Chapter VII (1)

WHALLEY AND ITS ABBEY—MITTON CHURCH AND ITS MONUMENTS—THE SHERBURNES—THE JESUITS’ COLLEGE, STONYHURST.

Whalley—the Field of Wells, as our Saxon forefathers called it—is one of the most picturesque, as also one of the most interesting villages in Lancashire. It is the centre, too, of a district which almost claims to rank as classic ground. Few places possess greater charms from a scenic point of view, or a higher interest from the historical associations attaching to them. The parish to which it gives name covers a wide extent of territory. Originally, before the great parishes of Blackburn, Chipping, Mitton, Rochdale, Ribchester, and Slaidburn had been carved out of it, it embraced an area of four hundred square miles; and even now it is accounted the largest parish within the diocese, being equal to about one-ninth of the whole county. Well might the chief ecclesiastics of this, the oldest Christian edifice in Lancashire, dignify themselves in old times with the imposing title of “Deans” of Whalley, though the magnitude of their domain was surely not a sufficient justification for their setting at naught the decrees of Holy Church, and the vows of celibacy it imposed, by perpetuating a race of priests who married and transmitted their offices from father to son for successive generations: a state of things that continued until the Council of Lateran not only forbade but disannulled such marriages, and so destroyed the constitution by which the church of Whalley had been governed for nearly five hundred years.

A more charmingly diversified country than that of which this quiet little pastoral village is the centre it is difficult to conceive. Within the wide range of vision it commands we may note the type of almost every stage of civilisation the country has passed through. Though a railway viaduct, lofty as the Pont du Gard, bridges the Calder, and a tall chimney or two may here and there be seen, the virgin features of the country have as yet been happily but little scarred by the intrusion of manufacturing industry. The wild breezy moors and the wooded cloughs and dingles retain much of their primitive character, while the fair and fertile valley still bears evidence of the patient labour of the monks in redeeming the soil from its primeval barrenness. Every object that can beautify or adorn the landscape is there in picturesque variety, charming by the very order of Nature’s disorder. The Ribble, winding its way towards the sea, as it flows by Ribchester, reminds us of the days when the Roman held dominion—when the subjects of the Cæsars built their fortresses and reared their stately temples, and their chief, Agricola, taught the naked and woad-stained Britons the science of agriculture and the arts of civilisation. The quaint Runic crosses standing in the churchyard, weathered and worn with the blasts of twelve hundred years, serve as memorials of the time when Edwin, the Saxon king of Northumbria, embraced the doctrines of the Cross, and the great missionary Paulinus brought the glad tidings to our pagan forefathers dwelling in this remote corner of Lancashire; for tradition affirms that on this spot the Gospel of Peace and Love was proclaimed in those ancient days.

There stands the messenger of truth; there stands
The legate of the skies, his theme divine,
His office sacred, his credentials clear;
By him the violated law speaks out
Its thunders, and by him, in strains as sweet
As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.

And the venerable church—“the white church under the Leigh,” as it was anciently designated—that peeps above the enshrouding foliage, is doubtless the successor of a pagan temple, for it was then the fashion to convert the edifices of the old religion to the purposes of the new. The ruined keep of Clitheroe Castle, crowning the limestone rock that rises abruptly from the plain, carries the mind back to the times of the stout Norman earls, when men ruled by the stern will and the strong arm, and vigilant sentinels upon the watch-towers looked afar for the blaze of the baleful fires that should warn them of the approaching foe. Within a short two miles of the stately stronghold of the Lacies are the dilapidated remains of Waddington Hall—a house which, though it escaped the fiercer tide of politics and strife, is yet associated with the period when England was drained of its best blood by the Wars of the Roses; for it was at Waddington, which had for a time afforded him an asylum, that the “meek usurper,” Henry VI., after the disastrous fight at Hexham, in 1464, was betrayed into the hands of his enemies, and, though he escaped for a moment, he was caught ere he could cross the Ribble at Brungerley hipping-stones, and given up to the vengeance of his successful rivals, for which act of perfidy his captor, Thomas Talbot, was rewarded by the Yorkist Edward with grants of land. He did not, however, long enjoy them, for when the White Rose of York drooped before Henry of Richmond on the Field of Bosworth, the same Talbot experienced one of the common reverses of war, and had to surrender his ill-gotten gains. Westward, lying among the tall trees, where the sharp corner of Yorkshire runs in between the Hodder and the Ribble, is Little Mitton Hall, another relic of the past that serves to tell the story of the changing life of our great nation, and to show how the frowning fortress gradually softened into the stately mansion when order spread as law succeeded might, and time had widened and mellowed our social institutions. The giant form of Pendle Hill, sloping upwards from the green valley, with its wild gorges, where the old forest of Bowland formerly stretched its length, its broad turfy swamps, its sombre masses of blackened rock, and its bleak ridges of “cloud-capped” desolation overshadowing the verdant landscape, conjures up humiliating memories of the credulity, the ignorant superstition, and the revolting practices which obtained for merry-hearted Lancashire so unenviable a reputation in the golden days of the virgin queen and her successor, the vain and weak-minded James—

Pendle stands
Round cop, surveying all the wild moor-lands,
And Malkin’s Tower, a little cottage, where
Report makes caitiff witches meet, to swear
Their homage to the devil, and contrive
The deaths of men and beasts.

The genius of superstition that fills the mind with

Shaping fantasies that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends,

still lingers, and the voices of tradition may occasionally be heard in the embowered gloom of its solitary cloughs and dingles; but under the disenchanting influences of steam Pendle has lost much of that weird character of wonder and fear with which the shaping power of the imagination had enshrouded it, though it still retains much of its wild and uncultivated character, and there are spots that remain almost as savage and unfrequented, if not as much feared, as in the days of the “British Solomon,” when its secluded hollows and heathery wastes were commonly believed to be the scenes of midnight feasting and diabolical revelries, and everything and everybody were supposed to be under the evil influence of decrepit hags who had sworn to do the devil service, and were endowed by the Prince of Darkness with the power to work destruction on man and beast. Happily, in these days, a gentler species of witchcraft prevails. Though the spells of the Lancashire witches are as potent as ever, they are exercised without fear of judge or jury. Few escape the fascinations, and, it may be added, still fewer desire to do so. But Pendle has other associations than those with which the pedantic Master Potts and Harrison Ainsworth have made us familiar. It was upon its broad peak that George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, received his “first illumination.” There, as he tells us in his _Journal_, “the Lord let me see in what places He had a great people to be gathered together;” and then he adds, “As I went down I found a spring of water in the side of the hill, with which I refreshed myself, having eaten or drunken but little for several days before.” The spring is still there, and to this day is known in the neighbourhood as George Fox’s well.

Wiswall, uprising in peaceful serenity upon the skirts of Pendle, calls to remembrance the conflict between monarchy and monasticism—the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” and the penalty that Paslew, the last abbot of Whalley, paid for his share in that uprising—the destruction of himself and the house over which he had so long presided, for it was upon a gallows erected in front of Wiswall Hall, the place of his birth, and in sight of the abbey, which had then passed into profane hands, that Paslew was ignominiously hanged. A flat gravestone, in the north aisle of Whalley Church, marks the last resting-place of the ill-fated ecclesiastic. A floriated cross and a chalice, the emblems of his office, are carved upon it, with the simple and touching inscription—

Jhu fili dei miserere mei
J P

Well might he ask pity from above, for, poor man, in the days of his adversity he found none below. Let us hope, however, that the malediction which tradition says the dying man pronounced upon those who should despoil his house has lost its force, if it ever had any, and that a Braddyll and an Assheton may now step across his grave without risk of destruction.

But the glory of Whalley is the famous abbey, with which Whitaker’s history has made us so familiar. Though it is now only a picturesque ruin—

A pile decayed,
... in cunning fashion laid,
Ruined buttress, moss-clad stone,
Arch with ivy overgrown,
Stairs round which the lichens creep,
The whole a desolated heap—

there yet remains much to delight the eye. The groined gateway shrouded in the gloom of a stately avenue of limes, the spacious hospitium, the cloister court, with its beautifully-decorated arches, the chapter-house, the abbot’s lodgings, the refectory, and the huge kitchens, with their capacious fire-places, may still be seen, but the crowning feature of all, the glorious conventual church, with its choir and its transepts, has disappeared, a small fragment of the walls and the foundations of its mighty pillars alone remaining. Corbel and capital, mullion and transom, broken columns and fragments of masonry lie strewn about, some half buried in the rank grass and nettles, telling the story of its former magnificence. Until recent years, when it was blown down in a storm, an ancient cherry tree that must have been in its prime when Whalley was in the fulness of its glory, grew in one of the courts, contributing its fair white blossoms to the summer beauty. There you can see where the monks sat in the sanctuary; that grass-grown court was their cemetery; yonder is the nameless tomb of a forgotten abbot; and that arch, with a span of nearly eighteen feet, marks the resting-place of another. Verily, the monks of Whalley were as splendid in their obsequies as in their hospitalities. The floor is carpeted with turf, and the walls are canopied by the heavens; ivy, the flower of ruin, lends its melancholy charm, and the clustering masses that uphold the crumbling buttresses spread their garniture of green to hide the signs of decay, and mock the greyness of time with a decoration that lasts but for a season. As you wander about seeking for the best points of view, or musing upon the fallen fortunes of the house, you will gaze again and again upon the broken arches and the empty windows, and think

How many hearts have here grown cold,
That sleep these mouldering stones among;
How many beads have here been told;
How many matins have been sung.

A spot more suited to the contemplative mind you will rarely see. Sequestered, solemn, still, the calm tranquillity is in perfect keeping with the sepulchre of human greatness, and the mind brooding upon the past overleaps the boundaries of centuries. In this spot orisons and vespers have been sung; the low sweet music of the Litany of the Cross has rolled; through the “long drawn aisle and fretted vault” the pealing organ has swelled the anthem’s note; and where now the sod is shaded by the overhanging verdure the funeral procession has often passed, the white-robed monks chanting awhile the soul-stirring “_Supplicante parce Deus_.” The following lines seem so applicable to the place that we make no apology for transcribing them:—

Around the very place doth brood
A strange and holy quietude,
Where lingers long the evening gleam
And stilly sounds the neighbouring stream.

I know not if it is the scene,
Bosom’d in hills by the ravine,
Or if it is the conscious mind
Hallows the spot and stills the wind,
And makes the very place to know
The peace of them that sleep below,
Investing Nature with the spell
Of that strange calm unspeakable.

Methinks that both together blend
To hallow their calm peaceful end—
The thoughts of them that slumber there
Seem still to haunt the holy ground;
And e’en the spot and solemn air
Themselves partake that calm profound.
Methinks that He who oft at even
Brings stillness o’er the earth and heaven,
Till mountains, skies, and neighbouring sea
Blend in one solemn harmony,
Hath caused e’en Nature’s self to grace
This sweet and holy resting-place.

Amid the venerable and peaceful shade we seem again to hear

Litanies at noon,
Or hymn at complin by the rising moon,
When, after chimes, each chapel echoed round,
Like one aerial instrument of sound,
Some vast harmonious fabric of the Lord’s,
Whose vaults are shells, and pillars tuneful chords;

and we are almost tempted to forget the errors of the monks, and to think only of them as the precursors of a simpler and purer religion. In the seclusion of their solitary lives they laboured earnestly and with prayerful zeal, for with them _laborare est orare_ was no idle expression. They threw the fervour of their souls into their work, and dispensed their hospitalities with a lavish hand; but they taught no liberty, and preached no freedom, to a Christian world. The knowledge they cherished most was as a lamp beneath a bushel—it kept all in darkness but themselves. Better that their system should pass away, and that their houses should be dismantled and left only to beautify and adorn the landscape, than that we should have a return to their sensual pageantry and pent-up learning.

Many stories are related of the doings and misdoings of the brotherhood at Whalley in those far-off days; but the legend that they disturbed the peace of the fair anchorites who had their habitation in the hermitage close by the great gate of the abbey must surely be a fable, though tradition affirms that the lady hermits were not always spotless in their lives, and a more trustworthy authority records that one of them, Isold de Heton, a fair widow, who, in the first transports of her grief, had vowed herself to Heaven, led a disorderly life there, to the scandal of the abbey and the prejudice of the morals of the fraternity. Here is the story of the profane doings of this dissolute votaress, as set forth in the representation made to that paragon of virtue, King Henry the Eighth, of blessed memory:—

Be it remembered that the please and habitacion of the said
recluse is within place halowed and nere to the gate of the seyd
monastre, and that the weemen that have been attendynge to the
seyd recluse have recorse dailly into the seyd monastre for the
levere of brede, ale, kychin and other things; the whych is not
accordyng to be had withyn such religyous plases: and how that
dyvers that been anchores in the seyd plase have broken owte and
departed: and in especyal how that now Isold of Heton is broken
owte, and so levying at her owne liberte by this two yere and
mor, like as she had never been professyd; and that dyvers of the
wymen that have been servants there, have been misgovernyd and
gotten with chyld within the seyd plase halowyd, to the great
displeasuance of hurt and disclander of the abbey aforeseyd, &c.

On this report the pious Henry, as in duty bound, suppressed the little hermitage, and cast its inmates upon the world.

The Calder still flows on bright and clear as it did of yore; but the glories of the abbey of Whalley have for ever passed away, and the roofless ruined walls serve only to remind us of the days of the old Catholicism; whilst across the valley, crowning a thickly-wooded eminence that rises from the slopes of Longridge Fell, we can see the tall towers of Stonyhurst, which may be said to typify the new—for the monasticism which Henry so ruthlessly rooted out has been revived in a new form in the stately mansion which once formed the home of the Sherburns. To that seminary of learning, the college of the fathers of the Society of Jesus, and the _alma mater_ of so many of the Catholic gentry of England, let us now bend our steps, taking in the way the little hamlet of Mitton, and its ancient church, in which so many of the former lords of Stonyhurst repose.

Leaving the village of Whalley at the upper end, we pass beneath the viaduct, and continue along a pleasant rural high road that winds away to the right in sweetest solitude. The tall hedgerows are fresh with their summer foliage, and fragrant with the odours of the honeysuckle, the sweetbriar, and the wealth of floral beauty that spreads around. Now and then we get a glimpse of the Calder, flowing “with liquid lapse serene,” here coming out of the verdant shade, and there going into it again, and murmuring its admiration of the scene in a perpetual song of joyousness. Presently the trees thicken, and through the openings we look over a country serenely pastoral in its character, with its wooded bluffs, its level holms, and wide-spreading pastures, through which the

Cold springs run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass.

Behind us rises Whalley Nab, with the old abbey nestling at its foot; the wooded heights above Wiswall, Billinge Hill, and the bleak, cloud-mottled heights of the majestic Pendle. In mid-distance the broken keep of Clitheroe Castle gleams in the mellow light, and just below the tower of Clitheroe Church may be discerned. Sweeping round towards the north, Waddington Fell, Bleasdale Moor, and the wooded heights of Bowland Forest come in view; and, far beyond, the shadowy peaks of Pennygent and Ingleborough, reminding us of the old saw—

Pendle Hill and Pennygent and Little Ingleborough,
Are three such hills as you’ll not find by searching England thorough.

Nearer we see the woods about Whitewell, a spot dear to every lover of the gentle craft, and to the artist a very storehouse of scenic beauty; the opening shows where the Hodder flows down to add its tributary to the Ribble; further westward we have the huge form of Longridge Fell stretching across the landscape, with Kemple End, and the wooded eminence rising from its lowest spur, on which stands the stately hall of Stonyhurst.

A little more than half an hour’s walking brings us to Mitton, a pleasant little rural hamlet occupying a narrow tapering strip of land that runs in between the two rivers, the Hodder and the Ribble, and very near the point where the latter is joined by the Calder. As the old distich reminds us—

The Hodder, the Calder, the Ribble and rain
All meet in a point on Mitton’s domain.

The rivers keep us in pleasant companionship, but, happily, the rain is absent. Before we cross the Ribble we get sight of the ancient hall of Little Mitton, lying among the trees; on the left a gabled mansion built by the Catteralls in the days of the seventh Henry, which, though it has been modernised and part rebuilt in recent years, still retains its spacious entrance hall, with the original arched timber roof, the exquisitely carved oaken screen, and the gallery above. With the exception of the great hall at Samlesbury it is the finest room in any house in the country, and its erection must well-nigh have laid a forest prostrate. Well might Whitaker express the hope that “it might never fall into the hands who have less respect for it than its (then) owner; and that no painter’s brush or carpenter’s hammer might ever come near it, excepting to arrest the progress of otherwise inevitable decay.” Thomas Catterall, the last of the name who held Little Mitton, granted the manor in 1579 to his daughter Dorothy, and her husband, Robert Sherburn, a younger son of the house of Stonyhurst, and their grandson, Richard Sherburn, in the reign of Charles the Second, sold it to Alexander Holt, of the ancient family of Holt of Grislehurst. Subsequently it passed by purchase to John Aspinall, Esq., and his grandson, Ralph John Aspinall, Esq., of Standen Hall, the late High Sheriff of Lancashire, is the present possessor; Mr. John Hick, formerly M.P. for Bolton, being the occupant.

The village of Milton is finely embosomed among tufted trees upon a slope that rises gently from the valley, watered by the Ribble and its tributary streams, and is as thoroughly picturesque and “old English” as you would wish to see. As you approach, the grey embattled tower of its venerable church peeping above the umbrage forms a pleasing object, but its appearance does not improve on a closer acquaintance, for the hand of the spoiler has been busy, and a coating of coarse stucco effectually conceals the ancient masonry. It should be said, however, that a good deal has been done in recent years to atone for the tasteless barbarism of bygone churchwardens, and Nature has lovingly aided in the work by spreading a mantle of living green so as to hide many of the tasteless deformities. The church is a small and unpretending structure, though of considerable antiquity, some parts dating as far back as the reign of the third Edward, and probably it occupies the site of a still earlier building. The tower is of much later date, and like many other old churches the exterior, by its architectural diversities, gives ample proof of alterations and “improvements” at distant periods. The churchyard delights you by its placid beauty, and the little hamlet sleeping peacefully at the foot is in perfect harmony with the scene. When we entered the enclosure the doors of the church were fastened, but the sexton, who was pursuing his vocation in the corner of the graveyard, offered to bring the keys and show us whatever was worth seeing.

The interior has been lately restored, and the old timber roof of the nave, which was previously hidden by a flat plaster ceiling, has been again exposed to view. There are also some remains of ancient carving, carefully preserved, and an oaken screen separating the nave from the chancel that well deserve inspection. The lower portion belonged originally to Cockersand Abbey, the monks of that house being patrons of Mitton; and it was removed to its present position when the fraternity was dissolved. The fragment of an inscription still remaining shows that it was made in the time of William Stainford, and this helps us to fix the date, as Stainford was abbot of Cockersand from 1505 to 1509. One peculiarity noticeable is that, unlike other churches, you have to descend into the chancel from the nave by a few steps, an arrangement necessitated by the natural formation of the ground, which declines considerably towards the east. Within the chancel is an old oak chest, bound with iron, and triple-locked, with the date 1627 carved upon it. On the top is a copy of Burkett’s “Expository Notes on the New Testament,” a paraphrase on the Book of Common Prayer, and one or two other theological works fastened with chains—the village library of former days, as the inscription in one of them testifies: “_Ex Libris Ecclesiæ Parochialis de Mitton 1722_.”

But the great feature of Mitton, and that which most attracts the attention of visitors, is the Sherburn Chapel, the mausoleum of the former lords of Stonyhurst. It is situated on the north side of the chancel, from which it is separated by a parclose screen, and is remarkable as containing an assemblage of recumbent figures and other family memorials such as very few old country churches can boast.

It was erected on the site of the ancient chantry of St Nicholas by Sir Richard Sherburn, of Stonyhurst, who died in 1594, as appears by his will, which expressly directs that his body shall “be buryed at my parish church of Mitton, in the midest of my new quere.” His tomb is the oldest in the chapel, and upon it are the recumbent figures in alabaster, life size, of the knight and “Dame Maude, his wife,” a daughter of Sir Richard Bold, of Bold, who predeceased him. The body of the tomb is enriched with heraldic shields representing the family alliances, and there are some panels of figures. The inscription, which is in old English characters, describes Sir Richard as “master forrester of the forest of Bowland, steward of the manor of Sladeburn, Lieutenant of the Isle of Man, and one of Her Majesty’s Deputy Lieutenants.” He commenced the building of the present mansion of Stonyhurst, or rather the rebuilding, for it stands on the site of an older house, a portion of which still exists, employing in the decoration some of the stone carvings from the neighbouring Abbey of Whalley, among them being noticeable two shields of arms, one bearing the cognisance of the Lacies, the founders of that house. Sir Richard lived during the eventful reigns of the Tudor sovereigns, and he seems to have accommodated himself very happily to the varying circumstances of those stirring times, conforming without scruple to the religious changes which occurred in the days of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, and to have succeeded in making considerable additions to his patrimonial estates the while. His friend and contemporary, Edward, Earl of Derby, told George Marsh, the Bolton martyr, that the true religion was that which had most good luck, and this article of faith Sir Richard Sherburn very rigidly maintained. He succeeded to the family estates on the death of his father, Thomas Sherburn, in 1536, and two years later, being then only 15 years of age, he married his first wife, the daughter of Sir Richard Bold. He was nominated one of the commissioners for the suppression of the religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII., and for the sale of the chantry lands in that of Edward VI., and in 1544 he had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him for his bravery at the burning of Leith. In the first year of Edward VI., when a writ of Parliamentary summons was re-issued to Lancaster, Liverpool, Wigan, and Preston, he was returned as member for the last-named borough, and in the first Parliament of Mary’s reign he was returned as knight of the shire for the county of Lancaster, and shortly afterwards was nominated high steward and master forester of the Forest of Bowland, where he gave evidence of his faith in the excellency of the game laws by “vigorously prosecuting various individuals for unlawfully hunting deer and other game within the forest.” In the reign of Elizabeth he was associated with the Earl of Derby, the Bishop of Chester, Sir John Radcliffe, and Sir Edward Fitton in executing the penal laws against those who adhered to the Romish faith, and in 1581 he was appointed by Cecil, Lord Burleigh, along with other commissioners, to compound with the tenants who had obtained fraudulent leases of the tithes and other properties of the College of Manchester. Four years later he was one of the Lancashire magistrates who promulgated an order against the profanation of the Sabbath by “wakes, fayres, markettes, bayre-baytes, bull-baits, ales, May-games, resortinge to alehouses in tyme of devyne service, pypinge, and dauncinge, huntinge, and all maner of vnlawfvll gamynge.” In 1588, on the occasion of the threatened invasion by Spain, he was one of the eighty loyal gentlemen of Lancashire who formed themselves into an association for the defence of Queen Elizabeth against “Popish conspiracies,” and from the “intolerance and insolence” of the Papacy. Baines says that he was allowed by Elizabeth, as an especial favour, to have his chapel and his priest at Stonyhurst, but the accuracy of this statement may very well be doubted, for it is more than probable, as the late Canon Raines observed in the “Stanley Papers,” that “at this time, and long afterwards, the family held the Reformed faith, nor does it appear when they became absorbed by the Church of Rome.” Under his munificent hand the splendid mansion of Stonyhurst arose, but death overtook him before he had completed his work. He died July 26th, 1594, leaving to his son and heir, Richard, among other things, “all my armor at Stonyhurste, and all my iron to build withall, so that he fynishe the buildinge therewith now already begonne—the leade, buildinge, stone, and wrought tymber.”

The monument perpetuating the names of this Richard, the “fynisher” of Stonyhurst, and his first wife, Katharine, daughter of Charles, Lord Stourton, is affixed to the north wall of the chapel. The pair are represented as kneeling before a faldstool or litany desk, with their hands uplifted, as if in prayer, the figures strongly thrown out and gorgeously coloured. The man wears a full skirted jerkin and the Elizabethan ruffs, and his wife is habited in a long gown with a hood falling over the top of her head. The inscription records that he was Captain of the Isle of Man for fifteen years, and that his wife died there in childbed of twins, “and their lieth intomb’d.” In the panel beneath is a carving in _alto relievo_, representing the twins in bed with their nurses watching over them.

Richard Sherburn again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Ann, daughter of Henry Kighley, and widow of Thomas Hoghton, of Hoghton Tower; but this lady, who died at Lea, October 30th, 1609, bore him no issue. He died in 1629, at the advanced age of eighty-three, and was in turn succeeded by a son, also named Richard, whose altar-shaped tomb, on which are the recumbent figures of himself and his wife, bears a lengthy inscription recording the family history for four generations. “He was,” it states, “an eminent sufferer for his loyal fidelity to King Charles I. of ever blessed memory.” He lived to see the restoration of the Stuarts, and died February 11th, 1667, aged eighty-one years.

Another altar-tomb, on which lie the recumbent effigies of a knight and his lady, is to the “pious memory” of Richard Sherburn, son of the last-named, and his wife Isabel, daughter of John Ingleby, of Lawkeland, in Yorkshire. The inscription, among other things, records that “he built the almshouse and school at Hurst Green, and left divers charitable gifts yearly to the several townships of Carleton, Chorley, Hamilton, and Lagrim, in Lancashire; Wigglesworth and Guisely in this (York) county; departing this life (in prison for loyalty to his sovereign), at Manchester, August 16th, A.D., 1689, in the 63rd year of his age. He, like many other of the Catholic gentry of Lancashire, being devoted to the family of the expatriated James by hereditary attachment and personal affection, looked upon the exiled monarch as a martyr to his religious convictions, and could not therefore be persuaded that he was absolved from his allegiance or at liberty to transfer it to the Prince of Orange.” The inscription on his tomb adds—“The said Isabel (his wife), by whom, at her own proper charge, these four statues were erected, died April 11th, 1663, whose mortal remains are together near hereunto deposited.”

As the “four statues,” _i.e._, of Richard Sherburn and his wife, and his father and mother, were not erected until 1699, thirty-six years after the lady’s death, it may be assumed that she bequeathed the funds “necessary to defray” the cost of their erection. Whitaker, in his “History of Whalley,” remarks that the two male figures on these tombs are probably the latest instances (that is, of former days) of cumbent cross-legged statues in the kingdom, and this is probably so, as it has been commonly supposed that the latest recumbent monumental figure is that enshrined in Westminster Abbey, and erected in 1676, to the memory of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. The effigies at Mitton were executed by Stanton, the well-known lapidary, at a cost, it is said, of £253.

There is another monument to the memory of Richard Sherburn, eldest son of the Richard just named, who succeeded on his father’s decease, but enjoyed the estates only for a few months, his death occurring April 6th, 1690, when, having no issue, the Stonyhurst possessions devolved upon his brother Nicholas, who had had the dignity of a baronetcy conferred upon him by Charles II. during the lifetime of his father. He was the last of the name who resided at Stonyhurst, and died without surviving male issue December 16th, 1717. His monument was placed beside those of his ancestors by his only surviving daughter and heir, Maria Winifred Francesca, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. The inscription, which is said to have been written by the duchess herself, is perhaps unsurpassed in prolixity and extravagant adulation, and deserves to be noted as a specimen of the way in which great families were wont, a couple of centuries ago, to glorify themselves in their own charnel houses, forgetting that of the long laudatory inscriptions which family pride had made fashionable,

One half would never be believed,
The other never read.

Here it is:—

This monument is to the sacred and eternal memory of Sir Nicholas
Shireburn and his lady. Sir Nicholas Shireburn, of Stonyhurst,
Bart., was son of Richard Shireburn, Esq., by Isabel his wife,
daughter of John Inglesby, of Lawkeland, Esq. Nicholas Shireburn
had by his lady, whose name was Katharine, third daughter and
co-heir to Sir Edward Charleton, of Hesleyside, in Northumberland,
Bart., by Mary, eldest daughter and co-heir of Sir Edward
Widderington, of Cartington, in Northumberland, Bart., three
children; the eldest, Isabella, died the 18th of October, 1688,
and is buried at Rothburgh, in Northumberland, in the quire
belonging to Cartington, where Sir Nicholas then lived; a son
named Richard, who died June 8th, 1702, at Stonyhurst; another
daughter named Mary, married May 26, 1709, to Thomas, Duke of
Norfolk.—Sir Nicholas Shireburn was a man of great humanity,
sympathy, and concern for the good of mankind, and did many
good charitable things whiles he lived; he particularly set his
neighbourhood a spinning of Jersey wool, and provided a man to
comb the wool, and a woman who taught them to spin, whom he kept
in his house, and allotted several rooms he had in one of the
courts of Stonyhurst, for them to work in, and the neighbours
came to spin accordingly; the spinners came every day, and span
as long a time as they could spare, morning and afternoon, from
their families. This continued from April, 1699, to August, 1701.
When they had all learn’d, he gave the nearest neighbour each
a pound or half a pound of wool ready for spinning, and wheel
to set up for themselves, which did a vast deal of good to that
north side of Ribble, in Lancashire. Sir Nicholas Sherburn died
December 16, 1717. This monument was set up by the Dowager Duchess
of Northfolk, in memory of the best of fathers and mothers, and in
this vault designs to be interr’d herself, whenever it pleases God
to take her out of this world.

Lady Sherburn was a Lady of an excellent temper and fine
sentiments, singular piety, virtue, and charity, constantly
imployed in doing good, especially to the distressed, sick, poor,
and lame, for whom she kept an apothecary’s shop in the house;
she continued as long as she lived doing great good and charity;
she died Jan. 27th, 1727. Besides all other great charities which
Sir Nicholas and Lady Sherburn did, they gave on All Souls’ Day a
considerable deal of money to the poor; Lady Sherburn serving them
with her own hands that day.

Of a truth man is a noble animal—splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave!

There is yet another inscription from the pen of the dowager duchess, to the memory of her second husband:—

In this vault lies the body of the Hon. Peregrin Widderington.
The Hon. Peregrin Widderington was youngest son of William, Lord
Widderington, who died April 17th, 1743. This Peregrin was a
man of the strictest friendship and honour, with all the good
qualities that accomplished a fine gentleman. He was of so amiable
a disposition and so ingaging that he was beloved and esteemed
by all who had the honour and happiness of his acquaintance,
being ever ready to oblige and to act the friendly part on all
occasions, firm and steadfast in all his principles, which were
delicately fine and good as could be wished in any man. He was
both sincere and agreeable in life and conversation. He was born
May 20th, 1692, and died Feb. 4th, 1748-9. He was with his brother
in the Preston affair, 1716, where he lost his fortune, with his
health, by a long confinement in prison. This monument was set up
by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, in memory of the Hon. Peregrin
Widderington.

Though careful to record the descent as well as the “good qualities” and “delicately fine principles” of the amiable Peregrin, her grace, whose grammar, by the way, is somewhat obscure, has curiously enough, while perpetuating the fact of her previous marriage, omitted all mention of her relationship to the dear departed, and has thus inadvertently done an injustice to his memory as well as to her own, for ill-natured people have wickedly suggested that their union never had the sanction of a priest, and that, as the old sexton assured William Howitt when he visited Mitton nearly half a century ago, the “accomplished fine gentleman” was only a “tally husband,” a belief that still prevails in many a cottage home in the district. The “Preston affair,” so delicately alluded to, was the occasion when the old Pretender, the Chevalier de St. George, made the rash and abortive attempt to recover the Crown of England by an appeal to civil war, and a portion of the rebel army, headed by the ill-fated Lord Derwentwater and General Foster, penetrated as far south as Preston, where it was met by the King’s forces, under Generals Wills and Carpenter, and compelled to surrender; when no fewer than seven lords and 1,500 men, including officers, were made prisoners, among them being the Hon. Peregrin Widderington and his father, William, Lord Widderington, the latter of whom was impeached before the House of Lords for high treason, but afterwards reprieved and pardoned. The Widderingtons, like the Sherburns, had for successive generations been devotedly attached to the Stuart cause, the Lord Widderington of a former day having lost his life at Wigan Lane on the 25th August, 1651, while bravely fighting by the side of Lord Derby and the gallant Sir Thomas Tyldesley.

As previously stated, Sir Nicholas Sherburn was the last of the name who resided at Stonyhurst. In his time considerable additions were made to the mansion. He rebuilt the principal front, placed the two eagle-crowned cupolas on the summits of the old battlemented towers, dug out the ponds in front of the hall, and laid out the gardens in the stiff fantastic Dutch style then fashionable; but before he had completed the work he had the misfortune to lose his only son, Richard Francis, a youth of nine years, who, as tradition affirms, was poisoned with eating yew berries gathered in the dark avenue at Stonyhurst—the fruit of

Some dark, lonely, evil-natured yew,
Whose poisonous fruit—so fabling poets speak—
Beneath the moon’s pale gleam the midnight hag doth seek.

The untimely death of his heir so affected Sir Nicholas that he abandoned his design, quitted Stonyhurst, and never returned. A monument to the memory of the ill-starred boy adorns the chapel at Mitton, and among the floral decorations upon it is a bunch of yew berries; beyond this there is no evidence of the cause of death save the tradition which has been handed down through successive generations, and is still implicitly believed by the village gossips.

On the death of Sir Nicholas Sherburn, in 1717, the baronetage became extinct, and the extensive possessions of his house, in default of a male heir, passed, in accordance with the provisions of his will, dated August 9th of that year, after the decease of his widow, to his only daughter, Maria Winnifred Francesca, wife (first) of Thomas, eighth Duke of Norfolk, and (secondly), as already stated, of the Hon. Peregrin Widderington. The duchess died without issue September 25th, 1704, and was buried, in accordance with her expressed desire, at Mitton, when the estates reverted to the issue of her aunt Elizabeth, sister of Sir Nicholas Sherburn, who had married William, son and heir of Sir John Weld, of Lullworth Castle, in Dorsetshire. Edward Weld, the grandson by this marriage, was the first to inherit the property, and from him the estates passed in 1761 to his eldest son, Edward Weld, Esquire, who had to his second wife Mary Anne, youngest daughter of William Smyth, Esquire, of Brambridge, in Hampshire, who survived him, and in her second widowhood, as the relict of Thomas Fitzherbert, of Swinnerton, was privately married to “the first gentleman of Europe”—George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Fourth. On the death of Edward Weld, the first husband of Mrs. Fitzherbert, in 1775, without issue, the property passed to his only surviving brother, Thomas Weld, of Lullworth, who in 1794, when through the fury of the French Revolution the Jesuits were driven from their college at Liege, granted that body a lease of the Stonyhurst estate, and subsequently the property became theirs by purchase.

Looking upon these magnificent memorials—this blazonry of human greatness—and contrasting the achievements of the sculptor’s art as here displayed with the bare simplicity and, until recent years, we might have said meanness, of the sanctuary itself, from which they are only separated by an open screen, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the proud Sherburns were more concerned for the perpetuation of their own greatness than for the honour and glory of God. Infinitely more appropriate is the humble and prayerful ejaculation we found graven upon the stone of poor Abbot Paslew, at Whalley, than this ostentatious chronicling of the virtues of poor frail humanity.

Having spent some time in the examination of the Sherburn Chapel we stepped out into the quiet graveyard, among the grass-grown hillocks where the “rude forefathers” tranquilly repose, and—

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply.

Underneath one of the windows on the north side, half hidden in docks and nettles, we noticed the cumbent figure of a knight in armour sculptured in stone, the counterpart of one of those we had seen inside. There is a curious tradition connected with it. It is said that when the effigies of the Sherburns came down from London they were a good deal talked of in the neighbourhood. A village stonemason hearing of the sum they had cost, and piqued at the want of appreciation of his own skill, declared that he could have done the work equally well. This was repeated at the hall, when the man was sent for, questioned, and ordered to make good his boast. This he did by producing the imperfect copy now in the churchyard, and the story adds that the Sherburns gave him £20 in acknowledgment of his skill. On the south side of the church yard is the circular carved head of an ancient cross that was dug up by a former clerk; there are also several curious gravestones, including one to the memory of an ecclesiastic, Thomas Clyderhow, the same, probably, whose curious will, made in 1506, or rather the copy of it, is preserved in the Townley MSS. Many members of the great family of Talbot, as well as that of Winckley, have here found a resting-place, and altogether Mitton is full of interest, as well from its associations as from the secluded beauty of its situation.

But we have loitered long by the way—who would not loiter in such a pleasant old-world nook?—and must now betake ourselves to Stonyhurst.

From the silent resting-place of the Sherburns to their old ancestral home the walk is little more than a couple of miles, and a pleasanter bit of country is rarely traversed. Half a mile brings you to the banks of the Hodder, where a noticeable feature meets the eye that brings to remembrance the “twa brigs of Ayr.” At this point two bridges bestride the river, which, by the contrast in their appearance, not inaptly symbolise the difference between the old times and the new. One, that by which we cross, is a comparatively modern erection, with parapet walls and bold projecting piers; the other, which is placed a hundred yards or so lower down, is a primitive-looking structure of ancient date, extremely narrow, as most old bridges are, and now only serving as a footpath to the cottages close by, though rendered picturesque by the profuse growth of ivy and weeds upon it. The old bridge, however, possesses more than a passing interest, and may fairly claim to rank as one of the historic sites of Lancashire; for it was here that Cromwell held a council of war with General Ashton, on the 16th August, 1648, when the Scots had penetrated into Lancashire, and there was a general fear that they might reach London, in which case the hopes of the Parliamentarians would be crushed. The Duke of Hamilton had at the time entered the county with a large force; and Sir Marmaduke Langdale, with another army, acting in concert, was moving in a parallel direction. The Roundhead troopers, under General Lambert, being insufficient in number to arrest their progress, withdrew into Yorkshire; when Cromwell, who had just succeeded in reducing Pembroke, marched northwards, and, forming a junction with Lambert at Knaresborough, hastened into Lancashire to attack the invaders. On the 16th August he arrived at the little bridge over the Hodder, where he met Major-General Ashton, with a Lancashire force; and, after consultation with him, determined upon the plan of operations—the result, as is well known, bringing victory to the arms of the invincible Ironsides and overwhelming disaster to the Royalist cause. That night the future Lord Protector was an unbidden guest at Stonyhurst, and was, doubtless, more free than welcome. Tradition still points to the old oak table near the entrance, on which it affirms that Cromwell slept, while his men bivouacked in the grounds,[26] though the accuracy of the story may well be doubted, for the stern warrior was hardly likely to put up with so indifferent a couch when the “Papist’s house” afforded so much better accommodation. The next morning he marched with his followers towards Preston, forced the bridge, and in a conflict which lasted several hours completely routed Hamilton’s army, the waters of the Ribble and the Darwen being crimsoned with the lifeblood of the combatants. It was Charles’s last appeal to arms, and when intelligence of the disaster reached him in the Isle of Wight he told Colonel Hammond, the governor, that “it was the worst news that ever came to England.” For the king it was; for there is little doubt that Cromwell’s victory hastened the action of the Republicans, and precipitated that event which the world has ever since condemned.

[Note 26: In his despatch to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Cromwell says: “That night quartered the whole army in the field by Stonyhurst Hall, being Mr. Sherburn’s house, a place nine miles distant from Preston;” and Captain Hodgson, an officer who accompanied him, writes: “We pitched our camp at Stanyhares Hall, a Papist’s house, one Sherburn’s.”]

But we are wandering from our story, and more peaceful scenes await us. As we approached the Hodder the sun shone full and strong, and flashed and glittered upon its rippling surface, broken at the time into innumerable wavelets where the full-uddered kine were plunging and wading in the shallows to cool themselves after the heat of the bright summer day. Half a mile or so up the river, half hidden among the trees on the hillside, we catch sight of the Hodder Place, or Hodder House, as it is sometimes called—a kind of novitiate or preparatory school in connection with the seminary at Stonyhurst. After crossing the river, our road lay along a wild old wandering lane that winds away to the left, rising and failing in a succession of gentle eminences, filled with quiet nooks, whose vernal shade tempts you to relax your speed and while away the passing hours in listless contemplation of the wealth of beauty that Nature, with lavish hand, has spread around. Then a steep ascent occurs, and as we mount the stony and intricate path we look through the tangled vegetation to the green links of undulating woodland and the distant hills that swell gently into the blue of infinite space, and now and then get a glimpse of the tall towers and dome-crowned cupolas of Stonyhurst shooting above the rich umbrage that environs them. Then another climb, and we are in front of the old mansion of the Sherburns, though, in truth, it now presents a different aspect to that it must have done when Sir Nicholas “set his neighbourhood a spinning of Jersey wool,” and my Lady Sherburn—playing the part of Lady Bountiful—“kept an apothecary’s shop in the house,” and distributed her alms to her poorer neighbours “with her own hands.”

Before venturing upon a description of the building, let us refer for a moment to the account which Dr. Whitaker, in his “History of Whalley,” gives of the circumstances that led the disciples of Ignatius Loyola to establish a seminary in this picturesque corner of busy, practical Lancashire:—

On the north-west border of the county is the ancient seat of
the Shireburn family. After the death of Sir Nicholas Shireburn,
Bart., in 1720, it was possessed by his daughter Mary, Duchess of
Norfolk, till 1754. It then became the property of Edward Weld,
Esq., of Lullworth Castle, Dorset, whose son, the late Thomas
Weld, Esq., converted it, in 1794, into a college, or house of
education, for young pupils of the Roman Catholic religion.
This gentleman’s benevolent view was to facilitate the means
of religious and literary instruction for persons of his own
persuasion, who had now lost all the resources which the British
transmarine colleges and seminaries had afforded during two
hundred years. He had received his education among the English
Jesuits abroad, and he had witnessed the violent seizure and
ejection of his old masters from their College of St. Omer, which
was perpetrated by the French Parliament of Paris in 1762. This
college was one of the principal houses of education which the
British Catholics had formed on the continent, while the severity
of the penal laws prohibited such institutions in their own
country. The English fathers of the society, not disheartened by
persecution, proceeded to form new establishments, for the same
purpose of education, in the Austrian Netherlands, and again in
the city of Liege; and they were dislodged, pillaged, and ejected,
with similar injustice and violence, by the governments which
admitted the suppression of their order, by Pope Clement XIV. in
1773, and finally, by the revolutionary armies of France in 1794.
In their uttermost distress they took advantage of the humane
lenity of our Government, which allowed them to settle and to open
schools for pupils of their own religion, under security of the
oath of civil allegiance which was prescribed by the Act of 1791.
Under the immediate protection of Thomas Weld, Esq., the gentlemen
expelled from Liege by the French conducted the small remnant of
their flourishing seminary to Stonyhurst; and, in the course of
twenty-one years, by unremitting industry, they have improved it
into a distinguished seminary and house of education, of which
they justly acknowledge Thomas Weld, Esq., as the founder and
principal benefactor. It is filled at present (1816) by more than
two hundred and fifty students of the Roman Catholic religion,
sent thither from most parts of the world; and their established
reputation for good order and regularity has justly procured for
them the countenance and favour of their neighbours.

An amusing story is related of the eagerness of the students of Liege to get possession of their new quarters in Lancashire. Tradition says that the last person to quit the college at Liege was George Lambert Clifford, and that he was the first to enter the new institution at Stonyhurst. Another student, Charles Brooke, was equally anxious for the honour; and when they came in sight of the building both ran at their utmost speed down the avenue. Brooke reached the entrance first; but Clifford, arriving almost at the same moment, and seeing a window open, scrambled through it, and so entered the building while his competitor was waiting for admission by the ordinary way.