Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗

class="calibre1">admirer of the joyous science in all its branches, could imitate

either the minstrel or troubadour. It is less likely that he

should have been able to compose or sing an English ballad; yet

so much do we wish to assimilate Him of the Lion Heart to the

band of warriors whom he led, that the anachronism, if there be

one may readily be forgiven.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.

Note D.---Battle of Stamford.

A great topographical blunder occurred here in former editions.

The bloody battle alluded to in the text, fought and won by King

Harold, over his brother the rebellious Tosti, and an auxiliary

force of Danes or Norsemen, was said, in the text, and a

corresponding note, to have taken place at Stamford, in

Leicestershire, and upon the river Welland. This is a mistake,

into which the author has been led by trusting to his memory, and

so confounding two places of the same name. The Stamford,

Strangford, or Staneford, at which the battle really was fought,

is a ford upon the river Derwent, at the distance of about seven

miles from York, and situated in that large and opulent county.

A long wooden bridge over the Derwent, the site of which, with

one remaining buttress, is still shown to the curious traveller,

was furiously contested. One Norwegian long defended it by his

single arm, and was at length pierced with a spear thrust through

the planks of the bridge from a boat beneath.

The neighbourhood of Stamford, on the Derwent, contains some

memorials of the battle. Horseshoes, swords, and the heads of

halberds, or bills, are often found there ; one place is called

the “Danes’ well,” another the “Battle flats.” From a tradition

that the weapon with which the Norwegian champion was slain,

resembled a pear, or, as others say, that the trough or boat in

which the soldier floated under the bridge to strike the blow,

had such a shape, the country people usually begin a great

market, which is held at Stamford, with an entertainment called

the Pear-pie feast, which after all may be a corruption of the

Spear-pie feast. For more particulars, Drake’s History of York

may be referred to. The author’s mistake was pointed out to him,

in the most obliging manner, by Robert Belt, Esq. of Bossal

House. The battle was fought in 1066.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.

Note E.---The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal.

This horrid species of torture may remind the reader of that to

which the Spaniards subjected Guatimozin, in order to extort a

discovery of his concealed wealth. But, in fact, an instance of

similar barbarity is to be found nearer home, and occurs in the

annals of Queen Mary’s time, containing so many other examples of

atrocity. Every reader must recollect, that after the fall of

the Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian Church Government had

been established by law, the rank, and especially the wealth, of

the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so forth, were no longer vested

in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of the church

revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them, titulars of

the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim to the

spiritual character of their predecessors in office.

Of these laymen, who were thus invested with ecclesiastical

revenues, some were men of high birth and rank, like the famous

Lord James Stewart, the Prior of St Andrews, who did not fail to

keep for their own use the rents, lands, and revenues of the

church. But if, on the other hand, the titulars were men of

inferior importance, who had been inducted into the office by the

interest of some powerful person, it was generally understood

that the new Abbot should grant for his patron’s benefit such

leases and conveyances of the church lands and tithes as might

afford their protector the lion’s share of the booty. This was

the origin of those who were wittily termed Tulchan*

A “Tulchan” is a calf’s skin stuffed, and placed before a cow who has lost its calf, to induce the animal to part with her milk. The resemblance between such a Tulchan and a Bishop named to transmit the temporalities of a benefice to some powerful patron, is easily understood.

Bishops, being a sort of imaginary prelate, whose image was set

up to enable his patron and principal to plunder the benefice

under his name.

There were other cases, however, in which men who had got grants

of these secularised benefices, were desirous of retaining them

for their own use, without having the influence sufficient to

establish their purpose; and these became frequently unable to

protect themselves, however unwilling to submit to the exactions

of the feudal tyrant of the district.

Bannatyne, secretary to John Knox, recounts a singular course of

oppression practised on one of those titulars abbots, by the Earl

of Cassilis in Ayrshire, whose extent of feudal influence was so

wide that he was usually termed the King of Carrick. We give the

fact as it occurs in Bannatyne’s Journal, only premising that the

Journalist held his master’s opinions, both with respect to the

Earl of Cassilis as an opposer of the king’s party, and as being

a detester of the practice of granting church revenues to

titulars, instead of their being devoted to pious uses, such as

the support of the clergy, expense of schools, and the relief of

the national poor. He mingles in the narrative, therefore, a

well deserved feeling of execration against the tyrant who

employed the torture, which a tone of ridicule towards the

patient, as if, after all, it had not been ill bestowed on such

an equivocal and amphibious character as a titular abbot. He

entitles his narrative,

THE EARL OF CASSILIS’ TYRANNY AGAINST A QUICK (i.e. LIVING) MAN.

“Master Allan Stewart, friend to Captain James Stewart of

Cardonall, by means of the Queen’s corrupted court, obtained the

Abbey of Crossraguel. The said Earl thinking himself greater

than any king in those quarters, determined to have that whole

benefice (as he hath divers others) to pay at his pleasure; and

because he could not find sic security as his insatiable appetite

required, this shift was devised. The said Mr Allan being in

company with the Laird of Bargany, (also a Kennedy,) was, by the

Earl and his friends, enticed to leave the safeguard which he had

with the Laird, and come to make good cheer with the said Earl.

The simplicity of the imprudent man was suddenly abused; and so

he passed his time with them certain days, which he did in

Maybole with Thomas Kennedie, uncle to the said Earl; after which

the said Mr Allan passed, with quiet company, to visit the place

and bounds of Crossraguel, [his abbacy,] of which the said Earl

being surely advertised, determined to put in practice the

tyranny which long before he had conceived. And so, as king of

the country, apprehended the said Mr Allan, and carried him to

the house of Denure, where for a season he was honourably

treated, (if a prisoner can think any entertainment pleasing;)

but after that certain days were spent, and that the Earl could

not obtain the feus of Crossraguel according to his own

appetite, he determined to prove if a collation could work that

which neither dinner nor supper could do for a long time. And so

the said Mr Allan was carried to a secret chamber: with him

passed the honourable Earl, his worshipful brother, and such as

were appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chamber

there was a grit iron chimlay, under it a fire; other grit

provision was not seen. The first course was,---‘My Lord Abbot,’

(said the Earl,) ‘it will please you confess here, that with your

own consent you remain in my company, because ye durst not commit

yourself to the hands of others.’ The Abbot answered, ‘Would

you, my lord, that I should make a manifest lie for your

pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will that I am

here; neither yet have I any pleasure in your company.’ ‘But ye

shall remain with me, nevertheless, at this time,’ said the Earl.

‘l am not able to resist your will and pleasure,’ said the Abbot,

‘in this place.’ ‘Ye must then obey me,’ said the Earl,---and

with that were presented unto him certain letters to subscribe,

amongst which there was a five years’ tack, and a nineteen years’

tack, and a charter of feu of all the lands (of Crossraguel, with

all the clauses necessary for the Earl to haste him to hell. For

if adultery, sacrilege, oppression, barbarous cruelty, and theft

heaped upon theft, deserve hell, the great King of Carrick can no

more escape hell for ever, than the imprudent Abbot escaped the

fire for a season as follows.

“After that the Earl spied repugnance, and saw that he could not

come to his purpose by fair means, he commanded his cooks to

prepare the banquet: and so first they flayed the sheep, that is,

they took off the Abbot’s cloathes even to his skin, and next

they bound him to the chimney---his legs to the one end, and his

arms to the other; and so they began to beet [i.e. feed] the fire

sometimes to his buttocks, sometimes to his legs, sometimes to

his shoulders and arms; and that the roast might not burn, but

that it might rest in soppe, they spared not flambing with oil,

(basting as a cook bastes roasted meat); Lord, look thou to sic

cruelty! And that the crying of the miserable man should not be

heard, they dosed his mouth that the voice might be stopped. It

may be suspected that some partisan of the King’s [Darnley’s]

murder was there. In that torment they held the poor man, till

that often he cried for God’s sake to dispatch him; for he had as

meikle gold in his awin purse as would buy powder enough to

shorten his pain. The famous King of Carrick and his cooks

perceiving the roast to be aneuch, commanded it to be tane fra

the fire, and the Earl himself began the grace in this manner:

---‘Benedicite, Jesus Maria, you are the most obstinate man that

ever I saw; gif I had known that ye had been so stubborn, I would

not for a thousand crowns have handled you so; I never did so to

man before you.’ And yet he returned to the same practice within

two days, and ceased not till that he obtained his formost

purpose, that is, that he had got all his pieces subscryvit

alsweill as ane half-roasted hand could do it. The Earl thinking

himself sure enough so long as he had the half-roasted Abbot in

his own keeping, and yet being ashamed of his presence by reason

of his former cruelty, left the place of Denure in the hands of

certain of his servants, and the half-roasted Abbot to be kept

there as prisoner. The Laird of Bargany, out of whose company

the said Abbot had been enticed, understanding, (not the

extremity,) but the retaining of the man, sent to the court, and

raised letters of deliverance of the person of the man according

to the order, which being disobeyed, the said Earl for his

contempt was denounced rebel, and put to the horne. But yet hope

was there none, neither to the afflicted to be delivered, neither

yet to the purchaser [i.e. procurer] of the letters to obtain any

comfort thereby; for in that time God was despised, and the

lawful authority was contemned in Scotland, in hope of the sudden

return and regiment of that cruel murderer of her awin husband,

of whose lords the said Earl was called one; and yet, oftener

than once, he was solemnly sworn to the King and to his Regent.”

The Journalist then recites the