 | Scarborough castle, a poem |  |
SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.
Which beetles o'er the surge below,
Of yore in military show
A stately Fortress stood:
Seven centuries have roll'd away,
Since first those towers, with lichens grey,
Reflected bright the western ray
Upon the foaming flood.
In war's accoutrements was drest,
Full many a gallant corse unblest
Has bleach'd it's walls around!
For stormy have it's fortunes been;
And, oft of battle-broils the scene,
It bears upon it's time-worn mien
The deep-indented wound.
When hosts with kindred hosts engage,
And sire and son sad conflict wage,
Has Scarborough singly bled:
Oft too the Scot, with onset rude,
Fierce issuing from his solitude,
His hands in borderer's gore embrued,
The bolt of death has sped.
Remorseless pouring like a flood,
They rush o'er moss, and wold, and wood!
'Tis Scotia's grim array.
By infant's scream and matron's shriek
Unsoften'd, southron spoil they seek:
But O, foul forayers! this your freak
Full dearly shall ye pay.
His standard Albemarle displays!
It's silken foldings flow:
For there, as erst to Constantine,
The cross's silver splendors shine,
And broider'd characters divine
In rich effulgence glow.
Lift high their feeble arms in air,
With pious rite and fervent prayer
Invoking Heaven to bless:
Nor shrink they from the banner'd field,
To plumed casques where mitres yield;
Nor shun the patriot blade to wield,
The flying foe to press.
That sword could charm Plantagenet,
Or guard the princely coronet
On Albemarle's red brow:
From royal wrath could shield his own,
Nor all his laurel-wreath'd renown
Avert the lightning blow.
Obey another chief's command;
And, echoing o'er the orphan'd land,
The stranger's horn is heard:
'Tis Ebor's crosier'd lord I ween,
Whose standard flouts the drooping scene,
Where yon proud rock o'erhangs the green,
In pomp prelatic rear'd.
Who by his monarch's mandate fell,
When back from Acre's citadel
(Besmear'd with paynim gore)
And treacherous Austria's dungeon-cave,
Bounding across the ocean wave,
Great Cœua de Lion wildly brave
Re-trod his native shore.
Which sharpen'd Europe's pious steel,
To win the tomb, when myriads fell,
Of Him who died for all:
And many a noble heart was gored
By Saladin's heroic sword
Beneath the Holy Wall!
Where death display'd his grisliest form,
Their breasts with patriot passion warm,
Bore from the field of strife
Arts, which with flowers of Eden drest
The wildernesses of the west;
And, giving social hours their zest,
The courtesies of life!
Dread Empress of Brigantia's coast;
Nor may they, in oblivion lost,
Escape the Muse's eye:
She notes where, flaunting in the beam
Of noon-day suns, with golden gleam
The northern Dacre's banners stream
Athwart the azure sky.
De Vesci's helm, whose sovereign chose
To give his mailed limbs repose
Within thy pleasant halls;
Ere thundering o'er the Scottish strand,
He twangs the bow and hurls the brand,
And his by battle-right the land
Triumphantly he calls.
Carnarvon's minion, stout in wrong,
Supple and stiff by turns, whose tongue
With insolent disdain
Braved England's barons to the joust;
Whose sinewy arm's resistless thrust
O'erthrew her mightiest in the dust,
On Berkshire's tourney'd plain.
The Gascon's manly soul and voice,
Which made the listener's heart rejoice,
Some frail excuse might lend:
No vulgar sycophant was he,
Bending for wealth the sordid knee,
But train'd to feats of chivalry—
A great, though guilty friend.
And Thomond, of his toils the scene;
When Ireland, shrinking at his mien,
Fled from the mortal shock:
But nought avail his gallant deeds,
In vain the foe's pledged faith he pleads;
By vengeful Pembroke's axe he bleeds
Upon the patriot block!
And well my swelling verse might fill
Percy, De Burgh, and Somerville
With acts of bold emprise:
Nor will I not transmit to fame
Fitzwilliam, ever-honour'd name!
Which Yorkshire still, with loud acclaim,
Re-echoes to the skies.
Glo'ster, by many a crime defiled,
With her his glosing tongue beguiled,
These gilded cushions prest;
Happy, ere Bosworth's fatal fight
Gave Richmond to his anxious sight,
Within the tomb's protecting night
Here had he sunk to rest!
Through years remote each noble race,
To whom this ancient pile to grace
By favouring fate was given:
Yet ere from it's loved towers I turn,
Befits to clasp the tear-stain'd urn
Of beauteous Cholmley, changeless borne
To bloom a saint in heaven.
Nor tingled at the sound my frame,
Nor glow'd afresh thy hallow'd flame,
Pure Friendship, in my mind—
Remembering many a letter'd hour
In Brandsby's sweet sequester'd bower,
Dead were I to each generous power,
Which thrills and melts our kind.
Where Stuart with his country warr'd,
And Falkland here, there Hampden bared
His breast to civil rage:
Alas! that natures form'd for love,
Whom all the loftier passions move,
Such stern antipathies should prove,
Such deadly feuds should wage!
When o'er the crest of despot power
War's crimson cloud was seen to lower,
In gloom disastrous spread;
'Twas thine, with erring ardor warm,
Proud Fort (though shatter'd was thy form)
For faithless Charles to brave the storm,
Which burst on Cholmley's head.
While furious hosts dispute the palm,
With healing drugs, religion's balm,
The anguish'd pillow tends;
Nor, to her bosom-feelings true,
Inquires with party's narrow view,
A foeman's or a friend's.
Chaste model, Hutchinson, did'st prove,
When legions round thee madly strove
In dire fraternal fray;
Though, in a different cause, o'erplied
For liberty, thy soldier died:
Virtue, nor bound to rank nor side,
Holds on her steadfast way.
The bell proclaims the hour, in vain
I clasp it—ghost-like, from my brain
The light illusion flies!
No more around that foreland's brow
Imagination's phantoms glow;
Where, Dacre—Cholmley, where art thou?
All melted in the skies!
Quick-flitting o'er the trophied scene,
Memorial of what once hath been,
No glittering wrecks remain!
Before mine eye, uncharm'd, is spread
Of vulgar roofs the crescent red,
And heaving on it's pebbled bed,
The blue and billowy main.
This Castle was built about the year 1136, by William Le Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Holderness, a nobleman described by an early Chronicler as juvenis strenuissimus, tn armis multum exercitatus. Hinderwell's Hist. of Scarborough.
In 1136 was fought on Cuton-Mcor, near Northallerton, between the Earl of Albemarle and David King of Scotland, the battle of the Standard; so called from a mast borne upon a wheelcarriage, surmounted by a silver cross, under which were suspended three banners dedicated to St. Peter of York, St john of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon. With this Standard in their van, the English counted themselves invincible. Ralph, bishop of the Orkneys, harangued, absolved, and blessed them before the engagement; and infirmity alone prevented Roger, Archbishop of York, from accompanying them to the field. Of the Scottish Infantry above 10,000 were left dead upon the field.
A memorable instance of humanity, recorded by Alredus de Rievauls, took place immediately before this celebrated battle. In the third year of King Stephen, Robert Baron de Brus of Skelton (Skelton-Castle) lord of forty-three lordships in the East and West-Ridings of Yorkshire, and fifty-one in the North-Riding, beside large possessions in Scotland, brought his son and the whole of his forces to join the Northern barons at Northallerton, where the King's standard was erected, and all had rendezvous upon notice and exhortation from the venerable archbishop of York, who had likewise summoned thither the clergy of his diocese with their crosses, banners, &c. to defend the church and kingdom against their barbarous invaders. When this noble Baron beheld the English army drawn up ready for battle, and the priests and monks in their sacred vestments, exhorting and encouraging the soldiers; he being then a very aged person, exceeding wealthy, and of grave deportment and singular elocution, made a speech to them with great dignity and weight; in which he stated, that though he was of right a subject to the King of England, nevertheless from his youth he had been a friend to the King of Scots; and moreover, being an old soldier skilled in military affairs, and not ignorant of the danger impending (considering, likewise, the ancient friendship between himself and that king, and that he stood obliged to him not only by the band of friendship, but by a kind of necessary fidelity) desired leave of his fellow-soldiers to go to him, with purpose either to dissuade him from fighting, or friendly to leave him. Whereupon, coming into the Scottish King's presence, he told him that what he had to advise should be honourable to himself, and profitable to his realm: adding, that the English had been his best friends, and that they had so approved themselves to Duncan and Edgar, his brothers, in their greatest exigencies; instancing in sundry particulars, wherein they had obliged him, when he stood most in need of their aid; and demonstrating the unavoidable consequences of war, which were mutual rapine, spoil, and destruction; and that though the Scottish army was more numerous, yet were the English resolved to conquer or die. These expressions so deeply affected the Caledonian sovereign, that he burst into tears, and would have condescended to a peaceable agreement; had not William his nephew, a person of savage disposition and brutal courage, the chief instigator of this invasion, with great fury charged Brus with treachery, dissuading the king from hearkening to his representations. The event of the engagement was a most decisive victory to the English.
On the accession of Henry II., Albemarle being deprived of his government rebelled; and only through the intercession of the archbishop Roger obtained his sovereign's pardon.
The younger son of Lord Bardolph, appointed in 1191 to the command of Scarborough Castle by Richard I., with whom he was a great favourite. During that prince's absence in the Holy Land, he was guilty of various misdemeanors, which cost him his office. William de Dacre, of the North, was appointed by Henry III., and John and William de Vesci (brothers) successively, by Edward I., to the same splendid station.
This noble Gascon was ‘a goodly personage, of a haughty and undaunted spirit, brave and hardy in arms'; as he showed himself in the tournament he held at Wallingford, where he challenged and foiled the flower of the English nobility. In Munster and Thomond likewise, as Lieutenant of Ireland, he performed every where great service. When he at last, in 1312, surrendered Scarborough Castle (of which he was governor) to the Earl of Pembroke, the articles of capitulation were totally disregarded, and he was beheaded.
Ralph Fitzwilliam, John de Mowbray, Giles de Bello Campo (or Beauchamp), Henry de Percy, Alexander de Burgh, and Roger de Somerville, are all found in the list of Governors of Scarborough Castle.
Richard III., after his coronation in 1483, visited Scarborough with Anne his queen, and resided for some time in the Castle.—Hinderwell.
| Scarborough castle, a poem | |