M t WH^^m- m%n i) csiA-i^ id' ':en 'J NORHAM CASTLE. © Do^^iHm Gjij^TLe HUBERT E. H. JEENINGHAM, M.P., AUTHOll OF '* LIFE IN A FRENCH ClIATEAtJ;" '' TO AND FROM CONSTANTINOPLE;' AND TRANSLATOR OF THE LIVES OF "SIXTUS V.j" BY BARON IIUBNER: AND "LORD BYRON,"' BY COUNTRSS GUICCIOLl. EDINBUEGH: W 1 L L 1 A M P A T £ K .S 0 X. JIDCCCLXXXIII. TO MY WIFE. PREFACE. The present work has no further aim than to provide for the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the Tweed as it rushes to its mouth, and to those whom its natural- beauties and its lea^ends and historical tradi- tions attract to its banks in the summer months, a portable compendium in a readable form, as I trust, — " Oh that I had the art of easy writing, What should be easy reading ...."' — of the vast amount of information contained ia those volumes of which I have given a list, and from which I have mostly worked out this history. The exhaustive works of Dr Eaine and J\lr Hutchinson are neither portable nor within the means of the greater number of those who would like to know more about this corner of England ; but it must be allowed that they are so complete and so admirable in themselves that they deserve to become more popular, and I trust that some enterprising publisher wHl gi'se them some day the honour of a cheap edition. I have embodied in this history all the information b X PREFACE. supplied by the documents which Dr Raine has pub lished in his History of North Durham, and which relates specially to the old Castle of Norham ; but my constant desire has been to connect with the general history of England the several events to which these documents refer, and I must own that, with this particular object in view, T have had very great diffi culty in keeping to the subject, and not wandering from it into a History of North-East Northumberland, taking up Mr Hodgson's interesting volumes from Morpeth, where he leaves off. Though the task is, I feel, but very imperfectly accomplished, still I venture to hope that the stirring events connected with Norham, and which constitute the pride of this fortress above all other Border castles, have been brought forward more strongly than they have yet been, and that my volume on this ground will find favour on the Borders. Few places indeed can boast of more interest, whether to Englishmen or to Scotchmen, in the advantages which incidentally, of course, Norham was the means of procuring to either country. Thus the introduction of Christianity into the north of England, and its first footing in Norhamshire by the successful missionary work of Scotch monks ; the disputes before Norham which eventually gave Scot- PREFACE. XI land a Bruce ; and the poaching affray at Norham which brought about the union of the two countries through the marriage of James IV. and Margaret Tudor, are so many facts which point to the most stirring events in the history of both countries. Then the gradual establishment of the natural boundaries of England and Scotland, and the neces sity for their protection arising out of the predatory and martial spirit of an age not shaped into permanent form, together with notices of those men who have played a conspicuous part in the history of Norham, and in particular of those families who have carried their honoured names down to the present day, whether on the Border or in the adjacent counties, such have appeared to me natural chapters of a popular history; if I have bestowed upon their render ing some labour and much sympathy, I have taken especial care not to prejudice the work by inaccu racies, so far, at least, as lay in my power. Though a book for leisure hours, I have not aUowed it to lose its strictly historical character, which will account for the many quotations and translations which I have introduced within the text ; indeed, wherever it was possible, I have given the words reported to have been used, whether rightly or Xll PREFACE. wrongly, so as not to lose the force of the old English or Scotch manner of expression. The only attempt at general history of the county is made in tho third chapter, when I conci^ived it necessary for the general roa,(h>r to gather from its perusal how invariably Scotcli and English made Northumberland the battle ground on which they foufl-ht out their s;nevaiu'es and revenged their losses. These few remarks may perhaps not indispose the reader to forgive the absein'c of strictly fresli material in consideration of tlie maimor in wliich the old has been patched up into a new form, a form Avhicli, I trust, may enable others, if not myself, to discover more documents relating to Norham than tlu^ scanty bills of cost of repair and reports on its state of decay which have yet come to light, and for which, however, the historian can never be grateful enough to Dr Raine. But some day we may see documents of greater value issuing from the record chests of old Border fiimilies,* and until then I can only otfer this coutri- * If those pages stimulate such a research I shall not consider this volume as having been written without profit to tho cause of historical inquiry, wliich, by the way, owes so much in the prosont day to the excellent family biographies lately issued in Scotland. PREFACE. XIU bution to Border literature with all heart and all humility, and say with Lord Houghton — - " These harmonies that all can share, When chronicled by one, Enclose us like the living air. Unending, unbegun." HUBEET E. H. JEENINGHAM. LONGBTDGB TOWBKS, Berwick-on-Tweed, Feh-uary 1883. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. FAOB Introduction of Christianity in Norhamshire . 1 CHAPTER II. Destruction and Reconstruction . . .18 CHAPTER III. Settlement of Geographical Limits ... 36 CHAPTER IV. Flambard 60 CHAPTER V. Pudsey ... 80 CHAPTER VL King John . ... . . 103 CHAPTER VIL Edward L ... . . 123 XVI PONTENTS. CHAPTER VIIL PAGE Wallace and Bruce Ii2 CHAPTER IX. Edward III. 167 CHAPTER X. Marriage of James IV. . . . . . 185 CHAPTER XL Elodden .... . 209 CHAPTER XIL Patching Up . . . . 23.3 CHAPTER XIIL Decay . . 261 Appendix . . . . . 279 NORHAM CASTLE. CHAPTER L INTRODUCTION OP CHRISTIANITY IN NORHAMSHIRE. A.D. 635. r " Time's an hand's breath : 'tis a tale, 'Tis a vessel under sail ; 'Tis an eagle in its way. Darting down upon its prey ; 'Tis an arrow in its flight, Mocking the pursuing sight." — Francis Quarles, 1631. Nine miles south of the wonderful isle of Staffa, with its overhanging pillars and wave-worn Gothic arches, stands the little island of lona, better known in days of yore as Hy, Y, or lona. On a fine day in the early months of the year 563, a little vessel with its sails full set to a westerly breeze might have been seen making its way through the Sound, and coasting the rocky shore, which glittered like marble in the rays of the sun, casting at last its anchor in a small creek which now bears the name of Port na Churaich, discharging there its monkish freight — thirteen holy men from Ireland, 2 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY one of whom, "a man of angelic features," they saluted as their Father, their Abbot. This was the great St Columba, who, fired by the love of that faith which fiUed his life and fed his every want, had come to preach the gospel of Christ to the Pagan Picts, and convert them to Christianity. Conall, then lord of the western Scots, had promised him a peaceful landing in the island of Hy, and a further grant of land for the erection of a monastery. The first days of the stay of these pioneers of Christianity were busy worldly days, for on the island there were no huts to protect them, and the pro duce of the soil, which was little cultivated, owing to a more than scanty population (there were only five families on the island), barely sufficed to meet their own limited requirements. But as the French poet Racine has so beautifully put it — Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature Et sa bont^ s'dtend sur touts la nature. In the service of God Columba and his followers could never want, but they had a great mission before them, and it was necessary to budd a home which would to them be the dear Alma Mater from which they would go forth with courage, and to which they might return with confidence or for spiritual comfort. So monks and all set to work to build a monastery IN NORHAMSHIRE. 3 such as they had already helped to rear in Ireland, and it was not long before an eminence having been selected, it was surrounded by a " vallum " or fosse, and a cell for the Abbot and founder was built with joists upon the eminence. After this mark of respect to the chief of the little band, other cells were built for the brethren of wood or wattles, and then successively the church, oratorium, peeped its head above the huts, and the refectory, the MS. room or library, and the offices were raised. When these were finished the monastery proper was complete ; but hospitality being the prime virtue of all conventual establishments in former days, more cells had to be constructed for the reception of strangers ; and as the fields to the west began to yield the crops due to the agricultural labours of the monks, and the cattle which grazed on other fields to the east were ripening for slaughter, outer houses were constructed, such as the Bocetum, cow byre, the Horreum, granary, the mdl, with a pond and a mill stream, the stables, prcedium, and the harbour, Partus, for craft of various sizes. When all these were completed, that monastery was erected which was to be the parent stem from which in a near future the glorious abbeys of Melrose and Lindisfarne were to spring. Like a fortified village at first, the fame of lona 4 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY soon spread, and the monastery developed into a town. The descriptions of it which have reached us, together with the accounts of the life led by these early monks of the pre-Benedictine order, remind us both of the still existing picturesque and interesting Greek monasteries in the Levant, and of the ascetic rules instituted by St Basil which the Greek monks are supposed to follow. The monasteries of Athos in particular remind one of what we learn was the primitive manner of build ing in England fifteen hundred years ago, but while the rule throughout the east was to stamp out all remains of Pagan times by building churches on the sites whereon had stood their temples, and using therefor the stones and marble with which most of them had been so beautifully reared, in the British Isles a stone building was unknown, and only wooden edifices could be constructed. To protect property therefore, natural defences, such as ravines and water, were made available at first, and later a wall encircling the hamlet or agglo meration of huts was added to the strength of the place, but it was only a little before the Conquest that stone buildings became the fashion. These old monasteries had no architecture, but within the space contained by the ditch, fosse, num berless courts and huts were erected, just as are now seen in the monasteries of the East. IN NORHAMSHIRE. 5 Windows were mere apertures, as huts only existed for night protection and the silence of prayer. The hut reserved for the sanctuary was only a little taller than the rest, and was surmounted by a cross, while the abbot or prior's hut was on an eminence to indicate command. The same rule exists among the monks of Athos, where chapels all stand apart from the main build ings, and the oegoumenos has the loftiest apartment when he does not occupy a dependency of the building. The analogy between these pre-English monastic institutions and those of the East with which they were contemporary is curious to note. One day as St Columba, from his favourite seat outside the abbot's cell, was watching the waves in the near distance as they rolled tempestuously against the rocky shore, moved by a wind of no common violence, he suddenly called to his followers, aud said, " Brethren this is Tuesday, to-morrow is a day of fasting, but as a guest will arrive, the fasting will in his honour be dispensed with." On the morrow, as the storm of the preceding day had developed in intensity, and the waters in the Sound had become a sea wherein it seemed as if nothing could live, St Columba ordered a repast to be prepared, and water to be ready to wash the feet of the coming guest. 6 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY The tempest which raged at the time was so great that even his followers, who never doubted their abbot's word, gently remonstrated as to the possi bility of any stranger crossing the one mile strait in such a storm ; but before evening a little boat was seen approaching, and labouring through the trough of the sea. Presently it neared the lona shore, some times lifted up on the crests of mountainous waves ready to dash the small craft against the rocks ahead, and at others swallowed up, as it were, within the grasp of giant waters : it came nearer, however, every moment, and at last the creek was gained. A rush was made to the harbour to greet the stranger, whose coming had been prophesied, and whose advent must be of good augury, since even fasting was to be dispensed with in his honour. The welcomed stranger was a young man of comely face and gentle manner, between eighteen and twenty- two in age. His bright blue eyes spoke as to his gentleness, while his tall and graceful figure bore visible testimony to the nobility of his birth. Making his way to the little cell on the eminence, outside of which sat the giant-sized Columba, he knelt before him, asked for his blessing, and the favour of being admitted among his disciples. Aidan, or Aedhan, was his name, and in him Columba saluted the first apostle of Northumbria, the future founder of Melrose and of Lindisfarne. IN NORHAMSHIRE. 7 He had come to lona to learn the ways of piety and devotion under St Columba, and for forty years he remained a monk of his order, leading a life of pen ance, privation, and prayer, well befitting the train ing necessary for his coming apostolate. In 597 St Columba died, having succeeded in making Christians (at least in name) of the Picts whom he had come to lona to convert, and was succeeded at first by Conin, one of his original twelve* disciples, and next by Fergna, who in 616 received as a guest a little boy of great promise, intelligence, and natural courage, who was only twelve years of age, and who was sent by Donald the Fourth, King of the Picts, himself a late recruit among the Christian ranks, to be baptized and instructed in the religion of Christ. The boy was called Oswald. He was the second * The number 12, as typical of the twelve apostles, was a favourite number during the early ages of Christianity, and was introduced in almost every department of monastic economy. An abbot generally had twelve disciples. Twelve years were the usual term of ecclesiastic penance and monastic reclusion. In the same way the sign of the cross was employed as a " signum salutare " on every possible occasion, and the saying went that " Hy was remarkable for its 360 crosses." These usages are in the present day as much in vogue in the Greek Church as they were in the earlier days of the Christian Church in England. Mystic numbers and mystic signs have always had mystic influences, and hence great vogue ; it is only the sense of venera tion and respect that defines their character and limits their usage. 8 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY son of Ethelfrith, King of Bernicia and Deira, who was slain by Redwald, King of the East Angles, on the banks of the Idle, in Nottinghamshire, and with his mother Acca and his brothers had fled for pro tection to the court of Donald, the Pict, across the Firth of Forth. Abbot Fergna placed him for instruction under the special charge of the gentle Aidan, and thus began at an early age that friendship which seventeen years later was to bear such fruits, and make of North umberland the stronghold of Christianity in Great Britain. The child took a great fancy to his master, and was never rebuked by Aidan when he told him of his boyish dreams, how he intended to recover the throne of his father either for himself or for his family by the strength of his arm, or when he gave vent to the aspirations of a naturally ardent nature ; but Aidan worked unceasingly to inspire the boy with that faith " which knows no obstacle," and to create a soldier of the cross, while educating him in those virtues which would make him a military com mander. Nor were these efforts lost, for years later, in 633, when Oswald, by the death of his elder brother, slain by the hand of Ceadwalla, Prince of Cumberland, had become heir to the thrones of Bernicia and Deira,* * Bernicia was properly the country which extends from the IN NORHAMSHIRE. 9 and was hastening to avenge the deatli of Edwine, he found at once the occasion to display his military qualities and his Christian faith. Coming upon the army of Ceadwalla, on the banks of the Tyne, in the neighbourhood of Hexham, and noticing the number of the enemy, he reflected that with his own few followers, stout as they were, he had but small chance of success : then suddenly the lessons of Aidan came back to his mind ; the vision of Con stantine before the battle of the Milvian bridge and the motto beneath the golden cross on the azure sky, "in hoc signo vinces," recurred to his memory, and forthwith planting a wooden cross in front of his camp, he called to his men to kneel. " Beseech the living and true God," said he, ii' of His mercy to defend us." He then displayed his little army in battle array, Tweed to the Forth, and included Edinburgh (Edwin's city), while Deira comprised the actual Northumberland. From Deira came the fair-haired boys who, in the slave market in Eome, fi.rst attracted the notice of Pope Gregory the Great. " From what country do they come 1 " " They are Angles." " Not Angles, but angels.'' " From what province 1 " "From Deira" (de iri). " From the wrath of God called to Christ's mercy. And what is the name of their king 1 " " Alia." " Who shall sing alleluiah." 10 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY and awaited on carefuUy chosen ground the attack of his foe. But the steadiness of purpose of the Christian commander, helped by the strength of a faith which had then to give the first proof of its staunchness, coupled with the knowledge of their fate if defeated, gave to these stout Northumbrians, at whose limited ranks the Pagan prince is known to have laughed, the strength of a powerful army ; and before the day had run its course, Ceadwalla had followed Edwin to the grave, and in the language of those days the con querors " could scarcely believe their eyes on behold ing the slaughter they had made" of the enemy they had dreaded so much before the battle began.* * " It was necessary for the assailant to be extremely cautious, andt)n that account he drew up his forces in a position of great natural strength some seven or eight miles to the north of Hexham. Here there is a plateau of very considerable altitude, which, with out any artificial appliances, presents the appearance and the advantages of a vast fortified camp. The ground on the summit is tolerably even, and must in Oswald's time have been covered entirely with heather. "The place, which in honour of the vanquisher in the fight, has for many centuries been called St Oswald's, bore, previous to the struggle, the name of Heavenfield, an allusion, no doubt, to its lofty and exposed position. Oswald could not have drawn up his forces in a better place. Along the whole of the western side the platform was unassailable, for it is protected by the steep rocky banks which descend abruptly to the river of North Tyne, and overlooks Walwich Grange and Chesters, with its Roman bridge and camp. Towards the south also, and on a portion of the eastern side, there are hills and fells of no mean altitude. Across the upper end of this great natural fortification ran the IN NORHAMSHIRE. 11 No wonder that Oswald's standard became then the symbol of that faith which, like unto Constantine, his prototype, had given him such an unhoped Roman wall, but between it and the northern side of the plateau there is a space left on which a small army might be drawn up to a most advantageous position for repelling any attack. A scanty force in the rear would be able to guard the western, southern, and eastern sides so well that no assailing body could carry these heights ; and if it could, the Roman wall, a stout barrier, in many places at least six feet in height, would still protect the greater part of Oswald's troops. " Oswald, therefore, never fearing any onset from the rear, took up a position at the north-west corner of the plateau, behind the wall. In that angle, protected in one way by the wall and in another by natural rocks, there is a clear space of nearly a hundred yards, and there probably on the mound which the chapel now occupies, Oswald set up the famous wooden cross to be the stan dard of his men. With rocks in front and the wall behind, it would be difficult to capture it ; and its defenders, who cannot have been very numerous, would be conscious of their security. We may be sure also that Ceadwalla would make his great effort at this point, for the loss of the standard was considered equivalent to the ruin of the army. To the north-west there is a long stretch of pasture land, and the eye passes on to Swinburn and Humshaugh, aud far up the river in the direction of the Cambrian Hills. " Over this ground it is probable that Ceadwalla brought his men, and the opposing armies could see each other for miles before they closed. Ihe troops of Ceadwalla would break like a wave against the rock-bound corner in which the cross was standing, to be oast back again with little or no difficulty by its defenders. The assailants, foiled as they must have been at this point, would naturally move towards the east, where the ground is less steep and more open, and in that direction the battle seems to have been decided. The success of Oswald and his men would inspirit them so much that when the enemy tried to attack them on more 12 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY for victory. It is not a little curious to note that the arms of the see of Durham are even now a cross or between three lions rampant argent on a field azure. The three lions argent were a subsequent addition to the original standard, a cross or on a field azure ; in other words, the golden cross in the sky of Con- even terms, it could have no chance ; the a-ssailants if they got so far, would be pushed back, and the fight deserting the corner in which the cross was standing, would go roaring eastwards. ' There is a fame,' as Leland tells us, ' that Oswald won the batelle at Halydene, a two myles est from St Oswalde's axche !' "There is a place called Hallington in the direction mentioned, and it was here probably that the battle was fully won. Ceadwalla would be thus cut off from his retreat, and the defeated chieftain crossed somehow or other the Roman wall, and hastened towards the south across the wild moor with the pursuers after him. Over the heather he would go, down the green banks below it, through the Tyne, and at a distance of eight or nine miles from the battle field he was caught and killexi at a little beck called Denises burn, a tributary of the Rowley-water. He would be entangled in the network of woods and streams when he was slain. " The battle-field was, of course, the object of great veneration, for a great Christian victory was won there. This was the first occasion on which the sacred symbol had been erected in this part of the country, and the cross that Oswald set up stood in its place for many years, working miracles, as we are told, and attracting the steps of many a faithful pilgrim. In after times the monks of Hexham paid it a yearly visit on the fifth of August, the day on which (Dswald himself met his death in battle, and with solemn rites and ceremonies chanted a service for his soul. A church was soon reared by them, and still there is a chapel to mark the spot which they honoured. "-^Preface to the " Annals of Hexham," by Dr James Raine, Surtees collection, vol. xliv., page xi. IN NORHAMSHIRE. 13 stantiae which Oswald gave to Lindisfarne, the original see of that of Durham. In the enthusiasm which followed his success, Oswald sent a messenger to his protector Donald, and requested, while informing him of his victory, that he would communicate with the Abbot of lona, so as to send him missionaries who could help him in the work of converting his kingdom. The request was not long in being conveyed, nor long in being obeyed. Cornan was chosen for the apostolic work ; but we know from tradition that his temper and manner were not suited to the rough and ready Northumbrians of those days, and after toiling heavily, laboriously, and zealously for a few months, he wisely resolved on returning to lona. One quiet and lovely afternoon he reached the little harbour from whence he had departed with so much hope and expectation only a short time back, and now with tears in his eyes he knelt before his abbot, declaring that a mission in Bernicia was contrary to the will of God, for they were people too stubborn and barbarous for His grace to make way into their hearts. Presently Aidan gently remarked that perhaps Cornan 's own stubbornness and severity were at fault, and that, no doubt forgetting the precepts of the Lord, he had omitted to give them like children the milk of gentle precepts, before treating them 14 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY like men to the meat of harsh and ponderous dog matism which they could not understand.* These words had a remarkable effect, for it being resolved in all minds present that failure was not a word which a community of holy men could admit in the service of God, it occurred equally to every one that he who could speak so well and point to the cause of Cornan's failure with such an unerring finger, was the only person fit to remedy the past, and plant firmly into the Pagan soil of northern England the standard of the cross. Once the choice had fallen upon him, Aidan made hasty preparations for departure, and we may gather from the principal features of his character which have been handed down to the admiration of pos terity, that his requirements were as few as his ardour and zeal in the service of the Christian faith were great. Bede says that " it was the highest commendation of his doctrine with all men, that he taught no other wise than he and his followers had lived : for he * According to Bede : " You did not at first, conformably to the apostolic rule, give them the milk of more easy doctrine, till being by degrees nourished with the word of God, they should be capable of greater perfection;" and according to Franciscus Godwin, Cornan's return is thus explained : — " Quod arcana Dei sublimia magno verbum strepitu, ad ostentationem potius ingenii quam auditorium rudium utilitatem ingereret, ut nee bonos mores con- cionibus suis induceret, nee ad suspicienda fidei initia animos blandioribus prseceptis moUiret." — Dempster's "Hist. Eccl.," vol i. p. 124. IN NORHAMSHIRE. 1.5 neither sought nor loved anything of this world, but delighted in distributing immediately among the poor whatsoever was given him by the kings or rich men of the world." As soon as the boat which conveyed him from the island to the mainland had landed him and his followers, he pursued his way through town and country on foot, inviting both rich and poor where soever he saw them to embrace the mystery of the faith, or strengthening in that faith those who had already embraced it, and stirring one and all by words and by action to the practice of alms and good works. In this wise — for he ever refused to ride — he reached the kingdom of Bernicia, and perceiving near the sea shore, not far from the mouth of the river Tweed along which he had walked for some days, and which had become as a friend to him, an island standing somewhat in a similar position to that of his beloved isle of Hy, which he had only left at the call of duty, he fixed in his mind that there henceforth his resi dence should be ; then making his way further to Bamborough, which was already asserting its title to a royal town and castle, he presented himself before his friend and present sovereign, King Oswald, who welcomed him with all the warmth of early friend ship, and off'ered him any place he might choose in his dominions for a permanent establishment. 16 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY Aidan asked to be allowed to found his monastery and establish his see on the island which he had perceived on his way to Bamborough, and which was visible from that royal residence. Thus it was that the island he chose was the island of Lindisfarne, and before the end of the year 635 he had established himself in a temporary home, and had begun his missionary progress which was more helped by his example than his eloquence, for he could not speak the English dialect, and the king himself interpreted* for him to the thousands who were attracted by the kindly manner of the charitable prelate. It is interesting to know from the MS. of Symeon of Durham, that the boundary ofthe diocese of Lindis farne granted to St Cuthbert, its abbot, fifty years later extended on the east from the Tweed to Darmouth, then along the course of the Darn to Hebburn Bell, a hiU in the parish of Chdhngham, and hence along the TiU, which is called Bremish in its upper waters, to the Tweed, wherein it flows at Tillmouth, in the parish of Norham.-f- Though these limits, together with the country that lies between the Edre, viz., the Blackadder and * •' Contigit ut evangelizante Aidano, qui Anglicum perfecte non noverat, ipse rex suis ducibus et ministris interpres existeret." — Dempster's "Hist. Eccl.," p. 153. Bannatyne Publication. t "Symeon Dunelm," p. 140. IN NORHAMSHIRE. 17 Whit adder, which flow into the Tweed close to Berwick, and the Leder, viz., the Leader, which flows into the Tweed below Melrose, were confirmed to St Cuthbert by Egfrid, one of the successors of Oswald, it is more than probable that they were for the most part the original limits of the diocese established in favour of St Aidan by Oswald ; and this is the more likely that further south, where the Cheviot range begins, was the limit (near Yetholm) of the mis sionary progress of Paulinus, the disciple of St Augustine. It is also certain that in conferring a see upon his friend, Oswald consulted his wishes, and the above limits, embracing as they do most of the country which he had traversed on foot, had naturaUy occurred to him as those which he would himself prefer. It was only later that the diocese was extended ; but the fact remains, that, while Bernicia and Northern Northumberland were the last portions of the British Isles to receive the teaching of Christianity, it was from Norhamshire and the Isles, in other words, from the County Palatinate of the See of Durham, that the light first dawned upon the banks of Tweed, a light destined to shine with a purity and lustre with which no other part of the kingdom can vie. For did not Lindisfarne become the Holy Island, and did it not, besides its founder, furnish apostles to all England and martyrs to the faith, and above 1 8 INTRODUCTION OP CHRISTIANITY IN NORHAMSHIRE. all, shine as the abode of St Cuthbert, the glory of Northumberland ? * Thus, indeed, the spot which was to become a military stronghold in future time against the Scots, and with which we are particularly concerned, was first seized upon by a Scottish monk to form part of the basis of his Christian invasion of Northern England. * "Northumbria had done its work. By its missionaries and by its sword it had won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. It had given her a new poetic literature. Its monas teries were already the seat of whatever intellectual life the country possessed. Above all it had been the first to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes of the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a century to accustom them to a national life, out of which England as we have it now was to spring." — Green's " History of the English People," p. 34. CHAPTER n. DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. A.D. 867. " Nor did St Cuthbert's daughters fail To vie with these in holy tale : His body's resting-place, of old How oft their patron changed, they told ; How when the rude Dane burned their pile, The monks fled forth from Holy Isle."— F. Scott. For two centuries Norham, or Ubbanford,* as it is caUed in some of the older MSS., was but a prettily- * I take this to be a mistake, and that it should have been Ufan-ford — the high ford, or ford above; and as the word "above" in the Scandinavian languages is pronounced " oben," " oven " the transition from the Saxon / to the Danish v and thence to the German 6 is not difficult of explanation, considering the Scan dinavian races whicb for three centuries overran the north of England. In Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon dictionary, published in 1838, and which is a most elaborate and interesting work, it is remarkable that not a single Saxon word is given beginning by ub, which would naturally lead one to suppose that Ubbanford, as given by Hoveden, was written as he pronounced it himself. On the other hand the words ufan, ufa, ufane, ufon, meant above, high, up wards, as ufan and neodane, above and beneath. The matter is of no great importance, except that it has not yet been commented on as far as I know. 20 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. situated and weU-wooded viUage on the banks of the silver Tweed.* No church had arisen before the time of which we are writing (830) to mark the place as a dependency of the great monastery in its neighbourhood, but a convenient fording-place across the great river had already imbued it with life, and attracted under the shelter of the overhanging rock, f which protects its entrance, many a friar in his lonely communings with nature, as he bent his way from Lindisfarne into Northern Bernicia, or returned from his missionary * "The greater part of Engli.sh soil was still uncultivated: a good third of the land was probably covered with wood, thicket, or shrub, another third consisted of heaths and moor. In both the east and the west there were vast tracts of marsh land : fens nearly one hundred miles long severed East Anglia from the mid land counties : sites like that of Glastonbury or Athelney were almost inaccessible. The bustard roamed over the downs, the beaver still haunted Beverley, huntsmen roused the bear in its forest lair, the London craftsmen chased the wild boar and the wild ox in the woods of Hampstead, while the wolves prowled round the homesteads of the north." — Green's " History of the English People," p. 62. " In the British, Roman, and Saxon times, Northumberland abounded with forests and groves of oak and other timber . . . Cheviot is upon record for its oaks and brushwood in such abundance that it was called the great wood of Cheviot by way of eminence." — " Natural History of Northumberland," by John Wallis, vol. i. p. 135. t Beneath it was a well stiU called the Monk's Well, the pure and crystal waters of which not only refreshed the weary pilgrim, but had the power, so the legend said, of bestowing on barren wives the blessings of maternity. DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 21 wanderings to his beloved home in the Fame Islands. We can imagine little oratories erected here and there in the woods, where pUgrims knelt to ask the protection of God through the intercession of St Cuthbert; or little crosses studded about to remind these still early Saxon Christians of St Oswald, who fought beneath its shade, and stiU more that they must combat the difficulties of life with the blessing of Him who died upon the Cross. Apart from these tokens of a living faith, no stone structure had raised its head in St Aidan's immediate district — the Norhamshire of the present day. But between the years 830 and 845 there was a great commotion in the pretty village. Bishop Egfrid* had given orders for the construction of a stone church in honour of St Peter, St Cuthbert, and St Ceolwulf, and it was whispered everywhere that the body of the latter was to be translated to the new church, an honour which was greatly enhanced by the fact that not only had Ceolwulf been a bishop of Lindisfarne, but he had also reigned as king over Northumbria in its more glorious days.f * The last bishop but one of Lindisfarne. t " Not long after King Egfrid had given Melrose and Carham to St Cuthbert, and the lands belonging to these monasteries, he was succeeded by Ceolwulf, son of Cadwinning (730), who, giving up his crown and his wife for the love of God, came to Lindis farne with much treasure, caused his beard to be cut, received the 22 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. Great activity prevailed, and by a singular con currence of circumstances the church was finished as Lindisfarne was being destroyed, and its monks from the distant Kyloe Hills could, over the plains before them, behold its blazing pile. It was finished as the supremacy of the Northumbrians over the Saxon Heptarchy was passing away ; it was finished as the old distinctions between Bernicia and Deira were dis appearing in the conquest of the Scots over the Picts, and as the great river which flowed beneath its shade was asserting for the first time its natural right to be recognised as a frontier between England and Scotland. St Aidan's remains were back in lona; St Oswald's and St Cuthbert's relics were fugitives from the land they had blessed ; Lindisfarne was a ruin, its monks put to flight; Norham alone, as a bright diamond escaped from the old diadem, remained to prove to future ages that within its district Providence chose the spot from which to diffuse Christianity over the north of England. tonsure, and gave to St Cuthbert the property called Werchewurde (Warkworth) ' with its appendages.' " Postea dedit Egfridus rex Sancto Cuthberto Mailros et Carrum et quidquod ad eam pertinet. Non muUum post hunc Egfridum successit in regnum Ceolfus filius Cadwinning, . seque Sancto Cuthberto subdidit, et dimisso regno cum uxore pro amore Dei se cum magno thesauro ad Lindisfarnense monasterium con- tulit, barbam deposuit, coronam accepit et Sancto Cuthberto vUlam dedit nomine Werchewurde cum suis appenditis." — "Symeon of Durham," xxxviii. DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 23 Already in 787 the Danes, with three ships, had made a descent in the south, and had slain Byrhtric, King of the West Saxons, who had hurried from Dorchester to meet them as " strangers or traders, and not as plunderers." Six years later, in 793, Northumberland was startled by " excessive whirlwinds and lightnings, and fiery dragons flying in the air," omens which were looked upon with horror as presaging further calami ties, and shortly after, "on the 6th of the Ides of January (viz., the 13th of January 794), the heathens lamentably destroyed God's church of Lindisfarne, trampling on the sanctuary with polluted feet, casting down the altars, carrying off the treasures of the holy church, slaughtering and drowning many of the brothers." In 795 they made a descent upon the monastery of Jarrow-on-Tyne, but failing in this object of destruction, they sailed away. A storm, however, overtook them, and they were wrecked near the monastery of Wearmouth, in sight of Jarrow. Forty years after this, in 833, the Danes rebegan their incursions to the south of the Tyne, but in 866 they landed in East Anglia in great force, and under the command of Ingwar and Ubba, sons of Rednar, Lodbrog, who had been cast a year or two before into a dungeon fiUed with venomous snakes by Ella, King 24 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. of Northumberland, they overran Northumberland in their desire to avenge Rednar's death. Indeed, if the Northumbrians dreaded the Danes and their cruelty, the cruel manner they revenged themselves on EUa showed that there was ample justification for such dread. "They tore his ribs asunder, they folded them backwards till he presented the appearance of a spread eagle, and then the raw and reeking flesh was sprinkled over with salt to increase the intensity of the inflam mation." Such was the lot of the last Northumbrian monarch. After him, under Egbert, who was only their lieutenant, the Danes allowed the country north of Tyne to become the prey of marauders and pirates, " not caring to give them any protection," and returned to York to establish themselves firmly in East Anglia. It was then that the pillaged church of Lindisfarne, from which, during the forty years' truce from their invasion, Bishop Egfrid had caused the royal remains of St Ceolwulf, the king-monk, to be translated to Norham, was totally ruined. It had almost risen again from its fallen state, and was peopled once more with a numerous colony of monks. Presently the news arrived that Halfdene, a Danish pirate, was marching north from Tynemouth Priory, which he had left a mass of smoking ruins, and, " burning all he found in his way, tearing the babes from their DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 25 mothers' breasts, spearing man, woman, and child whom he encountered," was bent upon the ruin of Lindisfarne. St Cuthbert had left a legacy in the shape of a hope that his bones should never be allowed to be touched by unchristian hands ; and so great was the veneration for his memory, so powerful the influence of his name over the simple monks, that even in that hour of danger, with the full knowledge of what atrocities had been perpetrated on former occasions, and of the cruel fate which awaited them should the Danes reach their monastery before they had found refuge in flight, their first and only care was how to save the body of St Cuthbert,* and preserve it from insult. The wish of their patron and saint had been pro phetically expressed in 687, and now in 867, by a curious analogy of figures, the wish was to be carried out. Bishop Earldulf thereupon summoned into his presence Eadred, a man of known piety, who was abbot of the monastery at Carlisle, and it was decided to open the coffin of the saint, wherein they deposited the head of King Oswald, some bones of Bishop Aidan, and other relics ; then closing it reverentially, they bade adieu, with tears in their eyes, to the monastery they all loved so dearly, and set off" on that wonder- * He died 20th March 687, at the age of fifty-three. 26 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. ful pilgrimage which was to last so long, and be fruitful of so many romantic incidents. Coming to the sea-shore with their treasure, the monks found it was spring-tide, and that they would have to wait ; but suddenly " the waters formed a wall on their right hand and on their left hand, and a dry road and a clear path was before them on the sands. When all the men, women, boys and girls, herds and flocks, sheep and cattle, had entered on thefr path through the sea, the waters, following their steps directly behind them, returned in a wonderful manner to thefr former level." The mainland reached, the seven laymen who carried the body and all the followers made thefr way to the Kyloe HUls, from whence they saw th^ burning of the monastery they had left behind them, and where they received the intelligence which made them resolve on proceeding further. " For the space of seven years," writes Reginald of Durham, " St Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men, through trackless and waterless places : when no houSe afforded him a hos pitable roof, he remained under the covering of tents." From Kyloe they made for the Tweed across the forest, and at Norham they took a boat and towed the body up the river to TiUmouth, thence to Carham, and thence to Melrose ; but as the old monastery of Melrose had been destroyed by the Scots, they had to DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 27 retrace thefr steps, and the next place we hear of their being at is EUesden, the modern Elsdon, not far from Morpeth, in the Redesdale HiUs. "From Elsdon," says Archbishop Eyre in his life of St Cuthbert, " they probably followed the course of the Reed, passing what is now Bellingham, where the Reed faUs into the North Tyne ; then they would foUow the North Tyne, and then the South Tyne to Haydon Bridge, six miles west of Hexham, and thence to Bellingham," where they learnt that Hexham was a mass of ruins. The untiring band then set forth for Cumberland, where tradition reports they rested at Carlisle, Salkeld, Edenhall, Embleton, and Lorton, near Cockermouth. Westmoreland was next visited, and " Dufton Fells, three miles north of Appleby, afforded them a very secure shelter," but they had at length to leave it, and tarried at Clifton, near Penrith, before they entered Lancashfre. Here they halted for a while at Hawkshead, where the hUls .between Windermere and Coniston provided the most perfect security ; then at Kirkby Ireleth ; Aldingham, east of Furness, Over Kellet, north-east of Lancaster ; Lytham, near Kirkham ; MeUor, three mUes from Blackburn ; and Halsall, some ten miles north-west of Ormskirk. Yorkshire was the next stage of their pUgrimage ; an undefined pilgrimage, it is true, for it was a procession of men searching for some resting-place for a body 28 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. which they carried with them, and which had been dead nearly two hundred years. Burnsal, in the West Riding, saw them arrive. Ackworth, near Pontefract ; Fishlake, near Doncaster ; and Peasholme, a suburb of York, were their next stages, when they made their way to the Tees, follow ing its course to Forcett, near Richmond, in the North Riding. Traces of their journey through Barton, near Dar lington ; South Conton, near Catterick ; and Marsk, among the Swaledale hills, then, back again to the neighbourhood of York, at Overton, are extant, as weU as at Kildale, near Stokesley ; Kirk Leatham, south of Redcar ; Wilton ; Ormsby and Marshton, near Stokesley. Finally they got to Durham county, and rested first at Darlington, Billingham, Redmarshall, Chester-le- Street, and Durham. I have followed in this nomenclature the names given in Archbishop Eyre's book, carefully compiled from the existing republished MSS. of Reginald of Dur ham, which forms the first volume of the valuable series of the Surtees publications, but I have endeavoured to give as rational an itinerary as the anarchy of the times and the fear of the monks combined make it possible and likely for them to have followed. In Simeon of Durham and in Reginald of Dur ham, reference is made to Ireland and to Scotland. With regard to the former country, Mr Surtees sup- DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 29 poses that they went direct to the west coast. This may be possible, as they went to those countries where they could easUy have got a ship to take them across, but it was not their intention on leaving Lindisfarne. It has struck me that thefr object was especiaUy to find a safe resting-place as soon as possible, and that Melrose in Bernicia was thefr first goal, and the Tweed the natural road to it. MaUros was the chUd of Lindisfarne, and St Cuthbert had originally come from Maifros. But the ravages of Kenneth the Scot, the victor of the Picts, had laid Maifros in ashes, and made aU the country east of Strathclyde Scottish territory. An aUusion, therefore, to Melrose in Scotland is not only interesting, as historically correct at that early period, but reconcUable with the itinerary given. Mefrose given , up, Hexham Priory was another natural goal ; so was CarUsle, so was Penrith, so was York, so was Chester-le-Street. Here they arrived in 883, when King Alfred had restored peace to the Christians in the north, and Halfdene was dead ; and here the See of Lindisfarne was continued for 113 years, whUe the body of St Cuthbert was placed in the sanctuary of the church. Earldulf, who had fled from Lindisfarne, was the first bishop of Chester-le-Street ;' but the Danes had not finished their work, and stiU the body of St Cuthbert had to be "protected from heathen hands." 30 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. . In 995 " an oracle from heaven instructed Bishop Aldhune to fly with the incorrupt body." He started wi*h it and all his people for Ripon, and in 999 it was deposited at Dunholme, " where a little church of wands and branches was buUt wherein the body was laid, tUl a more sumptuous church was buUt wherein he might be enshrined." This was Durham Cathedral, and St Cuthbert at last found a resting-place within the apse and behind the altar-screen or reredos which crossed the church at the apse. - No dead body, however, ever gave more trouble. In 1277 his tomb within the new feretory was spendidly improved ; but in 1537 Dr Ley, appointed by Henry VIIL, with Dr Henley and Mr Blythman, to suppress monasteries, had the tomb opened, deprived it of its jewels, " found the body whole and in corrupt," and not only the body " but the vestments wherein the body lay were fresh, safe, and not con sumed." * The monks after this hid the body under a marble stone beneath the spot over which the shrine had been elevated, but it is presumed that it was removed thence by pious hands very shortly after, and buried under some steps, where only of late years its presence has been suspected. * "Rites of Durham," p. 85. DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 31 " Deep in Durham's Gothic shade His relics are in secret laid ; But none may know the place, Save of his holiest servants three,* Deep sworn to solemn secrecy. Who share that wondrous grace." Lindisfarne Monastery had been left in the charge of one monk, whose mission was to watch the Danes^and take charge of sacred vessels in the church. He remained concealed within the church when the Danes entered, heard them threaten to kiU the monks when they returned, and contriving to escape to the Kyloe hills whither his brethren had fled, he re commended them not again to return. The church was destroyed, and the monastic institute in Northumbria received its death-blow. Meanwhile a war had been going on north of the Tweed, which was altering the geography, as it was changing the character of the British Isles. The western Scots and their eastern neighbours the Picts had for ages amalgamated, and their royal houses had so intermarried, that, as an historian quaintly puts it, " hence arose a deadly feud between the two nations." Donald, who was King of the Scots and one of the lineal successors of Cornall, who had invited St * Allusion to three monks of the Benedictine order who are supposed to know where the body actually lies ; but this is in correct, for not three but all the Benedictine monks are told the secret, and may teU the secret if they please, for no oath binds them to it. 32 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. Columba over to lona to preach the gospel to its Pictish neighbours, laid claim to the Pictish crown as direct hefr to its deceased sovereign, but the claim was violently resisted by the Picts, who refused to listen to his pretensions, which were founded on hereditary right only, and informed him that, having by their own valour purchased their privilege to elect their own ruler, it was derogatory to their honour to accept a king merely on account of his blood pretensions. Suiting thefr action to thefr haughty message, they elected as sovereign a prince of their own race, thus declaring war to the Scottish Pre tender. In the many encounters which ensued, Donald, or Dungal, was not successful, and finally falling into the hands of the Picts, he was " butchered by them with inhuman cruelty," a.d. 842.* It was clear that the Scots would not allow such a death to go unavenged, and Kenneth, the son of Alpin, who died in combat the same year (a.d. 842t), and who succeeded Donald, swore to revenge his father's death, just about the very time that Ingwar and Ubba were swearing to avenge the death of their father, Rednar Lodbrog. He marched an army into the Pictish realm, and slew its Pictish king near Aberdeen, pursuing his * " Chronica de Mailros," p. 16. Bannatyne Publication, 1835. t Ibid. DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 33 conquest to the north with such celerity and success that before a.d. 866 the Picts were the subjects of the Scots, as the Northumbrians had become those of the Danes. But besides Northumberland the old province of Bernicia contained counties north of the Tweed which extended to the Forth, and the contiguity of Bernicia and the Picts had engendered kindly relations be tween them, which in the hour of its need the Picts appealed to, and not in vain. Picts flying before the conquering Kenneth took refuge with the friendly Bernicians, who assisted them in resisting their Scottish enemy. Kenneth, exasperated at this conduct of the Ber nicians, and at the injuries which their soldiers — " armis ferocissimi "''''¦ — were able to inflict upon his undisciplined levies, resolved upon treating them like the Picts, whom he had determined to exterminate. Carrying his arms down the east coast, he swept all before him until he reached the Tweed at Berwick ; then moving southwards, he conquered all the country which had formerly been Bernicia, inclusive of the monastery of Melrose, untU he came to the province of Strathclyde. When this was done — and the time had been weU chosen, for the Northumbrian kingdom was the prey * See Camden, speaking of the early Northumbrians. C 34 DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. of the Danes* — England had found its frontier on the Tweed and Scotland its limit on that river. " The dissolution of the Pictish state is scarcely to be paralleled in history. Almost every memorial of its existence was destroyed, and the very language of its people lost for ever. Kenneth's rage and insatiable revenge for the death of his father being such that nothing less than the extirpation of the whole race could appease him, he spared neither age nor sex, and razed their cities to their foundations, passing the ploughshare over them, that every memorial of that people might be clean done out."f It is singular to reflect that while Columba's disciple had begun his apostolic mission at the mouth of the Tweed, and Christianity in the north had risen on its banks, that river marked the limit of Kenneth's victory, of that Kenneth who was the Uneal successor of Conall, Columba's patron. Where Christianity had first displayed its standard, there rose the frontiers of " merry England ; " and where the Scottish monk had fixed his home, there Scotland followed with her boundary. No less remarkable is it that as the last North- * "In the year that Kenneth, passing the mountains of Drum- albin, destroyed the monarchy of the Picts, these latter people are said to have been weakened by a great overthrow they had received from the Danish pirates ; which overthrow paved the way to Kenneth's conquest." — Ridpath's " History of the Border." + Hutchinson's " Antiquities of Durham," vol. i. p. 50. DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 35 umbrian king was dying a cruel death, as the Danes were asserting their rude supremacy, as the Scots were developing into a strong and haughty race, and as the monasteries first founded by the Anglo-Saxons within the " Patrimony of St Cuthbert " were being razed to the ground, Norham was the one " cell " or dependency within the original See of Lindisfarne that was not disturbed by the Danes, and dared peep its modest head above the storms of those fearful days. Destined to be the vanguard of England in its political history, as it had been the vanguard of Christianity on its first invasion of northern English soil, Norham still can tell how races have gone down, how creeds have changed, how people have altered, but how, in the midst of all these revolutions, it has remained true to its founder and his noble mission, as it has been for ever loval to Enaiish soil and kinoj. CHAPTER in. SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 875 to 1099. Siward. " This way, my lord ; the castle's gently render'd : The tyrant's people on both sides do fight ; The noble thanes do bravely in the war ; The day almost itself professes yours. And little is to do." — -Shakespeare's "Afacbeth." Another two centuries had elapsed. Saxon and Danes were gradually disappearing under the rule of those sturdy Norman barons who had laid hold of our island with so firm a grip. English and Scot were now in presence of one another, and about to fight for mastery across the river Tweed and all along its banks. William the Bastard had found his mate in Malcolm III. of Scotland. The " Patrimony of St Cuthbert " had been restored to the Lindisfarne See, now permanently established at Durham; but the holy bishops of the earlier church had passed away, and the new men who succeeded them were warriors in the cause of wealth and power more than in that of religious progress. The age was an essentially fighting age, and bishops had to fight for their position. I^ords paramount, judges, ad mirals, military commanders, and priests all at once, SETTLEMENT OP GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 37 they were only next to the king in power, and the kings could not afford to mistrust them. At this great juncture of English history Norham again appears in the front ranks; and on "that hill of immense height upon the river Tweed, quite at the extreme end of Northumberland," * a castle rises on which British hopes are to be centred, for its strength will awe the invading Scot, and peace may reign beneath its favouring protection. In an old history of Newcastle-on-Tyne by Bourne, written in 1736 and dedicated to the then mayor, Walter Blackett, and his aldermen, Messrs Ellison, Ridley, Fenwick, Carr, and Clayton, all names still distinguished either in that capital of Northumber land or in the county, there is the following passage : — "From the year 875 to 1074 Northumberland had been in a desolate condition," and quoting HoUings- head, he goes on thus : " By the invasion of the Danes, the churches and monasteries throughout Northumberland were so wasted and ruined, that a man could scarcely find a church standing at this time in aU the county ; and as for those that remained they were all covered with broom or thatch ; and as for any abbey or monastery there was not one left, neither did any man for the space of two hundred * CoUis quifidam immensse altitudinis . . . super Thueodam flumen iu extremis Northumbriae finibus. — " Reginald Dunelmi," p. 149, cap. 73. 38 SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. years take care for the repafring or building up of anything in decay, so that the people of this county knew not what a monk meant, and if they saw any they wondered at the strangeness of the sight." Perhaps these simple words convey a better account of the ravages, the plunder, the pillage, the burning, and the slaughter which ensued during this desolate period, than a more elaborate account of the doings in the days when the fight for political supremacy had its centre in the midland counties, and Northumber land was left in the charge, sometimes of an earl appointed by the English kings, and at others of the Scottish rulers as they happened to be victors in thefr endless encounters. These earls, besides, had countless wrongs to be avenged, and every knight slain was a signal for further bloodshed. Reconciliations would take place when treachery had its play, and the dastardly acts were immediately punished by the wholesale butchery of hundreds of unoffending men and women. It seemed as' if peace was never again to be known in the north of England. So tfred were the Northum brians of massacre and bloodshed, that when they heard in 1016 that Canute the Great, a man of stUl greater strength of wUl than any Danish commander of whom they had yet heard, was marching towards the north, they submitted "from need," says the SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 39 Saxon chronicle, and delivered hostages without striking a blow, together with thefr Earl Uchtred. But the peace which ensued was only of two years' duration ; for Uchtred having wrested the Lothians from the Scots during his governorship, the Scots in 1018 gave battle to his feeble brother and successor, Eadulf, at Carham-on-Tweed, twelve miles south-west of Norham, and so completely annihilated his army, that " a levy having been made of the whole popula tion between the Tees and the Tweed, by far the greater part perished, including especially the older men, whose services on ordinary occasions would have been dispensed with. So overwhelming was the calamity that the venerable Bishop Aldhune died of grief, and Eadulf seems to have had no alternative but to agree to any terms which were offered to him." This battle of Carham is interesting in the fact that from this time the Tweed became the politically recognized limit between the eastern marches of England and Scotland. But the history of our Isles was now rushing to its development, and the Danes were to face a fiercer race even than thefr own. Their day of retribution was at hand. Canute, Harold, Hardicanute were gone, and Edward the Confessor was king. The old Saxon race was once more supreme — it was but the flickering of a light of which the fuel is burnt out. The Earl of Northumberland in 1041 was Siward, — " a giant in stature, whose vigour of mind was 40 SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. equal to his bodily strength ; " and legendary reports told how a bear had fallen in love with his mother, and Siward was the son of the bear. He was no monster himself, however,; but whUe "a noble speci men of humanity " according to some, he was reputed so brave and decided that on hearing of a further Danish invasion, " the great men of the land, consult ing with the king, did advise that the little devil Siward should be first exposed to the great devU," and thus all the land fr-om Humber to Tweed was confided to his administration. This "noble specimen of humanity," in the year 1054, "went into Scotland with a great army, both with a ship force and with a land force, and fought against the Scots, and put to flight King Macbeth, and slew all the chief men in the land, and carried thence much booty, such as no man before had obtained." That he was a very " devil " of a warrior is better established ; for when he heard of his son's death at the head of his army, he inquired whether his death-wound was before or behind. " Before," was the reply. " Then I am more satisfied," said he ; " no other death was fitting either for him or for me."* * Shakespeare must have had this answer in mind when Rosse announcing Macbeth's death, Siward asks : " Had he his hurts before ? Rosse. Ay, on the front. Siward. Why then, God's soldier be he ! Had I as many sons as I have hairs T would not wish them to a fairer death." SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 41 He died, however, of sickness at York ; and so annoyed was he to find that his end was approaching far from the battle-field, that he exclaimed, " Shame on me that I did not die in one of the many battles I have fought, but am reserved to die with disgrace the death of a sick cow ! Put on my armour, gird my sword by my side, place my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, and my battle-axe in my right, that at least I may die in a soldier's harness." Thus died a staunch old Northumbrian earl in the days of Edward the Confessor. At his death Tosti, a son of the famous Earl Godwin, was made Earl of Northumberland, and the appointment stfrred the blood of the northerners, who had not yet learned, and were not to learn for some centuries later, to look upon the south as part of a patriotic brotherhood, of which they were to hold the links if not the reins. On the day of Tosti's arrival and his followers, the Northumbrian thanes first seized his Danish hus- carls and put them to death ; the next day they slew more than two hundred of his attendants ; they broke open his treasury, carried off" all that belonged to him, and then went to Harold in deputation, unanimously rejected his proposal to restore peace between them and Tosti, declared him outlawed, and chose Morcar as his successor. The year 1066 had now arrived, and the Norman 42 SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. William with his crowd of barons had landed on Anglo-Saxon soil. Morcar, on hearing of the battle of Hastings (for he had not been present, though in London at the time), vowed " that he and his brother Edwin would fight together for Edgar Atheling" the rightful hefr to Harold's throne, but William's movements were too rapid, and abandoning all idea of resistance they tendered to the Norman Conqueror their submission and their allegiance. They submitted, in the common sense words of the old Saxon chronicle, "for need when the most harm was done, and it was very unwise that they had not done so before." Morcar and Edwin, however, were not restored to their honours, but carried off to France in the train of William, upon whom they had to dance "in honourable attendance." The old Saxon pride revolted against this new position, and on their return to England they broke into open rebellion ; but a greater affront had been offered to the English nation. The most Ulustrious of the noble families of England, Earls of Mercia for generations, to which the Earldom of Northumberland had been added by the last Saxon king, the whole realm was likely to resent any insult offered to these brothers. William I. had offered his daughter in marriage to Edwin, and the Norman barons made WiUiam re- SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 43 tract his word, as " the earl was not good enough for the bastard's daughter," thus branding the whole EngUsh nation as an inferior people. At once messages were sent all over the country to rouse the natives against their enemies. AU joined in a firm league and bold conspiracy for the recovery of thefr ancient liberties, and the rebeUion broke out with great violence in the provinces beyond the Humber. . . . "Many of the citizens lived in tents, disdaining the shelter of houses, as tending to enervate them." But William was a man of genius besides a bold warrior, and with an unerring instinct he left the northern districts in the possession of the insurgents, until he had by means of the Bishop of Durham insured himself of an alliance with Malcolm, King of Scotland. Though this was not actually done, Egelwin, Bishop of Durham, got Malcolm to withhold his aid to the insurgents, and the great rebellion collapsed as quickly as it had sprung up. William then under stood how powerful a British ruler would be in the future with the Bishop of Durham, a priest on whom he could rely. But the Danish massacres had still to be outdone, and the Norman name to be feared in the north as the Danes had been. The first Norman Earl of Northumberland was 44 SETTLEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. Robert de Comines, who arrived at Durham in 1069, on the 28th of January, and " so great was the terror inspired by his approach, that the first impulse of the people was to betake themselves to flight, leav ing thefr houses and their property rather than sub ject themselves to the vengeance of the tyrannical Norman ; " but a great faU of snow prevented this resolve, and a conspiracy was then formed to make away with Robert, so they " mutually pledged them selves to do this, or to perish in the attempt." Passages like this show almost better than any description how reduced and desperate were the people who could afford to risk their lives for the purpose of murdering a man who was appointed to look after their welfare, and of whom they knew nothing. The Bishop of Durham informed the new governor or earl of the people's intention, but he laughed it to scorn, and suffered his followers to commit any unlawful act they pleased. At daybreak, however, on the morning following his arrival, a large body of Northumbrians appeared at the gates of Durham, and entering the streets " slew the earl's followers wherever they found them." The house where he lodged was set on fire, and St Cuthbert's Church was only preserved " by that saint's active interference." Comines perished in the fire, and but one of his followers escaped to tell the SETTLEMENT OP GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 45 tale. Matters were assuming an ugly look. Cos patrick, the expatriated Earl of Northumberland, at the head of the discontented Saxons, marched upon York. Malet, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, earnestly appealed to William for reinforcements. The king marched to his relief in person, and surprising the insurgents by a quick march, "routed them with great slaughter, and effectually dispersed them." He then returned to Winchester in triumph, and to prepare his revenge for Comines' death. He leisurely organized an expedition against the bishop- rick of Durham, which never reached Durham owing to a dense fog, but was soon employed against the Danes. The spirit of William being fully roused, he marched into Northumberland, and spent the whole winter laying waste the country, slaughtering the inhabitants, and inflicting on them without inter mission every sort of evil. " It was dreadful to behold human corpses, rotting in the houses, streets, and highways, reeking with putrefaction, swarming with worms, and contaminat ing the air with deadly exhalations : for all the people being cut off by the sword or by famine, there were none left to bury them." " In consequence of the ravages of the Normans, so severe a famine prevailed throughout the kingdom, but chiefly in Northumberland and the adjacent 46 SETTLEMENT OP GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. provinces, that men were driven to feed on the carcases of horses, dogs, and cats, and even of human flesh" It is consoling to hear, after so terrible an account, that on his death-bed William allowed that he had " become, alas ! the barbarous murderer of thousands upon thousands, both old and young," thus expressing, as well as his rude nature allowed, some regret for the merciless revenge he had taken on those who had called upon the Danes under Sweyne to come and help them against the Norman invader. Historians of the present day are wont to sing the praises of William and his barons, because they brought with them institutions which constitute the ground-work upon which our modern legal system is founded, and also because the greater portion of the British nobility who claim a genuine ancestry, trace their origin back to some Norman companion of the bastard William ; but the fact remains that a more merciless set of ruffians never trod upon British soil, and a more annihilating horde of robbers never trampled on any country. The Romans had left be hind them memories of benefits conferred, and of a rule both wise and just though stern ; the Danes, though savage, spoke a language akin to our own, and contrived when not bent on destruction to ingratiate themselves with the people, to amalgamate with them, and to form a mixed race which gave promise SETTLEMENT OP GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. 47 of strength of power and of unity, but the Normans spoke a jargon which alarmed as much as it reminded the vanquished of their defeat. The insolent and overbearing manner of the conquerors offended as it natu.rally created resentment, and in the end the native element was trodden down and crushed never to rise again.* It was not so in Scotland, and from the first the Norman barons had to learn that " to the Tweed and no step further " was to be their guiding rule. Malcolm Cean Mor, the elder of the two sons of Duncan, by a sister of Siward, Earl of Northumber land, refused to recognise WUliam as the legitimate king of England. Born in 1024, he sought Siward's protection in 1039 on the assassination of his father by Macbeth, and was placed for a time under the care of Edward the Confessor at his Court in London, where he became acquainted with Edgar Athebug and his beautiful sister Margaret. * " The minds of men were froward and inclined to quarrels and warfare : they were overwhelmed in excess and sensuality ; vanity, lust, and intemperance reigned everywhere. (Malmesbuiy.) " Even the king's servants, following him in his journeys, used to harass and plunder the country as their wickedness instigated, and many of them were so extravagant in their barbarity, that what they could not eat or drink in their quarters, they either obli