Chapter III (1)

LIVERPOOL, THROUGH THE MIDLAND COUNTIES, TO LONDON.

The Peak of Derbyshire--Castleton--Bess of Hardwicke--Hardwicke
Hall--Bolsover Castle--The Wye and the
Derwent--Buxton--Bakewell--Haddon Hall--The King of the
Peak--Dorothy Vernon--Rowsley--The Peacock Inn--Chatsworth--The
Victoria Regia--Matlock--Dovedale--Beauchief Abbey--Stafford
Castle--Trentham Hall--Tamworth--Tutbury Castle--Chartley
Castle--Alton Towers--Shrewsbury Castle--Bridgenorth--Wenlock
Abbey--Ludlow Castle--The Feathers Inn--Lichfield Cathedral--Dr.
Samuel Johnson--Coventry--Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom--Belvoir
Castle--Charnwood Forest--Groby and Bradgate--Elizabeth Widvile and
Lady Jane Grey--Ulverscroft Priory--Grace Dieu Abbey--Ashby de la
Zouche--Langley Priory--Leicester Abbey and Castle--Bosworth
Field--Edgehill--Naseby--The Land of
Shakespeare--Stratford-on-Avon--Warwick--Kenilworth--Birmingham
--Boulton and Watt--Fotheringhay Castle--Holmby House--Bedford
Castle--John Bunyan--Woburn Abbey and the Russells--Stowe--Whaddon
Hall--Great Hampden--Creslow House.

THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE.

The river Mersey takes its sources--for it is formed by the union of several smaller streams--in the ranges of high limestone hills east of Liverpool, in North Derbyshire. These hills are an extension of the Pennine range that makes the backbone of England, and in Derbyshire they rise to a height of nearly two thousand feet, giving most picturesque scenery. The broad top of the range at its highest part is called the Kinderscout, or, more familiarly, "The Peak." The mountain-top is a vast moor, abounding in deep holes and water-pools, uninhabited excepting by the stray sportsman or tourist, and dangerous and difficult to cross. Yet, once mounted to the top, there are good views of the wild scenery of the Derbyshire hills, with the villages nestling in the glens, and of the "Kinder Fall," where much of the water from the summit pours down a cataract of some five hundred feet height, while not far away is the "Mermaid's Pool," where, if you go at the midnight hour that ushers in Easter Sunday, and look steadily into the water, you will see a mermaid. The man who ventures upon that treacherous bogland by night certainly deserves to see the best mermaid the Peak can produce. This limestone region is a famous place. In the sheltered valley to the westward of the Kinderscout is the village of Castleton, almost covered in by high hills on all sides. It was here upon a bold cliff to the southward of the village that "Peveril of the Peak" built his renowned castle at the time of the Norman Conquest, of which only the ruins of the keep and part of the outer walls remain. Almost inaccessible, it possessed the extraordinary powers of defence that were necessary in those troublous times, and here its founder gave a grand tournament, to which young knights came from far and near, the successful knight of Lorraine being rewarded by his daughter's hand. In the time of Edward III. this "Castle of the Peak" reverted to the Crown, but now it is held by the Duke of Devonshire. Under the hill on which the ruins stand is the "Cavern of the Peak," with a fine entrance in a gloomy recess formed by a chasm in the rocks. This entrance makes a Gothic arch over one thousand feet wide, above which the rock towers nearly three hundred feet, and it is chequered with colored stones. Within is a vast flat-roofed cavern, at the farther side being a lake over which the visitors are ferried in a boat. Other caverns are within, the entire cave extending nearly a half mile, a little river traversing its full length. There are more and similar caverns in the neighborhood.

BESS OF HARDWICKE.

One of the great characters of the sixteenth century was Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, familiarly known as "Bess of Hardwicke," where she was born, and who managed to outlive four husbands, thus showing what success is in store for a woman of tact and business talent. She was a penniless bride at fourteen, when she married an opulent gentleman of Derbyshire named Barley, who left her at fifteen a wealthy widow. At the age of thirty she married another rich husband, Sir William Cavendish, the ancestor of the Dukes of Devonshire, who died in 1557, leaving her again a widow, but with large estates, for she had taken good care to look after the proper marriage settlements; and in fact, even in those early days, a pretty good fortune was necessary to provide for the family of eight children Sir William left her. She next married Sir William Loe, who also had large estates and was the captain of the king's guard, the lady's business tact procuring in advance of the wedding the settlement of these estates upon herself and her children--a hard condition, with which, the historian tells us, "the gallant captain, who had a family by a former marriage, felt himself constrained to comply or forego his bride." But in time the captain died, and his estates all went to the thrifty lady, to the exclusion of his own family; and to the blooming widow, thus made for the third time, there came a-courting the Earl of Shrewsbury; the earl had numerous offspring, and therefore could hardly give Bess all his possessions, like her other husbands, but she was clever enough to obtain her object in another way. As a condition precedent to accepting the earl, she made him marry two of his children to two of hers, and after seeing these two weddings solemnized, the earl led her to the altar for the fourth time at the age of fifty; and we are told that all four of these weddings were actual "love-matches." But she did not get on well with the earl, whose correspondence shows she was a little shrewish, though in most quarrels she managed to come off ahead, having by that time acquired experience. When the earl died in 1590, and Bess concluded not again to attempt matrimony, she was immensely rich and was seized with a mania for building, which has left to the present day three memorable houses: Hardwicke Hall, where she lived, Bolsover Castle, and the palace of Chatsworth, which she began, and on which she lavished the enormous sum, for that day, of $400,000. The legend runs that she was told that so long as she kept building her life would be spared--an architect's ruse possibly; and when finally she died it was during a period of hard frost, when the masons could not work.

Hardwicke Hall, near Mansfield, which the renowned Bess has left as one of her monuments, is about three hundred years old, and approached by a noble avenue through a spacious park; it is still among the possessions of the Cavendish family and in the Duke of Devonshire's estates. The old hall where Bess was born almost touches the new one that she built, and which bears the initials of the proud and determined woman in many places outside and in. It was here that Mary Queen of Scots was held in captivity part of the time that she was placed by Queen Elizabeth in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and her statue stands in the hall. There is an extensive picture-gallery containing many historical portraits, and also fine state-apartments. The mansion is a lofty oblong stone structure, with tall square towers at each corner, the architecture being one of the best specimens of the Elizabethan Period; on the side, as viewed from the park, the hall seems all windows, which accounts for the saying of that neighborhood:

"Hardwicke Hall, more glass than wall."

The ruins of the old hall, almost overgrown with ivy, are picturesque, but from everywhere on the ancient or on the modern hall there peer out the initials "E. S.," with which the prudent Bess was so careful to mark all her possessions.

BOLSOVER CASTLE.

The noted Bolsover Castle, which Bess also built, though her son finished it after her death, stands in a magnificent position on a high plateau not far from Chesterfield, overlooking a wide expanse of Derbyshire. The present castle replaced an ancient structure that had fallen into ruin, and was supposed to have been built by "Peveril of the Peak;" it was fortified during King John's time, and traces of the fortifications still remain; it was repeatedly besieged and taken by assault. The present building is a square and lofty mansion of castellated appearance, with towers at the corners built of brown stone; in it the Earl of Newcastle, who subsequently inherited it, spent on one occasion $75,000 in entertaining King Charles I., the entire country round being invited to come and attend the king: Ben Jonson performed a play for his amusement. Lord Clarendon speaks of the occasion as "such an excess of feasting as had scarce ever been known in England before." It now belongs to the Duke of Portland, and has fallen into partial decay, with trees growing in some of the deserted apartments and ivy creeping along the walls. Visitors describe it as a ghostly house, with long vaulted passages, subterranean chambers, dungeon-like holes in the towers, and mysterious spaces beneath the vaults whence come weird noises. When Mr. Jennings visited Bolsover recently he described it as like a haunted house, and after examining the apartments, in which most things seemed going to decay, he went down stairs, guided by an old woman, to the cellars and passages that are said to be the remains of the original Norman castle. A chamber with a high vaulted roof was used as a kitchen, and an ancient stone passage connected it with a crypt; beneath this, she told him, there was a church, never opened since the days of Peveril. Their voices had a hollow sound, and their footsteps awakened echoes as if from a large empty space beneath: the servants, she said, were afraid to come down where they were, excepting by twos and threes, and she added: "Many people have seen things here besides me: something bad has been done here, sir, and when they open that church below they'll find it out. Just where you stand by that door I have several times seen a lady and gentleman--only for a moment or two, for they come like a flash; when I have been sitting in the kitchen, not thinking of any such thing, they stood there--the gentleman with ruffles on, the lady with a scarf round her waist; I never believed in ghosts, but I have seen _them_. I am used to it now, and don't mind it, but we do not like the noises, because they disturb us. Not long ago my husband, who comes here at night, and I could not sleep at all, and we thought at last that somebody had got shut up in the castle, for some children had been here that day; so we lit a candle and went all over it, but there was nothing, only the noises following us, and keeping on worse than ever after we left the rooms, though they stopped while we were in them." The old woman's tale shows the atmosphere there is about this sombre and ghostly castle of Bolsover.

THE WYE AND THE DERWENT.

These two noted rivers take their rise in the Derbyshire hills, and, coming together at Rowsley near the pretty Peacock Inn, flow down to the sea through the valleys of the Wye, the Trent, and the Humber. Rising in the limestone hills to the north of Buxton, the Wye flows past that celebrated bath, where the Romans first set the example of seeking its healing waters, both hot and cold springs gushing from the rocks in close proximity. It stands nine hundred feet above the sea, its nucleus, "The Crescent," having been built by the Duke of Devonshire; and the miraculous cures wrought by St. Mary's Well are noted by Charles Cotton among the _Wonders of the Peak_. From Buxton the Wye follows a romantic glen to Bakewell, the winding valley being availed of, by frequent tunnels, viaducts, and embankments, as a route for the Midland Railway. In this romantic glen is the remarkable limestone crag known as Chee Tor, where the curving valley contracts into a narrow gorge. The gray limestone cliffs are in many places overgrown with ivy, while trees find rooting-places in their fissures. Tributary brooks fall into the Wye, all flowing through miniature dales that disclose successive beauties, and then at a point where the limestone hills recede from the river, expanding the valley, Bakewell is reached. Here are also mineral springs, but the most important place in the town is the parish church, parts of which are seven hundred years old. It is a picturesque building, cruciform, with a spire, and is rich in sepulchral remains, containing the ancestors of the Duke of Rutland--who owns the town--in the tombs of a long line of Vernons and Manners. In the churchyard are several curious epitaphs, among them that of John Dale and his two wives, the inscription concluding,

"A period's come to all their toylsome lives;
The good man's quiet--still are both his wives."

In this churchyard is also the well-known epitaph often quoted:

"Beneath a sleeping infant lies, to earth whose body lent,
More glorious shall hereafter rise, tho' not more innocent.
When the archangels trump shall blow, and souls to bodies join,
Millions will wish their lives below had been as short as thine."

HADDON HALL.

Three miles below Bakewell, near the Wye, is one of the most famous old mansions of England--Haddon Hall. This ancient baronial home, with its series of houses, its courtyards, towers, embattled walls, and gardens, stands on the side of a hill sloping down to the Wye, while the railway has pierced a tunnel through the hill almost underneath the structure. The buildings surround two courtyards paved with large stones, and cover a space of nearly three hundred feet square. Outside the arched entrance-gate to the first courtyard is a low thatched cottage used as a porter's lodge. Haddon is maintained, not as a residence, but to give as perfect an idea as possible of a baronial hall of the Middle Ages. To get to the entrance the visitor toils up a rather steep hill, and on the way passes two remarkable yew trees, cut to represent the crests of the two families whose union by a romantic marriage is one of the traditions of this famous place. One yew represents the peacock of Manners, the present ducal house of Rutland, and the other the boar's head of Vernon. Parts of this house, like so many structures in the neighborhood, were built in the time of "Peveril of the Peak," and its great hall was the "Martindale Hall" of Scott's novel, thus coming down to us through eight centuries, and nearly all the buildings are at least four hundred years old.

Entering the gateway, the porter's guard-room is seen on the right hand, with the ancient "peephole" through which he scanned visitors before admitting them. Mounting the steps to the first courtyard, which is on a lower level than the other, the chapel and the hall are seen on either hand, while in front are the steps leading to the state-apartments. The buildings are not lofty, but there are second-floor rooms in almost all parts, which were occupied by the household. There is an extensive ball-room, while the Eagle Tower rises at one corner of the court. Many relics of the olden time are preserved in these apartments. The ancient chapel is entered by an arched doorway from the court, and consists of a nave, chancel, and side aisle, with an antique Norman font and a large high-back pew used by the family. After passing the court, the banquet-hall is entered, thirty-five by twenty-five feet, and rising to the full height of the building. In one of the doorways is a bracket to which an iron ring is attached, which was used, as we are told, "to enforce the laws of conviviality." When a guest failed to drink his allowance of wine he was suspended by the wrist to this ring, and the liquor he failed to pour down his throat was poured into his sleeve. A tall screen at the end of the room formed the front of a gallery, where on great occasions minstrels discoursed sweet music, while at the opposite end the lord and his honored guests sat on a raised dais. Here still stands the old table, while behind the dais a flight of stairs leads up to the state-apartments. Stags' heads and antlers of great age are on the walls. Another door opens out of the banquet-hall into the dining-room, the end of which is entirely taken up with a fine Gothic window displaying the Vernon arms and quarterings. This room is elaborately wainscoted. The royal arms are inscribed over the fireplace, and below them is the Vernon motto carved in Gothic letters:

"Drede God and Honour the Kyng."

An exquisite oriel window looks out from this room over the woods and grounds of Haddon, the recess bearing on one of its panels the head of Will Somers, who was Henry VIII.'s jester. The drawing-room, which is over the dining-room, is hung with old tapestry, above which is a frieze of ornamental mouldings. A pretty recessed window also gives from this room a delightful view over the grounds.

The gem of Haddon is the long gallery or ball-room, which extends over one hundred feet along one side of the inner court: the semicircular wooden steps leading to this apartment are said to have been cut from a single tree that grew in the park. The gallery is wainscoted in oak in semicircular arched panels, alternately large and small, surmounted by a frieze and a turreted and battlemented cornice. The ceiling is elaborately carved in geometric patterns, and the tracery contains the alternating arms and crests of Vernon and Manners: the remains are still visible of the rich gilding and painting of this ceiling. In the anteroom paintings are hung, and from it a strongly-barred door opens upon a flight of stone steps leading down to the terrace and garden: this is "Dorothy Vernon's Door;" and across the garden another flight of steps leading to the terrace is known as "Dorothy Vernon's Steps." It was the gentle maiden's flight through this door and up these steps to elope with John Manners that carried the old house and all its broad lands into the possession of the family now owning it. The state bedroom is hung with Gobelin tapestry, illustrating Æsop's fables: the state bed is fourteen feet high, and furnished in green silk velvet and white satin, embroidered by needlework, and its last occupant was George IV. The kitchen and range of domestic offices are extensive, and show the marvellous amount of cooking that was carried on in the hospitable days of Haddon; the kitchen has a ceiling supported by massive beams and a solid oak column in the centre; there are two huge fireplaces, scores of stoves, spits, pothooks, and hangers, large chopping-blocks, dressers, and tables, with attendant bakehouses, ovens, pantries, and larders; among the relics is an enormous salting-trough hollowed out of one immense block of wood. Beyond the garden or lawn, one hundred and twenty feet square, extends the terrace, planted with ancient yews, whose gnarled roots intertwine with and displace the stones. This terrace extends the full width of the outer or upper garden, and gives a charming view of the southern front of the hall.

More romance hangs about Haddon than probably any other old baronial hall in England, and it has therefore been for years an endless source of inspiration for poets, artists, and novelists. Mrs. Radcliffe here laid some of the scenes of the _Mysteries of Udolpho_. Bennett's "King of the Peak" was Sir George Vernon, the hospitable owner of Haddon. Scott has written of it, a host of artists have painted its most attractive features, and many a poet has sung of the

"Hall of wassail which has rung
To the unquestioned baron's jest:
Dim old chapel, where were hung
Offerings of the o'erfraught breast;
Moss-clad terrace, strangely still,
Broken shaft and crumbling frieze----
Still as lips that used to fill
With bugle-blasts the morning breeze."

But, unlike most baronial strongholds, the history of Haddon tells only the romance of peace, love, and hospitality. It came by marriage into the possession of the Vernons soon after the Conquest; one of them, Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon, was appointed governor of Prince Arthur by Henry VII. His grandson, Sir George Vernon, lived in such princely magnificence at Haddon that he was known as the "King of the Peak;" his initials, "G. V.," are carved in the banquet-hall. Around his youngest daughter, Dorothy, gathers the chief halo of romance. The story in brief is, that her elder sister, being the affianced bride of the son of the Earl of Derby, was petted and made much of, while Dorothy, at sweet sixteen, was kept in the background. She formed an attachment for John Manners, son of the Earl of Rutland, but this her family violently opposed, keeping her almost a prisoner: her lover, disguised as a forester, lurked for weeks in the woods around Haddon, obtaining occasionally a stolen interview. At length on a festal night, when the ball-room was filled with guests summoned to celebrate the approaching nuptials of the elder sister, and every one was so wrapped up in enjoyment that there was no time to watch Dorothy, the maiden, unobserved, stole out of the ball-room into the anteroom, and through the door, across the garden, and up the steps to the terrace, where her lover had made a signal that he was waiting. In a moment she was in his arms, and rode away with him in the moonlight all night, across the hills of Derbyshire, and into Leicestershire, where they were married next morning. It was the old story--an elopement, a grand row, and then all was forgiven. Sir George Vernon had no sons, and his daughters divided his estate, Haddon going to Dorothy, who thus by her elopement carried the famous hall over to the family of Manners. Dorothy died in 1584, leaving four children, the oldest, Sir George Manners, living at Haddon and maintaining its hospitable reputation. Dying in 1679, his son John Manners, who was the ninth Earl of Rutland, became the master of Haddon, and "kept up the good old mansion at a bountiful rate," as the chronicler tells us. He kept one hundred and forty servants, and had so many retainers and guests that every day the tables in the old banquet-hall were spread as at a Christmas feast. The earl was raised to the rank of duke, and his son John, Duke of Rutland, known as the "Old Man of the Hill," died in 1779, since which time the family have not used the hall as a place of residence, having gone to Belvoir in Leicestershire. Its present owner is the sixth Duke of Rutland, Charles Cecil Manners, and the descendant of the famous Dorothy. There are few places, even in England, that have the fame of Haddon, and it is one of the chief spots sought out by the tourist. The duke maintains it just as it existed centuries ago, with the old furniture and utensils, so as to reproduce as faithfully as possible the English baronial hall of his ancestors.

CHATSWORTH.

Below Haddon Hall the valley of the Wye broadens, with yet richer scenery, as it approaches the confluence of the Wye and Derwent at Rowsley, where the quaint old Peacock Inn, which was the manor-house of Haddon, bears over the door the date 1653, and the crest of the ducal House of Rutland, a peacock with tail displayed. Ascending for a short distance the valley of the Derwent, which washes the bases of the steep limestone hills, we come to Chatsworth. In sharp contrast with the ancient glories of Haddon is this modern ducal palace, for whose magnificence Bess of Hardwicke laid the foundation. This "Palace of the Peak" stands in a park covering over two thousand acres; the Derwent flows in front, over which the road to the palace is carried by a fine bridge. From the river a lawn gently slopes upward to the buildings, and the wooded hill which rises sharply behind them is surmounted by a hunting-tower, embosomed in trees. A herd of at least a thousand deer roam at will over the park, and have become very tame. Chatsworth is a brownish-yellow building, square and flat-topped, with a modern and more ornamental wing. Its front extends fully six hundred feet, and in parts it is of that depth. The estate was bought in the sixteenth century by Sir William Cavendish, who built the original house, a quadrangular building with turrets, which was greatly extended by his wife. It was used as a fortress in the Civil Wars, and was considerably battered. The first Duke of Devonshire about the year 1700 rebuilt the mansion, employing the chief architects, artists, designers, and wood-carvers of his time, among them Sir Christopher Wren. In the grounds, not far from the bridge over the Derwent, is the "Bower of Mary Queen of Scots." There is a small, clear lake almost concealed by foliage, in the centre of which is a tower, and on the top a grass-grown garden, where are also several fine trees. Here, under guard, the captive was permitted to take the air. In those days she looked out upon a broad expanse of woods and moorland: now all around has been converted into gardens and a park. Entering the house through a magnificent gateway, the visitor is taken into the entrance-hall, where the frescoes represent the life and death of Julius Cæsar; then up the grand staircase of amethyst and variegated alabaster guarded by richly-gilded balustrades. The gorgeously-embellished chapel is wainscoted with cedar, and has a sculptured altar made of Derbyshire marbles. The beautiful drawing-room opens into a series of state-apartments lined with choice woods and hung with Gobelin tapestries representing the cartoons of Raphael. Magnificent carvings and rare paintings adorn the walls, while the richest decorations are everywhere displayed. Over the door of the antechamber is a quill pen so finely carved that it almost reproduces the real feather. In the Scarlet Room are the bed on which George II. died and the chairs and footstools used at the coronation of George III. On the north side of the house is another stairway of oak, also richly gilded. In the apartments replacing those where Mary Queen of Scots lived are her bed-hangings and tapestries. There is an extensive library with many rare books and manuscripts, and a sculpture-gallery, lined with Devonshire marble, containing many statues and busts, and also two recumbent lions, each nine feet long and four feet high and weighing four tons, and carved out of a solid block of marble. The final enlargement of Chatsworth was completed about forty years ago, when Queen Victoria made a state visit and was given a magnificent reception by the Duke of Devonshire.

The gardens at Chatsworth are as noted as the house, and are to many minds the gem of the estate. They cover about one hundred and twenty-two acres, and are so arranged as to make a beautiful view out of every window of the palace. All things are provided that can add to rural beauty--fountains, cascades, running streams, lakes, rockeries, orange-groves, hothouses, woods, sylvan dells--and no labor or expense is spared to enhance the attractions of trees, flowers, and shrubbery. From a stone temple, which it completely covers, the great cascade flows down among dolphins, sea-lions, and nymphs, until it disappears among the rocks and seeks an underground outlet into the Derwent. Enormous stones weighing several tons are nicely balanced, so as to rock at the touch or swing open for gates. Others overhang the paths as if a gust of wind might blow them down. In honor of the visit of the Czar Nicholas in 1844 the great "Emperor Fountain" was constructed, which throws a column of water to an immense height. The grounds are filled with trees planted by kings, queens, and great people on their visits to the palace. The finest of all the trees is a noble Spanish chestnut of sixteen feet girth. Weeping willows do not grow at Chatsworth, but they have provided one in the form of a metal tree, contrived so as to discharge a deluge of raindrops from its metallic leaves and boughs when a secret spring is touched. The glory of the Chatsworth gardens, however, is the conservatory, a beautiful structure of glass and iron covering nearly an acre, the arched roof in the centre rising to a height of sixty-seven feet. In this famous hot-house are the rarest palms and tropical plants. It was designed by Joseph Paxton, the duke's head-gardener, and, enlarging the design, Paxton constructed in the same way the London Crystal Palace for the Exhibition of 1851, for which service he was knighted. Besides this rare collection of hot-house plants, the famous Victoria Regia is in a special house at Chatsworth, growing in a tank thirty-four feet in diameter, the water being maintained at the proper temperature and kept constantly in motion as a running stream. The seed for this celebrated plant was brought from Guiana, and it first bloomed here in 1849. Some fifty persons are employed in the gardens and grounds, besides the servants in the buildings, showing the retinue necessary to maintain this great show-palace, for that is its chief present use, the Duke of Devonshire seldom using it as a residence, as he prefers the less pretentious but more comfortable seat he possesses at Bolton in Yorkshire. North of Chatsworth Park, near Baslow, on top of a hill, is the strange mass of limestone which can be seen from afar, and is known as the Eagle Rock.

MATLOCK AND DOVEDALE.

Retracing the Derwent to the Wye again, the valley of the latter is open below for several miles, and then as Matlock is approached a mass of limestone stretching across the valley seems to bar all egress, and the river plunges through a narrow glen. The bold gray crags of the High Tor rise steeply on the left hand, and the gorge not being wide enough for both river and railway, the latter pierces a tunnel through the High Tor. The river bends sharply to the right, and the village makes a long street along the bank and rises in terraces up the steep hill behind. These are the "Heights of Abraham," while the pretty slope below the High Tor is the "Lovers' Walk." Matlock is beautifully situated, and its springs are in repute, while the caves in the neighborhood give plenty of opportunity for that kind of exploration. The Derbyshire marbles are quarried all about, and mosaic manufacture is carried on. It was near Matlock that Arkwright first set up his cotton-spinning machine, and when fortune and fame had made him Sir Richard Arkwright he built Willersley Castle for his home, on the banks of the Derwent. The valley of the little river Dove also presents some fine scenery, especially in the fantastic shapes of its rocks. The river runs between steep hills fringed with ash and oak and hawthorn, and Dovedale can be pursued for miles with interest. One of its famous resorts is the old and comfortable Izaak Walton Inn, sacred to anglers. In Dovedale are the rocks called the Twelve Apostles, the Tissington Spires, the Pickering Tor, the caverns known as the Dove Holes, and Reynard's Hall, while the entire stream is full of memories of those celebrated fishermen of two centuries ago, Walton and his friend Cotton.

BEAUCHIEF ABBEY.

Before leaving Derbyshire the ruin of Beauchief Abbey, which gave the name of Abbey Dale to one of the pleasant vales on the eastern border of the county, must not be forgotten. It was built seven hundred years ago, and there remains but a single fragment of this famous religious house, the arch of the great east window. Singularly enough, under the same roof with the abbey was built an inn, and at a short distance there is a hermitage: the hermit's cave is scooped out of a rock elevated above the valley and overhung with foliage. We are told that a pious baker lived in the town of Derby who was noted for his exemplary life: the Virgin Mary, as a proof of his faith, required him to relinquish all his worldly goods and go to Deepdale and lead a solitary life in Christ's service. He did as he was told, departed from Derby, but had no idea where he was to go; directing his footsteps towards the east, he passed through a village, and heard a woman instruct a girl to drive some calves to Deepdale. Regarding this as an interposition of Providence, the baker, encouraged, asked where was Deepdale; the woman told the girl to show him. Arrived there, he found it marshy land, distant from any human habitation; but, seeking a rising ground, he cut a small dwelling in a rock under the side of a hill, built an altar, and there spent day and night in the Divine service, with hunger and cold, thirst and want. Now, it happened that a person of great consequence owned this land--Ralph, the son of Geremund--and coming to the woods to hunt, he saw smoke rising from the hermit's cave, and was filled with astonishment that any one should have dared to establish a dwelling there without his permission. Going to the place, he found the hermit clothed in old rags and skins, and, inquiring about his case, Ralph's anger changed to pity. To show his compassion, he granted the hermit the ground where the hermitage stood, and also for his support the tithe of a mill not far away. The tradition further relates "that the old Enemy of the human race" then endeavored to make the hermit dissatisfied with his condition, but "he resolutely endured all its calamities," and ultimately he built a cottage and oratory, and ended his days in the service of God. After his death, Ralph's daughter prevailed upon her husband to dedicate Deepdale to religious uses, and he inviting the canons, they built the abbey. We are told in Howitt's _Forest Minstrel_ of the wonder caused by the construction of the abbey, and also how in later years the monks became corrupted by prosperity. A place is shown to visitors where the wall between the chapel and the inn gave way to the thirsty zeal of the monks, and through an opening their favorite liquor was handed. The _Forest Minstrel_ tells us they

"Forsook missal and mass
To chant o'er a bottle or shrive a lass;
No matin's bell called them up in the morn,
But the yell of the hounds and sound of the horn;
No penance the monk in his cell could stay
But a broken leg or a rainy day:
The pilgrim that came to the abbey-door,
With the feet of the fallow-deer found it nailed o'er;
The pilgrim that into the kitchen was led.
On Sir Gilbert's venison there was fed.
And saw skins and antlers hang o'er his head."

STAFFORD AND TRENTHAM.

The rivers which drain the limestone hills of Derbyshire unite to form the Trent, and this stream, after a winding and picturesque course through Midland England towards the eastward, flows into the Humber, and ultimately into the North Sea. Its first course after leaving Derby is through Staffordshire, one of the great manufacturing counties of England, celebrated for its potteries, whose product Josiah Wedgewood so greatly improved. The county-seat is Stafford, on the Sow River, not far from the Trent Valley, and on a high hill south-west of the town are the remains of the castle of the Barons, of Stafford, originally built a thousand years ago by the Saxons to keep the Danes in check. This castle was destroyed and rebuilt by William the Conqueror; again destroyed and again rebuilt by Ralph de Stafford in Edward III.'s reign. In the Civil Wars this castle was one of the last strongholds of King Charles I., but it was ultimately taken by Cromwell's troops and demolished, excepting the keep; a massive castellated building of modern construction now occupies its place. The river Trent, in its winding course, forms near Trentham a fine lake, and the beautiful neighborhood has been availed of for the establishment of the splendid residence of the Duke of Sutherland, about a mile west of the village, and known as Trentham Hall. The park is extensive, the gardens are laid out around the lake, and the noble Italian building, which is of recent construction, has a fine campanile tower one hundred feet high, and occupies a superb situation. The old church makes part of Trentham Hall, and contains monuments of the duke's family and ancestors, the Leveson-Gowers, whose extensive estates cover a wide domain in Staffordshire. Trentham, which is in the pottery district and not far from Newcastle-under-Lyme, was originally a monastery, founded by St. Werburgh, niece of Æthelred. She was one of the most famous of the Anglo-Saxon saints, and some venerable yews still mark the spot where her original house stood, it being known as Tricengham. These yews, said to have been planted about that time, form three sides of a square. The religious house, rebuilt in William Rufus's reign, was given, at the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., to his brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and it afterwards came into possession of the Levesons. From the marriage of a daughter of Sir John Leveson with Sir Thomas Gower sprang the family of the present ducal house of Sutherland, the head of it being created Marquis of Stafford in 1786 and Duke of Sutherland in 1833. The present duke is the third who has held the title, his mother having been the daughter of the Earl of Carlisle--the famous Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland. The old Trentham Hall was built in 1633, being rebuilt and enlarged by Sir Charles Barry about fifty years ago.

TAMWORTH AND TUTBURY.

Staffordshire contains some famous places. In the eastern part of the county, bordering Warwick, is the ancient town of Tamworth, standing upon the little river Tame; this was originally a fortification built for defence against the Danes, and its castle was founded by Marmion, of whom Scott writes,

"They hailed Lord Marmion,
They hailed him Lord of Fontenaye,
Of Lutterward and Scrivelbaye,
Of Tamworth tower and town."

Tamworth is also Shakespearian ground, for here Richmond halted on his march to Bosworth Field, and made a stirring address to inspire his forces for the coming combat. In later years Tamworth sent Sir Robert Peel to Parliament, and his bronze statue adorns the market-square; the ruins of the ancient castle are almost obliterated, and the present castle is upon higher ground, its architecture being of various periods. Tutbury Castle, of which little is left but a straggling mass of ruins, stands on an eminence overlooking the Dove, and crowns a ridge of red sandstone rock: it was a great stronghold, founded by John of Gaunt, covering several acres, and was demolished after the Civil Wars. This castle, like so many other famous places, was also one of the prison-palaces of Mary Queen of Scots; although the castle is destroyed, yet near by is its parish church of St. Mary, founded by Henry de Ferrars in the reign of William Rufus, and known then as Ferrars Abbey: its west end is one of the most perfect Norman fronts remaining in England, and it has been carefully restored. Tutbury is known for some of its ancient customs, among them the annual bull-running. A minstrel band, after devotions and a long sermon in the abbey, had an excellent dinner in the castle, and then repairing to the abbey-gate demanded the bull; the prior let the bull out, with his horns and tail cut off, his ears cropped, his body greased, and his nostrils filled with pepper to make him furious. The bull being let loose, the steward proclaimed that none were to come nearer than forty feet, nor to hinder the minstrels, but all were to attend to their own safety. The minstrels were to capture the bull before sunset, and on that side of the river, but if they failed or he escaped across the stream, he remained the lord's property. It was seldom possible to take him fairly, but if he was held long enough to cut off some of his hair it was considered a capture, and after a bull-baiting he was given to the minstrels. Thus originated the Tutbury bull-running, which ultimately degenerated into a scene of wild debauchery, often resulting in a terrible riot. The Duke of Devonshire, when he came into possession of Tutbury, was compelled to abolish the custom. About six miles from Stafford is Chartley Castle, dating from the Conquest, and belonging to the Earls of Chester and Derby, and subsequently to the famous Earl of Essex, who here entertained Queen Elizabeth, and afterwards planned the plot for which she signed his death-warrant. This castle has been many years in ruins: it had a circular keep about fifty feet in diameter, and the present remains are chiefly the fragments of two round towers and part of a wall twelve feet thick, with loopholes constructed for shooting arrows at an attacking force. Queen Mary was also imprisoned here, and a bed said to have been wrought by her is shown in the village. This unfortunate queen seems to have had more prisons and wrought more needlework than any other woman in Britain.

ALTON TOWERS.

Alton Towers, the superb home of the Earl of Shrewsbury, is also in Staffordshire, and is one of the famous seats of England. The estate stands on the Churnet, and the house and grounds are on one side of its deep valley. The present mansion, a modern Gothic structure, was built about fifty years ago on a rocky plateau overlooking the valley. An extensive park surrounds the mansion, and there are several entrances. Of these Quicksall Lodge ushers the visitor to a magnificent approach known as the "Earl's Drive," extending three miles along the valley of the Churnet, and having its natural advantages increased by the profuse distribution along the route of statues, busts, and ornamental vases. Another entrance is from the railway-station, where is a lodge of great beauty, from which the road, about a mile in length, gradually ascends to the eminence where the mansion stands. The approach by both roads is fine, and through the intervening foliage the Towers open upon the view--rich in spire, dome, and gable, and with their fair proportions enhanced by the arcades that adorn the house and the antique stone setting that brings out the majesty of the Gothic architecture. The gardens of this fine place are beautiful, their extent being made apparently greater than in reality by the artificially-formed terraces and other resources of the landscape artist. The grounds are most lavishly ornamented with statuary, vases, temples, and fountains, while gardening is carried to perfection. There is a grand conservatory, containing a palm-house and orangery. From the top of an elaborate Gothic temple four stories high there is a fine view, while the Flag Tower, a massive building with four turrets, and six stories high, is used as an observatory. There is a delightful retreat for the weary sightseer called the Refuge, a fine imitation of Stonehenge, and Ina's Rock, where Ina, king of Wessex, held a parliament after his battle with the king of Mercia. The picturesque ruins of Alton Castle and convent are in the grounds, also the ruins of Croxden Abbey and the charming Alton Church, which was of Norman foundation. The castle existed at the time of the Conquest, and the domain in 1408, through the marriage of Maude Neville to John Talbot, was brought into the possession of the present family. Talbot having been afterwards made the first Earl of Shrewsbury. This was the famous English warrior who was so feared in France, where he conducted brilliant campaigns, that "with his name the mothers stilled their babes." He was killed at the siege of Chatillon in his eightieth year. It was the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury who married Bess of Hardwicke and made her fourth husband. It was the fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury who erected the present magnificent structure, with its varied turrets and battlements, for his summer residence, where before stood a plain house known as Alton Lodge. Upon his tomb, in memory of the wonderful change he wrought in the place, is the significant motto: "He made the desert smile." The nineteenth earl is now in possession.

SHREWSBURY.

Westward of Stafford is the land of the "proud Salopians," Shropshire, through which flows the Severn, on whose banks stands the ancient town from which the Earls of Shrewsbury take their title. We are told that the Britons founded this town, and that in Edward the Confessor's time it had five churches and two hundred and thirty houses, fifty-one of which were cleared away to make room for the castle erected by Roger de Montgomery, a kinsman of William the Conqueror. The Norman king created him Earl of Shrewsbury long before the present line of earls began with John Talbot. Wars raged around the castle: it was besieged and battered, for it stood an outpost in the borderland of Wales. It was here that Henry IV. assembled an army to march against Glendower, and in the following year fought the battle of Shrewsbury against Hotspur, then marching to join Glendower. Hotspur's death decided the battle. The Wars of the Roses were fought around the town, and here Henry VII., then the Earl of Richmond, slept when going to Bosworth Field; and in the Civil Wars King Charles had Shrewsbury's support, but Cromwell's forces captured it. The town is on a fine peninsula almost encircled by the Severn, and the castle stands at the entrance to the peninsula. Only the square keep and part of the inner walls remain of the original castle, but a fine turret has been added by modern hands. In the neighborhood of Shrewsbury are the remains of the Roman city of Uriconium, said to have been destroyed by the Saxons in the sixth century. Shrewsbury has always been famous for pageants, its annual show being a grand display by the trade societies. It is also famous for its cakes, of which Shenstone says:

"And here each season do those cakes abide,
Whose honored names the inventive city own,
Rendering through Britain's isle Salopia's praises known."

The great Shrewsbury cake is the "simnel," made like a pie, the crust colored with saffron and very thick. It is a confection said to be unsafe when eaten to excess, for an old gentleman, writing from melancholy experience in 1595, records that "sodden bread which bee called simnels bee verie unwholesome." The Shropshire legend about its origin is that a happy couple got into a dispute whether they should have for dinner a boiled pudding or a baked pie. While they disputed they got hungry, and came to a compromise by first boiling and then baking the dish that was prepared. To the grand result of the double process--his name being Simon and her's Nell--the combined name of simnel was given. And thus from their happily-settled contention has come Shrewsbury's great cake, of which all England acknowledges the merit.

BRIDGENORTH AND WENLOCK ABBEY.

BRIDGENORTH.

1. From near Oldbury.
2. Keep of the Castle.

]

Following down the Severn River from Shrewsbury, we come to Bridgenorth, an ancient town planted on a steep hill, full of quaint houses, and having an old covered market where the country-people gather on Saturdays. The lower part is of brick, and the upper part is black-and-white-timbered, but the human love for what is old and familiar is shown by the way in which the people still fill up the old market-house, though a fine new one has recently been built. The most prized of the old houses of this venerable town is a foundry and blacksmith shop standing by the river; it was in this house that Bishop Percy, author of the _Reliques_, was born. On the promontory of sandstone, which steeply rises about one hundred and eighty feet above the river, the upper part of the town is built, and here are the ruins of Bridgenorth Castle, which stood in an exceptionally strong situation. The red sandstone predominates here, but not much of it remains in the castle, there being little left excepting a huge fragment of the massive wall of the keep, which now inclines so much on one side from the settlement of the foundation as to be almost unsafe. This castle was built eight hundred years ago by the third and last of the Norman Earls of Shrewsbury: it was held for King Charles in the Civil Wars, and underwent a month's siege before it surrendered, when the conquerors destroyed it. Bridgenorth is the most picturesque of all the towns on the Severn, owing to the steep promontory up which the houses extend from the lower to the upper town and the magnificent views from the castle. The communication with the hill is by a series of steeply-winding alleys, each being almost a continuous stairway: they are known as the "Steps." A bridge with projecting bastions crosses the river and connects the higher with the lower parts of the town, thus giving the place its name.

About twelve miles south-east of Shrewsbury is the village of Much Wenlock, where there are remains of a magnificent abbey founded by the Black monks, and exhibiting several of the Early English and Gothic styles of architecture, but, like most else in these parts, it has fallen in ruin, and many of the materials have been carried off to build other houses. Portions of the nave, transepts, chapter-house, and abbot's house remain, the latter being restored and making a fine specimen of ecclesiastical domestic architecture built around a court. An open cloister extends the entire length of the house. There are beautiful intersecting Norman arches in the chapter-house. There are some quaint old houses in the town--timbered structures with bold bow-windows--and not a few of them of great age. Roger de Montgomery is credited with founding Wenlock Abbey at the time of the Norman Conquest. The site was previously occupied by a nunnery, said to have been the burial-place of St. Milburgh, who was the granddaughter of King Penda of Mercia. This was a famous religious house in its day, and it makes a picturesque ruin, while the beauty of the neighboring scenery shows how careful the recluses and religious men of old were to cast their lots and build their abbeys in pleasant places.

LUDLOW CASTLE.

The most important of all the castles in the middle marches of Wales was Ludlow, whose grand ruins, mouldered into beauty, stand upon the river Tame, near the western border of Shropshire. It was here that the lord president of the Council of Wales held his court. Its ruins, though abandoned, have not fallen into complete decay, so that it gives a fine representation of the ancient feudal border stronghold: it is of great size, with long stretches of walls and towers, interspersed with thick masses of foliage and stately trees, while beneath is the dark rock on which it is founded. It was built shortly after the Conquest by Roger de Montgomery, and after being held by the Norman Earls of Shrewsbury it was fortified by Henry I.: then Joyce de Dinan held it, and confined Hugh de Mortimer as prisoner in one of the towers, still known as Mortimer's Tower. Edward IV. established it as the place of residence for the lord president of the Council that governed Wales: here the youthful King Edward V. was proclaimed, soon to mysteriously disappear. From Ludlow Castle, Wales was governed for more than three centuries, and in Queen Elizabeth's time many important additions were made to it. The young Philip Sidney lived here, his father being the lord president; the stone bridge, replacing the drawbridge, and the great portal were built at that time. In 1634, Milton's "Masque of Comus" was represented here while Earl Bridgewater was lord president, one of the scenes being the castle and town of Ludlow: this representation was part of the festivities attending the earl's installation on Michaelmas Night. It was in Ludlow Castle that Butler wrote part of _Hudibras_. The castle was held for King Charles, but was delivered up to the Parliamentary forces in 1646. The present exterior of the castle denotes its former magnificence. The foundations are built into a dark gray rock, and the castle rises from the point of a headland, the northern front consisting of square towers with high, connecting embattled walls. In the last century trees were planted on the rock and in the deep and wide ditch that guarded the castle. The chief entrance is by a gateway under a low, pointed arch which bears the arms of Queen Elizabeth and of Earl Pembroke. There are several acres enclosed, and the keep is an immense square tower of the Early Norman, one hundred and ten feet high and ivy-mantled to the top. On its ground floor is the dungeon, half underground, with square openings in the floor connecting with the apartment above. The great hall is now without roof or floor, and a tower at the west end is called Prince Arthur's Tower, while there are also remains of the old chapel. The ruins have an imposing aspect, the towers being richly clustered around the keep. This famous castle is now the property of Earl Powis.