Chapter I: From Berwick to Kelso

Leading Characteristics--The View from Berwick--Lindisfarne--The
History and Present State of Berwick--Norham Castle and
Marmion--Ladykirk--Tillmouth--Twisell Castle and Bridge--Ford
Castle and Flodden--Coldstream--Wark Castle--Hadden Rig.

"A bonny water" was the phrase used of the Tweed by a peasant-woman whom Dorothy Wordsworth met when she came to spy out the Border river. Homely as the expression is, it would not be easy to find another quite so meet. To grandeur, to magnificence, the stream can make no claim, either in itself or in its surroundings. Of screaming eagles, of awful cliffs, of leaping linns, of foaming waves, it knows nothing. No more horrid sound is heard in its neighbourhood than the cry of the pale sea-maw; its banks are rarely precipitous, never frightful; it has not a single waterfall to its name; and, save where its surface is gently ruffled by glistening pebbles, it flows smooth as (_pace_ the poet) the course of true love usually is. Yet of charms more gracious how profuse it is! In its careless windings, its silvery clearness, its sweet haughs and holms, its affluence of leaf and blade, its frequent breadth of valley, it is dowered with all the amenities of a large and generous landscape, distributed into combinations of incessant variety. Nor does it owe much less to art and association than to Nature. It glides or ripples by some of the most impressive ruins, ecclesiastical and secular, in all Scotland. At point after point it shines, for the inner eye, with "the light that never was on sea or land." If over other Scottish streams as well the magician's wand has waved, the Tweed is twice blessed, since it can speak not only of "Norham's castled steep" and "St. David's ruined pile," but of Ashestiel, and Smailholm, and Abbotsford. And then its course takes it through the very heart of the Debateable Land--birthplace of myth and legend, of fairy tale and folk-song--battlefield where hostile races and envious factions and rival clans have met in mortal strife. For centuries it was the wont of its waters to reflect the fire-bale's ruddy glare, of its banks to resound with the strident Border-slogan; and until long after the coalition of the Crowns its fords continued to be crossed by reiving marchmen in jack and helmet, driving before them their "prey," or scurrying before the avenging "hot trod," led on by blaring bugle-horn and mouthing bloodhound.

A bonny water it truly is, but not a brisk. Except in time of spate, it pursues its way, not wearily, it may be, but certainly lazily, and even wantonly, often wimpling into curves and loops which half suggest that, forgetful of its destiny, it is about basely to wind back to whence it came, and calling to mind Mr. Swinburne's river, of which all that can be said is that it creeps "somewhere safe to sea." When in the chiming humour, which is not seldom, it sings sweetly enough, but crooningly rather than liltingly--less to you than to itself, or in accompaniment to the birds that pour out their lavish strains along its banks. Not that there is any particular reason why it should take life more seriously. To things commercial it does not condescend. It is tidal only to Norham, and none but mere cockle-shells can get even so far. And if it has a drainage basin second only to that of the Tay among Scottish streams, it has never been alleged that in this respect there is any failure of duty. Let it be said, too, that while it rarely hastes, on the other hand it seldom rests. The "mazes" to which it is addicted are not usually "sluggish;" to the spiky rush or the cool shiny discs of the water-lily it shows no special favour; while dark pools "where alders moist and willows weep" are only to be found by those who seek. Exciting the influences of the stream are not; but they are at any rate cheerful.

_Walker & Boutall sc._

THE COURSE OF THE TWEED.]

One whose only knowledge of the Tweed is gained from what can be seen of it at Berwick, and when the tide is out, would not be likely to think of it more highly than he ought to think. For even at its "latter end" it seems to have no great sense of the dignity of life; it rolls neither broad nor deep, and does little more than trickle into the larger life to which it has all along so indolently tended. Nor is it here altogether happy in the surroundings which it owes to art and man's device. Berwick itself, rising from the water's edge to the top of Halidon Hill, and partly girdled by its fine wall, used as a promenade in these piping times of peace, looks quaint, and comely as well, seen from the opposite or southern bank. But when one has crossed the stream by the old bridge--Berwick Bridge, which has stood here since the time of James I.--and looks across at Tweedmouth, exactly opposite, and at Spittal, which has thought fit to spring up a little farther east and just at the river's mouth, the impression is less pleasing. Neither of these places is pretty in itself, while for their size they make an amazing amount of black smoke. Then there is Robert Stephenson's great railway viaduct, the Royal Border Bridge, which it is the fashion to praise up to the skies, as it well-nigh reaches them. As a successful bit of engineering, it is no doubt all very well; but an addition to the beauties of the scene it is not, whatever guide-books and gazetteers may say. In other directions, however, and farther afield, the outlook is more satisfactory. Away to the south the grey and rugged Cheviots make a glorious horizon-line; while out at sea are the Farne Islands, with their memories of St. Cuthbert, most austere of Western ascetics, and of Grace Darling, whose heroism puts so strange a gloss upon the holy man's abhorrence of womankind. The remnants of the ancient Abbey of Lindisfarne are among the very few examples of Saxon architecture which the destructiveness of the Danes has left to us; and that even these ruins remain, is due to no negligence of theirs. When they descended upon the island in the seventh century, not for the first time, they made a brave attempt to leave a desert behind them; but the massive strength which the builders of the church had intended to oppose to "tempestuous seas" was able in some degree to withstand their "impious rage." The abbey no longer shelters St. Cuthbert's remains, which must be sought in the Cathedral that looks down upon the Wear. But the old Saxon arches and columns have a stronger interest than this could have invested them with; for was it not here, in Sexhelm's Vault of Penitence, dimly lighted by the pale cresset's ray, that the hapless Constance de Beverley, after solemn inquisition, was doomed to her terrible death, the while her betrayer was listening to the song which so melodiously contrasts the traitor's fate with the destiny of the true lover?

Berwick-on-Tweed is certainly not happy in having no history. Its beginnings are not clearly ascertainable; but it was for long a Saxon settlement, until the Danes, attracted by the rich merse-lands through which the Tweed flows, helped themselves to it. Then came the turn of the Scots, who held it off and on from about the time of Alfred the Great until John Balliol renounced the authority of his liege lord, to whom he had sworn fealty at Norham. When an English army approached, the citizens were by no means alarmed, although it was led by Edward himself. "Kynge Edward," they cried from behind their wooden stockade, "waune thou havest Berwick, pike thee; waune thou havest geten, dike thee." But they were better at flouting than at fighting; and they soon had bitter reason for lamenting that they had not kept their mocks to themselves. The place was stormed with the most trivial loss, and nearly eight thousand of the citizens were massacred. Some brave Flemings who held the Red Hall were burnt to cinders in it; and the carnage only ceased when the sad and solemn priests bore the Host into Edward's presence and implored his mercy. Then the impetuous monarch, who in his old age was able to say that no man had ever asked mercy of him and been refused, burst into tears, and ordered the butchery to stop. But the lion's paw had fallen, and Berwick was crushed. When Edward sat down before it, it was not only the great Merchant City of the North, but ranked second to London among English towns; he left it little more than a ruin, and it has never since been anything but "a petty seaport." Through its gates the king went forth to play the _rôle_ of the conquering hero in Scotland; and when his over-lordship had been effectually vindicated, the Scottish barons and gentry met here to sulkily do him reverence.

Two-and-twenty years later there came another turn of the wheel. When Robert Bruce wrested his native land from the feeble hands of the second Edward, Berwick shared in the emancipation. Its capture was held to be an achievement of the first order, and after it, as Leland tells us, "the Scottes became so proud ... that they nothing esteemed the Englishmen." But presently a weaker Bruce reigned in the North and a stronger Edward in the South. In due course the town was again beleaguered by an English force. A Scottish army under the Regent, Archibald Douglas, came to its relief; but the English held a strong position on Halidon Hill, and, met by their terrible showers of clothyard shafts, the Scots turned and fled, leaving Berwick to its fate. Thus it once more became English, and never again did it change masters, though it was allowed to retain many of its privileges. In these later days, however, it has had to part with one after another of its peculiarities, and now it is substantially a part of the county of Northumberland.

That a place which has received so many rude buffets should have few very ancient remains is not to be wondered at. The present walls, which stand almost intact, and in excellent preservation, though the town in its recent prosperity has straggled outside their line, have a very respectable antiquity, dating as they do from the closing years of the sixteenth century; but of the older fortifications, which embraced a much more considerable space, scarcely a vestige is left, except an octagonal tower; while of the castle, which frowned over the stream where the north bank is steepest, little beyond the foundations has survived. A part of the site has been appropriated to the uses of a railway station, which by a well-meant but unhappy thought has been made to take a castellated form. The fortifications were dismantled some forty or fifty years ago, but there is still much to recall the ancient importance of the town as a place of arms. Nor have the citizens lost the military spirit which was bred into their forbears. They are proud to tell the stranger within their gates that there is almost as large a garrison here as at Edinburgh; and even the tavern-signs bear witness to a traditional love of arms.

The parish church dates only from the Puritan period. It is said to be "quaint" when it is only ugly; and to be a plain specimen of the Gothic when it is not Gothic at all, except in the opprobrious sense in which the term was first applied to mediæval architecture by the superior persons of the Restoration. There being no tower--the Puritans had no taste for "steeple-houses"--the parishioners are summoned to service by the bells of the Town Hall, in the High Street, where also the curfew is still rung at eight of the clock every evening. Although the Anglican is here the Established Church, the prevalent form is the Presbyterian, which has many places of worship, while various other communions are also well represented. But there seems to be some want of resource in finding distinguishing names for the various churches and chapels, for there is a Church Street Church, and hard by a Chapel Street Church, while several places of worship are nameless. Among these latter is one which bears on its front the legend "Audi, Vide, Tace"--intended, presumably, for a concise exposition of the whole duty of the pew in relation to the pulpit.

Not a great way from the first of the bends in which the stream indulges, and within sight of the towers of Longridge, the Whiteadder from the Lammermoors, reinforced by the Blackadder, renders up its tribute. Two miles above this point the river is crossed by the Union Suspension Bridge, which, built by Sir S. Brown in 1820, is said to have been the first structure of the kind erected in these islands, while as bridges go along the Tweed it is also quite an antiquity; for, until the beginning of the century, there was only one between Peebles and Berwick, a space of more than sixty miles. Now they are many, yet there has been little sacrifice of beauty to utility, for, as a rule, when not picturesque, they are at least neat and modest. Hereabouts the valley is fairly broad, the banks rising on either hand into a long succession of rolling meadows green with herbage, or of furrowed fields red with tilth, in the prime of summer smothered with tender shoots of corn all aglow with the bright yellow blooms of the runch--to the wayfarer a flower, to the husbandman a weed. So curve to curve succeeds until Norham Castle comes in sight, standing on a lofty cliff of red freestone which rises almost sheer from the water on the southern bank, and disdainfully rearing itself high above the trees that have presumed to grow up around it.

When this ancient little village first had a stronghold no one seems to know. As early as 1121 a fortress was built here by Bishop Flambard, of Durham; but it was not the first to occupy the site. After the death of "this plunderer of the rich, this exterminator of the poor," the castle was so roughly handled by David I. that in 1164 we find another Bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey, virtually rebuilding it, and adding a massive keep. But warrior-priests were not much to the mind of the king who suggested the assassination of Thomas à Becket, and so, some ten years after he had rebuilt it, the bishop was prevailed upon to pass it on to William de Neville; and from this time onwards it appears to have been treated as a royal fortress. Thus it came about that more than once it was the scene of conference between William the Lion and the English King whose only association with the noble beast was through his brother. And here also came Edward I., to decide between the thirteen claimants to the crown of Alexander III., and to do a little business on his own account as well. A memoir of the Dacres on its condition early in the sixteenth century speaks of the keep as impregnable; but it was nothing of the kind. Like all these Border strengths, it was always being taken and retaken; and only a few years before this memoir was written, James IV., then on his way to Flodden, had brought up Mons Meg against it, and with the "auld murderess's" help had possessed himself of it. Pudsey's massive keep still remains, though in a greatly shattered state, and shorn of its mighty proportions; there are also bits of other parts of the castle, the whole enclosed within a wall of ample circuit.

In the days when it held a royal garrison, Norham had various castellans, some of them men of distinction in their day; but the most famous of them since the "tale of Flodden Field" was told, has been "Sir Hugh the Heron bold." This "Baron of Twisell and of Ford" passed among men as William Heron; but Hugh was more poetical, and so his baptismal name was changed. Nor, at the time selected for the Lord of Fontenaye's visit, was he here to be twitted with his witching lady's gallantries. Two years before this his bastard brother had taken part in the slaughter of the Scottish Warden of the Middle Marches, Sir Robert Ker of Cessford; and as Sir William himself had been in some sort accessory to the crime, Henry had thought it well to deliver him and one of the actual murderers up to justice, so that at this time he was lying in durance at Fastcastle. This, of course, is the fault of the facts, not of the poetry. Nor need it be disappointing to find Sir Walter himself saying that the Marmion of the romance is "entirely a fictitious personage." When, indeed, it is remembered that one of the Marmions did verily come here, though long years before--in the reign which witnessed the triumph at Bannockburn, instead of the overthrow at Flodden--the poet might very well have been astonished at his own moderation. The errand of the real Marmion was a good deal more romantic than that of his imaginary descendant. At a great feast in Lincolnshire he had been endued with a gold-crested helmet by a lady who had nothing better to do than to drive a brave man into mortal peril. Her charge to him was to "go into the daungerest place in England, and ther to let the healme be seene and known as famous." So he sped him here to Norham, and within four days of his coming, Philip of Mowbray, the guardian of Berwick--now in the hands of the elated Scots--appeared before the walls "with the very flour of the men of the Scottish marches." The castellan at this time was a Grey of Chillingham, who drew out his men before the barriers, and then bade the knight-errant, "al glittering in gold, and wearing the healme," to ride like a valiant man among his foes, adding, "and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body, dead or alyve, or I myself wyl dye for it." Thereupon the knight mounted and rode into the midst of the enemy, "the which layed sore stripes on him, and pulled hym at the last out of his sadel to the ground." But now Grey and his men "lette prick yn among the Scottes" and put them to rout; and he of the "healme," though "sore beten," was horsed again and took part in the chase. As it must have been this visit which made the poet bring his Marmion to Norham, so no doubt it was the deed itself, coupled with an event which actually happened at Tantallon, which suggested the knight's precipitate retreat when he had bearded the Douglas in his halls.

Just above the castle is the village of Norham, with its pretty little church--all but the eastern end, where there is a poor Decorated window, in the Norman style, and still interesting, in spite of the drastic restoration it has endured. It stands in a churchyard which well repays the careful tendance it receives, for it is of exceptionally choice situation, separated by a row of limes from the cosiest of rectories, and by little more than another fringe of foliage from the Tweed, whose waves babble of rest and peace as they ripple by the cells where lie the simple village folk who ended their toilsome lives in their beds, and the warriors who came to a ruder end before or behind the castle walls. Here the northern bank is lofty and pleasantly wooded, as, a little below, is the southern bank. In its approach to the castle the stream bends round to the south, and its waters move less leisurely, as though, fresh from contact with a scene consecrated to peace on the earth and goodwill among men, they cannot abide these grim stark ruins, with their memories of weeping captives and cruel deeds. If the keep yet looks down with something of insolence upon its lowly neighbour on the strath far beneath, it is, for all that, a parable against itself, testifying that it is not to "men of might" but to "men of mean" that the inheritance has been decreed. For while its strength and splendour have for ever fled, the humble sanctuary has renewed its youth; and, though the forms of faith suffer change, it has a good hope that in the far summers which we shall not see it will still be fulfilling its gracious and hallowed offices.

Within sight of Norham, on the opposite bank, amidst a delightful bit of woodland scenery, is the tiny village of Ladykirk, named, by a reversal of the usual order, from its church, dedicated to the Virgin, and built about the year 1500 by James IV. as a votive gift for his preservation from drowning while crossing a ford at this spot. Thus says tradition, which has so much to answer for. But the story is not improbable. There certainly was a ford here, which was more than usually dangerous when freshets were running; and James, though not a serious-minded or scrupulous man--being, indeed, one of those who prefer to indulge and repent rather than abstain--was not without an easy kind of piety. From Ladykirk onwards to Tillmouth, walking along the banks, there is a rapid succession of varied delights. On one side or the other, when not on both, the stream is edged with lovely copses; and the path, breast-high with tufted grass and tangled briar, runs past many a thicket beloved of the yellow linnet and the spotted thrush, and athwart many a glen where in simpler days fairies held their dainty revels and laid their sprightly plots.

The Till not only augments the waters, but adds to the beauties, of the Tweed. "The sullen Till," Scott calls it in his poetry; but here he is tuning his harp to a minor key to sing the disaster at Flodden; and he can mean no more by the uncomplimentary expression than when in his prose he speaks of it as deep and slow. A very leisurely water it certainly is, and the country through which it flows--past Ewart Newtown, where it is joined by the Glen, which rises on the slopes of the Cheviots as Bowmont Water, and passes through scenery of which that at Coupland may be taken as typical--is not on the whole interesting. But the epithet is less than just if applied to its mouth and the reaches immediately below, for here it flows through a deep, winding, and gloriously wooded glen. On the peninsula where the streams meet and blend, stands a fragment of what was once "a chapel fair," dedicated to St. Cuthbert; for when the roving saint had tired of Melrose and induced his custodians to launch him upon the Tweed in a stone coffin, this "ponderous bark for river-tides" glided "light as gossamer" until it landed here. The coffin used to be shown in two pieces beside the ruin (it was broken by the saint's guardian spirits, to save it from being degraded to an ignoble use); and Sir Walter, who would appear to have seen it, says that it was finely shaped, and of such proportions that with very little assistance it might have floated. To "Tillmouth cell" it was that Clare was conveyed by the pious monk when some "base marauder's lance" had at once rid her of her persecutor and avenged the betrayal of Constance; and here she spent the night in prayer. And to Tillmouth also it was that Friar John was attached, that "blithesome brother at the can" who in evil hour "crossed the Tweed to teach Dame Alison her creed," and being interrupted in the exposition by her churl of a husband, and being on principle an enemy to strife, incontinently fled "sans frock and hood." A boon companion the worthy John must have been, but not a safe guide for Marmion or another, since--

"When our John hath quaffed his ale,
As little as the wind that blows
And warms itself against his nose,
Kens he, or cares, which way he goes."

The mere fragment which is all that is left of Twisell Castle stands high above the Till, near its mouth, overlooking Tillmouth House, embosomed in trees a little farther up the Till, and Twisell's "Gothic arch," the picturesque single-span bridge which the foolhardiness of James allowed the van of the English army to cross on the morning of Flodden. Begun in 1770 by Sir Francis Blake, the castle was in the builder's hands off and on for the space of forty years; but it was never completed, and never occupied, although Sir Walter, whose conscience failed him in the matter of castle-building, was pleased to praise it as "a splendid pile of Gothic architecture." William Heron, the castellan of Norham, was, as we have seen, "Baron of Twisell," but his chief seat was Ford Castle, farther up the Till, on the eastern bank; and it was here, and not at Holyrood, that, according to the original legend, which did not quite suit the poet's purpose, the Scottish king fell victim to Lady Heron's charms. The story goes that, having taken Norham and Wark, he had stormed Ford, and was only deterred from demolishing it by its fair castellan's blandishments; and the Scottish chroniclers represent Lady Heron as preening her feathers expressly that the susceptible monarch might lose his chance of striking an effective blow. The whole story is now known to be devoid of truth. The unromantic fact is that Lady Heron deceived neither her husband nor his captor. When the battle of Flodden was fought she was far enough away from Ford Castle, imploring Surrey to make terms with the King of Scotland for the safety of her husband. That James took the castle by storm is no doubt true, but when he departed for Flodden he set it on fire, which was about the worst he could do under the circumstances.

Although the castle which Lady Heron's husband extended and strengthened was sorely knocked about by the Scots in 1549, portions of it remain to this day. From the windows a clump of firs which crowns the Hill of Flodden, known as the "King's Chair," on the west bank of the Till, is clearly visible, as it is from the Tweed, from which it is only about three miles distant, to the south; and the present proprietress of the castle, the Marchioness of Waterford, has had a ride cut through the woods straight up the famous height. The chamber occupied by the king may still be seen, and through its large window he must on the fateful morning have looked across the Till upon the gleaming tents of his forces. The position was one of considerable strength; but James recklessly threw away this and every other advantage. Against the remonstrances and appeals of his wisest counsellors he refused to permit Borthwick to open fire upon the English van as it was crossing Twisell Bridge, and so allowed the enemy to cut off his base. And now that the time was come for holding his hand, he resolved to strike; so, firing his tents, he amid profound silence marched down, and the fight began. When night came to enforce a truce, Surrey was in doubt whether the battle was at an end. But the Scots had lost their king, and with him his natural son the boy-Archbishop of St. Andrews, and the flower, and much more than the flower, of their nobility and gentry, and even of the clergy, and there was nothing for them but to draw off under cover of the darkness and carry to their homes the news of the most disastrous blow their nation had ever suffered. Many long refused to believe that their beloved king had fallen, and stories got abroad of his having gone on pilgrimage to win forgiveness for his sin against his father on the inglorious field of Sauchie, but they vainly waited for his reappearance, and there is no reason to doubt that the "King's Stone" pretty accurately marks the spot where he fighting fell. When Sir Walter exclaims--

"Oh for one hour of Wallace wight,
Or well-skilled Bruce to rule the fight,
And cry 'St. Andrew and our right!'
Another sight had seen that morn,
From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn,
And Flodden had been Bannockbourne"--

we hear the patriot as well as the poet. Yet it is the truth that the Scots at Flodden fought no less valiantly than their ancestors had done at Bannockburn. But their king, though a gallant soldier, as in many respects he was a wise statesman, and, like most of his house, an accomplished man, was as bad a general as ever led brave men to destruction; while Surrey could not only head a charge, but play a cunning and wary game. It was not the first time the men had met. Ten years before, the English noble had handed to the Scottish king his bride, Margaret Tudor--then, a girl of fourteen, her mind teeming with dreams of imminent happiness; now, a sad and lonely woman, awaiting tidings of the strife betwixt her husband and her brother which all her tears and caresses had been impotent to avert.

At Coldstream, a couple of miles or so farther up the Tweed, pleasantly girdled with trees, we are still in the thick of military memories. Not far from where Smeaton's bridge gives a choice view both up and down stream is the first ford of any importance above Berwick. Here Edward I. crossed in 1296; here also Leslie and his Covenanters crossed in 1640 on their way south. At Coldstream, too, rather more than twenty years afterwards, the general who could make a king and hold his tongue disbanded his regiment as soldiers of the Commonwealth and re-embodied it as the Coldstream Guards before setting forth to undo the work in which the Covenanters had borne so large a share. It was by this ford, again, that Marmion, in his haste not to miss the fighting, made his perilous passage across the stream, having spent the night at Lennel's Convent, of which "one frail arch" is all that is left.

A little above the spot "where to the Tweed Leat's eddies creep," on the southern bank, is a fragment of Wark Castle. According to Leland, it was "causid to be made" by Henry II. It twice repulsed attack at the hands of David I.; and when on the second occasion he had reduced it by blockade, he thought it well "to ding it doon." But it was rebuilt by Henry, and gave the Scots much further trouble before its final demolition--probably just after the union of the Crowns, when so many Border strongholds were dismantled. When, about the middle of the fourteenth century, David Bruce laid siege to it, the governor himself, Sir William Montague, mounted on a "wight" steed, penetrated the investing lines one dark and stormy night, and carried word to the king, Edward III., of what was happening at Wark, and so the siege was raised. The castle had been Edward's wedding-gift to the Earl of Salisbury, and the countess was here when he relieved it. She was naturally grateful, and her liege complacent; and the gossips say that in this wise began the romance of which one incident was the establishment of the Order of the Garter. The king was certainly in a perilous situation, for had he not just rescued the lady from one?

As the stream is traced upwards, the banks not seldom break into cliffs, the valley gains in breadth and richness, and away to the north the sky-line is broken by the round top of Dunse Law. Nearly midway between Coldstream and Kelso the Tweed ceases to be the Border river, and enters the shire of Roxburgh, and a little higher up it takes toll of the "troutful Eden," which on its way down from the slopes of Boon Hill has watered the village of Ednam (Edenham), where "the sweet poet of the year" was born. A couple of miles or so away to the south is Hadden Rig, scene of the fight between the English and Scottish Marchwardens in 1542. Sir Robert Bowes, Governor of Norham, had, with three thousand horse, ravaged a large part of Teviotdale, and was marching on Jedburgh, when he encountered George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, and, with several of his colleagues and many of his men, was taken prisoner. Fighting on the English side was the exiled Earl of Angus, who only by a desperate exercise of strength and activity escaped capture and the traitor's doom which would inevitably have followed.

THE TWEED.