William Wordsworth

“ Earl Pembroke, slain so impiously!
That slender Youth, a scholar pale,
From Oxford come to his native vale,
He also hath his own conceit:
It is, thinks he, the gracious Fairy,
Who loved the Shepherd Lord to meet
In his wanderings solitary;
Wild notes she in his hearing sang,
A song of Nature’s hidden powers ”

“ This insult, and the Banner saved,
That moment, from among the tide
Of the spectators occupied
In admiration or dismay,
Bore unobserved his Charge away.”
These things, which thus had in the sight
And hearing passed of Him who stood
With Emily, on the Watch-tower height,
In Rylstone’s woeful neighbourhood,
He told; and oftentimes with voice
Of power to encourage or rejoice;
For deepest sorrows that aspire,
Go high, no transport ever higher. ”

“ Of close-clipt foliage green and tall,
Converging walks, and fountains gay,
And terraces in trim array,—
Beneath yon cypress spiring high,
With pine and cedar spreading wide
Their darksome boughs on either side,
In open moonlight doth she lie;
Happy as others of her kind,
That, far from human neighbourhood,
Range—unrestricted as the wind—
Through park, or chase, or savage wood. ”

“ Here a tributary stream rushes from a waterfall, and bursts through a woody glen to mingle its waters with the Wharf: there the Wharf itself is nearly lost in a deep cleft in the rock, and next becomes a horned flood enclosing a woody island-sometimes it reposes for a moment, and then resumes its native character, lively, irregular, and impetuous. ”

“ New life in Bolton Priory;
“The voice restored, the eye of truth
“Re-opened that inspired my youth;
“Had seen her in her pomp arrayed;
“This Banner (for such vow I made)
“Should on the consecrated breast
“Of that same Temple have found rest:
“I would myself have hung it high,
“Glad offering of glad victory!
“A shadow of such thought remains
“To chear this sad and pensive time;
“A solemn fancy yet sustains
“One feeble Being—bids me climb
“Even to the last-one effort more
“To attest my Faith, if not restore. ”

“ And, after many conflicts and warlike exploits there had and done between the English men and the King of Scots and his company, the said battle ended, and the victory was obtained, to the great overthrow and confusion of the Scots, their enemies: And then the said Prior and monks, accompanied with Ralph Lord Nevil, and John Nevil his son, and the Lord Percy, and many other nobles of England, returned home and went to the abbey church, there joining in hearty prayer and thanksgiving to God and holy St Cuthbert for the victory atchieved that day. ”

“ Though this insurrection had been suppressed with so little bloodshed, the Earl of Sussex and Sir George Bowes, marshal of the army, put vast numbers to death by martial law, without any regular trial. The former of these caused at Durham sixty-three constables to be hanged at once. And the latter made his boast, that for sixty miles in length, and forty in breadth, betwixt Newcastle and Wetherby, there was hardly a town or village wherein he had not executed some of the inhabitants. This exceeds the cruelties practised in the West after Monmouth’s rebellion. ”

“ Rydal Mount, Westmoreland,
April 20, 1815.
THE
WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE.
CANTO FIRST.
THE
WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE.
CANTO FIRST.
From Bolton’s old monastic tower
The bells ring loud with gladsome power:
The sun is bright; the fields are gay
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of the crystal Wharf,
Through the Vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy. ”

“ To the South all is soft and delicious; the eye reposes upon a few rich pastures, a moderate reach of the river, sufficiently tranquil to form a mirror to the sun, and the bounding hills beyond, neither too near nor too lofty to exclude, even in winter, any portion of his rays. ”

“ It is said that the Earl of Northumberland, who was a man of a mild and gentle nature, [1] was deliberating with himself whether he should not obey the message, and rely upon the Queen’s candour and clemency, when he was forced into desperate measures by a sudden report at midnight, Nov. 14, that a party of his enemies were come to seize his person. The Earl was then at his house at Topcliffe in Yorkshire. When, rising hastily out of bed, he withdrew to the Earl of Westmoreland at Brancepeth, where the country came in to them, and pressed them to take up arms in their own defence. ”

“ In the night before the battle of Durham was strucken and begun, the 17th day of October, anno 1346, there did appear to John Fosser, then Prior of the abbey of Durham, commanding him to take the holy Corporax-cloth, wherewith St Cuthbert did cover the chalice when he used to say mass, and to put the same holy relique like to a banner-cloth upon the point of a spear, and the next morning to go and repair to a place on the west side of the city of Durham, called the Red Hills, where the Maid’s Bower wont to be, and there to remain and abide till the end of the battle. ”

“ Oh! there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn, and ask
Of Him to be our Friend!
NOTES.
NOTES.
The Poem of the White Doe of Rylstone is founded on a local tradition, and on the Ballad in Percy's Collection, entitled “The Rising of the North.” The tradition is as follows: “About this time,” not long after the Dissolution, “a White Doe, say the aged people of the neighbourhood, long continued to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone over the fells of Bolton, and was constantly found in the Abbey Church-yard during divine service ”

“ I shall endeavour to appropriate to him a tomb, vault, and chantry, in the choir of the church of Bolton, as I should be sorry to believe that lie was deposited when dead at a distance from the place which in his life-time he loved so well.
“By his last will he appointed his body to be interred at Shap if he died in Westmoreland; or at Bolton if he died in Yorkshire.”
With respect to the Canons of Bolton, Dr Whitaker shews from MSS. that not only alchemy but astronomy was a favourite pursuit with them. ”

“ It destroys likewise Magnanimity, and the raising of humane Nature: for take an example of a Dogg, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a Man, who to him is instead of a God, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly such, as that Creature without that confidence of a better Nature than his own, could never attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon Divine protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith which human Nature in itself could not obtain. ”

“ In these circumstances, Westmoreland began so visibly to despond, that many of his men slunk away, though Northumberland still kept up his resolution, and was master of the field till December 13, when the Earl of Sussex, accompanied with Lord Hunsden and others, having marched out of York at the head of a large body of forces, and being followed by a still larger army under the command of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the insurgents retreated north-ward towards the borders, and there dismissing their followers, made their escape into Scotland. ”

“ The prior caused a goodly and sumptuous banner to be made, (which is then described at great length,) and in the midst of the same banner-cloth was the said holy relique and corporax-cloth enclosed, &c. &c. and so sumptuously finished, and absolutely perfected, this banner was dedicated to holy St Cuthbert, of intent and purpose, that for the future it should be carried to any battle, as occasion should serve; and was never carried and shewed at any battle but by the especial grace of God Almighty, and the mediation of holy St Cuthbert, it brought home victory ”

“ There had not long before been a secret negociation entered into between some of the Scottish and English nobility, to bring abont a marriage between Mary Q. of Scots, at that time a prisoner in England, and the Duke of Norfolk, a nobleman of excellent character. This match was proposed to all the most considerable of the English nobility, and among the rest to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, two noblemen very powerful in the North. ”

“ His eye upon Northumberland,
And said, “The minds of Men will own
No loyal rest while England's Crown
Remains without an Heir, the bait
Of strife and factions desperate;
Who, paying deadly hate in kind
Through all things else, in this can find
A mutual hope, a common mind ”

“ And like a royall queene shee swore,
I will ordayne them such a breakfast,
As never was in the North before.
Shee caused thirty thousand men be rays’d,
With horse and harneis faire to see;
She caused thirty thousand men be raised
To take the earles i’ th’ North countrie.
Wi’ them the false Erle Warwicke went,
The Erle Sussex and the Lord Hunsden,
Untill they to York castle came
I wiss they never stint ne blan.
Now spred thy aneyent, Westmoreland,
Thy dun Bull faine would we spye:
And thou, the Erle of Northumberland,
Now rayse thy Halfe Moone on hye. ”

“ The narrow limits of his residence shew that he had learned to despise the pomp of greatness, and that a small train of servants could suffice him, who had lived to the age of thirty a servant himself. I think this nobleman resided here almost entirely when in Yorkshire, for all his charters which I have seen are dated at Barden. ”

“ From Bolton’s old monastic Tower.—P. 3.
It is to be regretted that at the present day Bolton Abbey wants this ornament: but the Poem, according to the imagination of the Poet, is composed in Queen Elizabeth’s time. “Formerly,” says Dr Whitaker, “over the Transept was a tower. This is proved not only from the mention of bells at the Dissolution, when they could have had no other place, but from the pointed roof of the choir, which must have terminated westward, in some building of superior height to the ridge.” ”

“ Immediately adjoining is a close, called the Vivery, so called undoubtedly from the French Vivier, or modern Latin Viverium; for there are near the house large remains of a pleasure-ground, such as were introduced in the earlier part of Elizabeth’s time, with topiary works, fish-ponds, an island, &c. The whole township was ranged by an hundred and thirty red deer, the property of the Lord, which, together with the wood, had, after the attainder of Mr Norton, been committed to Sir Stephen Tempest. ”

“ To that Poem is annexed an account of this personage, chicfly extracted from Burn’s and Nicholson’s History of Cumberland and Westmoreland. It gives me pleasure to add these further particulars concerning him from Dr Whitaker, who says, “he retired to the solitude of Barden, where he seems to have enlarged the tower out of a common keeper’s lodge, and where he found a retreat equally favourable to taste, to instruction, and to devotion. ”

“ On the declivity of a steep hill, the bottom and sides of which were fenced so as to be impassable, a wall was constructed nearly level with the surface on the outside, yet so high within that without wings it was impossible to escape in the opposite direction. ”

“ It is so called to this day, and is thus described by Dr Whitaker. “Rylstone Fell yet exhibits a monument of the old warfare between the Nortons and Cliffords. On a point of very high ground, commanding an immense prospect, and protected by two deep ravines, are the remains of a square tower, expressly said by Dodsworth to have been built by Richard Norton. The walls are of strong grout-work, about four feet thick. It seems to have been three stories high. Breaches have been industriously made in all the sides, almost to the ground, to render it untenable. ”

“ I suspect this nobleman to have been sometimes occupied in a more visionary pursuit, and probably in the same company.
“For, from the family evidences, I have met with two MSS. on the subject of Alchemy, which, from the character, spelling, &c., may almost certainly be referred to the reign of Henry the Seventh. If these were originally deposited with the MSS. of the Cliffords, it might have been for the use of this nobleman. If they were brought from Bolton at the Dissolution, they must have been the work of those Canons whom he almost exclusively conversed with. ”

“ And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.
“They that deny a God, destroy Man's nobility: for certainly Man is of kinn to the Beasts by his Body; and if he be not of kinn to God by his Spirit, he is a base ignoble Creature. ”

“ O’er Rylstone’s fair domain have blown.—P. 112.
“After the attainder of Richard Norton, his estates were forfeited to the crown, where they remained till the 2d or 3d of James; they were then granted to Francis Earl of Cumberland.” From an accurate survey made at that time, several particulars have been extracted by Dr W. It appears that the mansion-house was then in decay. ”

“ Such is the account collected from Stow, Speed, Camden, Guthrie, Carte, and Rapin; it agrees, in most particulars, with the following Ballad, apparently the production of some northern minstrel.—
Listen, lively lordings all,
Lithe and listen unto mee,
And I will sing of a noble earle,
The noblest earle in the north countrie.
Earle Percy is into his garden gone,
And after him walks his fair leddie:
I heard a bird sing in mine ear,
That I must either fight, or flee. ”

“ They accordingly set up their standards, declaring their intent was to restore the ancient Religion, to get the succession of the crown firmly settled, and to prevent the destruction of the ancient nobility, &c. Their common banner (on which was displayed the cross, together with the five wounds of Christ) was borne by an ancient gentleman, Richard Norton, Esquire, who, with his sons, (among whom, Christopher, Marmaduke, and Thomas, are expressly named by Camden,) distinguished himself on this occasion. Having entered Durham, they tore the Bible, &c. ”