York and York Castle: an appendix to the 'Records of York Castle.'

Front matter

YORK AND YORK CASTLE AN APPEND IK TO THE "RECORDS OF YORK CASTLE." BY CAPT. A. W. TWYFORD, F.R.G.S., Gov. H.M. Prison, York Castle. ' ' Yorke's not so great as old Yorke was of yore, Yet Yorke it is, though wasted to the core ; It is not Yorke which pbrake built of old, Nor yet that Yorke which was of Roman mould ; Yorke was the third time burnt, and what you see Are Yorke's small ashes of antiquity." Baine's " York," 1623. GRIFFITH AND FARRAN, {Successors to Newbery and Harris,) WEST CORNER ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, LONDON. DEDICATION TO THE RT. HON. LORD HOUGHTON, D.C.L., F.R.G.S., &c, &c. SJ^STJ RAGO ascribes his success to words written by ffl££%fc D'Alembert, which he read on the paper cover of "fwff 7*wl his first book, at a time when he was greatly discouraged by its then non-success. They were, " Go on, sir ; go on !

The difficulties you meet will dissolve them selves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increased clearness on your path." " That maxim," says Arago, " was my greatest master in mathe matics," and following out those simple words did indeed make him the first astronomical mathematician of his age. In my humble way I hope to be encouraged to " go on," and gain support in bringing back to light some ancient landmarks in a modern form. A. W. TWYFORD, F.R.G.S. [Late 2 isl Hussars), Governor, York Castle. 20th June, 1883. LOCAL CELEBRITIES. Lucius Severus visited York about A.D. 207, and died there 211. Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor, a.d. 272. Waltheof, son of Siward, Earl of Northumberland, a.d. 1055. Robert Flour, a.d. 1190, afterwards canonized as Saint Robert of Knaresborough.

Guy Fawkes, 1570 — 1606, was a native of York. His parents were Protestants. Sir Thomas Herbert, 1606 — 1681. He took an active part in the civil war. Buried in St. Crux, Pavement. Thomas Calvert, 1670, an eminent Puritan, one of the four ministers appointed to preach in the Minster during the Commonwealth. He is buried in All Saints', Pavement. Francis Drake, 1730. Thomas Gent, 1730 — 1778. John Flaxman, born 1755, died 1826, Lindley Murray resided at Holgate. Died 1S26. Dr. Stephen Beckwith died 1842. The great William Etty, R.A., Rev. C Wellbeloved, William Venables, Vernon Harcourt, Robert Davies, and Rev. J. Kenrick, are all well known by the fruits of their acts to the people now living. According to the Hebrew List the creation of the world was B.C. 4004. B.C. 5872. According to the Greek or Septuagint version ; and ,, 6012.

Chapter I

fl (TlSlii '''^ ,n mi-'m'-'r'a's of remote antiquity is York, the |«*tj capital of an English county that in wealth and Ij 5ajfl extent outvies many a European principality. It stands where the Ouse receives its little tributary the Fosse,1 in the midst of a broad and fertile valley, and there is little doubt but that the site has been occupied by a settle ment of some kind for more than twenty centuries. The monkish story of King Ebraucus, who is said to have reigned here for sixty years — about the time that King David was ruling in Israel — and to have had twenty wives and a family of twenty sons and thirty daughters, may be accepted. A town of the Brigantes, however, stood here when the Roman legions were marching northward in 50 B.C. 1 Fosse decent pedum (the Fosse is a common ditch or drain like old Fleet ditch).

The rivulet, known as the Fosse, was opened out by the Romans and enlarged by the Normans, to give a supporting flank to the military post which covered York from the attacks of the Danes and the tribes who had settled in Northumberland and Cumberland. These Aboriginals sailed up the Humber and the Ouse, and landed at Fulford year after year. and it ultimately became the capital of the Roman province of Britain. Many vestiges of Roman power, as well as of the subsequent rule of Danes and Saxons, does the old city contain. York was once the imperial city, the "altera Roma" of Britain, the stronghold of war for twice the period that has elapsed since the Norman Conquest. Innumerable battle plains surround her Roman camp, and from her walls we may see the three decisive fields where Hardrada fell at Stamford Bridge, and Clifford died in Towton Dale, and Rupert fled from Marston Moor.

Six teen centuries of historical renown dignify the winding streets and narrow pavements by which we reach the feudal walls, the Benedictine Abbey, the Northumbrian Church, the camp of the "victorious legion." Eburacum, as it was then called, became the headquarters of the Fifth Legion, after the victories of Agricola in 79 a.d. Round about its ancient walls the Roman dead lie thickly buried, and in all sorts of nooks and corners the villas and inscriptions, milestones, coins, and ornaments of the con quering race have been brought to light. For three hundred years the Romans ruled in Britain ; two Roman Emperors, Severus and Constantius Chlorus, died at York, and here Constantine was proclaimed. With the breaking up of the Roman Empire, a time of ruin and decay set in for York. In the seventh century it was the capital of Northumbria, whose King Eadwine was baptized here by St. Paulinus, and the latter became first of the long series of Bishops or Archbishops of York.

Towards the end of the eighth century came the Northmen, and York became thronged with Danish merchants, and a prosperous city of 30,000 inhabitants. When Harold seized the English crown, ■3 Tostig and Harold Hardrada of Norway captured York and then encamped at Stamford Bridge. Harold suddenly burst upon them, and there was a fearful battle all day long upon the Derwent banks, till the Northmen were utterly defeated, and Tostig and Hardrada both lay dead on the field. But to Harold at York came news of the Norman invasion, and he hurried south — to meet his death at Hastings. York saw strange scenes when William I. was subduing the North ; it sheltered rival kings when York and Lancaster were warring for the crown, and saw the flight of Queen Margaret and her husband when their hopes were laid low at Towton Field, and their young opponent came on in triumph to be crowned at the Minster ; it was a refuge for the Cavaliers in their futile efforts to save the throne of Charles I., till Rupert's troopers were made as "stubble to the swords of Cromwell's Ironsides " at Marston Moor.

Since the Civil Wars the history of York has been uneventful ; in fact, for two centuries it seemed settling down more and more into a dull county town, proud of its ancient fame, but languishing as regards life and commerce. But the era of railways has revolutionised the city, and though its streets still charm with their antique air, signs of progress and prosperity are everywhere manifest. York is outrivalled only by Chester, and Bath in some respects, amongst English towns, as regards the completeness with which it has preserved its old walls, and in respect to its ancient gateways it stands first. The walls, two and three-quarter miles in extent, are of limestone ; occasional portions are of Norman work, others Early English, but the greater part dates from the reign of Edward III. The battlements have been modernised, and a flagged footway along the top of the walls affords fine views of the city and neighbourhood.

The gateways of York are called Bars,1 the term Gate being applied to the ways leading to them, as in some other towns. The largest Bar is that of Micklegate, the barrier of the big street (as its name implies). Above this structure, which keeps watch and ward over the great southern road, the heads and limbs of traitors and others were often placed in olden times. Edward IV., returning from Towton Field, saw on this Bar the head of his father, the Duke of York, decked with a paper crown ; it was speedily taken down, and the heads of four noble Lancastrians put up instead. At an earlier date the head of Rees ap Meredith (hanged 1 291) had whitened on these battlements. York contains a large number of churches and buildings of great antiquity. The Lendal Tower, seen to the left of the river, now points out the grounds of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society and the precincts of St. Mary's Abbey.

Beyond the trees are seen the venerable towers of York Minster, one of the finest Gothic piles in the world. There has been a church of some sort here for over twelve centuries ; but the structure as we now see it dates from T470. "The cathedral was always," says a modern writer, " the great centre of the northern counties, and it still remains a bond of union between the many sects, parties, and classes scattered over the three Ridings. Whatever touches the Minster, touches the heart of Yorkshire." The windows of York Minster are justly celebrated ; the great west window is perhaps the most 1 The term " Bar" is no doubt shortened from Barrier or Barbican. beautiful specimen of its age in Britain. The quantity of ancient stained glass still retained in the windows is another remarkable feature of this cathedral ; it is pronounced to be " the most perfect and perhaps the most extensive assem blage of painted glass, dating from the early part of the fourteenth century, of which this country can boast."

In the North Transept is the famous window, known as the Five Sisters — pale-coloured diaper work of Early English age, given, as the story goes, by five maiden sisters, who wrought in needlework the pattern afterwards transferred to glass. Many readers will remember that the legend in an amplified form occurs in Dickens's " Nicholas Nickleby." Amongst the monuments are tombs of Archbishop Scroope, whose tragic doom is recorded by Shakespeare — Archbishop Sterne, who stood beside Laud on the scaffold — and many other historic characters. Flaxman the sculptor and Guy Fawkes were natives of York, and Lindley Murray, born at Boston, America, and Hudson, the railway king, born at Scrayingham, resided at York. We have grown so accustomed to look upon Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield as standing next to London in population and political importance, that we hardly realise the time when the name of York aroused in •every mind the picture of a great and opulent city, the metropolis of all England beyond the Trent.

Indeed, in the most primitive agricultural days its very site naturally marked it out as the chief town of Britain : for the triassic basin of the Ouse and its tributaries forms the large and rich agricultural plain in the island, and before the Roman invasion the Brigantes who tilled it ranked as foremost among the native Celtic tribes. In the very centre of this fertile champaign country, on a spot where the marshy stream of the Foss flows at an acute angle into the Ouse, the Brigantes had their dun or fort — the artificial mould now covered by the massive keep of Clifford's Tower and the modern build ings of the Castle. It was just such a triangular tongue of land as the Celtic engineers always preferred — naturally defended on two sides by the rivers, and closed on the third by a transverse stretch of swampy ground.

The city stands, too, close to the head of navigation on the Ouse ; and, relatively unimportant as this fact now appears, since Hull has usurped all the sea-going trade of the Humber, it is really the key to much of the early history of York. When the Romans first conquered South-eastern Britain their main towns were Colchester, Verulam, and London, in the basin of the Thames and its tributaries. The only other agricultural valley in England at all comparable is that whose rivers drain into the Humber. Indeed, it was almost a foregone necessity that while Britain remained an agricultural country, having relations with the European continent alone, its civilisation should cluster round the two great eastward estuarine rivers, the Humber and the Thames. It was not till trade began to spread across the open Atlantic that the two main westward outlets of the Mersey and the Severn began to rise into anything like equal importance.

Thus, the earliest Roman cities were naturally placed in the Thames region : but after Agricola finally overran the rich plain of York the conquerors wisely chose the British fortress of Eburacum (at least from the days of Severus) as the seat of their provincial capital. Not only was it the centre of supplies, the middle point of the chief corn-exporting district, and the royal village of the leading native tribe, but it was also a main strategical key of the northern marches now that the principal seat of the military operations lay along the Pictish border. Eburacum, in fact, became at once the Calcutta and the Allahabad, the Lahore and the Peshawur, of the Roman province.1 For three centuries Eburacum, not Londinium, was the real centre of all Britain, and the residence of the Emperor on his provincial tours.

Severus died here ; so did Con stantius Chlorus ; and here, too, Constantine took the purple. Vessels from Gaul brought dainty Samian ware and choice Italian wines to the port of the Ouse for the wealthy residents, relics of whose luxury are still picked up among the rubbishheaps of the city. Roman pave ments, tombs, coins, and pottery are dug up in making repairs or laying down railways to the present day. The legionaries also surrounded the town with massive walls, fragments of which may still be detected in an ashlar bastion at St. Leonards : doubtless their main object was the defence of the post from the English pirates, who had even then begun their attacks upon the eastern coast. Eburacum already covered the whole area of modern York ; while suburban villas lined the great roads on either side towards Calcaria, Deva, or Isurium.

The colony had its bishops, too, after the days of Constantine ; and the name of one appears in the record of the Council of Aries. But when the Romans withdrew their troops from Britain it seems probable that Eburacum must have been exposed to attack 1 The county would be as prosperous now, as then, if those in power would only meet the altered climate by draining the land. The islands formed at the mouth of the Humber have ruined York as a seaport. 5 at once from the Picts on the north, and the English pirates from Sleswick, who would approach it by the Humber and the Ouse on the south. The first English colony in York shire seems to have been settled in Holderness. It was at this time, apparently, that the deserted citizens surrounded their town with the earthen mound afterwards capped by the existing mediæval walls, and enclosing a wider space than the fortifications of Trajan's day.

But in the end the English pirates, advancing up the river, conquered in some nameless victory ; and Eburacum is lost to sight for a while in the general mist of the renewed heathen period. That the new settlers did not utterly destroy the Romanised town and people, however, is clear both from the evidence of Alcuin, Charlemagne's Northumbrian English secretary, who speaks long after with respect of its lofty Roman walls and towers, and still later from William of Malmesbury's allusion to its " Roman refinement." The date of the Con quest may be roughly fixed as the end of the fifth century. Gradually the separate English clans who overran the Vale of York coalesced into a single tribe of Deirans (the word is Celtic in origin) and grew obedient to the chief who ruled in Eburacum— the name of which, by a strange piece of popular etymology, they had Anglicised as Eofor-wic, the boar's town.

Thence, through the successive forms of Evre wic, Eurewic, Yorick, and York, comes the modern title. Eofor-wic was the capital of Edwin, king of the Deirans and Bernicians, and the first Northumbrian prince to accept Christianity. He was converted by the Roman missionary, Paulinus, who had been sent from Kent with a Kentish princess ; and the story of his life as related by Bede has been familiarised to us by all English histories. From that time on, with a slight break of renewed heathendom, York became the site first of the bishopric and then of the arch bishopric for all northern England. Under Edwin and his successors Northumbria still re mained, as in Roman times, the chief province of Britain, and York probably ranked as the principal town of the whole island. Retaining its Roman towers and fortifications, standing in the midst of a great agricultural district, and placed on a large navigable river, it might perhaps have run London close for the final position of capital of England, had it not been for the untoward accident of the Danish invasions.

The events of that lawless period threw back the north for a while into primitive barbarism, and perhaps established the political and social supremacy of the south for nearly ten centuries. Up to the date of the renewed northern incursions York had been slowly emerging from the early Northumbrian rudeness. Paulinus had built the first new Minster, doubtless on the site of an older Roman basilica; and part of its ground-plan was discovered under the exist ing cathedral during the repairs rendered necessary by the incendiary Martin in the present century.1 Edwin had so far kept up the imperial traditions of the place as to appear in public with the Roman tufa ; and indeed the con tinuity with Roman civilisation and Roman Christianity was doubtless nowhere more complete than in the city of Con stantine and Eborius.

Wilfred introduced glass for the Minster windows, and covered its roof with lead ; both acts implying a continued or renewed connection with the con tinent, doubtless by the mouth of the Ouse. For several generations the town formed the capital of the leading 1 See " Records of York Castle." English kings ; and even after Mercia had risen to the hege mony in Britain under Offa, it must still have ranked as the largest and most civilised city in the island. But when the heathen pirates from Denmark swooped down upon defence less Christian England, as the heathen English themselves had swooped down earlier upon defenceless Christian Britain, York again lay right in the way of their sea-snakes, swarming up the open Humber mouth to sack the wealthy shrines of Yorkshire. After a few preliminary harryings off Wearmouth and other monasteries, an organised Danish host fell at last, during the disastrous reign of the first Athelred in Wessex, upon York itself.

Two sea-kings, by name Ingwar and Ubba, led the host up the Humber stream ; and they found a pair of rival Northumbrian princes at that moment engaged in fighting for the throne of York. The burghers, making terms with the heathen, admitted them within the Roman walls. The rival kings fell upon the town, and were defeated by the Danes with great slaughter. Ingwar and Ubba at once proceeded to divide the lands of Yorkshire among their followers, and York city fell for at least sixty years into the hands of the Danes. A second period of darkness supervenes, during which we are left to decipher the local history from the scanty allusions of Norse sagas and the rude coins of the Danish kings. A regular Scandinavian dynasty ruled in the city during all that time, though the archbishops continued their succession undis turbed side by side with the heathen kings, and apparently exercised some sort of independent jurisdiction over the Christian English burghers.

When Edward the Elder reached York in his great campaigns for the recovery of the north, Ragnald, the local Danish king, acknowledged his supremacy and did homage to him (if we may thus early employ the language of feudalism) ; but Danish " under - kings " still reigned at York as vassals of the West Saxon " overlord," till the death of Sihtric. A little later, Athel stan annexed Northumbria to his own immediate dominions. Even so, the Danish element remained very powerful throughout the north ; the " Viking " ships made the Humber their chief port of entry ; and under Edmund the rebellious men of York once more chose Anlaf of Ireland, one of the Dublin Northmen, for their king. Indeed, the renewed barbarism of Yorkshire throughout all this period is very conspicuous : the Danish colonisation had been powerful in effect, if not in numbers, and York remained thoroughly Danish in spirit up to the date of the Norman Conquest — a trusty Scandinavian outpost in the very heart of Britain.

The Northmen had completely undone the work of the Romans. After the English reaction under Dunstan broke down, the Danes once more began their ceaseless incursions. In the reign of Athelred the Redeless they stormed Bamborough, and sailed again up Humber mouth. There, in the midst of the old Danish kingdom, they found Earl Uhtred and the men of York ready to fraternise with them. The north, indeed, preferred the kindred Scandinavian to the West Saxon stranger. Swegen Forkbeard and Cnut his son, starting from this secure and friendly basis, soon completed the conquest of all England. Even after the Scandinavians were fairly expelled, a generation later, York kept up its old position as the natural head quarters of their race. The town was thronged with Danish merchants ; and Earl Siward himself was a Dane at heart as by birth.

When Harold Hardrada of Norway came to attack Harold son of Godwin, just before William's invasion, he landed in the old Scandinavian stronghold of Northumbria and was defeated at Stamford Bridge, not far from York. After the Norman Conquest itself, indeed, before the nation had yet learned that its relations must henceforth lie with Normandy and the romance civilisation of the south, not with Denmark and the Scandinavian barbarism of the north, Swegen the Dane brought his fleet into the Humber mouth, and roused all England as one man in the last great un successful struggle against the Norman rule. With the Norman Conquest, however, the fate of York as an independent capital was sealed, and it sank of necessity into the second place, as local metropolis of the north ; while Winchester, London, and Westminster became the acknowledged royal cities of the new dynasty.

Its later history deserves and requires separate treatment ; but the victory of Hastings naturally closes the first great chapter in the annals of York. With this general view of York — of which all could wish to know more — I submit what, I trust, may be a useful addition to my " Records of York Castle, as a Fortress, Court-House, and Prison," which first work was kindly received ; the only objection the public and the press made was its having been " too short," as they kindly expressed it. Previous to reviewing the old time, I would seek attention to its outcome — that is, the customs of all races who, not dying out, become a great tax on the workers, unless they are taught a trade in conjunction with a School Board education. It does not seem that girls are taught to be good cooks, or boys to dig or use an axe with common sense.

In bringing the records of a castle from the time of the Romans to the year 1883, the question cannot be laid aside as to what is a tramp, and the cause which makes him one — a sorrow to himself, a great tax to us all. I feel that it is hardly my place to touch on the influence of religion in giving strength to struggling misery — to hold on and act bravely, if possible. It is for others to reach the masses of our people — as weak as ourselves. All I submit is that they are not reached. Ignorance is at the bottom of the vast army called the Tramp, and it is a most deplorable matter to see it. There would be little need for county courts, lawyers, and taxation could we arrive at a conclusion. Help in money and help in other matters should go hand in hand with the Bible. But the tramp existed as a wanderer in 1068.

So many of them say that they do not understand the Bible when they read it. "It is," says one, "so deep and so big." As light penetrates to a depth of 460 feet of the deep sea, and at a depth of 940 feet light is still of sufficient intensity to permit marine plants, fish, and insects to be recovered and made use of, why does not the light of education and reason shine over the nations and prevent the misery we know of ? The people are studying the question in a strong manner. Many have put questions to me which have " completely placed me out of court." As no castle of the old time would be complete without an illustration of the outcome of temptation, so in this intro ductory chapter I venture to allude to the remarkable case of Eugene Aram. The words following were written by Hood, and they must be taken for their worth.

Aram's defence is his own. Aram was a great scholar for the time in which he lived — he yet seems to have wanted, if he was guilty, the firmness of character which marks a man in distinction to the 2,000,000 wild bipeds we have prowling about this country — the tramp. All cases* repeat themselves. His case was repeated in France some years ago. A clever and rich man could not resist killing his best friend only to obtain a book he might have bought for £$. Many people deny that Aram did commit murder, and that therefore the judges murdered him. Be it as it may, the God of us all can alone now judge. But the doubt existing, I have taken his case as one for consideration. But Aram was so afraid of death, which most people are glad to welcome, that he managed, by aid of a steel pen, to open a vein in his arm on the last night, and all but bled to death on his bed.

He had to be carried to his death. Now the unhappy ones are stunned by the sentence, and attempt nothing of the sort, though the terrible torture of waiting twenty-one days for a shocking death must be an awful and cruel penalty. In the olden times of savagery, under the charming Queens Mary and Elizabeth, nothing could exceed the brutality of an execution. In our time a man hanged is nine seconds in dying. Who shall say what agony the man's brain goes through in that period — why the whole of life — the past, the future, thoughts of wife, children, and who can tell ? (See " Records of York Castle," as to people brought back to life after having been hanged.) At the same time it must be admitted that the lower classes are callous. Some years ago a case oc curred where a man rightly convicted of a cruel murder was visited by his brother ; all the latter said was, " Keep up, Jim, and tell no tales."

So soon as grave judges left off hanging people for horse and sheep stealing the practice died off. It is positively THE DEFENCE OF EUGENE ARAM. 25 absurd to declare that the vengeance of the death sentence deters people from committing murder in a civilised land. Penal servitude for life is a more fearful punishment than death. If Aram was guilty, he had an equal case which occurred at Dresden, where a learned professor was caught in the act and proved guilty of the charge brought against him. THE DEFENCE OF EUGENE ARAM. It was apparently delivered, like the more recent one of Thurtell, as if extempore but was, no doubt, got as much by head, and certainly more by heart, than the set oration of the gravel-hearted Bamanine of Gill's Hill. "My Lord, " I know not whether it is of right, or through some indulgence of your lordship, that I am allowed the liberty at this bar, and at this time, to attempt a defence, incapable and uninstructed as I am to speak ; since, while I see so many eyes upon me, so numerous and awful a con course, fixed with attention, and filled with I know not what expectancy, I labour not with guilt, my lord, but with perplexity ; for, having never seen a Court but this, being wholly unacquainted with law, the customs of the bar, and all judiciary proceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking with propriety in this place, that it exceeds my hope if I shall be able to speak at all.

" I have heard, my lord, the indictment read, wherein I find myself charged with the highest crime, with an enormity I am altogether incapable of; a fact, to the commission of which there goes far more insensibility of heart, more profligacy of morals, than ever fell to my lot ; and nothing possibly could have admitted a presumption of this nature but a depravity not inferior to that imputed to me. However, as I stand indicted at your lordship's bar, and have heard what is called evidence adduced in support of such a charge, I very humbly solicit your lordship's patience, and beg the hearing of this respectable audience, while I, single and unskilful, destitute of friends, and unassisted by counsel, say something, perhaps like argument, in my defence. I shall consume but little of your lordship's time : what I have to say will be short ; and this brevity, probably, will be the best part of it : however, it is offered with all possible regard and the greatest submission to your lordship's consideration, and that of this honourable Court.