Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country

It is at this period that Dunmail, the second and last sole "king of rocky Cumberland," appears upon the historic stage. It has been thought not improbable that he was the son of Eugenius or Owen, the preceding king, and the same person who is described as Dunwallon, "the son of Owen," and who died at Rome thirty years after his memorable engagement with Edmund of England and Leoline of South Wales, in the mountain pass which is distinguished by his name. "In the annals of Ulster, indeed," say the supporters of this supposition, "this Dunwallon is described as king of Wales, but Caradoc calls him prince of Strathclyde, and his patronymic designation seems to identify him with Dunmail, if, as we assume, the latter was the son of the first king of Cumberland." But by whatever means Dunmail obtained the crown; whether by inheritance as the son of Eugenius, or by "election" as one of the native Cumbrian princes, and according to the ancient custom of the Britons; we soon find him supporting the Northumbrians in hostilities against the Saxon monarch, Edmund the First. That monarch, although victorious, was so weakened that he dared not pursue Dunmail without the assistance of the Scots. And the condition upon which Malcolm, king of Scotland, joined Edmund with his forces, was, that if they were successful, Malcolm should possess Cumbria by paying homage to Edmund and his successors. The subjection of this wild race of mountaineers was then determined upon as a necessary step towards the pacification of the kingdom; and the last record which history affords us of the Cumbrian Britons, is that of their defeat, A. D. 945, in the heart of their native mountains, between Grasmere and Keswick, and their final dispersion or emigration into Wales.

The place where Dunmail determined to hazard the battle which proved fatal to him was the famous Pass which bears his name. Edmund slew his vanquished enemy upon the spot which is still commemorated by the rude pile of stones so well known as his cairn; and, in conformity with the barbarous customs of that age, put out the eyes of his two sons; after which, having completely ravaged and laid waste the territories of Dunmail, he bestowed them on his ally Malcolm; the latter undertaking to preserve in peace the Northern parts of England, and to pay the required fealty and homage to Edmund. Upon the same conditions they were afterwards confirmed to him by one of Edmund's successors, Edgar; which monarch also divided what at that time remained of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria into Baronies, and constituted it an Earldom. Thenceforward these north western regions were held as a military benefice subject to the English sceptre by the heir to the crown of Scotland, under the title of the Principality of Cymriland or Cumbria. This Principality, which included Westmorland, continued in possession of the heirs to the Scottish crown during the reigns of Harold and Hardicanute, the last Danish Kings, and of Edward the Confessor and Harold the Second, the last Saxon monarchs of England.

The only circumstance which is recorded of it during the century which followed the defeat of Dunmail, is its total devastation by Ethelred, king of England, A. D. 1000, at which time it is represented by Henry of Huntingdon as the principal rendezvous of the marauding Danes.

In the year 1052, Macbeth held the Scottish throne, whilst Malcolm, the son of his predecessor, the murdered Duncan, sat on that of Cumbria. Siward, earl of Northumberland, was commissioned by Edward the Confessor to invade Scotland, and avenge the "murder" of Duncan. In this he succeeded, defeated and slew Macbeth, and placed the king of Cumbria, or, as some historians assert, his son, on the throne of Scotland. This Malcolm, surnamed Canmore, held at the time of the Conquest, Cumbria and Lothian, in addition to the ancient kingdom of Scotland.

In the year 1072, the Earldom of Carlisle, containing the present County of Cumberland, with the Barony of Westmorland, was wrested from Malcolm Canmore by William the Conqueror, who granted it to his powerful noble, Ranulph de Meschin, one of that numerous train of military adventurers, amongst whom he had distributed all the fair territory of Britain, to hold, with a sort of royal power, by the sword, as he himself held the kingdom by virtue of the crown,—tenere ita libere ad gladium, sicut ipse rex tenebat Angliam per coronam.

Thus the existing limits were established between England and Scotland. The kingdom of Cumbria was reduced to the dimensions indicated by the "Inquisitio Davidis," and was held as a principality dependent on the crown of Scotland; until it at length became formally attached to the Scottish dominions.

Meanwhile the Barony of Westmorland having been separated from the Earldom of Carlisle, there remained the district comprised within the present limits of the County of Cumberland, to which alone that name was thenceforward applied.

The circular heap of stones which forms the pile called Dunmail-Raise, and gives its name to the mountain Pass between the vales of Grasmere and Wytheburn, is seen adjoining the highroad, where it is crossed by the wall which there marks the boundaries of Westmorland and Cumberland. The stones constituting this rude monument are thrown loosely together on each side of an earthen mound in a huge cairn or raise, the history of which is little known, and concerning which antiquarians are by no means agreed. It measures twenty-four yards in diameter, and rises gradually to an elevation of six feet, being flat at the top, and the centre indicated by a well defined space in rather larger stones.

Mr. Gilpin conjectures that the pile was probably intended to mark a division not between the two Counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, but rather between the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, in elder times, when the Scottish border extended beyond its present bounds. The generally received tradition, however, concerning this cairn is, that it was raised to commemorate the name and defeat of Dunmail, the last king of Cumbria, in the year 945, in his conflict with the Saxon Edmund, on the occasion above related. "But," says Mr. Gilpin, "for whatever purpose this rude pile was fabricated, it hath yet suffered little change in its dimensions; and is one of those monuments of antiquity, which may be characterized by the scriptural phrase of remaining to this very day."

The legend of the Cumbrian hero and his host, awaiting the completion of their rocky pile beneath the lonely mountain pass; from which they are to issue in their appointed time to join "in that great battle which will be fought before the end of the world;" is but one of the beliefs which seem to have been left behind them by our Scandinavian ancestors. It is in fact another version of the story of Woden and his host, whose winter trance is enacted by various popular heroes; and which has not only been localised amongst ourselves, but has almost overspread all christendom. The original nature of Woden or Odin was represented as that of a storm god, who swept through the air in roaring winds, either alone or with a great retinue consisting of souls of the dead which have become winds. The whirlwind, which precedes the tempest, and has ravaged the woods and fields, is pursued to its death in the last storms of autumn. Sometimes the god is pictured as a hunter, and the winds have taken the shapes of men, dogs, etc., whilst the whirlwind figures as a boar. The achievement of its death is soon followed by that of the hunter Woden himself; who during the winter is dead, or asleep, or enchanted in the cloud mountain. From this beautiful fiction of a twilight age, the winter trance of Woden, has grown up the story of those caverned warriors, which, under whatever name they are known, and wherever they repose, are all representations of Odin and his host.

Arthur, the vanished king, our own Arthur, whose return is expected by the Britons, according to mediæval Germany, is said to dwell with his men at arms in a mountain; all well provided with food, drink, horses, and clothes.

Charlemagne slumbers with his enchanted army in many places; in the Desenberg near Warburg, in the Castle of Herstella on the Weser, in the Karlsburg on the Spessart, the Frausberg and the Donnersberg on the Pfalz, etc.

The Emperor Henry the Fowler is entranced in the Sudernerberg, near Goslar.

The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa is in a cavern in the Kyffhaüser mountain, in the old palatinate of the Saxon imperial house. There with all his knights around him, he sits to this day, leaning his head upon his arm, at a table through which his beard has grown, or round which, according to other accounts, it has grown twice. When it has thrice encircled the table he will wake up to battle. The cavern glitters with gold and jewels, and is as bright as the sunniest day. Thousands of horses stand at mangers filled with thorn bushes instead of hay, and make a prodigious noise as they stamp on the ground and rattle their chains. The old Kaiser sometimes wakes up for a moment and speaks to his visitors. He once asked a herdsman who had found his way into the Kyffhaüser, "Are the ravens (Odin's birds) still flying about the mountain?" The man replied that they were. "Then," said Barbarossa, "I must sleep a hundred years longer."

The Eildon Hills, which witnessed of old the magical exploits of Michael Scott, are three in number. These were originally one: their present formation being the work of a demon, for whom the wizard, in fulfilment of some infernal contract, was obliged to find employment, and by whom the mighty task was achieved in a single night. They are nearly of the same height, changing greatly their appearance, and, as it were, their attitude, with the point of view; at one time one of them only being visible, at another time two, and again all three. They form a peculiar and romantic feature in the scenery of the Tweed: and are still to the eye of the imagination what they once were in the common belief,—wizard hills, the subjects of wild traditions and unearthly adventures. In them lay for centuries those "caverned warriors," which Thomas the Rhymer showed at night to the daring horse jockey, who went by appointment to the Lucken Hare to receive the price of the black horse which he had sold to the venerable favourite of the Fairy Queen. His money having been paid to him, in ancient coin; on the invitation of his customer to view his residence, he followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's feet. "All these men," said the prophet in a whisper, "will awaken at the battle of Sheriffmuir."

The small mountain lake, called Grisedale Tarn, is situated at a very considerable elevation above the surrounding vales, in a depression formed at a point where the shoulders of Helvellyn, Seat-Sandal, and Fairfield touch each other; and just below the summit of the "hause" or pass through which winds the mountain track that leads from Grasmere into Patterdale.

THE BRIDALS OF DACRE

The Baron of Greystoke is laid in the quire.Who is she that sits lone in her mourning attire?Her maids all in silence stand weeping apart:Or but whisper the woe that is big at her heart.From her guardian the King the dread summons has come;And Greystoke's sweet orphan must quit her lone home:With the proudest of Barons to wait on her word—His domain for her pleasaunce, her safeguard his sword.But what is to her all their homage and state,Since the youthful Lord Dacre may pass not their gate?Even now he forgets her, she thinks in her gloom;And the Cliffords to-morrow will bear her to Brough'm."With him, O with him," in her sorrow she cried,"With the gallant Lord Dacre to run by my side"In the fields, as of old, with his hand on my rein,"I would give all the wealth the wide world can contain."—Lord Dacre forget her? No! sooner the mightOf Helvellyn shall bend to the storm on its height;He has vow'd—"Let them woo! but in spite of the King"The wide north with her bridal at Dacre shall ring."As the Cliffords rode hard on that morrow to claimThe fair ward of the King, by Lord Dacre's they came.And they cast out their words in derision and scorn,As they pass'd by his tower in the prime of the morn."Shall we greet the bright heiress of Greystock for thee?"Or await thee at Brough'm her rich bridal to see?"—"In our annals," he cried, "we've a story of old,"A fit tale for a bridal, that twice shall be told."In your Skipton's high hall, in your stateliest room"Of Pendragon, and high through the arches of Brough'm,"Have your bridals been sung, but not one to the lay"That I'll ring through old Brough'm for the bride on that day."Your meats may be scant, and unbrimm'd the bright bowl;"But the notes of that tale through your fortress shall roll!"Here I pledge me, proud Cliffords! come friend, or come foe,"With that tale of old times to her bridal I'll go!"—Loud laugh'd they in scorn as hard onward they rode:And the horsemen and horses all gallantly show'd.With bright silver and gold, too, her harness did ring,As they rode back to Brough'm with the Ward of the King.And proud was the welcome, and courtly the grace,And warm was the clasp of that stately embrace,When the Lady of Brough'm took her home to her breast,Like a lamb to the fold, a lone dove to its nest.But in still hours of night, and mid pastimes by day,To the wild woods of Greystoke her heart fled away,To the fields where, as once with his hand on her rein,She would give all the world to ride child-like again.It was night; when the moon through her circle had worn;And back into darkness her crescent was borne;Not in fancy nor dreams came a voice to her side—"Sweet, awake thee, Lord Dacre is come for his bride."Through the lattice he bore her, and fast did he foldIn his arms the sweet prize from the wind and the cold;Sprang the wall to his steed, and o'er moorland and plainBore her off to his Tower by the Dacor again.And the Cliffords that morn in their banquetting hallRead the legend his dagger had traced on the wall—"In the annals of Dacre the story is toldOf Matilda the Fair and Lord Ranulph the Bold!"The bride-meats unbaked, and the bride-cup unbrew'd,Not by bridesmaid for bride even a rose to be strew'd,Was the way with our sire in that story of oldOf Matilda the Fair and Lord Ranulph the Bold!"But they woke up to fury in Warwick that morn.For a bride from their Fortress by night had been borne.And your annals in Brough'm of its sluggards shall ring,That have lost for the Cliffords the Ward of their King."The beard of that Baron curled fiercely with ire,And the blood through his veins raged—a torrent of fire,As he glanced from the panel by turns to his sword;And then strode from the hall without deigning a word.They sought her through turret, by bush, and by stone;But the bower had been broken, the Beauty was gone;And the joy-bells of Dacre from Greystock to Brough'mPealed the news through the vales that the bride was brought home.

NOTES TO "THE BRIDALS OF DACRE."

Dacre Castle, one of the outermost of a chain of border fortresses stretching down the valleys of the Eamont and the Eden in Cumberland, is a plain quadrangular building, with battlemented parapets, and four square turrets, one at each corner; it is now converted into a farm house. The moat is filled up, although the site is still to be traced, and the outworks are destroyed. There are two entrances—one at the west tower, and another between the towers in the east front. The walls are about seven feet in thickness. There are two arched dungeons communicating by steps with the ground floor; and access was obtained to the roof by means of four circular staircases, one in each tower; some of which are now closed up. The staircases, however, did not conduct to the top of the towers; this was gained by means of stone steps from the roof of the Castle.

Bede mentions a monastery, which being built near the river Dacor, took its name from it, over which the religious man Suidbert presided. It was probably destroyed by the Danes, and never restored; and there are no vestiges of it remaining: the present church is supposed to have been built from the ruins.

William of Malmesbury speaks of a Congress held at Dacre in the year 934, when Constantine, king of Scotland, and his nephew Eugenius, king of Cumberland, met king Athelstan, and did homage to him at Dacre. This fact is singularly corroborated by there being in the Castle a room called to this day the "room of the three kings," while the historical fact itself is entirely forgotten in the country. This proves the antiquity of the tradition, which has survived the original building and attached itself to the present, no part of which dates from an earlier period than the fourteenth century. That Dacre was in those remote times a place of some importance is evident from the meeting aforesaid. The occasion appears to have been the defection of Guthred, with Anlaff his brother, and Inguld king of York, when Athelstan levied a great force, and entered Northumberland so unexpectedly, that the malcontents had scarcely time to secure themselves by flight. Guthred obtained protection under Constantine, king of Scotland, to whom Athelstan sent messengers, demanding his surrender, or upon refusal, he threatened to come in quest of him at the head of his army. Constantine, although greatly piqued at this message, yet afraid of the formidable arms of Athelstan, consented to meet him at Dacre; to which place he came, attended by the then king of Cumberland, where they did homage to Athelstan.

After the Conquest, if not before, Dacre was a mesne manor held of the barons of Greystoke by military suit and service. The parish, manor, rivulet, and castle, were all blended with the name of the owners. Their arms, the pilgrim's scallop, may possibly have been taken from their being engaged in Palestine; but as the name of their place dates as far back as the time of Athelstan, the Dacres no doubt took their name, like most of the families of the district, from the place where they were settled, and with all deference to the cross-legged knight18 in the church, who may or may not have battled at the siege of Acre, its present Norman spelling is more likely to have arisen from the manner in which it is entered in the Domesday Book than from any exploits of his before that famous fortress. That they were men of high spirit and enterprise, and favourites of the ladies, there exists convincing evidence. Matilda, the great heiress of Gilsland,19 was by Randolph Dacre carried off from Warwick Castle, in the night-time, while she was Edward the Third's Ward, and under the custody and care of Thomas de Beauchamp, a stout Earl of Warwick; and Thomas Lord Dacre dashingly followed the example of his ancestor, nearly two centuries afterwards, by carrying off, also in the night time, from Brougham Castle, Elizabeth of Greystoke, the heiress of his superior lord, who was also the King's ward, and in custody of Henry Lord Clifford, who, says Mr. Howard, probably intended to marry her. Their vigour and ability displayed as wardens of the Marches must also add favourably to our estimate of them as men.

Sandford in his MS. gives the following curious account, written apparently immediately after the repair of the Castle by the Earl of Sussex:—"And from Matterdale mountains comes Daker Bek; almost at the foot thereof stands Dacker Castle alone, and no more house about it, And I protest looks very sorrowfull, for the loss of its founders, in that huge battle of Touton feild: and that totall eclips of that great Lord Dacres, in that Grand Rebellion with lords Northumberland, and Westmorland in Queen Elizabeth's time, and in the north called Dacre's Raide.

"–but it seems an heroyick Chivaleir, steeles the heir of Lord Moulton of Kirkoswald and Naward and Gilsland, forth of Warwick Castle, the 5th year of King Edward the 3rd; and in the 9th year of the same king had his pdon for marying her and Created Lord Dacres and Moulton. In King Henry the eight's time the yong Lord Dacres steels the female heir of the Lord Graistoke forth of Broham Castle besides Peareth: where the Lord Clifford had gott her of the king for his sons mariage: and thereupon was the statute made of felony to marry an heir. And thus became the Lord Dacres decorate with all the honors and Lands of the Lord Graistok a very great Baron: but the now Earle of Sussex Ancestore had married the female heir of the Lord Dacres in King Edward the 4th time, before the Lands of Graistock came to the Lord Dacre's house."

The Barony of Greystoke, which comprehends all that part of Cumberland, on the south side of the Forest of Inglewood, between the seignory of Penrith and the manor of Castlerigg near Keswick, and contains an area comprehending the parishes of Greystoke, Dacre, and part of Crosthwaite, and nearly twenty manors, was given by Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Cumberland, to one Lyulph, whose posterity assumed the name of the place, and possessed it until the reign of Henry the Seventh, when their heiress conveyed it in marriage to Thomas Lord Dacre, of Gilsland, whose family ended in two daughters, who married the two sons of the Duke of Norfolk. Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, the Duke's eldest son, had, with his wife, Lady Anne Dacre, the lands of Greystoke, which have since continued in his illustrious family.

The original fortress of Greystock was built in the reign of Edward III. by Lord William de Greystock, that nobleman having obtained the king's license to castellate his manor-house of Greystock in the year 1353. Being garrisoned for Charles I., it was destroyed by a detachment of the Parliamentary army in June, 1648, except one tower and part of another. The Castle was almost entirely rebuilt about the middle of last century by the Hon. Charles Howard, and additional extensions were subsequently made by his great-grandson, the eleventh Duke of Norfolk, who bequeathed it to the present Mr. Howard, by whom the work of renovation was continued and completed in 1846. In the night of the 3rd and 4th of May, 1868, it was very seriously damaged by fire.

Elizabeth Greystoke, Baroness Greystoke and Wemme, was a minor at the time of her father's death. She was the only daughter of Sir Robert Greystoke, knight, who died June 17th, 1483, in the lifetime of his father, Ralph, seventeenth Baron Greystoke. By an inquisition held after the death of that nobleman, it was found that he died on Friday next after the Feast of Pentecost, in the second year of King Henry VII., namely, June 1st, 1487. He was succeeded by Elizabeth, his grand-daughter and heiress, who during her minority was a ward of the crown, and had special livery of all her lands in 1506. This lady married Thomas, ninth Baron Dacre of Gillesland, and third Lord Dacre of the North; by which marriage the Barony of Greystoke became united with that of Gillesland.

The nobleman in whose custody the King had placed his ward was Henry the tenth Baron Clifford, better known as Lord Clifford the Shepherd. He had married a cousin of Henry VII., and on the accession of that monarch had been restored, by the reversal of his father's attainder, to his honours and estates. Their sons had been educated together, and brought up in habits of intimacy; and the friendship thus formed in youth was continued after the one had succeeded to the crown as Henry VIII., and the other had ceased to be " Wild Henry Clifford," and had been advanced by his royal kinsman and associate to the dignity of Earl of Cumberland.

Of the Lady Elizabeth it is stated that "lord Clifford gott her of the king for his son's marriage;" or for himself, "who probably intended to marry her." These suppositions lose something of their importance when we learn that a considerable disparity in years existed between Lord Clifford and the Lady, as well as between her and his son; the former being nearly thirty years her senior, and the latter almost a dozen years her junior; and during a great portion of her minority, the first Lady Clifford, though probably residing much apart from her husband, or unhappily with him, was yet alive. He was, however, a nobleman nearly allied to the king, of great power and influence in the north of England, and had been neighbour to the old Lord Greystoke, her grandfather. Under the circumstances, the selection made by the sovereign was a natural one. Her youth, her rank, and her rich inheritance, were a prize worthy of the aspiration of the noblest among her peers, whoever may have been the suitor intended for her by the king; and they were won by one who afterwards showed that he was as gallant in war as he had proved himself to be daring and loyal in love.