Chapter VI: The Bridal of Triermain

One of Scott's chief delights was the little game of _fooling the critics_. No sooner had he arranged for the publication of 'Rokeby' than he began to _lay a trap for Jeffrey_, whose reviews of the earlier poems had not been altogether agreeable. From this innocent little scheme the poet and his confidant, William Erskine, anticipated great amusement. The plan was to publish simultaneously with 'Rokeby,' a shorter and lighter romance, in a different metre and to 'take in the knowing ones' by introducing certain peculiarities of composition suggestive of Erskine. The poem thus projected, of which fragments had already been published, was 'The Bridal of Triermain.' The scheme so far succeeded that for a long while the public was completely mystified. A writer in the 'Quarterly Review,' probably George Ellis, thought it 'an imitation of Mr. Scott's style of composition,' and added, 'if it be inferior in vigour to some of his productions, it equals or surpasses them in elegance and beauty.' Jeffrey escaped the trap by the chance of a voyage to America that year, though it may be doubted whether he would have fallen into it.

I have already referred to the fact (chapter I) that much of the material for this poem came to Scott in the summer of 1797, when, after a visit to the English Lakes, he found some weeks of real romance near the village of {97} Gilsland. To this period the poet's recollection turned for his 'light romance.' In the passage where Arthur derides the pretensions of his military rival,--

Who comes in foreign trashery
Of tinkling chain and spur,
A walking haberdashery
Of feathers, lace, and fur,--

Lockhart finds an allusion to some incident of the ball at Gilsland Spa where Scott first met his future wife. Whether the walk along the Irthing River below the 'Spa' was really in the poet's mind, when he wrote of the 'woodland brook' beside which Arthur and Lucy wandered, is of course unknown, but I do not doubt that it may have been, since so much of the poem was suggested by the experiences of that pleasant summer. Triermain Castle, or what is left of it, is about three miles west of Gilsland. Only a fragment about the size of an ordinary chimney is now standing, though Scott saw more of it, for a considerable portion of the ruin fell in 1832. The Barons of Gilsland received a grant of land from Henry II sometime in the twelfth century, and Robert de Vaux, son of the original grantee, was probably the builder of the castle. On his tombstone in Lannercost Priory, near by, is this inscription:--

Sir Robert Vaux that sometime was the Lord of Triermain,
Is dead, his body clad in lead, ligs law under this stane;
Evin as we, evin as he, on earth a levan man,
Evin as he, evin so maun we, for all the craft of men.

The castle was built of the stones of the old Roman wall which passes near the place. From Triermain, Sir Roland de Vaux sent his page to Ullswater, passing {98} through Kirkoswald, a village of Cumberland on the river Eden. He came to Penrith, to the south of which is a circular mound supposed to have been used for the exercise of feats of chivalry, which the poet calls 'red Penrith's Table Round.' In the same locality near the river Eamont is 'Mayburgh's mound,' a collection of stones said to have been erected by the Druids. Continuing to the southward, he came to the shores of Ullswater, where he found the wizard of Lyulph's Tower. The venerable sage then related the story of King Arthur's adventure in the Valley of St. John.

We set out in quest of the mysterious phantom castle and found the drive through the narrow valley a delightful one. Nearly everybody who visits the English Lakes drives over the hills from Ambleside to Keswick. After passing Dunmailraise and skirting the shores of Thirlmere Lake beneath the shadows of Helvellyn, we turned off the main road near the mouth of St. John's Beck, one of the many pretty brooks that are found everywhere in the neighbourhood. A huge pile of rocks, projecting curiously from the side of a green-coated hill, is called, from the poem, Triermain Castle Rock. Following the course of the streamlet, upward, we found a view much like that which appeared to King Arthur, after the goblet with its liquid fire had disenchanted him.

The monarch, breathless and amazed,
Back on the fatal castle gazed--
Nor tower nor donjon could he spy,
Darkening against the morning sky;
But on the spot where once they frowned,
The lonely streamlet brawled around
A tufted knoll, where dimly shone
Fragments of rock and rifted stone.

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As we proceeded up the valley, looking back time and again for a last view of the rock, it was easy to fancy that what we saw in the distance might well be a castle and that under certain atmospheric conditions the illusion might be heightened.

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