts. The rocks are perpendicular, and stand shoulder to shoulder, like a huge wall that might have been thrown carelessly together by giants. In places the crags are scarred and broken, but they are neverthe- less full of majestic beauty, with their mighty stature, 8—2 1 1 6 History of Derbyshire. and frowning summits, and shades of black and grey, relieved by the green and the brown of the foliage. About one of these rocks Glover tells a romantic story in his ' Peak Guide,' written half a century ago : ' A high perpendicular rock, called the Lover's Leap,' he says, f marks the first grand opening into the dale. From the summit of this fearful precipice, about the year 1760, a love-stricken damsel, of the name of Baddeley, threw herself into the chasm below ; and, incredible as it may appear, she sustained but little injury from the desperate at- tempt ; her face was a little disfigured, and her body bruised by the brambles and rocky projections that interrupted her fall ; but she was enabled to walk to her home with very little assistance. Her bonnet, cap and handkerchief were left on the sum- mit of the rock, and some fragments of her torn garments, that waved in the few bushes through which she had passed, marked the course of her descent ; she therefore returned to her dwelling shorn of part of her habiliments. Her marvellous escape made a serious impression on her mind, and gave a new turn to her feelings ; her fit of love sub- sided, and she ever afterwards lived in a very exem- plary manner in the vicinity of the place which had been the scene of her folly, and she died unmarried.' Lovers seem, judging from the number of rocks and localities so called, to have had a partiality for leaping into danger in Derbyshire ; but being doubt- less possessed of Cupid's wings, they have seldom, it would appear, done themselves much injury. CHAPTER X. Eyam — An Ancient Village — Its Geological Peculiarities — A Hideous Pestilence — A Singular Story — The Eyam Cross — Eminent People — Quaint Customs — Eccentric Characters. 'The Queen of the Peak.' 'A little Athens.' By such poetic phrases has Eyam been called ; and it is perhaps the fairest of all the villages in the county which Charlotte Bronte has so appropriately described as ' a north Midland shire, dusk with moorland, and ridged with mountain.' An ancient place, it dates back to the time of Edward the Confessor, whose figure ' stood out bright in the darkness when England lay trodden under foot by Norman conquerors.' The village, which is almost a little town, with its more than 1,500 in- habitants, was christened, in the Saxon tongue, Eaham, a well-watered hamlet, or Eyam, a high dwelling-place. It is a village of venerable weather- stained houses, and of one quiet street, winding for a mile along the hillside ; it is a village of pleasant pathways, pure springs and brooklets, and romantic dells ; a village hemmed in by green slopes and majestic hills that only need climbing to reveal 1 1 8 History of Derbyshire. delightful pictures of fern-glade, and moss-covered rock, and lovely woodland, and wide-spreading valley. Eyam, which is not half an hour's stroll from Middleton Dale, is geologically eccentric. It stretches itself, being partial to variety, over several different strata. On the south side of its long street, the dwellings are built on limestone ; across the road the habitations stand on shale and sandstone. Bordering the village are ranges of mountain limestone, honeycombed with caverns ; in- tricate lead-mines, in which many a provincial hero has braved death for the. sake of his fellows ; great masses of shale and sandstone, capped with mill- stone grit ; and on the moors round about are rocks and stones that tell not merely of freaks in the earth's formation, but of primeval worship and early super- stitious rites. The ' mountain village,' so attractive in its picturesqueness and geological peculiarities, is also historically famous. In 1665 and 1666 it was the scene of a fierce battle — not of lords, knights, and yeomen, striving with rash courage to take each other's lives ; but of a nobler battle, in which the villagers, led by undaunted men, fought a foe more insidious and merciless than human enemies — the plague. The wakes, with their feasting, and dancing, and rural merriment, had just ceased. On a September day, in 1665, a box of tailor's patterns, in cloth, and, it is said, some old clothes, arrived at an Eyam cottage. The patterns and garments were, so tradition avers, a gift from the metropolis ; A Hideous Pestilence. 1 1 9 but in their folds lurked a hideous pestilence. A journeyman tailor named Vicars, by whom the box had been opened, noticed that the garments were damp, and held some of them before the fire ; he was immediately seized with violent sickness, other symptoms rapidly showed themselves, and he shortly afterwards became delirious, and died. The plague spread ; nervous people stayed at home ; mothers trembled for the safety of their little ones ; old friends looked askance at each other in the street, fearing contagion. One by one the villagers were infected. Parents were rendered childless and children made orphans by the loath- some pest. Nor was the Angel of Death satisfied with a hasty visit to the village. He folded his wings, and stalked grimly into nearly every house. Like Shylock, ravenous for his pound of flesh, the plague showed no mercy. It claimed its victims in the bright autumn days, through the long wintry nights, in the fresh spring-time, and the succeeding sultry summer ! Destitution and despair reigned in many a home ; and the village would have been deserted altogether had it not been for the moral courage of the Rev. William Mompesson, the rector, and another divine, the Rev. Thomas Stanley. By their eloquence, self-sacrifice, and heroic example, they deterred the inhabitants from flight, and prevented the pestilence from spreading to other parts of the Peak. But what heart-breaking sights they saw — what tears, what silent grief, what hysterical woe ! 120 History of Derbyshire. Ultimately, the listlessness of despair filled the hearts of the people. The labourer seldom went into the field, the lead-getter stayed away from the mine, and the shoemaker put aside his leather- apron, hammer, and last. Such food as could be obtained was placed on the boundary, outside the village, by kind-hearted folks from the hamlets near : and money never changed hands without being dipped in the springs, one of which retains to this day the name of ' Mompesson's Well.' So rapidly did the infection spread, and so terrified were the people, that they dare not worship in the church. The old edifice, in which they had been christened and married, was closed ; and the brave Mompesson, strong in his faith, though the villagers were falling like dead leaves around him, preached God's Word in the open air, in the picturesque ravine once familiar as 'Cussy Dell,' and now known as ' Cucklett Church.' And death became so common, that interment took place without passing-bell or funeral rite. Bodies were buried in shallow graves in gardens and fields ; and the moss-grown tombs and worn inscriptions on the hillside, outside the village, indi- cate where some of the plague-stricken victims were rudely laid. ' The condition of the place,' wrote the rector in one of his letters, ' exceeds all history and example. Our town has become a Golgotha, the place of a skull. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, my nose never smelt such horrid smells, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spec- A Hideous Pestilence. 121 tacles. Here have been seventy-six families visited within my parish, out of which 259 persons died.' It is more than two hundred years since the pesti lence raged in Eyam, but it will never be forgotten ; and the villagers, if angered by their children or pestered by the importunate, even now relieve their feelings by saying, 'A plague on thee!' or 'The plague take thee !' The restorer's hand has stripped the church of most of its ancient beauties ; and with the exception of the Norman font, and the curious sun-dial, there is little about the edifice to tempt the antiquary. An unobtrusive stone in the corner of the vestry is, however, linked with a very singular story. It ' records the death of Joseph Hunt, rector of Eyam, who was buried December 16, 1709, and of his wife Ann, who died six years previously. She was the daughter of a village publican, whom he had been obliged by the bishop to marry in consequence of his having gone through a mock ceremony with her in a drunken freak. This caused an action for breach of promise with a Derby lady to whom he was previously engaged. Some years passed in litigation, which drained his purse and estranged his friends ; and eventually he had to take shelter in the vestry (which some say was built for that purpose), where he resided the remainder of his life to keep the law hounds at bay.' In the churchyard, a pleasant shadowed retreat, is the hallowed grave of Mrs. Catherine Mompesson, the wife of the rector, who, in the midst of her 122 History of Derbyshire. devotedness to the people of the village and of her unswerving attention to her husband in that trying time, fell a victim to the plague. The tomb bears the inscription : ' Catherina, vxor Gvlielmi Mompesson hvjvs Ecclesiaa Rect. filia Radvlphi Carr, nvper de Cocken in comitatv Dvnelmensis, armigeri. Sepvlta Vicessimo Qvinto die mensis Avgti, Ano. Dni., 1666;' and on other parts of the tomb are, ' Cave NESCITIS NOVAM,' and ' MlHI LVCRVM.' Near, is what is usually known as 'Eyam Cross.' It is about eight feet in height ; and is one of the finest of its early period known. It is rich in quaint carving, in rudely sculptured figures of angels bearing crosses and blowing trumpets, and its sides are curiously adorned with scroll-work and interlacings. Striving to account for the occurrence of crosses in all parts of the kingdom, a writer in the ' Archi- tectural Antiquities of Great Britain,' says : ' The cross became a part of the decoration of every altar. It was employed in every sacred rite, and occurred in the diplomas as an inviolable test of every compact ; nor can we be surprised to find it sculptured on so many of our public monuments when designed to excite sentiments of piety or compassion ; or on landmarks, which no man was for conscience' sake to remove. It was frequently fixed at the entrance of the church to inspire recollection in those persons who approached, and reverence towards the mysteries at which they were about to be present. On the high-road the cross Eminent People. 123 was frequently placed with a view to call the thought of the passengers to a sense of religion, and to restrain the predatory excursions of robbers. In the market-place it was a signal for upright inten- tion and fair dealing, and was in every place designed as a check upon a worldly spirit.' Eyam has been the home of many eminent people, ancient customs, and eccentric characters. John Nightbroder, the author, who founded the house of Carmelites at Doncaster in 1350, was born in this village, which was also the birthplace of Anna Seward, the gifted poetess, who was so pre- cocious that at three years old she could lisp the 'Allegro' of Milton, and whose poems and letters are among the choicest of English classics. Here, too, the Rev. Peter Cunningham wrote much of his graceful verse ; the urbane Thomas Birds, the Peak antiquary, collected his fossils and relics of Roman occupation, now unfortunately scattered through the land, or perhaps altogether destroyed : and here Peter Furness, the Peak poet, and William Woods, the historian of the village, lived, and revelled in literary pursuits. Of the old customs, once so common in Eyam, few remain. One of the prettiest was that of hanging bouquets of flowers outside the cottage- windows, or on the door-lintels, to denote any joy- ful event. Another was that of sprinkling May-dew on the foreheads of sick children, in the belief that it was a shield against death. And there was yet a third custom, observed until the last century, that of 124 History of Derbyshire. guarding Ligget Road, the chief way into the village. Across the highway a strong gate was placed, and here ' watch and ward were kept every night ;' the householders standing in turn at the gate, and questioning all who wished to enter the village. With such entries in its parish register as ' Old Robert Slinn, died November 26, 1692,' one is pre- pared to find that very peculiar people have lived at Eyam, and the hamlet has certainly been familiar to some singular characters. Michael Barber, the astrologer and parish clerk, was one of these. While with a villager one day Michael saw two teams ploughing in a field, and his companion, seeing the horses tugging over the fur- rows, said : 'Now, Michael, if thou canst stop yon two teams I shall believe in thy astrology!' Im- mediately Michael went through a grotesque incan- tation, and one of the teams stopped as if by magic. ' There,' said Michael, ' I have stopped one, but the other I cannot stop.' ' How is that ?' asked the villager. ' Because,' said Michael, in solemn tones, ' the ploughman said his prayers this morning, and I have no power over those who live in the fear of the Lord.' John Gregory, of Kiley, was also a very eccentric man, chiefly noted for the extreme frugality of his diet, and his great knowledge of the abstruse sciences. Scarcely so whimsical was he, however, as Cornelius Brushfield, of the Hanging Flat, who lived like a hermit in a tiny cottage built on a ledge of rock, and never travelled a mile beyond Eyam ! CHAPTER XL Tideswell— ' The Cathedral City of the Peak '—A Curious Tenure — The Church — A Good Bishop — An Eminent Vocalist — The ' Drunken Butcher of Tideswell ' — An Amusing Ballad. Like Eyam, the old market-town of Tideswell has a poetic name, and is often called ' The Cathedral City of the Peak.' But though it is a bishop's birthplace, and possesses a noble church, it lacks both the size and ponderous pride of the Cathedral city. There is no pretension about Tideswell. Even the ' Eb- bing and Flowing Well' that gave the place its name is now partially dried up. Like the modest violet hiding away beneath sheltering banks, the homely town (fringed on the south by the limestone grandeur of Cressbrook Dale and on the north by wide stretches of bleak uplands) takes some rinding ; but once discovered, the pedestrian and the traveller by carrier's cart are loth to leave the out-of-the- way place, which is distinguished quite as much for its love of music and quaint ballads, as for its grand old church. Tideswell, which lies only five miles west of Eyam, is a very small ancient town. Its market was granted 126 History of Derbyshire. in 1250, and at the same time it obtained the right to hold a fair on the festival of the decollation of St. John the Baptist. Twelve acres of land were held here by a very curious tenure — on the very easy condition that the precentor of Lichfield, after a first payment of fifteen marks, should render yearly to Sir Richard Daniel, of Tideswell, Knight, or his heirs, one pair of white gloves at Easter, and sixpence at Michaelmas. In olden time the vicar was not let off quite so easily. He had not only to preach, but was, like the virgins in the parable, responsible for keeping a lamp burning in the church. This edifice, which is of singular beauty, with its grand proportions and graceful tracery, is in the Decorated style, and does not look unlike a little cathedral. The church contains many evidences of the deftness of bygone sculptors, and its ancient font, ornamented with cleverly chiselled devices, is a great treasure and much prized ; but it went through a novel experience in 1824, when according to Mary Sterndale, it was 'regularly used by the workpeople to mix their colours in when, they beauti- fied the church with blue and mahogany paint.' In the church are monuments to the Foljambe, Litton, De Bower, and Meverell families ; but the most interesting relic is the fine brass in memory of Bishop Pursglove, with his engraved effigy, in vest- ments. A Tideswell boy, Robert Pursglove was sent to St. Paul's school in London ; and mounted the ladder of success so rapidly that in 1552 he was A Good Bishop. 127 consecrated Bishop of Hull, and in 1553 was ap- pointed Archdeacon of Nottingham. An old manu- script states that he lived ' in the most sumptuous style, being served at table by gentlemen only.' But early in Elizabeth's reign, when ' all spiritual persons holding preferment were required to take the oath of supremacy,' he refused to obey this mandate, relinquished his purple and fine linen, and returned to Tideswell, where he died in 1579, after founding the Grammar School there, and another at Guisborough in Yorkshire, and acting most benevolently in other ways. The inscription- beneath his effigy on a brass plate is here given from a copy taken by Mr. Jewitt : ' Enbcr this stone as here both %y gl corps sometime of fame in tibbrstoall brcb attb bom trurlrj, Robert Pursglove by name anb there brought up by parents care at Schoole <& learning irab till aftcrtoarbs by uncle bear to Lonbon he toas Irab toho William Bradshaw hightbnnamc inpauls inch bib him place anb ur at Schoole bio him maintain full tliricc 3 toholc ncars space anb then into the Abbciijc tons placcb as 1 hush in Southtoarkc call'b Inhere it both |Cn Saint mart cveris to Oxford then toho bib him Scnb into that (Collcbgc right Anb there 14 gears bib him fi'nb, toh (Corpus Oristi hight From thence at length atoaji he tocnt, 31 Clcrkc of learning great to Gisburn Abbey Streight bias sent anb placb in Priors sent Bishop of Hull he teas also Archdeacon of Nottingham Provost of RoTHeram Colledge too, of York eah Suffragan ttoo Gramer Schooles he bib oroain toi tit LAnd for to Endure one HospitaI for to maintain ttoclbc impotent anb pour O Gisburne thou toith Tiddeswall Town ^Cement & mourn jou man for this saib Clerk of great rcnoton ICijcth here rompnst in dan though crucll Death hath nolo boto' brought this body toe here doth ly jet trump of Fame Stan can he nought to Sounb his praise on high Qui Iegis hunc bersum crcbo rdiquum mcinoreris bile cababer Sum tuque cababcr eris.' t 2 8 History of Derbyshire. Around the slab, also engraved on brass, is the following inscription, and at the four corners are, relatively, the Evangelistic symbols : ' »J< Christ is to mc as life on .earth, anb brnth to mc is game ^Because I trust through g^im alone saltation to obtain*