which on the part of a more than haK native, is a strong mark of
confidence. He has steeped his people in its atmosphere so
thoroughly and yet with so little effort, so little vernacular, so
little landscape painting, much less with the clumsy encum-
X 2
3o8
TROLLOTE AT SHAP
CHAP.
brances of glossaries and maps. But the creator of Mrs. Proudie,
and Archdc-icon Giantly and Dr. Thorne would not take me a
yard out of my way in Cumberland. Trollope's Vavasours
were a Cumbrian family, it is true, but they might have
lived in Wiltshire, at Bullhampton, for any local character
that envelops them. Trollope's glimpse of Shap, however,
forty years ago is not without interest, as the glory of the
coaching period had recently given way to what for Shap
Near Bampton.
was the depressing influence of the railroad. The coach
passengers, he remarks, stopped just long enough there " to
thank Heaven they had not been born Shappites," and he
pictures the place in his time as looking back with fond regret
to what it conceived to be the lustre of its past. Tourist
possibilities had not then dawned on Shap, and if all travellers
shared Trollope's tastes they would still be in embryo.
After leaving Shap on our southward journey there are many
miles of undulating but gradually ascending road before we
XI
A WILD OUTLOOK
309
top the watershed. Fine fresh moorland sweeps all about us,
and herds of small Highland cattle of every shade of colour
known to the bovine race roaming restlessly about, not yet
perhaps acclimatised to their change of scene, give a further
touch of character to the landscape. The broken uy)lands of
Shap Fell fill in the outlook to the right. Away beyond the
hollow on our left, where the railroad is struggling over the
apex of its long steep climb, the smooth crest of Crosby Fell
rolls away by Orton Scaur towards the valley of the upper
Looking West from Shap Abbey.
Eden, to Kirkby Stephen and the wild sheep-walks that look
out over Durham and Yorkshire. Down yonder too, near the
railroad, though nearly as high above sea-level as Shap village,
is Shap Wells, a solid, roomy mansion set amid an oasis of
fir woods by the banks of the infant Lune. This is a really
comfortable hotel, and you need not, of course, drink the
waters which provide the motive for its existence unless you
like. If a powerful taste is any test of efficacy in such cases,
Shap Wells should be a spot blessed among health-seekers, for
3IO SHAP WELLS chap.
the flavour of rotten egg is as well imitated by the natural
spring which bubbles up here in the wood as in any more
famous resort. But the moorland air here must be at least as
potent a restorative as the most nauseous water, and there is
certainly a charm and a repose about the place that must be
welcome to those whose health or fancy inclines them to take
life quietly. The moorland breezes murmur soothingly in the
pines. The fountains of the infant Lune sparkle beneath their
shade and prattle their childish songs upon the rocks. The
patient seeks his morning draught by bowery ways that wind
cunningly through sylvan glens, while all beyond the peace
and silence of the moorland reigns supreme. Life cannot be
wildly exciting at Shap Wells, though three score people in one
hotel are beyond a doubt capable of making it very hot indeed.
But such are not the type, I fancy, who haunt this substantial,
respectable and comfortable looking hostelry, which was
originally, I believe, a nobleman's shooting-box. I have read
somewhere, in a local publication probably, that once a visitor
has tried Shap Wells he remains faithful to it unto death. I
have come across this trite remark before of course, and some-
times applied by local patriots to places of most forbidding
character. But Shap Wells, I think, merits much of the praise
its habitues bestow upon it, if only for the fact that so far as
I know Cumberland and Westmorland it is the only first-
class hotel in the two counties set in a bracing air and on a
high elevation. Personally I would sooner take the rougher
accommodation, which is all that at present Shap village four
miles away has to offer : for not only has it a railway station,
but it is handier to the districts over which a soundman would
by preference wander.
But to return to the Kendal road, from which Shap Wells is
removed by a long half-mile of byway. The greater portion
of what lies before us, main artery as it once was between
north and south, though now but little trodden, traverses as
wild a country as you could wish for. And something more
xr OVER SHAP FELL 311
too, for after losing sight of Shap Wells the solitude takes
grand and striking shapes. Lofty fells fill the foreground
upon either hand, bold in outline and clad from base to sum-
mit with that crisp verdure which Britain alone of all the
countries of the earth can lay in such ample folds against the
blue of heaven. One feels instinctively that if the upstanding
hills, but little over two thousand feet any of them, showed
their steep sides to you, washed gray and barren by rains and
parched by fierce suns, and partly clad perhaps with hungry
pine-woods, the spell in which they now hold you would have
gone. You would hurry on your way and carry with you no
impression worth mentioning to be a comfort in the smoky
town or by the winter fireside. But these vast steeps of turf,
fresh with the moisture of countless springs, of constant mists
and nightly dews, and illumined with the suns of June, how
beautiful are they — how sensitive to every swell and curve of
the rock beneath, how quick to catch every passing movement
of the sky ! One might sometimes fancy the cloud shadows
actually pressed the turf as they passed over it, so instinct with
life and movement does it seem. With what admirable har-
mony too do the grey out-cropping rocks blend with the
varied greens ! How richly coloured are the sprouting brackens
on the lower slopes, how black the water-channels that cleave
the hollows, how white the water that leaps down them ! But
the Shap fells soon drop behind us. ^^^astdale and Yarlside,
Lordseat and Barnsdale, rise and fall upon the A\'est, while
Rounthwaite and Whinfell, High Carlin and Greyriggs close in
the east in long procession.
Whinfell, by the way, was one of the half-dozen official beacons
of Westmorland in the old border days ; the next one being
Orton Scaur just across the Lune beyond Shap Wells. Among
the chief items of border service by which the statesmen of the
two counties held their lands w^as that of lighting the beacon fires
when the alarm was sounded. It was no " red glare on Skid-
daw " as in Macaulay's famous lines that " roused the burghers
312 A LONELY ROAD chap.
of Carlisle " when the Spanish Armada was on the sea. There
would be too much cloud around the summit of these higher
mountains for reliable signal beacons, and moreover the nimble
horsemen from beyond the Solway would have covered too
much ground while the most agile mountaineers were climbing
3,000 feet, nor yet again was Skiddaw in the main route of
either soldier or moss-trooper.
The road is steep as well as solitary. Two or three farm-
houses at long intervals are the only signs of man. The sound
of falling water and the occasional bleat of a sheep alone break
the eternal silence of the hills. One wonders what some of
the cockney or Midland county passengers on the coach-top
thought of this country as they passed through it for the first
time. One knows the dread in which it was held in winter at
any rate. To our friends bound for Gretna Green it must
have been a sad trial at all seasons, for the road, though better
probably then than now, was not less steep. There was plenty
of movement along here too in the 'forty-five, and in the first
chapter of this book we saw the Prince's army hurrying north
again by this route with the Duke's close upon their heels.
As we break out of the high fell country into civilisation
again, and begin the gradual descent into the rich basin in
which Kendal lies, the outlook towards Windermere and the
Lancashire fells comes as a sharp contrast after so long bur-
rowing in the troughs of hills. Kendal is, I think, the
pleasantest of all northern towns, even to look down upon
from a height, a process trying to the complexion of any place
where several thousand human beings, Anglo-Saxons at any
rate, are busy making a livelihood. There is no disturbing
factor of any consequence to break the harmony of the
pleasant light grey tone which pervades the place as a whole,
and the smoke from its thousand roof-trees steals up in peace-
ful and delicate clouds, as if nothing of greater distraction
than the cooking of the family dinner, the dressing of May
flies and March browns, or the tying of casting lines, with
xr KENDAL 313
which industry Kendal seems to be inseparably associated,
was filling the minds of the townsfolk. No belching chimneys,
no garish factories, nor any other industrial monstrosity thrusts
itself upon the artistic continuity of Kendal's subdued tones.
And I think you like it as much on a closer acquaintance as
from a bird's-eye view. It is an easy-going, well-to-do looking,
selfrespecting county town, freshened up and kept cheerful
by a good outside income earned by tlie entertainment of
strangers and foreigners. Even the early history of Kendal
was comparatively uneventful, though Appleby was raided
again and again, and in the fourteenth century, that wretched
period for the border country, was so ruthlessly gutted that it
never really recovered. But the seat of its sister barony was rarely
attacked. The people round, however, w^re always liable to
border service and might be called at any moment to aid in
the defence of Cumberland. They had some fame too as
archers, and at Flodden did notable service under Dacre of
Gillsland.
The left-hand wing witli all his route
The lusty Lord Dacres did lead ;
With him the bows of Kendal stout
With milke- white coats and crosses read ;
There are the bows of Kendal bold
Who fierce will fight and never flee.
'&
Even in the Civil \Wr Kendal escaped, while Appleby
sustained a long siege for the King. All the gentry, tenants
and statesmen of Westmorland went out willingly or un-
willingly in the Royal cause, and the list of fines for the
redemption of estates levied by Cromwell on the barony of
Kendal alone reached a goodly sum.
In the arts of peace too Kendal was energetic, being famous
in the Middle Ages for its woollen cloth, and doing a large trade
in printed cottons during the seventeenth and early eighteenth
century ; long strings of packhorses carrying the bales south
for shipment at Liverpool to the West Indies and North
314 KENDAL CASTLE chap.
American Colonies. It is worth noting that, on the
plantations of Maryland and Virginia particularly the negroes
hoed their corn and tobacco arrayed to a large extent in Kendal
cottons. The revolt of the Colonies and the rise of Yorkshire
together killed this industry, and then we are told that, just as
Kendal had built up a very large business in the supply of
knitted stockings to army contractors, the British soldier was
put into trousers and short socks to the complete discomfiture
of the Westmorland knitters. This is not the place however
to write up the commercial history of Kendal or enumerate
the many minor trades which even now make with other things
for its contented appearance. Let us notice rather the ruined
castle so proudly perched above the town, though to reach it
we must cross the Kent, whose clear and rapid streams wash
the outskirts of the ancient borough. One might weave much
romance about Kendal Castle. Its ramparts and scanty ruins
of grey silurian rock entirely cover the crown of the lofty,
isolated hill from which it dominates the town and overlooks
the vale below with rare significance — " a stern castle
mouldering on the brow of a green hill " Wordsworth calls it.
But as a matter of fact no particular tales of blood and
battle chng to Kendal Castle. Its history is but that of the
baronial families and English monarchs who have in turn
possessed it.
Founded or more probably rebuilt in some rude fashion
when Rufus annexed this country, the two towers and encircling
walls which yet remain are supposed to be the work of
Henry III.
To CO through a list of the Norman houses of Taillboys,
Veteriponts, Rooses, and Lancasters, who by marriage,
inheritance, or royal grant held the Barony of Kendal in whole
or part would be an outrage here. It will be enough to say
that in the early fifteenth century it fell to the Parrs, and after
five descents the admirable Katherine was born here, who was
fortunate, not of a truth in captivating the fancy of Henry
XI KATHERINE PARR 315
VIII., but in being the last lady to do so, and thereby acquiring
immortality, without at the same time losing her head. She
had been twice widowed it may be remembered, and at the
age of thirty was just about to make a love match with
Seymour, whom she ultimately took for her fourth husband,
when the King pounced on her. She had spent much time
too with her Strickland relatives at Sizergh, where their
descendants still live, and was most intimately associated with
Kendal. Specimens of her fancy work, says Miss Agnes
Strickland, are still treasured there, and show that she was as
gifted with her needle as in her head and heart. Her lofty
character, her cheerfulness, her erudition and quick wit we
know succeeded in keeping the ailing and irritable King in
good humour, though enthusiasm for the new religion led her
into arguments with his Majesty which very nearly cost even
Katherine her head. For a breath of opposition on his pet
subject was what this pious monarch even in his most genial
moments could not tolerate. She married her old lover.
Admiral Lord Seymour, two months after Henry's death, and
in a little over a year afterwards died at the birth of her first
and only child at the age of thirt)-six. Surely as strange a career
as noble lady ever had ! But her vicissitudes were not over, and
continued after she had been centuries in the grave, beneath the
chapel at Sudeley in (iloucestershire, her husband's property.
Some of my readers will perhaps remember the gruesome story
of the disinterment of her remains at the close of the eighteenth
century, and though not quite in order, I cannot resist touching
briefly on it here.
In the year 1782 a party of ladies were visiting at Sudeley,
and while exploring the ruined chapel were moved by certain
indications to excavate under the north wall. Their curiosity
was rewarded by finding a leaden coffin within a foot of the
surface bearing an inscription to the effect that it contained
the remains of Katherine Parr. They caused the cofiin to be
cut open in two places, and found within a body wrapped in
3i6 A GRUESOME STORY chap.
cerecloth. Lifting that part which covered the face, it disclosed
the features of the Queen in the most perfect state of preserva-
tion, even to the eyes, and this after the lapse of two centuries
and a half ! The unexpected sight however seems to have un-
nerved the ladies, and omitting to replace either the cloth or the
lead covering, they hastily ordered the earth to be thrown back.
Soon afterwards, one, Mr. Lucas, the tenant of the ground on
which the ruined chapel stood, reopened the grave and exposed
the coffin. He moreover cut open the lid and discovered the
entire body wrapped in six or seven cerecloths and quite
uncorrupted. The flesh where he exposed it was quite white
and moist. Two years afterwards some unauthorised bucolics
took the body out of the coffin and laid it on a heap of rubbish
for all to see. An eye-witness assured Miss Strickland's
friend, Miss Jane Porter, that the features remained even then
for some time perfect, showing distinct traces of beauty — that
a costly dress, not a shroud, was on the body, which was of
beautiful proportions, and shoes on the feet, which were
extremely small. The vicar somewhat tardily, and not before
decay had set in, caused the corpse to be restored to its grave
and coffin. Even then curiosity does not seem to have been
exhausted, for two years later another examination was made
though this time under scientific auspices, and a report pub-
lished in the Archccologia for 1787. The face had by now
gone, but the body, even to the hands and nails, was in good
preservation. The Queen must have been of low stature, since
the lead coffin was but five feet four inches long. After that
the poor lady was left in peace and has, I believe, been secured
this many a long year from further intrusion by the owners of
the property. Pity she had not lain in Westmorland among
her kin in Kendal Church and in the soil of which in life she
had owned so much and so greatly honoured by her virtue
and her talents. There, alongside (to speak broadly) of Cicely
Neville and Anne Countess of Pembroke, she would have
comi)leted the trio of historic Westmorland dames, and
XI
KENDAL CHURCH 3^7
would have been saved at least from the neglect and
indignities her remains suffered in lier husband's country.
Kendal Church, which stands at the fringe of the town near
the bank of the river, would catch at once the attention of the
merest layman in such matters as something out of the
common, and the layman would be right. There is nothing,
I believe, quite like it in England, its prototype being generally
looked for in the Church of St. John Lateran at Rome. Its
great breadth, having no less than five aisles, together with the
height of the square tower which springs from its west end,
gives it a certain squat look which is not perhaps in strict
keeping with the rules of art. But one may well waive such
technicalities in a building so ancient, so spacious — for it is
among the largest parish churches in England - and so rich in
all that concerns the story of Westmorland.
The nave and two adjoining aisles seem to have been raised
about the year 1200 on the ruins of a much older church,
which had braved the centuries when Westmorland was a
shuttlecock of contending nations and a cockpit for warring
races. The remainder was added chiefly in the fifteenth
century and early Tudor period, and contains no less than
three private chapels — those of the Parrs, the Bellinghams,
once of Levens, and the Stricklands of Sizergh. Restoration
became urgent some fifty years ago, but the fine old building
seems to have come out of the trying ordeal unscathed and to
have successfully resisted all innovating tendencies. It was
happily, too, re-pewed before the craze for seating a church like
the top of an omnibus, or in other flimsy fashions, came into
vogue. I am not surprised that the citizens of Kendal take
infinite pride in their church. It is not many country towns
that possess a building at once so wholly striking and with so
many claims upon the affection of its people. There is,
moreover, in the tower a chime of ten bells which are
celebrated throughout the north for their sweetness, and owing,
it is said, to the position of the church tower and the contour
3i8
SOME OLD FAMILIES
CHAP.
of the surrounding country, their melody is echoed among
the hills by varying winds in remarkable fashion.
Beneath the private chapels and all about us lies the dust
of famous folks beyond count, famous at any rate in the north
country. All the earlier baronial stocks from the Castle
contributed their quota, no doubt, though swept away and
forgotten, while Parrs, Stricklands, Bellinghams, Rooses,
Howards and Thornburghs crowd thick in brass or marble
upon floor and wall.
"SsMM. 'Am
â– ^u^i^A. ^ 11
Le^iens Hall.
The Bellinghams of Levens ran their course long since, and
Bagots now live in the beautiful old Tudor house, whose
topiary garden rivals that of Hampton Court, and is I believe the
only other survival of this curious taste. Levens lies some six
miles westward of the town upon the fine road which runs to
Milnthorpe and the sea coast, and passes on its way the old
turreted manor house to which the Stricklands have given
peculiar distinction by an unbroken occupation that has
hardly its like in England. They acquired the property in the
XI STRICKLANDS OF SIZERCII 319
thirteenth century hy iiianiage with the Deincourts, and have
lived there uninterruptedly ever since, always playing a leading
part in the affairs of Westmorland, and often f:guring on a
more conspicuous stage. They are moreover among those old
families of England that have retained the Roman faith. The
house, which displays a peel tower of imposing size, is almost
severe in its dignified simplicity and plain weather-beaten grey
walls. It stands in a park above the Milnthorpe road and
looks its part most admirably. The interior of such a house
with such unbroken traditions, as may be well supposed, is rich
in memories and in the things which awake them. To the
world in general its connection with Katherine Parr will prob-
ably be the most interesting of these associations, the room
she occupied and which still bears her name being in the main
tower.
Some two miles beyond Sizergh, the road dipping
suddenly to the Kent crosses the river on an old stone bridge
that no one with his eyes about him would fail to pause on.
The clear stream has by now gathered bulk and breadth and
rushes under the arches in all the dignity of a salmon river.
Stately timber and green park lands fringe its bank, and the
last time I stood here a herd of fallow deer were drinking in
the shallows withm a stone's throw of the bridge. For this is
Levens, and here touching the road are the famous gardens
with the pomted gables of the ancient Tudor manor house
rising behind them. Levens is as notable as Sizergh, except
for the fact that its ownership has been more broken. The
present proprietor, with most praiseworthy liberality it seems to
me, seeing the nature of the treasure, throws the garden open
to the public one afternoon in every week, and the opportunity
should not be missed. This topiary garden, the pride of
Levens, was laid out after the fall of the Bellinghams by
Colonel Grahame, who owned the hall early in the eighteenth
century. Beaumont, the gardener at Hampton Court, was
employed in the cunning task, and all the quaint conceits in
320
LEVENS
CHAP.
box and yew, such as were common once but are now no
longer to be seen except as isolated specimens, have been
sedulously maintained. There, says Lord Stanhope in his
History of England, "at the fine old seat of Levens, along a
wide extent of terraced walks and walls, eagles of holly
and peacocks of yew still find with each returning summer
their wings clipped and their talons pared. There a stately
monument of the old promenoirs— such as the Frenchmen
taught our fathers, rather I should say to build than to plant,
Mihtthorpc
along which in days of old stalked the gentlemen with
periwigs and swords, the ladies in hoops and furbelows — may
still to this day be seen."
â– But it is not only this quaint company of cardinals' hats and
lions, peacocks and umbrellas, pheasants, forensic wigs and
what not, that make the garden of Levens worth seeing ; but the
possession of so great a treasure seems to have inspired its
owners to unusual efforts to keep the rest of the garden and
the spaces between in harmony with the main features, while
XI A TIME-HONOURED GATHERING 321
above it all rises the grey peel tower and the flanking gables of
the manor house.
A time-honoured custom still brings the mayor and
corporation of Kendal to Levens every 12th of May, the
primary excuse being the proclamation of Milnthorpe Fair.
Rural sports are held in the park, and the civic dignitaries, with
a host besides no doubt, are regaled with radishes and bread
and butter. Till recent times audit ale of great potency was a
feature of the entertainment. An old retainer of the House
has frequently described to me the ceremonies in connection
with this celebrated liquor that were punctiliously enacted in
days long gone by the jovial burghers of Kendal. The
uninitiated who aspired to the full honours of comradeship
were required to drink a flagon of the potent brew to the toast
of " Luck to Levens while the Kent flows " while standing
upon one foot, and a shilling fine was exacted each time the other
one touched the ground. But the peculiarity of this special
tap, and my authority is unimpeachable, was, that it went to
the legs instead of to the head. In short, that the mayor of