The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire

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That an English county which is nearly as large as the ancient kingdom of Wales should become divided into separate portions for the purposes of local government is only what one would expect. But it is not obvious why the number of these portions should be three, and there is even an air of mystery about the name given to them. ‘North Riding,’ ‘West Riding,’ ‘East Riding’—what is this word ‘Riding’?

For the answer to this question we must go back many centuries, to the time of the hardy Norsemen who, as we shall see, settled in such large numbers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It was common among the Norsemen of old to divide lands into three portions for the purposes of government, and their name for each portion was thrithjungr.^[1]

This mysterious word means in our tongue ‘a third part,’ and from it arose the English word Thriding as companion to feorthing, another word which we use to-day in a very slightly altered form. But the difficulty of pronouncing distinctly and easily the combination ‘North Thriding’ is 2evident, and the troublesome word suffered the same fate as commonly then befell the troublesome man—it got, quite naturally, beheaded.

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A glance at the small map on this page will show how the county of Yorkshire is divided. By no means are the three Ridings equal in area, the East Riding being far the smallest. In order of size they stand as follows:—

West Riding	2,766	square miles.
North Riding	2,128	"   "
East Riding	1,172	"   "
	—-—-—-—-—-—-—
	6,066	square miles.

3The map shows another point of contrast between the three Ridings. Whereas the West and North Ridings have numerous ranges of hills and correspondingly numerous water-channels, the East Riding is, with the exception of its northern extremity, an eastward extension of the ‘Vale of York’ and very nearly as flat as the proverbial pancake. Its only rivers are the Hull and the Derwent, and the latter for more than half its course forms the boundary of the Riding.

An uninteresting part of the county it looks to be, does it not? But, nevertheless, it has an interesting history behind it, and men and women have been born and bred in it—men and women who have helped to make our country what it is to-day. Who they have been, how they have lived, and what they have done in the ages before we ourselves were born, it is the purpose of the following pages to show.

Stand on the very highest point of the white limestone cliffs that stretch northwards from Flamborough Head, and realise that you are standing on what was once the bed of the sea.

Strange though this be, it is nevertheless true. Countless ages ago what now towers up 450 feet above sea-level had over it the ceaseless rolling of the waters of the ocean, and during countless ages it was slowly formed out of the shells and teeth and bones of the creatures that lived in these waters.

Men who know tell us that the layer of chalk at the bottom of the ocean to-day is composed principally 4of the remains of creatures so minute as to be visible only by the aid of a microscope, and that this layer grows in thickness at the rate of not more than one-tenth of an inch per year. They tell us also that the layer of chalk which extends under our county is not less than 1200 feet in thickness, and thus a simple calculation will help us to form some idea of the extent of time necessary for its formation. But however long this time actually was, it came to an end with a tremendous upheaval of a portion of the ocean bed, and the formation of a new area of ‘dry land.’

All the coast line of the East Riding, however, does not consist of chalk cliffs. North of Bempton and Speeton lie cliffs of sandstone and clay, which have yielded the fossil remains of living beings that once inhabited the water and the shore. Such are the belemnites and ammonites—the ‘thunderbolts’ and ‘St. Hilda’s snakes’ we may have heard them called—and the Ichthyosaurus, whose skeleton was recently discovered embedded in the clay cliffs at Speeton and may now be seen in the Hull Museum. Not a very handsome gentleman in the flesh he must have been, unless appearances are deceptive.

Again, walk southwards from Flamborough Head, and the chalk cliffs are found to get less and less in height until 5they disappear altogether, and their place is taken by cliffs of clay. Then these disappear, and are succeeded by the long, flat bank of sand and shingle which is known as Spurn Point; and if we round this point and follow the river bank, we find it nothing but mud and clay until we get past the mouth of the river Hull. At Hessle the chalk cliffs break out once more, and we know, from investigations, that the bed of chalk comes to the surface completely westwards of a line drawn from Flamborough to this point.

Draw on a map of the East Riding a line from Sewerby, through Driffield and Beverley, to Hessle, and you are drawing the line of the old sea-beach when the upheaval previously mentioned had taken place. This was the shore of a land inhabited by races of animals now found living only in tropical regions. The elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and hyena ranged the land for food, and bones of these creatures have been found in considerable numbers in the caves that exist at Kirkdale in the North Riding.

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Then came a great change. The climate of Northern Europe became colder and colder till there prevailed what scientists call the ‘Great Ice Age.’ This was the time of formation of huge glaciers which spread from the mountains of Scandinavia, Scotland, and north-west England southwards and eastwards into the sea, until they met and made its whole area a slowly moving mass of ice. With the ice were carried sand, gravel, clay, boulders torn from projecting rocks, and bones of Arctic animals, such as the walrus, the reindeer, and the Irish elk; and as the ice gradually melted, all these were deposited at the base of the line of chalk cliffs, or even on the summit of the cliffs where these were low. From the gravel pits at Burstwick excavations of ballast for the embankments of the North Eastern Railway brought to light animal bones in such 6quantities that many tons were sold to chemical manure manufacturers, and it is probable that many tons still remain undiscovered.

A walrus tusk from Kelsey Hill and the tooth of a mammoth from the cliffs at Atwick.^[2]

In this way was formed the ‘great mass of gravel, clay, and sand ... east of the Yorkshire Wolds’ which we know as the Plain of Holderness. Here is what one of our foremost local geologists has to say of its beginnings:—

‘Let us imagine the probable appearance of East Yorkshire on the final melting of the ice. Huge fans or sheets of gravel occur at Bridlington and other places as a result 7of the floods. Rounded hillocks of gravel and clay stand out in all directions; the hollows in between are filled with water, forming miniature lakes or meres. Of animal or plant life there is little or none. The climate gradually becomes milder; at first Arctic plants and animals exist in small numbers. Later, the margins of the meres become clothed in vegetation; peat is eventually formed, and huge trees of Oak and Fir thrive. The Red Deer, Beaver, Short-horned Ox, Otter, and Wild Horse, haunt the woods, and finally primitive man makes his appearance.’

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With the coming of Julius Caesar to Britain in the middle of the first century before the birth of Christ, we reach the time in the history of our country when definite facts about its people begin to be recorded.

Thus we know from Caesar’s own writings that the Britons lived in houses like those of the Gauls, that they had great numbers of cattle, that they used copper coins, that many of the inland tribes did not grow corn but lived on milk and flesh and went clothed in skins, that in war time they dyed their bodies with a blue stain to give them a more terrible aspect, and that they wore long hair on their heads and their upper lips.

So also, with regard to their religion, Caesar tells us that their priests were called Druids; that if any crime had been committed, or if there were any dispute about an inheritance or a boundary, it was the Druids who gave judgment; 21that they had vast stores of learning, all of which was committed to memory and none committed to writing; and that their chief doctrine was that the soul of man did not perish, but passed after death into another body, so that no man should fear death.

From these accounts we see that there had been great progress made since the times described in the last chapter. This was due to the migration westwards of a new race of people—the Kelts—who had gained a knowledge of the use of metal, and who, consequently, had weapons and implements made of bronze instead of stone. Their greater knowledge gave them greater power, and the extinction of the men of the Stone Age was only a question of time. For not often was the bronze-weaponed warrior slain by a weapon of stone.

But the account written by Julius Caesar refers to the inhabitants of the southern parts of our island. ‘Many of the inland tribes do not grow corn, but live on milk and flesh and go clothed in skins.’ This passage may be taken as true of the tribes living north of the Humber, known—so later Roman writers tell us—as the Brigantes, the wildest and most savage of the tribes inhabiting Britain.

Let us see what Mr. Mortimer’s discoveries have to tell us of these Brigantes. The most interesting discovery, perhaps, was that made in a barrow on Calais Wold, the highest point of the Yorkshire Wolds, 807 feet above sea-level. Here, on the mound being removed, a double row of stake-holes was exposed in the surface of the ground. These were from 3 to 15 inches in diameter, and were arranged in circles having diameters of 21½ and 28 feet. Outside these were four other stake-holes, and beyond these again a 22circular trench 100 feet in diameter, 3 feet 9 inches deep, 9 feet across at the top, and 1 foot across at the bottom. Within the double circle of stake-holes was a cavity cut in the chalk and containing a skeleton lying on its side, with its knees bent.

The plan on the opposite page shows the arrangement exactly, and the drawing which accompanies it gives Mr. Mortimer’s clever conjecture of the meaning of the stake-holes. The space enclosed between the inner and outer walls would be used, Mr. Mortimer thought, as a storage place for food, skins, and weapons. It would also serve to keep the inside living-room warm in winter.

‘We will bury our chieftain in his home, which no one after him shall have power to defile.’ So, probably, thought those who buried him. But, if so, time has played them false; for men of a race undreamt of and speaking a tongue of which he would understand hardly one word, have ruthlessly laid bare his burial place, and have carted away his bones to be measured with tape and pencil, and his skull to have its brain cavity estimated with grains of millet seed. What an insult added to injury!

A mighty chieftain he had doubtless been, and it must be his favourite weapon that lies buried with him, so placed that he should be buried as he slept—grasping its handle firmly in his right hand. One wonders how many of his enemies’ skulls that weapon of his had beaten in before its master ceased to use it. Perhaps it had been wielded against the Roman legions brought north of the Humber by Ostorius Scapula in A.D. 50. Who knows? If you would see the head of the weapon you must go to the museum at Driffield; its likeness you will find on page 16.

The Brigantes buried their dead chiefs just as the earlier tribes had done, and the photograph on page 25 shows very clearly the curious way in which the legs were doubled and 24the head bent back. This skeleton was obtained from a barrow in Garton Slack, and here is what its discoverer says of the pains taken to obtain it:—

‘Being desirous of possessing this skeleton in its entirety, we obtained a quantity of stiff, mortar-like material, scraped from the adjoining high road, with which we covered the remains, in order to keep all the bones in position. We then passed three broad pieces of sheet iron under it without displacing any of the bones. The remains were then lifted on a prepared board, and conveyed to Fimber. After being carefully cleaned, the skeleton was mounted in a glass case, and now, with its relics, and part of the ground on which it was found, forms a highly interesting relic in the museum at Driffield.’

The skeleton is that of a woman, and with it, you will notice, are two objects. There is no need to say what has been the use of the bone ornament lying behind the head, but the use of the flint implement placed before the jaw is not so obvious. This is one of a class of implements known to us as scrapers—roughly chipped pieces of flint used by the women of a household in scraping the insides of animal skins when preparing them for human wear, and in scraping the roots that went into the ‘stock-pot’ with the flesh of the animals that provided also garments and beds for the household.

In neither of these two barrows was there any sign of a bronze implement. Weapons and implements of bronze are rare among those found in the barrows of East Yorkshire, and the few discovered are dagger or knife heads and prickers. The Brigantes were far behind the Britons of the south in their knowledge of the use 26of metal; and at the time when the latter were making use of bronze, the wild and savage tribes of the north were content still to make use of greenstone and flint.

Personal ornaments, too, are rare, and were found accompanying only fifty-seven out of eight hundred and ninety-three burials that Mr. Mortimer excavated. They include dress-fastenings, such as rings and links of jet, and buttons of amber, jet and bone. With only one British interment was gold found, and of silver ornaments none were discovered at all.

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Especially interesting to a Yorkshireman are the discoveries of what are called ‘chariot burials.’ The Britons were renowned for their war-chariots, of which the chieftain Caswallon is recorded to have had 4000 when he fought against Julius Caesar. To the Briton himself 27his chariot was known as an essa, a word which his Roman conquerors latinised as essedum. An essedum was drawn by two horses, and driven by a charioteer who was very expert at running out along the pole between the horses. The essedarii, or charioteers, were held in high esteem among the tribal armies, and when they happened to be captured by the Roman soldiers were great favourites among the spectators of the gladiatorial shows.

On the death of a British chieftain who was a renowned chariot warrior, it was the custom for him to be buried in his chariot together with his horses and their trappings; and the East Riding has given more evidence of this custom than any other part of our country of equal area. The ‘Yorkshireman’ even then, it seems, loved a horse.

Remains of British chariot burials have been discovered at Hesselskew and Arras, near Market Weighton; at Beverley Westwood; at Danes’ Graves; and, most recently, at Hunmanby. In all these instances there have been interred two horses standing in their harness, and in the barrow opened at Danes’ Graves in 1897 there were two human skeletons, proving that in this case the charioteer, as well as his chieftain, was buried.

Of course in all these interments the remains of the chariots themselves have been small, little existing but fragments of the bronze naves and iron rims of the wheels, and of the bridle bits of the horses. But these have been sufficient to show that the diameter of the wheels varied from 2 feet 8 inches to 2 feet 11 inches, and that the horses themselves were of a much smaller breed than those of to-day.

With three, at least, of these chariot burials, were also found remains of an iron mirror, a thing not found elsewhere. We are accustomed in these days of motor-cars to make use of mirrors for a knowledge of what is happening 28on the road behind the driver, and these remains point to a similar practice among the charioteers of the Brigantes. Really we are not, perhaps, so far advanced in the twentieth century as we thought we were.

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Further evidence of the Brigantes in the East Riding is to be seen in the wonderful series of entrenchments that are so noticeable in the Wold districts. Dikes, double dikes, and treble dikes once covered the whole of the Wolds, says Mr. Mortimer; in fact, in the area of 75 square miles which he explored there are 80 miles of earthworks existing to-day. These consist sometimes of one ditch and one rampart only, but commonly of three ditches and four ramparts; and in one case, in the neighbourhood of Huggate, the entrenchment consists of a series of six parallel ditches and seven ramparts.

By far the most remarkable of these ancient entrenchments is the so-called ‘Danes’ Dyke,’ which, 2½ miles in length, cut off the rocky promontory of Flamborough Head, 29and converted it into an impregnable fortress 5 square miles in area. In making it, advantage was taken of a natural ravine—a relic of the Ice Age—which ran down to the south; but in its northern portion, where the ground was naturally level, a huge ditch roughly 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep was dug, the soil from this being thrown up to form a dyke or rampart on its eastern face.

At Skipsea Brough, near Hornsea, may be seen other British earthworks, consisting of a central mound 70 feet high, having a flat top one acre in extent, and covering altogether an area of 5 acres, together with a series of entrenchments forming the segment of a circle. The outer rampart is half a mile in length. Other much smaller earthworks exist at the ‘Castle Hill,’ Sutton, and the ‘Giant’s Hill,’ Swine.

In the last chapter we saw that the later Britons had some knowledge of iron, as well as of copper and tin. But with the Romans the use of iron was much more extensive, and hence they may be called Men of the Iron Age.

The first Roman general to enter the territory of the Brigantes was Ostorius Scapula, who came north in A.D. 50. Twenty-eight years later came Julius Agricola, who penetrated as far north as the rivers Forth and Clyde. By Agricola the ancient British camp Caer Eburac—the camp on the Ebura, or, by its modern name, the Ure—was 30made into a Roman walled city under the latinised name Eburacum.

From this time Eburācum,^[5] or Eborācum as later Roman writers spelt its name, became the proud capital of Britain—altera Roma, a second Rome in importance. Here died the great Roman Emperor Severus in A.D. 211, and here was born the still greater Emperor Constantine, under whose reign Christianity was established in the Roman Empire.

For nearly three and a half centuries the Roman armies ruled the land of the Brigantes, during which time great alterations were taking place in the lives of its people. Northwards came troop after troop of German and Italian soldiers to subdue and enslave the people of the land north of the Humber, and to wage incessant war against Rome’s enemies still farther north. And southwards marched troop after troop of the men of the Brigantes, on their way to Gaul and Italy and Spain, there to serve as Roman soldiers. In A.D. 117 came to Eboracum the famous Sixth Legion—Legio Sixta, surnamed Victrix, the ‘All Conquering’—and Eboracum was its headquarters thenceforth till A.D. 406, when it was withdrawn to help in defending Rome against the enemies mustering on her threshold.

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For the constant movement of troops the Roman invaders needed roads, and the military highways which they 31constructed across Britain remain foremost among the evidences of their occupation of the country. The fact that their roads have existed for so many centuries—centuries of hard use but of constant neglect—is due to the great care bestowed upon their construction.

When a Roman road was made, the first thing done was to mark out its course by the digging of two parallel ditches. This course was from 15 to 21 feet wide, and on it as the gremium, or foundation ground, was placed a layer of large stones 5 inches deep. This, known as the statumen, was followed by a fifteen-inch layer of broken stones cemented with lime. The rudus thus formed was succeeded by the nucleus, a similar layer 10½ inches thick and constructed of small fragments of brick and pottery. Last came the pavimentum, made of large irregularly-shaped blocks of very hard stone fitted together and cemented with lime so as to form a perfectly even surface. The pavimentum was 5 inches thick, thus making a solid road raised about 3 feet above the level of the surrounding land.

Such was the usual method of construction of a Roman highway. Where the natural surface of the ground passed over was hard rock, the two lowest layers, or strata, were dispensed with; but where no safe natural foundation existed, the labour was increased by the driving of piles into the soft ground to afford this.

Over hill and down dale were constructed these wonderful 32roads. No obstacle save an impenetrable marsh or an unbridgeable river baulked the Roman engineer; and the outward distinguishing mark between the Roman road constructed sixteen centuries ago and its modern successor is often the fact that whereas the latter goes round a hill, and thus makes things easy for the traveller, the former climbs in a straight line right over the summit.

What engineering skill the Romans must have possessed to build their roads! Straight from one military station to another miles distant over the hills did they succeed in driving their road. How did they judge its direction so accurately? We know not. And what immense labour was needed for the construction of their roads! Think of the cohorts of Roman soldiers engaged in building them, and of the slave-gangs of Britons toiling under the lash of the task-master as they quarried the materials for the use of the soldiers working many miles away. So hard was the work of the Roman soldiers in Britain, we read, that they ‘wished for death to relieve them from their insupportable toil.’

But human life stood for little in those days. What Roman engineer cared whether thousands of lives were spent in the making of his road? His one concern was to build it in such a way that for centuries to come the Roman legions should be able to march, and the Imperial Post to ride, along its hundreds of miles at the greatest possible speed. One hundred and sixty-five English miles were covered by Caesarius, a Roman magistrate, in the space of one day on a journey from Antioch to Constantinople, the whole distance of 665 miles taking less than six days. There is little wonder that Rome had become ‘Mistress of the World.’

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Let us now see what the Roman road-makers did in East Yorkshire. Stretching north from Londinium ran the 33military highway known in later times as Ermin Street. At Lindum Colonia this branched in two directions, both branches meeting eventually at Eboracum. Skirting the impassable marshes around the meeting-places of the Yorkshire rivers and the Trent, one branch reached Eboracum by bridges or fords across the Trent, the Don, the Aire, and the Wharfe, where now stand Littleborough, Doncaster, Castleford, and Tadcaster. The crossing-places were protected by military stations which have since grown into these towns.

But directly north from Lincoln the second branch reached the Humber at Winteringham, whence the river was crossed by ferry to Brough, where also was a military station, named Petuaria. From Brough to York the road passed through South Cave, South Newbald, Houghton Woods, Thorpe le Street, Barmby Moor and Stamford Bridge. Along this second branch would travel the Roman Emperors and Generals, the Imperial Post, and the slave-carried litters and chairs of the Roman aristocracy; round by the former would march the foreign troops drafted to Eboracum to replace the wastage in the Sixth Legion, and the British levies on their way to fight and die in other parts of the Roman world.

At South Newbald this Roman road branched to the right, passing by Londesborough, Warter, Millington and Acklam, to a camp at Old Malton. From Stamford Bridge eastward ran another road by Garrowby, Fimber, Cottam and Kilham to a Roman station on the cliffs at Sewerby. Higher up on the Wolds ran an alternative route by Fridaythorpe, Sledmere, Octon and Rudston. These two roads are to-day known as the Low Street and the High Street.

Smaller roads ran from Stamford Bridge to Old Malton, and from the latter to Fimber and possibly farther south 34in the direction of Beverley. Round the coast from Bridlington there was probably a road—long since washed away—to a military station on the headland which then existed about a mile to the east of the present Kilnsea.

In North Lincolnshire Ermin Street is a typical Roman military road, and for the greater part of its course it is to-day the ‘king’s highway.’ But its northerly portion has, since the establishing of the Ferry at New Holland, been disused, and is now but a green lane, whose very surface is lost to view as we approach the Humber.

When we enter the territory of the Brigantes the road is not so distinguishable, and its course is in some parts uncertain. But even then the name of ‘Street’ given by the successors of the Romans to the Roman paved way—the way made of strata—survives; and on the map of the East Riding we shall find Garrowby Street, Humber Street, Wharram le Street, and Thorpe le Street, each name being significant of a Roman road. In some instances the road itself has been uncovered, as in the building of Drewton Bridge 60 years ago, and in building operations at Londesborough Park, where it was found to be 24 feet wide, and to show plainly the marks of wheeled carriages.

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At many places in the East Riding have been discovered evidences of Roman commerce and domestic life. Bronze and silver coins buried in vases or boxes have been unearthed at Cowlam, Warter, Nunburnholme, Skerne, Wetwang, and Brough. At the first-named place more than 10,000 coins had been buried in a large black vase, the finds at Warter and Nunburnholme numbered about half that at Cowlam, and the Copper Hall Farm at Skerne owes its name to a similar find.

35So also Roman coins have been unearthed at Hornsea, Aldborough, Withernsea and Hollym, on the line of a coast road from Bridlington to Kilnsea, though the road itself has long since been washed away.

Of particular interest, as pointing to the fact that the road leading southward to Brough was an export trade route, is a ‘pig’ of lead weighing 9 stone 9 lbs. discovered twenty years ago in a field adjoining the road at South Cave. 36This bears in raised letters an inscription, which, written in uncontracted form as

would mean in our tongue [The lead] of Caius Julius Protus, British [lead] from Lutuda, [prepared] from silver.

The lead mines of Derby were famous in Roman times, and much lead was exported from Britain to Italy; so we may easily suppose that this particular pig was lost in transit to the place of shipment.

As evidences of domestic life we have hypocausts, or underground heating-chambers for the supply of hot air and hot water to the rooms of Roman villas. These must once have been numerous—for no wealthy Roman could do without his warm bath—but so far only a few have been discovered. Again, we have examples of the Roman writing-implements, styli by name, two of which, found at Brough, are illustrated below.

37When a Roman wished to write, his implements were very simple—a tablet of wax and a stylus. With the pointed end of the latter he scratched his letters on the surface of the wax; and if he made mistakes he had only to smooth them out by using the other end, which was flattened for the purpose. The Roman schoolboy probably found the stylus a very convenient instrument.

Humbler evidences of domestic life have been discovered in the ‘kitchen middens,’ or refuse heaps, which the incursions of the sea have exposed at Easington and Kilnsea. From these have been obtained numberless oyster shells and fragments of pottery, the relics of dining-room feasts and kitchen breakages. The former are very interesting, because they show the method by which the Roman cook overcame the natural reluctance of the creatures within them to ‘come out of their shells.’

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How very curiously such discoveries of ancient relics may be made is seen in the recent case of an inhabitant of South Ferriby. A half-witted man, by name Thomas Smith, but known locally by the more familiar name ‘Coin Tommy,’ made it his practice for several years to walk along the shore of the river just after the periods of high tide, and to pick up all metal objects which he happened to see. Whether horse-shoe or brace-button did not matter to ‘Coin Tommy.’ Into his pocket went everything of metal which he found; and on his reaching home after each of these expeditions, his ‘finds’ were transferred to a stock 38of tin canisters, and packed away on the shelves of his cupboard never again to be looked at by their finder.

Now it was known by Coin Tommy’s associates that his finds were not all horse-shoes and brace-buttons. But few of his friends expected that after his death would-be purchasers of these finds from distant parts of the country would vie with one another for their possession. Yet so it happened; for Coin Tommy’s miscellaneous collection included no fewer than 3000 Roman coins of gold, silver and bronze, and bronze brooches, finger-rings, bracelets, tweezers, spoons, earpicks and styli innumerable.

The explanation of the occurrence of all these objects along this portion of the south bank of the Humber is that there had been at this spot a Roman cemetery, and that changes in the currents of the Humber have caused each high tide during the last few years to wash away some portion of the bank, and thus bring to light treasures buried sixteen centuries ago. And though South Ferriby is not in East Yorkshire, Coin Tommy’s finds may fitly be mentioned in the story of the East Riding; for it is probable that many of the owners of the bracelets and brooches and finger rings had lived at Petuaria, on the Yorkshire side of the river.

Very interesting are the fibulae, or brooches, here discovered. Some have engraved upon them the name of their 39maker, AVCISSA, and one, having blue enamel let into the bronze surface, is constructed in the form of a fish.

This may be taken as evidence of its wearer’s being a Christian, for in early days the fish was an emblem of Christianity. In other cases the brooch is made of a single piece of bronze wire, twisted to form a spiral spring, and having one of its ends flattened out and bent over to form 40a catch for the pin—an illustration of the oft-quoted saying ‘There is nothing new under the sun’; for here is an exact model of the safety-pin invented, or rather re-invented, in the nineteenth century.

To come back to the East Riding, our last mention of relics of Roman times shall be that of the mosaic pavement which was discovered in a ploughed field at Harpham in 1904. This pavement formed the floor of the atrium, or square hall of a Roman villa, and was in use probably about the year A.D. 300. It is constructed of small tessarae, or cubes, of red sandstone and chalk, with a few others of dark blue clay, red clay, and yellow limestone in the centre-piece of the design, and makes an ingenious piece of work in the form of a maze.

This Roman pavement has been removed to Hull and reconstructed in the Hull museum. On it when found lay the flat sandstone slabs which had once formed the roof over it. Many iron nails with large flat heads were also found, and in one instance the nail remained fast in position through a hole in one of the slabs.

From the time when Roman soldiers first penetrated into the territory of the Brigantes, the land which we name Holderness was troubled by the piratical attacks of a people from the other side of the North Sea; and in the early years of the second century the low-lying marshes of this district were inhabited by a tribe whom the Romans called Parisii. In our language they would be called Frisians.

41These early Frisian settlers have left us evidence of the places they chose for settlement in the village names Arram, Newsom, Hollym, and Ulrome. Their settlements would probably be peaceful, for the lands taken would be unoccupied pieces of ground rising just above the level of the surrounding marsh.

But as time went on, the eastern and southern shores of Britain were assailed by numerous other bands of plunderers and would-be settlers; and in the later Roman times we find that, beside the army stationed at York under the command of the Duke of Britain to repel the Picts and Scots of the north, there was an army under the Count of the Saxon Shore whose duty it was to defend against invaders the coast from the Wash to the shores of Sussex.

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Under Roman rule Britain as a whole prospered exceedingly. Agriculture and commerce were extended, so that we find the lead-merchants of Derby exporting lead to Italy, the chalk-merchants of Tadcaster exporting chalk, and the corn-merchants of the Rhine provinces importing corn from Britain in large quantities.

But beside the export of lead and chalk and corn, another export of trade was going on—the export of the warlike youth of the country, who went to furnish with men the Roman armies in Spain and Gaul and Germany. Those left at home were forbidden by law to carry arms; so there is small wonder that when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain Roman towns were sacked and burnt, and Roman civilisation blotted out by hostile invaders. ‘Tragedies can still be guessed at from heaps of ashes and from skeletons of men, women and children found ... in crouching attitudes in hypocausts and other places of concealment; and the human bones frequently discovered 42at the bottoms of wells ... enable us to see the ruthless savage removing the traces of a murderous raid.’

Petuaria, Praetorium, Derventio—all were sacked and burnt by the hosts of Engle who sailed up the Humber and the Derwent, or landed at Bridlington Bay. Roman houses were generally one-storied buildings roofed with tiles or thatch, and the destruction of a town by fire would be complete. It was also, in most cases, lasting; for the destroyers were men who cared not for a life passed within walls and fortifications. ‘They liked better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.’ So the Roman cities, towns and camps ‘remained in ruins, to be haunted by the owl and the fox.’

But an exception was made by the invaders in the case of the greatest of the Roman cities. Eboracum, Londinium and Lindum Colonia became the chief centres of life for the tribes that captured them; and thus the Eboracum of the Romans became the Eoferwic^[6] of the Angles—a dwelling-place in the haunts of the wild boar. Smaller towns were blotted out; and their sites are known to us only by the finding of the family store of coins, or the personal treasures once placed for safety in a little recess in the wall or buried in a vase under the floor—to be overwhelmed with debris, and to remain undiscovered for many centuries.

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The hostile tribes who invaded Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries in such numbers as to conquer the whole country from the Isle of Wight to the Firth of Forth, except the mountainous districts of the west, were known as the Engle, the Seaxe and the Iute.^[7] Angles, Saxons and Jutes these are to us. The Iute landed on the shores of, and 43established colonies in, Kent and the Isle of Wight, the former of which developed into a kingdom; the Seaxe established three kingdoms distinguished from one another in name by the adjectives South, East, and West; and separate bands of Engle formed the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.

It is with the last-named of these ‘Seven Kingdoms’ that we are most particularly concerned. The huge kingdom of Northumbria stretched northwards from the Humber to the Forth, and was at different times either ruled by one king or divided into two separate kingdoms—Deira, from the Humber to the Tees, and Bernicia, from the Tees to the Forth.

How complete was the conquest of Britain by these invading tribes is seen in the account written by Bede, the eighth century monk of Jarrow:—

They burned and harried and slew from the sea on the east to the sea on the west, and no one was able to withstand them.... Many of the miserable survivors were captured in waste places and stabbed in heaps. Some because of hunger gave themselves into the hands of their enemies, to be their slaves for ever in return for food and clothing; some departed sorrowfully over the sea; some remained fearfully in their native land, and with heavy hearts lived a life of want in the forests and waste places and on the high cliffs.

The completeness of the conquest may be seen also in the fact that the language of the Britons was replaced by that of the invaders. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes spoke a language entirely different from the Keltic language of the Britons; but except in the Highlands of Scotland, in Wales, and in the Isle of Man—the parts to which the invaders did not penetrate—the language spoken to-day is English 44and the name of the country itself is Engla-land, the land of the Engle.

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Very definite evidence of the places chosen by the Angles for settlement can be found on the map of the East Riding. Where the head of the household decided to ‘pitch his tent’ a piece of land was enclosed with a tūn,^[8] or hedge, and the dwelling erected within it became his new hām,^[8] or home. Such was the origin of our numerous towns and villages whose names now end in the syllables ton and ham. In many cases the name of the family is enshrined in the name of the settlement. Thus the Locings—the sons of Loc—the Essings, the Brantings, the Eoferings, and the Hemings gave their names respectively to Lockington, Easington, Brantingham, Everingham, and Hemingbrough.

Besides the endings ton and ham, others which tell of Anglian settlements are worth and bald (a dwelling), cote or coate (a mud cottage), stead (a place), brough or borough (a fortified place), wick (a village), wold (woodland), field (a place where trees have been felled), ley (an open place in a wood), mere (a lake), fleet (the mouth of a river) and ford. Examples of all these can be found on a map of the East Riding.

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In their burial customs the Angles were little different from the peoples whom they dispossessed. Like them they often cremated the bodies of their dead, afterwards collecting the charred bones and burying them in earthen vessels, accompanied with the weapons or personal treasures which were to be used again in the life to come. A man was buried with his spear and shield, or with the long one-edged knife whose name—seax—gave rise to the tribal name of the Saxons; a woman with her knife, shears, bronze box containing 45thread and needles, and beads of glass and amber; a child with his toys, such as the tiny tweezers, knife and shears found with a child’s bones in a burial vase at Sancton.

Not always, however, did the Angles cremate the bodies of their dead. More often they buried them near the surface of a British burial mound. From one of the mounds at Driffield, known as ‘Cheesecake Hill,’ was taken a necklace consisting of 219 beads, of which 141 were of amber, two of glass, three of carefully cut crystal, and five of cowrie shells.

Not very far from Garton Gatehouse, and near the memorial to Sir Tatton Sykes some three miles farther north, were accidentally discovered two Anglian cemeteries, one of which contained more than sixty bodies of men, women and children. Here all but a few had been buried not with their limbs bent, as was the custom among the Britons, but with their limbs stretched out at full length; 46and all but one had been buried with their heads to the west. Probably these were Christian burials.

From this Anglian cemetery at Garton were obtained many implements and personal ornaments—iron knives and bronze spoons, bronze ankle-rings and buckles, necklaces of glass, amber and amethyst, silver ear-rings, a gold button set with a precious stone, and, luxury of luxuries, a bone comb. What a great advance is thus shown to have taken place in the centuries between the British burial at Garrowby and the Anglian burials at Garton! With the former were weapons of flint and bone; with the latter, implements of bronze and iron, and personal ornaments of silver, gold, and precious stones.

47

Two hundred years pass onwards from the coming of Saint Aidan to Northumbria, and we are again among scenes of famine, sword, and fire. Let us see what the records of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles have to tell.

57A.D. 787.	In these days first came three ships of the Northmen, and when the bailiff rode down to them, and would take the men to the king’s town—for he knew not who they were—he was slain. Those were the first ships of the Danish men that came to the land of the Angles.
A.D. 833.	In this year King Egbert fought against the crews of thirty-five ships at Charmouth, and there was great slaughter, and the Danish men possessed the battlefield.
A.D. 851.	In this year the heathen men first remained over the winter, and in the same year came three hundred and fifty ships into the mouth of the Thames, and broke into Canterbury and London, and put to flight Beorhtwulf, King of Mercia.
A.D. 867.	In this year the heathen army went from East Anglia over the mouth of the Humber to York ... and there was immense slaughter of the Northumbrians, some within York, and some without, and the survivors made peace with the heathen army.

These records show that the history of the fifth and sixth centuries was being repeated at the close of the eighth century, and during the ninth. They tell us of the inroads of a new race of free-booters, men of Northern Europe—coming from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—men among whom was a passionate love of the sea and an overwhelming desire for the plunder of other lands. Sea-pirates they are now often called, but we must remember that among them what we should call piracy was looked upon as the most honourable career in life.

Each year as Spring came round these Danish sea-rovers would gather together their men, take advantage of the north-east winds, and sail away to Britain, or the northern coast of France, or even to the shores of the Mediterranean 58Sea, and return laden with plunder on the coming of Autumn.

One thing the records which have been quoted make very clear. In 787 ‘first came three ships of the Northmen’; less than fifty years later King Egbert of Wessex was fighting against the crews of thirty-five vessels; and in 851 the fleet of ships entering the Thames numbered no fewer than three hundred and fifty. What does this astonishing increase in numbers mean? It can mean only one thing—that the Northmen found their marauding expeditions to England profitable. England, in other words, was worth plundering. In fact, England was so prosperous a country, and its churches and monasteries contained such treasures of gold and silver, that the Northmen found it worth their while to build more ‘long-ships’—as their ships of war were called—in order that they might plunder it more completely.

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But as time passed away the Northmen came not merely to plunder and return home, but to seek new homes in the fertile lands of Britain. In later records we find mention of peace being made between the Angles and the Danes without the fighting of a battle:—

A.D. 872.	In this year went the heathen army into Northumbria. They also took up winter quarters at Torksey, and the Mercians made peace with the invaders.
A.D. 876.	In this year Healfdene divided the Northumbrian land, and the Danes gave themselves up to ploughing and tilling the land.

Two years after the last record Alfred, King of the West Saxons, made with Guthrum, the Danish leader, a treaty 59by which all Northern and Eastern England—all England, that is, north of Watling Street, the Roman road leading from London to Chester—was ceded to the Danes to be ruled according to their laws. Henceforth this district becomes known as the Danelagh.

So history goes on repeating itself. For just as the Angles and Saxons had warred against the Britons, and then made settlements and turned to forest-clearing and ploughing, sowing and reaping; so a few centuries later came the Danes to make war upon them in turn, and finally to take possession of uncleared and hitherto unclaimed lands whereon to make for themselves new homes.

Very numerous settlements were made by the Danes in the part of England known as the Danelagh, and most of these may be recognised by the village names of to-day. What to an Angle were a tūn and a wīc^[13] were to a Dane a bȳr^[13] and a thorp. Hence the name-endings by and thorp denote respectively the sites of a Danish farmhouse and a Danish village; and it is interesting to pick out such names on a large-scale map, and see how they occur in groups or succeed one another along the line of an old highway.

Thus in the East Riding, within a radius of five miles of the Anglian settlements of Bridlington and Hessle, we shall find the Danish names Hilderthorpe, Wilsthorpe, Fraisthorpe, Haisthorpe, Caythorpe, Carnaby, Bessingby, Sewerby; and Anlaby, Willerby, Skidby, Wauldby, Tranby, Ferriby. Other groups will be found round York, Malton, and Pocklington. The best example of the occurrence of a succession of Danish names along the line of an ancient highway is to be found on the other side of the Humber. Here, along the road from the Humber to the old Roman station 60at Caistor, passing through the Anglian settlements of Horkstow and Brigg, there are no fewer than fifteen villages whose names end in by, and one of them has in addition the suffix Thorpe.^[14]

61Place names ending in by and thorp by no means exhaust the list of Danish settlements. A complete list of name-endings which are Norse in origin would include the following:—

beck		a stream.
by		a farmstead.
fell		a hillside.
force or foss		a waterfall.
garth		an enclosure.
gill		a ravine.
holm holme	}	an island, or a piece of firm land rising out of the surrounding marsh.
how		a hill.
lund		a sacred grove.
ness		a headland.
scar		a cliff.
tarn		a small mountain lake.
thorp or thorpe		a village.
thwaite		a forest clearing.
toft		an enclosure.
wick or wyke		a bay or creek.

Examples of all these can be found on the map of Yorkshire, and most of them occur in the East Riding. But it must be remembered that the modern place name is not always a sure guide in this direction. Names have in many cases changed during the course of centuries. For example, the name ‘Nunburnholme,’ which looks Danish in origin, was originally Brunham; while, on the other hand, ‘Kilnsea’ and ‘Withernsea’ have replaced the older Danish names Hornes and Witfornes.

The two name-endings which conclude the list given above are very interesting, because it was the Danish word vīk^[15] 62that gave rise to the name by which the sea-rovers became generally known in our country. Vikings, or men of the creeks—so they were called; and so may we call them, if we remember that their letter v stood for the sound of our w, and that their name is to be pronounced Wik-ings and not, as it is so commonly mispronounced, Vi-kings.

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A hardy and a daring race were these old Vikings. There were no ‘wasters’ and few ‘slackers’ among them. When a Viking’s son was born, the babe was shown to its father for his approval or disapproval. If the father liked the look of his babe, and thought that it showed signs of growing up into a manly and sturdy boy, it was taken back to its mother to be ‘raised.’ But woe betide the babe that looked puny and sickly, or that showed signs of deformity! The father’s orders were that it should be taken outside his dwelling and exposed to the cold so that it died.

‘What a cruel custom!’ you will think. Yes, so it was. But the Vikings lived in an age when men looked upon things very differently from the way in which we look upon them. In a cruel age the Northmen were so cruel, and the fear that they inspired in the hearts of the people whose lands they plundered was so great, that the monks inserted in their Litany the prayer:—

There is little wonder that, with such a rearing as the children of the Vikings received, a race of warriors grew up among whom was the unwritten law that ‘a Dane who wished to acquire the character of a brave man should always attack two enemies, stand firm and receive the attack of three, retire only one pace from four, and flee from no fewer than five.’

63Social distinctions among the Danes were similar to those among the Angles. In place of the Anglian eorl, ceorl, and theow were the Danish jarl,^[16] karl, and thrall; with this difference—that the Danish jarl was a military commander and not a man who could pride himself on being descended from the gods. It is from the word ‘jarl’ that our English word ‘earl’ has arisen.

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Like their cousins the Angles, the Northmen were heathens when they invaded our shores.

The Wōden, Tīw, and Frīg of the Angles were the Odin, Tȳr and Freya of the Danes. But their greatest god was Thor, the Thunderer, whose name will be recognised in the name for the fifth day of the week.

Like the Angles, also, the heathen Northmen eventually became Christians, and evidences of their Christianity have come down to us. In the vicarage garden at North Frodingham is a broken cross head of Danish tenth-century workmanship, and in the churchyard at Nunburnholme is preserved a broken cross shaft sculptured with figures of men, women, children, and animals.

But the most interesting relic of Danish Christianity is a sun-dial now built high up in one of the interior walls of the 64church at Aldbrough. Round it, in Anglian letters, is the inscription:—

Put into modern English this would read:—

Though written in Anglian letters, the names Ulf and Gunvör are both Danish names, and the word ‘Hānum’ is likewise a purely Danish word. Who this Ulf was we do not know, for the name was a common one. One jarl Ulf married the sister of King Cnut, and another was the owner of lands at Aldbrough and Brandesburton during the reign of King Edward the Confessor.

65

In 901 died Alfred, King of the West Saxons, and Edward, his son, succeeded him, to be succeeded in turn by his son Aethelstan in the year 925. King Alfred had, it will be remembered, agreed with Guthrum the Dane to divide England into two parts, one of which each of them should rule.

But Alfred’s son Edward enlarged his power so greatly that he was in 924 ‘chosen to father and lord by the Scots King and all the Scots people, by all the men of Northumbria—both English and Danes and Northmen—and by the 75King of the Strathclyde Welsh.’ To Aethelstan was accorded still greater honour, for it fell to his lot to be the first king crowned as ‘King of England.’

Now in the reign of Aethelstan there took place the greatest battle that had yet been fought between the English and the Northmen. The compact of Edward’s reign was short-lived; for in 937 the Danes of Northumbria entered into a league with Constantine, King of the Scots, and Owen, King of the Strathclyde Britons, against the King of England. Their league was joined also by two Norse Kings from Ireland, named Anlaf, one of whom had married the daughter of Constantine. To meet these disturbers of the peace Aethelstan marched north, and at a place known as Brunanburh the famous battle between them was fought.

So great was the victory here won by King Aethelstan that the chronicler who records it bursts into song when he tells how

All day, from the rising of ‘God’s candle’ until its setting, went on the fight; so that the battlefield streamed with blood, and many a Northman lay on the ground struck down with spears. Weary and sated with the fight fled the Scots, pursued by the West Saxons with swords new-sharpened on the grindstone. To none of those who, doomed to death, accompanied Anlaf over the sea did the Mercians refuse the hard hand-play. On the battlefield there lay five young kings put to sleep by the sword, with seven of Anlaf’s 76jarls and an uncounted host of shipmen and of Scots. Then fled the Northmen to the shore of the yellow flood; and so also fled Constantine, who had left behind his son, borne down with many wounds.

Thus departed in their nailed ships those of the Northmen whom the spears had left alive, and the King and his brother sought again the West Saxon land, exulting in victory. Behind them they left the dusky-coated kite, the swart, horny-beaked raven, the white-tailed eagle, and the grey wolf—all eager to feast upon the corpses of the slain.

Such is the picture of the battlefield painted in words by the Saxon chronicler. And when we read it we wonder to ourselves: ‘Where was Brunanburh, at which this great battle was fought?’ But the question is one to which no certain answer can be given. The name ‘Brunanburh’ is lost, and the nearest approach to it among the village names of to-day is Bromborough, on the Cheshire shore of the Mersey.

This may possibly be the site of the battle; but it is curious that two writers of old chronicles, both living within two hundred years of the actual date of the battle, agree in saying that the Norse fleet invaded England by the Humber. So also said the Bridlington monk, Peter of Langtoft, who certainly ought to know; and a Lincolnshire hermit, who translated Peter’s Norman-French into English, is very definite about it:—

If Brunanburh did lie ‘on Humber,’ on which side of the river was it? Some claim that the battle took place at Kirkburn near Driffield, and others put it at Little Weighton, nearer the river.

77But one thing is certain. King Aethelstan and his men must have marched north by either the Watling Street or the Ermin Street. If the Norse fleet did come into the Humber, he must have come north by the Ermin Street, and his army could hardly have crossed the river under the circumstances. However much, therefore, we should like to assert that the greatest battle of olden times was fought in the East Riding of Yorkshire, it would be wiser not to do so, but to let our somewhat despised sister-county of Lincolnshire have the benefit of the doubt.

A glance at the map given at the end of this book will show about four miles from the Humber, on the road from Barton to Caistor, a village named Burnham. At this village there are still to be seen the remains of an ancient entrenchment enclosing a space of about 64 acres. One of the half-dozen ancient spellings of the name of the manor of Burnham is Brunan, and the suffix burh means ‘a fortified place.’

Further, men’s bones, Saxon coins, and a Saxon sword have been ploughed up on the adjoining fields; while just south of Burnham there was in the eighteenth century a road known as ‘Bloody Gate’ and just north of it there is still a ‘Dead Man Dale.’ So we shall have to concede that the southern bank of the ‘yellow flood’ has some considerable claims to the possession of the site of the famous battle of Brunanburh.

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Let us pass on to the middle of the next century. For twenty-eight years England had been ruled by Danish Kings, when, in 1042, the Saxons came into their own again and the third Saxon Edward began to rule in London.

But Danish jarls still ruled at Jorvik^[19] and Jarl Siward, the eighth of these, was the greatest of them all. In 1054 78he took a large army and a fleet into Scotland, where he fought against the Scots in Aberdeenshire, and slew their king Macbeth. Siward’s son Osbern was also slain in the battle, and when news of his son’s death was brought to the old jarl, he rejoiced that his son had died a worthy death. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth it is put thus. Ross, a Scots nobleman, has just broken to Siward the news that his son ‘has paid a soldier’s debt’:—

One year later Siward’s own death took place, and these were his words when he felt that he was fated to die not on the battlefield but in his bed:—

‘I feel shame not to have fallen in one of the many battles that I have fought, and to have been preserved to die like a cow. Close me in my mail of proof, gird my sword on me, fit the helmet on my head, and put a shield in my left hand and a gilded axe in my right, that I may die like a soldier.’

So died the lord of the manors of Barmston and Holmpton, and the greatest of the Anglo-Danes of Northumbria. After his death his earldom was given by King Edward to Tostig, the son of Earl Godwin the West Saxon; and if one-half of the stories told about him by the old chroniclers are true, the Northumbrians must have felt the change acutely.

One of Tostig’s little jokes was played at his half-brother Harold’s hall at Hereford. The two had quarrelled at Windsor in the presence of King Edward, and Tostig, expelled from the Court in disgrace, had ridden to Hereford, 79where he found his brother’s servants busily making ready for a visit from the King. To vent his anger on his brother he killed the servants—so the story goes—chopped up their bodies, threw the legs, arms and trunks into hogsheads of wine and barrels of cider, and gaily sent word to the King that ‘he had provided against his coming plenty of salt meat.’

Small wonder that the proud Anglo-Danes of the north refused to submit for long to such a one of the despised West Saxons. In 1064 they rebelled against their unpopular jarl, outlawed him, slew his servants, both English and Danes, seized all his weapons and his gold and silver in Jorvik, and sent for Morcar, the son of Jarl Aelfgar, to be their jarl. Tostig fled to Baldwin, Count of Flanders, vowing vengeance on his half-brother Harold, who had advised the King to fall in with the wishes of the Northumbrians.

Two years passed away. Edward had died and Harold, Tostig’s half-brother, had been chosen by the Witena-gemōt to be King of England. Now was the time for Tostig to have his revenge. So he enlisted the aid of another Harold—Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, a warrior huge of stature and dauntless in courage, who had, when an exile from Norway, won fame in Sicily, Greece and Africa, and who had formed at Constantinople a bodyguard to the Emperor, consisting of five hundred Northmen. Together they would conquer England, and Harold of Norway should be its king, as Cnut, King of Denmark, had been before him.

With a fleet of 240 warships Harold of Norway set out for the conquest of England, his royal banner, the ‘Land-Waster’ proudly flying aloft. But omens of misfortune to come were not wanting; for he and his men had bad dreams at night—dreams of the English host marching down to the sea-shore led by a wolf on whose back was seated a 80‘witch-wife.’ Moreover, the witch-wife fed the wolf with the corpses of Northmen; and as fast as one was eaten, another was ready.

To a superstitious people, such as the Northmen were, these omens must have seemed to bode terrible ill-luck. But Harold had never yet turned back from an expedition, and he did not mean to start turning back now. So over the sea to the Shetlands and the Orkneys his fleet sailed, then down the eastern coast of the mainland till they reached the mouth of the Tyne. Here they were joined by Tostig, and soon afterwards the ‘Land-Waster’ was unfurled in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

So far Harold of Norway had met with no resistance. But the fisherfolk of Scarborough did withstand the attack made upon their little town; whereupon, so the old Norse account of Harold’s invasion tells us—

He went up on a high rock near the town, and set fire to a large pile which he made. They took large poles and lifted it up and threw it down into the town; soon one house after the other began to burn, and the whole town was destroyed. The Northmen slew many people, and took all the property they could get.

Then southward along the coast the fleet sailed, until they reached a place called by the Northmen Hellornes, which was probably our Hornsea. Here a pitched battle was fought; but the men of the East Riding were no match for the invaders, and Harold and his Northmen got the victory.

Next the mouth of the Humber was reached. Sailing up this and up the Ouse they cast anchor at Riccall. Here one-third of the Norwegian host was left to guard the ships while the remainder set out on a march to Jorvik.

But at Fulford, two miles from the city, they were met by the forces of Morcar and his brother, Edwin of Mercia. 82The ensuing battle was fought on a strip of land lying between the river Ouse and a ditch which was ‘deep, broad, and full of water.’ As at Hellornes, victory lay with the North men; and so great was the slaughter of the Northumbrian and the Mercians that the Northmen walked across the ditch ‘with dry feet on human bodies.’ Four days later—September 24th—Jorvik surrendered, and the Northmen moved their forces along the Roman road leading to the Derwent, and took up their quarters at Stanfordbrycg.

Meanwhile news of the invasion had reached Harold of England. Gathering together what forces he could muster, Harold hurried north. Up the Ermin Street, and round by Doncaster, Castleford and Tadcaster, he marched. On the day on which York surrendered he was at Tadcaster; the next day he had passed through York and had surprised the Northmen at Stamford Bridge.

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The battle that took place between the two Harolds was preceded by negotiations. To his half-brother, Tostig, Harold of England sent envoys offering peace:—

‘Harold thy brother sends thee greeting, and the message that thou shalt have peace and get Northumberland; and rather than that thou shouldst not join him he will give thee one-third of all his realm.’

‘Then something else is offered than the enmity and disgrace of last winter,’ answered Tostig. ‘If this had been offered then, many who are now dead would be alive, and the realm of the King of England would stand more firm. Now if I accept these terms, what will my brother Harold offer to the King of Norway for his trouble?’

‘He has said what he will grant King Harold of Norway. It is a space of seven feet, and it is so long because he is taller than most other men.’

83Tostig’s reply to his half-brother’s terms was a noble one:

‘Go and tell my brother, King Harold, to prepare for battle. It shall not be said among Northmen that Jarl Tostig left Harold, King of Norway, and went into the host of his foes when he made warfare in England. Rather will we all resolve to die with honour, or win England with a victory.’

After the failure of these negotiations, both sides made ready for battle. And then happened another omen boding ill-luck for the Northmen; for their King, who was riding a black horse with a white mark on its forehead, was thrown to the ground by the stumbling of his horse.

In Roman times the passage across the Derwent at the spot where the battle took place had been made by a stone-paved ford; but this had, in later times, been replaced by a wooden bridge, whence the name it then bore—‘Stone-ford-bridge.’

At the outbreak of hostilities some of the Northmen were on the right bank of the river, and were gradually forced back over the bridge by Harold of England’s men. The last of them to cross was a second Horatius, for he kept the bridge against the whole English army. Wielding his huge battle-axe, he had slain no fewer than forty of his enemies before he was himself slain by a soldier in Harold’s army, who floated down the river in a tub and stabbed him with his spear through one of the spaces between the wooden planks of the bridge.

The old Norse account of the battle reads very much like the accounts of the battle of Hastings, which was so shortly to follow. Harold of Norway ordered his men to take up their positions with shield against shield on all sides. The outer rank were to press the spikes of their spears into the 84ground and to point the heads against the breasts of the attacking horsemen; the next rank were to point their spear heads against the breasts of the horses. If all of them stood firm and took care not to break away, Harold of England’s onset might be completely checked.

But what the English would be unable to do in the battle to come, the Northmen were unable to do at Stamford Bridge. They broke their lines in pursuit of the English, and the battle was lost. Harold Hardrada rushed hither and thither dealing such blows with his battle-axe that ‘neither helmet nor coat of mail could withstand him; he went through the ranks of his foes as if he were walking through air, for all who came near him fell back.’ But to no purpose, and an arrow which struck him in the throat brought him his death-wound. Soon afterwards fell Jarl Tostig, and though the Northmen who had been left in charge of the fleet at Riccall hurried to the battle, they were not able to prevent the ‘Land-Waster’ from falling into the hands of Harold of England.

When darkness had set in, the victorious army was on its way back to York. Thither came Olaf, the son of Harold Hardrada, and the Jarls of Orkney to swear peace and give hostages. And thither also came at full speed a messenger who brought news that William of Normandy had landed with his army on the southern coast of Harold’s kingdom.

85

In these days of bicycles most of us have experienced the pleasure of seeing, over the tree-tops in the distance, the spire or the square-capped tower of one of our village churches. For us on that occasion, perhaps, it marked the goal of a long journey, and we therefore hailed it gladly. Then probably we thought no more about it.

Yet that village church was worth a few minutes of our thoughts. To one who knows how to see it was worth walking round, and worth also looking into. For it had a tale to tell—a tale that stretches back into the centuries 96long past, a tale of the joys and sorrows of the people whose places we now fill, a tale which ought to make us realise that we of the twentieth century are not the only clever people who have lived in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Let us learn how to read the tale aright. In the first place we must know the names of the different parts of a church. If it is small, it will be simply a rectangular building, running east and west, and divided by an open arch or by a woodwork screen into two parts, a nave and a chancel. The former is, on service days, occupied by the congregation of worshippers, the latter by the clergy and the choir. At the east end of the chancel is the altar or communion-table, at the east end of the nave are the lectern and pulpit, at the west end of the nave is the font.

If the church boasts a tower, this will be at the west end, where also will probably be the main entrance door. This may, however, be on the south of the nave near the west end. On the south of the chancel may be another smaller door, once the priests’ door; and by it in the wall may be the sedilia, or priests’ seats, three in number. Close to these may be the piscina, or drain, at which the holy vessels were once washed; and in the wall on the opposite side may be the aumbry, or cupboard, in which the holy vessels once stood.

97But such small churches are not common. Generally the nave has along each side what is called an aisle, in which case its central roof is supported on a double row of pillars. Possibly the chancel also has aisles. The walls above the lines of pillars may be pierced with windows, which thus look out above the roofs of the aisles. These windows are known as clerestory windows.

In cathedrals and very large churches there is a story which runs along each side of the nave and chancel, between the capitals of the pillars and the clerestory. This is called the triforium. Beverley Minster has a triforium, but there is no passage round it, and it is really a blind story. A portion of it can be seen in the photograph of the Percy Tomb on page 230. Bridlington Priory Church has a triforium on the north side only.

In churches of large size the building is not simply a rectangular one with or without aisles, but is formed of two rectangular buildings crossing each other at right angles. The nave and chancel have added to them a north transept and a south transept, and above the crossing-place rises a central tower on four huge piers.

These transepts, as well as the nave and chancel, may have aisles. But this is customary only in cathedrals. 98Holy Trinity Church, Hull, the third largest church in Britain,^[25] has aisles only to the nave and chancel; Patrington Church—the ‘Queen of Holderness’—has aisles to the nave and to each transept; and Hedon Church—the ‘King of Holderness’—now has aisles only to its nave, though its transepts formerly had an aisle on the east.

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Many were the difficulties that the builders of our ancient churches had to overcome. In the East Riding one difficulty was the obtaining of suitable building-material. Stone blocks were costly, for these had to be brought by water from the quarries of the West Riding. So usually the builders had to make the best use they could of the materials they obtained locally—boulders from the cliffs of the sea-shore, blocks of chalk from the Wolds, or clay bricks from the low-lying bank of the Humber.^[26]

Another difficulty was sometimes encountered in obtaining suitable foundations. The clay soil on which the church of Holy Trinity, Hull, is built was not of sufficient depth to afford foundations for the heavy central tower which it was intended to build.

Twentieth-century builders would drive piles down into the clay to make a firm foundation; the fourteenth-century builders solved the problem by constructing four huge rafts of trimmed oak trunks, each consisting of two rows of trunks crossing at right angles. On these rafts they raised the piers for their tower; and when, in 1906, it became necessary 99to take out the tree-trunks and replace them with steel girders and cement, many of the trunks were found to be as sound as on the day that they were placed in position six hundred years ago.

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The greatest charm of our ancient churches lies in the fact that, except in a very few instances, a church is not built in the same style throughout. It is quite evident, if we have a seeing eye, that additions and alterations have been made at different times. The nave and the chancel were plainly not designed by the same architect; the north side of the church differs from the south; here has been added a new door, there a new window; the roof has been taken off, the worn ends of the rafters sawn away, and the 100rafters used again, so that the roof has to be of less slope than it was before.

All these are the signs of life and growth. If we wish, we can read by them how our forefathers prospered in their worldly business, and how they gave thanks to God for their prosperity; or how the coming of the Plague brought them poverty and distress, and perhaps put a stop to their building operations, which were not completed till many years afterwards, and then in a style quite different from that in which they had been begun.

Often these alterations and rebuildings were put on record, and some of the records remainremain to our day. Thus John Skinner, of Westgate, Hedon, by his will made in 1428, left the sum of forty shillings towards the building of the new tower of St. Augustine’s Church. On the south face 101of the tower of Aughton Church is an inscription which is now illegible, but which once told in the Anglo-French language that Christopher Aske, the second son of Sir Robert Aske, rebuilt the tower in 1536.

Cut into the stone of the same tower is in two places the likeness of an aske or newt, a punning allusion to the name of the builder. In the same way, the tower of Hemingbrough Church is ornamented with a row of ‘dolly-tubs’ or ‘weshing-tuns’—an allusion to the name of Prior Wessington, in whose period of rule the tower was rebuilt.

Most interesting of all such records are the inscriptions on the pillars of the north side of the nave in St. Mary’s, Beverley. They show that when the tower fell in 1520 and destroyed that side of the nave, the destruction was repaired by a combined effort on the part of the parishioners. A family named Crosslay provided the wherewithal for rebuilding the half pillar at the west end, and the two pillars 102next to it towards the east; the ‘good wives’ of the parish rebuilt the next two pillars; and, as will be shown later, the remaining pillar was rebuilt by the Gild of Minstrels.^[27]

Hence the inscriptions which we may read to-day high up on the pillars:—

But though no written or inscribed record may exist, it is yet possible to tell approximately the date at which either a church was built, or some particular portion of it was rebuilt. This is so because men built in different styles at different times—the fashionable mode of building changed as the centuries went on. Let us see how we can recognise these styles.

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When the Normans came to England, they brought with them great zeal for church-building, and many churches built by them remain to our day on the Wolds of the East Riding.

The Norman style of building was one of round-headed arches and of narrow round-headed windows with the sides widely splayed, so that the window-opening inside is very much larger than the narrow slit which appears on the outside of the wall. The walls were very thick, the masonry was rough, the joints between the stones were very clumsy, and the buttresses, if used at all, did not project more than a few inches from the walls. The early Norman churches had very plain chancel or tower arches, such as we see at Speeton, Reighton, and Rudston; but those built later 103had arches magnificently carved with zigzags or chevrons, and with animal forms. Good examples of these may be seen at North Newbald, Kirkburn, Nunburnholme, Etton, and Garton-on-the-Wolds.

The Norman style of building lasted from 1066 to 1190. Then came a change. Instead of using a semi-circular or one-centred arch, architects found out the advantages of a two-centred arch. They also made the discovery that 104the walls need not be so thick, if the thickness of the buttresses was increased. Thus came about what we call the Early English or Lancet style of building, which was fashionable for the ninety years from 1190 to 1280. Beautiful examples of this style can be seen in the churches of Filey, Hedon, Middleton-on-the-Wolds, and Kirk Ella.

Again came a change, a growth of ideas. Men grew tired of the simple form of Lancet window, which we to-day consider so beautiful because of its simplicity. First they experimented by piercing an ornamental hole through the stonework above a group of lancets. This gave what we call Plate Tracery, examples of which are not numerous in our Riding.

Then a further experiment was made. Instead of building the head of a group of lancets in solid stone, some architect-builder hit upon the idea of making a pattern of shaped bars of stone, and of filling in the pattern with glass cut to fit the spaces. This at once proved popular, and an entirely new fashion in window designs set in.

At first the patterns made in stone were simple Geometrical ones, such as those in the chancel windows at Rudston. But gradually, as one set of builders vied with another in building the most beautiful church, the patterns became more complicated and Curvilinear in form. These last two styles together made up what is usually known as the Decorated style of building, and were in fashion from 1280 to 1380.

Lastly came another great change, due to the discovery of methods for producing stained glass. The windows of Norman churches had been very small, and the interiors of the churches had been very dark. How dark they were may be judged from the present interior of the church of Garton-on-the-Wolds when the doors are both shut. Very early the worshippers experienced a desire for more light, 106and at Garton they solved the problem by knocking down some of the wall and inserting a much larger Decorated window.

But when stained glass became reasonably cheap, there were few church-people who could endure the thought that some neighbouring church had stained-glass windows when their church had none. So there began a competition among them as to who should be able to show the greatest area of stained glass in their church windows. Walls were therefore pulled down, and windows enlarged, or perhaps a nave or chancel was entirely rebuilt, for the reception of this glass; until where there had once been a stone wall with a few narrow slits in it, there was now a series of wide expanses of glass separated with narrow strips of wall.

For convenience also, the bars of stone which formed the 107window tracery were made straight instead of curved. This is the style which we call the Perpendicular style, and it grew in popular favour from 1380 until 1547, when the Reformation put an end to further growth.

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All the three styles, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, make up what is known as Gothic architecture. The name is unfortunately a meaningless one; for it does not in any way refer to the architecture of the Goths, as the name Norman does to the architecture of the Normans.

The great difference between the two styles is that whereas the roof of a Norman building was supported by the walls, the roof of a Gothic building was supported not by the walls, but by the buttresses, some of which might be constructed in the form of bridges. Such buttresses are known as flying buttresses.

It would be almost true to say that we might knock down every inch of wall in Beverley Minster or Patrington Church and yet leave standing the framework and roof of the buildings, with the western towers of the one and the central spire of the other. Such buildings are perfect in design, and their perfectness is due to the knowledge and skill which were possessed by their architect-builders.

Gothic architecture grew like a plant, and reached its full development in the Perpendicular style, when the enthusiasm for church-building was at its height. Most of our village churches show signs of having been in part rebuilt during the period when the Perpendicular style flourished, and one of its most marked features is a lofty central or western tower, such as we see at Hedon, Howden, and Driffield.

For a long time after the Reformation there was no fresh church-building, and little church-repair. What little attention our ancient parish churches had at the repairers’ 108hands was often of the kind that is called ‘churchwarden’ restoration, an example of which we see in the accompanying photograph of a portion of Welwick Church. Now, happily, such is a thing of the past, and our church restorers aim at a restoration which is true to its name.

It is unusual to find an ancient parish church built in one style throughout. But Filey Church is almost entirely on the border-line between Norman and Early English; Patrington Church is almost entirely Decorated; and Skirlaugh Church, which was built by Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, about 1403, is entirely Perpendicular.

Modern churches are, on the other hand, usually in one style throughout. The churches of Kilnwick Percy, East Heslerton, and Sledmere will serve as good examples of modern Norman, modern Early English, and modern Decorated styles.

In and about many of our ancient parish churches are preserved features which remind us of the customs and beliefs of long-past days. At Easington we may see the ancient tithe barn, in which was stored the parson’s tithe of corn when tithes were paid not in money but in kind. At Barmby-on-the-Marsh, North Frodingham and Swine are preserved the church chests in which the parish records were kept. Holy Trinity, Hull, has only recently parted with the library of which its parishioners enjoyed the use long before the days of ‘Free Libraries.’

In the churches at Barmston, Burstwick, Goodmanham and Thwing may be seen the squint, or hole cut through a pier of the tower so that the people worshipping in the transept might see the ‘elevation of the host’ before the high altar. At Millington, Nunburnholme and Sancton there remain the low-side or lepers’ windows, so built that the poor unfortunates outside the walls of the church might not be deprived of the sight of the same.

Just within the south door of the church at Great Givendale stands the stoup or holy-water vessel, from which all worshippers were once sprinkled; and across the chancel arches at Flamborough and Winestead stand the ancient rood screens. At Kirkburn we may see a modern replica of an ancient rood screen in all the glory of brilliant colours; and the interior surface of the walls 110and roof of the church at Garton-on-the-Wolds reproduces the ancient custom of painting in colours every square inch of available space within a church.

In several churches there are grotesque carvings in wood and stone—gargoyles, corbels, poppy-heads, and misericords—carvings so grotesque and irreligious that we can only wonder at the feelings which prompted their construction.

Brasses and altar tombs show us plainly how the lords and ladies were dressed in former days, and an occasional brass of a parish priest serves to point out the differences between the parish priest of the fifteenth century and his successor, the ‘parson’ of to-day.

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Scattered over some of the pleasantest parts of Yorkshire are to be found the ruined homes of men and women who centuries ago formed a very distinct class among the people of our country. These men and women were the monks, friars, and nuns of mediæval England, and their homes were known as monasteries and friaries.

The foundation of monasteries was due to the growth of an idea that men and women could serve God better by withdrawing entirely from worldly affairs, and by giving themselves up to a life of continual prayer and worship. Many were established in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries, but the great period of their foundation was that from 1066 to 1216. During these years no fewer than 556 monasteries were founded in our country, and 65 of these were in Yorkshire.

According to whether a monastery was independent of all 124others or not, it ranked as an Abbey or a Priory; and according to the particular code of rules under which its inmates lived, it was inhabited by Benedictines, Cistercians, or Carthusians. The monks of the Order of St. Benedict were popularly known as Black Monks, and their three Abbeys in Yorkshire were at Whitby, Selby and York. They had no House in the East Riding, but there were Benedictine nunneries at Nunburnholme, Nunkeeling, Wilberfoss and Yedingham.

The Order of the Cistercians, or White Monks, received its name from the Abbey of Citeaux in Normandy. In this the rules were stricter and the life harder than among the Benedictines. The Cistercians believed that the work of a man’s hands was as acceptable an offering to God as the recitation of prayers and the chanting of psalms, and hence they became great farmers and wool-growers.^[29] Yorkshire was particularly their county, and the great Abbeys of Fountains, Rievaulx, Jervaulx and Byland were some of the wealthiest and most 125powerful in England. In the East Riding the Cistercians had an Abbey at Meaux and a nunnery at Swine.

A still stricter Order of monks was that of the Carthusians, who received their name from the Abbey of Chartreuse in the south-east of France. From the popular corruption of the word ‘Chartreuse’ into ‘Charterhouse,’ their monasteries became generally known as Charterhouses. One of these was established at Hull by Sir Michael de la Pole,^[30] and there was in the North Riding another at Mount Grace, near Northallerton.

The life of a monk or a nun was one spent apart from the world but, at the same time, in common with all other inmates of the monastery or nunnery. The inmates worked together, prayed together, had their meals together, and slept in a common dormitory.

Their life was also one of absolute devotion to carrying 126out the rules of their Order. Each inmate took, on entering the religious life, the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. By the first, no monk or nun might own separate possessions except the necessary clothing and bedding. Thus, one mattress, two pairs of blankets, two counterpanes, one cowl and frock, two tunics, two pairs of vests, four pairs of breeches, two pairs of shoes, four pairs of socks, two pairs of day-boots, one pair of night-boots, one night-cap, two towels, one soiled-linen ‘pokett,’ and one shaving cloth formed the wardrobe of a Black Monk. In addition he might possess a silver spoon, and then his outfit was complete. By the second vow he bound himself never to marry, and by the third to obey implicitly the orders of his superiors.

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The Houses of these monks and nuns were, with slight exceptions here and there, constructed on certain definite lines, which can best be illustrated by a plan of the Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, near Leeds. Surrounding all was a wall, not shown in the plan.

The arrangement of the various buildings was very simple. Foremost in importance ranked the church, which was always the first building to be erected and that on which the greatest wealth was lavished. To the south of this were attached the domestic buildings, grouped round a central cloister court. Of these the most important were the chapter house, in which the monks assembled each morning to hear a chapter from the Latin rules of their Order; the four cloisters or covered walks in which the daily tasks of the monks were performed; the frater or refectory, in which their midday meal was served; and the dorter or dormitory, in which they slept. This last ran above the line of buildings to the south of the south transept, and had a staircase leading directly into this as well as one leading into the east cloister.

128The other buildings included the sacristy or treasure-house; the library; the locutorium or parlour, which was a meeting-place for conversation as well as a school for the novices; the infirmary for sick monks; the calefactory, or warming-house, where a fire was kept burning from the first day in November till the following Easter; the kitchen; the cellarium or store-room; the hospitium or guest-house; and the Abbot’s house.

Attached to each House of the Cistercians was a band of conversi, or lay brethren, the uneducated portion of the community, who did all the rough work of the House. Their frater and dorter were separate from the other buildings, the dorter running over the cellarium; and they attended service in the nave of the church, whereas the monks used the choir or chancel.

Such was the general plan of a Cistercian monastery or nunnery. That of the Benedictines did not differ from it except that their churches were larger and more magnificently built than those of the Cistercians, and their fraters ran east and west instead of north and south.

Look at the outer wall of the south aisle of Bridlington Priory Church, and you will at once notice something strange. The windowless wall and blocked arches are due to the fact that the Abbot’s house adjoined the church at this spot. Look along the wall farther to the east, and you will see plainly the brackets on which once rested the roof beams of one of the four cloisters.

In some cases the domestic buildings lay to the north of the church, but this was exceptional. Advantage was usually taken of the protection afforded by the church against the biting north winds of winter, an advantage not to be despised by those who had to live in unwarmed stone buildings on the bleak moorlands of Yorkshire. One can imagine a shivering monk returning from his two hours’ service in the 129church at two o’clock on a cold winter’s morning, and piling on the bed his whole wardrobe in a vain endeavour to keep the marrow of his bones from freezing into solid ice. It was worth something to be an Abbot. For the Abbot’s house had fire-places, and there would be little fear of his forgetting to make use of such a comfortable privilege.

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As was mentioned earlier in the chapter, the monk lived 130in common with his fellows. In winter his time-table was as follows:—

Strict regulations were made with regard to the church services, manual work, and meals. Each monk had some definite occupation for his working hours. He was a stonemason, a carpenter, a worker in metals, a scribe, or a farmer; and his work must be carried out in silence—a very needful exception being made in the case of the blacksmiths.

Each monk’s dinner allowance was one pound of bread and a pint of wine or ale, with two cooked dishes and fruit or salad. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and all the days in Lent were fast days, when no meat might be eaten. On these fast days there were allowed as cooked dishes to every two monks either two plaice or mackerel, or four 131soles, or eight herrings or whiting, or ten eggs. No breakfast was the rule on fast days, and to avoid excess of blood due to good living, each monk was ‘cupped’ four times a year.

Table manners were also looked after. ‘No one was to clean his cup with his fingers, nor wipe his hands, or mouth, or knife, upon the tablecloths.... Salt was to be taken with a knife, and the drinking-cup was to be held always in both hands.’

More severe by far was the life of the Carthusians. They lived solitary lives, each in his separate two-roomed cell, never talking to others, and not even seeing others except at matins and vespers. A Carthusian never ate meat and always wore a hair shirt next his skin. It is therefore not 132surprising that this Order did not become a popular one.

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So far we have been dealing with monks and nuns. Besides these there were the Regular Canons—men who lived under a regula, or rule, as did the monks, and who took the same three vows, but who were generally priests, while the monks were generally laymen. The Augustinian Canons had priories at Bridlington, Haltemprice, Kirkham, North Ferriby and Warter, and there was a Gilbertine nunnery at Ellerton and a House for both Gilbertine Canons and Benedictine Nuns at Watton. Here the canons and nuns had each their separate domestic buildings, but they shared the church, the canons using one half of it and the nuns the other half.

Quite distinct from monks and canons were the Friars. 133Monks were concerned with one thing only—the salvation of their own souls. Hence their monasteries were, as a rule, built in desolate spots, far removed from the centres of population. The churches of the canons were, in most cases, partly used as parish churches, the prior of the convent being also the rector of the parish. Friars were concerned 134with the salvation of the souls and bodies of other people, hence they established themselves in populous towns.towns. Fratres, or frères, they were to all poor people, whether they were Dominican Friars, Franciscan Friars, Carmelite Friars, or Austin Friars.

The followers of St. Dominic were the teachers, the followers of St. Francis the doctors, of the middle ages. Black Friars and Grey Friars they were in the language of the common people. Beverley had its Dominican and Franciscan Friaries, while Kingston-upon-Hull had its Carmelite and Austin Friaries—the names of the two latter remaining to-day in our ‘Whitefriargate’ and ‘Blackfriargate.’

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It is difficult for us to realise what enthusiasm there was in the olden days for that which was called ‘the religious life.’ ‘It is good for us to be here, for here a man lives more purely, falls more rarely, rests more safely, and dies more happily’ was the honest thought of each of the religious in early days.

But as with all other human institutions, these good ideals perished in the course of time. Men did not continue to live up to the rules of their Order. Even in Chaucer’s time—that is, before the year 1400—the typical monk had travelled far away from his vows of poverty and obedience.

135Chaucer’s friar was likewise a wanton and merry man, who knew the taverns well in every town.

Each of two East Riding villages, Harpham and Cherry Burton, claims to be the birthplace of Saint John of Beverley. His date of birth is even more uncertain than his place of birth; but we know that he was sent to school at the monastery at Canterbury, and afterwards became an inmate of the famous monastery of St. Hilda at Whitby. Then he was for nineteen years Bishop of Hexham, and finally, in 705 or 706, was ‘translated’ to York, and thus became the fifth in the long line of eighty-nine Archbishops from Paulinus to Cosmo Lang.

While John was Bishop of Hexham he purchased a plot of ground in Beverley, and on it built a church which he placed in charge of a small number of canons. The surrounding country was then nothing but swamp and forest—the swamps of the river Hull and the wild woodland whose name has come down to us as ‘Beverley Westwood.’ So fond of this church was John, that in 718 he gave up his Archbishopric and retired to Beverley, where he died three years later.

136John’s church suffered the fate which came to nearly all the monasteries and churches of those far-off times. The ravaging Northmen fell upon it, and it was not till the reign of King Aethelstan that it recovered from their attacks.

Then its fame began to grow. In 934 Aethelstan was marching north to make war upon the Scots, and when at Lincoln met—so the story runs—a band of pilgrims who joyously declared that they had been healed of all manner of diseases by visiting the tomb of the blessed John of Beverley. Their story induced the King to pay a visit to the same tomb; so he journeyed directly north, crossed the Humber, and went on to Beverley, while his army went round by the longer branch of the old Roman road to York.

Arriving at Beverley, Aethelstan besought the aid of the holy Bishop John, and placed his knife on the high altar as a pledge of the rewards that he would bestow upon the church if he were successful in his journey. Thereupon a vision of John of Beverley appeared before his eyes, and he heard the words, ‘Pass fearlessly with your army, for you shall conquer’—words which certainly came true enough.

Believing that his success was due entirely to the power of the holy Bishop whose banner he had brought with him from Beverley, the King, on his return, liberally fulfilled his pledge, and endowed John’s church with grants of lands, tolls, and the right of Sanctuary.

is the way in which a charter of much later date than the time of Aethelstan describes the King’s gifts to John of Beverley’s church.

So great after this became the fame of the miracles performed at the tomb of the founder of the church, that in 1037 the Pope ordered that John of Beverley should thenceforth be ranked as a Saint. His bones and other relics were 138then laid in a magnificent shrine in front of the high altar, and the story of the fate which came upon the sacrilegious Toustain in 1069 is sufficient evidence of their power.^[33]

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The charter of Aethelstan was renewed by Edward the Confessor, Henry I., and Stephen; and in the reign of the last-named King the banner of St. John was for the second time in the forefront of a battle against the Scots. This was the Battle of the Standard, when the banners of the four northern Saints—St. Peter of York, St. Cuthbert of Durham, St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and St. John of Beverley—brought victory to the English host.

Once again an English King visited Beverley and carried north with him the banner of St. John. The King was Edward I., the ‘Hammer of the Scots,’ and the Household 139Accounts of his reign show that in 1299 there was paid:

To master Gilbert de Grimsby, vicar of the collegiate church of St. John de Beverley, for his wages, from the 25th day of November, on which day he left Beverley to proceed, by command of the King, with the standard of St. John, in the King’s suite aforesaid, to various parts of Scotland, until the 9th day of January, both computed, 46 days, at 8½d. per diem ...

Edward II., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI. all paid visits to the shrine of St. John of Beverley, and his power was once more demonstrated in the victory of the English army at the battle of Agincourt. For during the time that the battle was being waged, did not the tomb of the Saint sweat drops of holy oil? So at least said the pilgrims to the shrine, and certainly they ought to have known whether it did or not.

Royal gifts and pilgrims’ offerings brought great prosperity to the church of St. John of Beverley. 140But evil days were fast approaching, and in 1547 Royal Commissioners were sent to report on it. They reported that there were attached to the church a Provost, 9 Canons, 7 Parsons, 9 Vicars, 15 Chantry Priests, 4 Sacristans, 2 Incense Bearers, 8 Choristers, and 22 others, a total of 77 officers, who shared among them an income of £900 derived from lands and tithes. Two years later its revenues were declared confiscated to the Crown, and its inmates reduced in number to 1 Vicar and 3 Assistants.

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Of the building as it was in its earliest days we know little. In Aethelstan’s time it was probably entirely of wood. The erection of a stone church is believed to have taken place in the reign of Edward the Confessor, but we know that in 1188 the chancel and transepts of this church were destroyed by fire.

Rebuilding was commenced shortly afterwards, and a lofty tower was built on the weak foundations of the older one. As a result the new tower soon fell, and about 1225 the building of an entirely new church was taken in hand. This was the time when what we call the Early English style of building was in vogue, and there is nothing of this style in all England finer than the chancel and transepts of Beverley Minster.^[34]

If you look at the old engraving of the Minster given on page 137 you will notice that this one style of building was not followed throughout the church. Just past the transepts the style changes into the Decorated style. The reason is that there was a long interval of nearly one hundred years during which the canons had not enough money to continue their building operations, so that the work came to a standstill. Meanwhile the Norman nave was still 141standing; and when at last money again became plentiful, a larger nave in the new and fashionable style was built around the old one. A curious result of this mode of building is seen to-day in that the pillars of the nave are not exactly opposite to one another, because the builders were not able to measure directly across from one to the other.

Another glance at the old engraving will show that a further change in men’s ideas of building took place before the church was finished. The ravages of the ‘Black Death’ stopped progress for a time; and when the great twin towers of the west end were built, the Perpendicular style of building had become fashionable. Then, in order that the east window should be in fashion with the west window, it was rebuilt ‘in the latest style.’ Thus we have in the church three successive styles of building, quite different from one another, 142and yet so blended that they make one harmonious whole.

After the confiscation of the church property in 1549, the Minster fell, naturally, into sad disrepair. Its beautiful octagonal chapter house was sold and pulled down. One hundred and ten years ago the Minster was reported to be almost a ruin. So bad was its condition that the beautiful gable of the north transept had bulged outwards no less than four feet, and was saved from destruction only by the skill of a carpenter named Thornton, who erected a huge screen of timber, and forced the wall back to its upright position.

In 1886 a great architect, Sir Gilbert Scott, was employed to make necessary restorations. First of all he took down the dome-like roof, with gilded ball above it, seen in the old engraving of the Minster. True, the Minster still lacks the central tower which, like the cathedrals of York, Durham, and Lincoln, it was originally planned to have; but better none at all than the unsuitable dome which our ancestors built a century ago. The beautiful choir screen was designed also by Sir Gilbert Scott, and was carved by a Beverley craftsman, Mr. James Elwell.

Since 1886 the main work of restoration has been the filling in of the numerous niches around the walls, 144each of which before the Reformation had its statue, great or small. Only one of these ancient statues remains, a statue of one of the Percy family, on a buttress of the north face of the north tower. There are now in position on the walls of the Minster 182 statues—108 outside and 74 inside—most of which have been provided through the generosity of Canon Nolloth.

There is much of interest to see around the Minster. The best view of the great towers is obtained from the entrance to Minster Moorgate; that of the interior of the nave from the upper floor at the west end, which is reached by a staircase in the north tower.

Climb to the top of the tower and you will, if the day is fine, be rewarded with a wide-reaching view over Beverley Westwood and the Plain of Holderness. Go into the chancel and examine the Percy Tomb. You are looking at the most magnificent stonework of the fourteenth century in the whole of Europe. Lift up the seats in the canons’ stalls and you will see the best collection of carved miserere seats in England. Sit in the ancient Frith-Stool and you can imagine yourself to be either an innocent victim of oppression or a criminal of the deepest dye—whichever you prefer. Stand before the great east window, and admire the beauty of the old stained glass of which it is composed. Or stand before the great west window and you will see portrayed in its coloured glass Augustine and Aethelberht of Kent and St. John of Beverley, the marriage of Edwin and Ethelburga, the baptism of Edwin by Paulinus, and Coifi, the heathen high priest, with his broken idols—an epitome of the early church history of our country.

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What sort of life did the townsfolk lead five centuries ago? Suppose the townsfolk of to-day could suddenly be transported back five hundred years, what would be the things likely to strike them as most strange?

One of these would certainly be the way in which the town was cut off, as it were, from the surrounding district. Thus Hedon was cut off by two Havens, one natural, the other artificial, and by another artificial watercourse called 163the Town Moat. Beverley was entirely surrounded by a similar moat, part of which remains in our own day, and entrance to the town was gained by Bars spanning the roads. Those at Beverley were known respectively as the North Bar, Newbiggyn Bar, Keldgate Bar, Norwood Bar, and South Bar.

How early these Bars were built we do not know, but there have recently been discovered the complete accounts for the rebuilding of North Bar in 1409. This is the Bar which exists to-day, and it has, in its five hundred years’ existence, undergone little change, except for the cutting through it of two side-passages for foot traffic. It still 164has the massive oak folding doors which were shut every night at sunset, and the groove can yet be seen in which the portcullis worked. If you ride on through the Bar to York, you will enter that city by the Walmgate Bar, and above your head as you pass through this you may see the bottom spikes of its still remaining portcullis.

Hull was defended even more strongly than Beverley; for in 1322 the King granted to its townsfolk leave to defend themselves with a wall as well as a moat. A portion of the wall which they built is represented on the old plan of Hull reproduced in part on the opposite page.

This plan shows the town as it was about the year 1380, and makes very clear the difference between a town and a village five centuries ago. On the left bank of the river Hull is the village of Dripole, with its church and few scattered houses; on the right bank is the town of Kyngeston-upon-Hull, with its churches, houses, and gardens closely packed together within a castellated wall, and protected by a riverside battery armed with three small cannon. The shipping on the river is seen to be also protected, and this with an iron chain drawn across the mouth of the river.

In the part of the plan not here given, there is shown a more ominous sign of authority. Outside the Beverley Gate stands a gibbet on which hang the bodies of three culprits as warnings of the fate that comes to evil-doers.

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To those accustomed to the wide and well-paved streets of our modern towns, the streets of a mediæval town would appear very strange. On the plan of Hull the two main streets, then known as Aldgate and Lowgate, are shown fairly wide. But High Street, which follows regularly in its course the windings of the river Hull, is much narrower; and the by-streets of the town are so narrow as not to appear at all.

Streets in mediæval times were astonishingly narrow. The ‘High Street’ of Hull has changed little during the last five hundred years, and to-day there are portions in which two carts cannot pass each other. The extreme width of the western half of Grimsby Lane, one of the by-streets connecting High Street and the Market Place, named after Simon de Grymesby, Mayor of Hull in 1391, is only nine feet. So also the main street in Beverley now barely allows two 167vehicles to pass each other, and some of the side lanes entering it, such as Laundress Lane and Tindall Lane, are even narrower than the Grimsby Lane just mentioned.

In all these cases the roadway has remained practically the same width for a space of five centuries. But five centuries ago the condition of the road and the amount of air-space above it were very different from what they are to-day. Mediæval houses were built of thick beams of timber, with the intervening spaces filled in with brick and plaster, and security of the floors was obtained by making the second story project a foot or two beyond the first, and the third project similarly beyond the second. The result was a very firmly built house, but a very narrowly confined roadway.

The difference between the mediæval and the modern style of road planning is shown in the above diagram, which gives to scale the building-lines of High Street and King Edward Street—the oldest and the newest business streets in the city of Hull.

168Mediæval streets were paved with round cobble stones—such stones as still form the pavement of the market-places of Beverley and Hedon. It is on record that in the year 1400 two Dutch ships brought into Hull cargoes of these stones amounting to 56,000 in number. But the method of drainage was then exactly the opposite of what it is to-day; for the middle of the road was the gutter, or kennel. If we imagine that there were then no ‘dust-carts,’ and that each householder got rid of refuse by the simple process of casting it out into the kennel for the next shower of rain to wash away, we shall come to some idea of the general condition of the streets in a mediæval town.

Little wonder that in mediæval towns were bred foul diseases that broke out at intervals and sometimes carried off half the population in the course of a few months. In 1349—the year of the ‘Black Death’—1361, 1369, and 1451 the Plague visited the East Riding, and there are to be seen in the chancel floor of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, the tombstone and brasses of a merchant named Richard Byll, who was one of its victims in the last-mentioned year.

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Five centuries ago one of the privileges of a free borough was the holding of a market for the sale of goods by people who were not burgesses of the town. Every free borough had its market-place, which usually lay under the shadow of the parish church, as it does to-day at Beverley, Driffield, Hedon, Howden and Hull. The markets were held on certain fixed days of the week, and Tuesdays and Fridays have been the market-days at Hull since the granting of King Edward I.’s charter in the year 1299.

While the position of the market, and probably also its general appearance, have not altered during all these centuries, certain of its adornments have entirely disappeared. Beverley is the only town in the East Riding that 169has preserved its market cross. From all the towns of the East Riding have disappeared the stocks, the pillory, and the ducking-stool.

To the stocks and the pillory went in former times such men and women as ‘John Fleshewer, butcher,’ of Hedon, who in 1420 was brought before the town bailiffs on the charge that he ‘did sell flesh not useable, old, useless, and worthless,’ and ‘Agnes, wife of John Piese, schipman,’ also of Hedon, who ‘did sell two penny wheat loaves of bread, not useable and fusty.’ In the ducking-stool went to the 170town moat or the river the scolding woman whose temper and tongue were equally beyond their owner’s control. So the stocks, pillory, and ducking-stool proved themselves to be not only ornamental but also very useful.

The daily work of wage-earners five hundred years ago was very different from what it is to-day. There were then no such things as our huge factories in which thousands of ‘hands’ are employed day after day at the same monotonous toil. Work was more varied and the conditions were much freer. But hours were longer and pay was considerably less. The legal hours of the day labourer from March to September were 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., with two hours allowed for breakfast and dinner. On the other hand, ‘Bank Holidays’—or Holy-Days, as they were then called—were far more numerous. Holy-days, in fact, reduced the working-days of the year to only 264 in number.

The building-accounts for the Beverley North Bar in 1409 give a record of all the wages paid; and from these we find that the wages of a bricklayer were 6d. per day, of a labourer 4d., and of a carter with his horse and cart 12d.^[40] What would the ‘British workman’ of to-day think of the following scale of wages, which formed the statute yearly wages in 1444:—

			With food and clothing.
	s.	d.		s.	d.
Bailiff of husbandry	23	4	or	5	0
Hind, carter, shepherd	20	0	”	4	0
Labourer	15	0	”	3	4
Woman servant	10	0	”	4	0
Child under 14	6	0	”	3	0

The work of the Trade Gilds in regulating the trade and 171industries of a town will be described in another chapter, but here is the place to refer to the work of the Religious or Social Gilds which were so prominent a feature of mediæval town life. These were voluntary associations of men and women, who undertook to pay sums of money into a common fund, on which all members could draw during old age or during periods of sickness. In other words they were the Friendly Societies—the ‘Hearts of Oak,’ ‘Ancient Order of Foresters,’ and ‘Oddfellows’—of our own times.

At Hull there were six of these Gilds, the most important being the Gild of St. John Baptist, the Gild of Corpus Christi, and the Gild of the Holy Trinity. In the case of the first of these a member undertook to pay two shillings of silver each year, in four instalments, and derived the following benefits, on becoming ‘infirm, bowed, blind, deaf, dumb, maimed, ... either in youth or age.’:—

(1) weekly, one halfpenny of silver;

(2) at the Festival of St. Martin in winter 5s. of silver for one garment.

The entrance fee to this Gild was 13s. 4d., but that to the Gild of Corpus Christi was 3 lbs. of silver. Here, however, the ‘sick pay’ was correspondingly higher, being 14d. weekly; and if any brother or sister was in need 20s. was ‘granted on loan.’

In the reign of Edward VI. nearly all the Religious Gilds came to an end. Henry VIII. had intended their suppression, but it fell to the lot of Protector Somerset to be their actual destroyer. On the plea that they were engaged in religious services not in accordance with Government ideas, they suffered the fate of the monasteries; and their property in lands, houses, and plate—their invested funds we should call it to-day—was diverted to other purposes.

Of the Gilds at Hull the sole one to survive was the Gild 172of the Holy Trinity, which was founded in 1369 and later became identical with the Shipman’s Gild. This identity with the Shipman’s Gild in 1547 saved its life, and in place of being swept away its privileges were increased. It had many private benefactors, chief among whom was Thomas Ferries, who in 1631 gave it the estate of the Whitefriars on which its buildings now stand. King Charles II. granted it a charter in which it is stated that the Gild

hath much tended to the furtherance of Navigation, the increase of shipping, and the well breeding of Seamen in that Town and Port.

The Corporation of the Hull Trinity House consists of twelve Elder Brethren, six Assistants, and an indefinite number of Younger Brethren. From the Elder Brethren two Wardens are chosen annually. They maintain several almshouses for mariners and their dependents, and one of the best navigation schools in the country; they also grant out-pensions to a large number of worn-out seamen.

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We have dealt with the work of the townsfolk in the 173fifteenth century, but what of their amusements? Here they were certainly nothing like so well off as their descendants of the twentieth century. Of theatres and kinematograph shows they had none. Football matches they had occasionally. But it was with this difference—that a football match then was not one in which thirty men played while thirty thousand looked on and yelled their applause or disapproval. A football match in those days meant one in which the ‘field’ was the main street of the town, the ‘goals’ were the town wall or moat at either end of the street, and the ‘players’ were the whole body of townsfolk. Such a match is still played annually in at least one town of Northern England.

For the rest the people had their Church-Ales, their Miracle Plays, and their Fairs. Church-Ales were parish feasts held in and around the church on the eve of the church’s saint’s-day; and to them each parishioner contributed his share—a dozen loaves, a cheese, or a few gallons of ale—the whole being then sold as required, while all present made merry. Church-Ales were, in other words, the ‘Parish-Teas’ and the ‘Knife-and-Fork Suppers’ of our own degenerate days.

As has been said, there were in mediæval towns no theatres. Still the townsfolk had their plays. In very early times the play-house was the church, the plays were representations of events recorded in the Scriptures, and the performers were the clergy.

In the thirteenth century, however, it became the custom for these Miracle-Plays, as they were called, to be performed no longer in the church, but on moveable platforms, known as ‘pageants,’ in streets and market-places, or on village greens, at the different fairs and festivals throughout the country. Yorkshire seems to have taken a prominent share in their creation; for we have to-day a manuscript of 174forty-eight plays performed regularly at York for two hundred years, and another of thirty plays performed at Wakefield. We know also that at Beverley such plays were produced each year on the festival of Corpus Christi—the Thursday after Trinity Sunday—from 1407 to 1604, and that at Hull the play of Noah was performed in the streets once each year for a space of three centuries.

What the performance of a Miracle Play was like may be judged pretty well from the accompanying illustration. The pageant was a large ‘two-decker’ vehicle, which could be drawn by men or horses from one ‘station’ to another.

It was the custom at York for the first play in the series—God the Father Almighty Creating and Forming the Heavens—to begin on Corpus Christi morning at 5 o’clock. This was at the gates of the Priory of Holy Trinity. When this part of the Creation had been satisfactorily got through, its pageant passed on to take up its second station ‘at the door of Robert Harpham’; while another play showing God the Father Creating the Earth took its place. And so on through the whole series, each play being thus performed at twelve different stations during the course of the day.

The performers of these plays were the members of the various Trade Gilds of a town. So far as the number of plays allowed, each Gild might have its own play, and the plays were as far as possible appropriately distributed. Thus at York the Goldsmiths had allotted to them The Three Kings Coming from the East, the Vintners had The Turning of Water into Wine, and the Butchers had The Crucifixion. At both York and Hull the Shipmen, or Mariners, had the play of Noah.

Stage properties were well looked after. The ‘ark’ used in a French performance of The Deluge is here shown, while that used in the corresponding play produced 176each ‘Plough Monday’^[41] by the Hull Shipmen was equally elaborate though built more in resemblance to an ordinary ship. It had mast and rigging, and pictures of the animals that ‘went in two by two’ hung round its sides painted on boards. From one festival to another it remained suspended from the roof of Holy Trinity Church.

Some curious items occur in the old accounts of the Hull Trinity House in this connection:—

To Robert Brown, playing God	6d.
To Noah and his wife	1s. 6d.
To a shipwright for clinking Noah’s ship, one day	7d.
For three skins for Noah’s coat, making it, and a rope to hang the ship in the kirk	2s. 5d.

When, in 1494, the Gild of the Holy Trinity had to purchase a new Ark, the accounts show also that the cost amounted to the tremendous sum of £7 4s. 11d.

The lower stage of the pageant is, in the illustration, shown to be curtained off. This lower stage was the actors’ dressing-room, and also served very conveniently as the ‘lower regions’ from which through a trap-door the Devil would emerge with horns and tail complete. God was stationed on a raised platform at the back of the upper stage, and appeared in the full dress of a Pope, saints had gilded hair and beards, and angels were dressed in white surplices through which their gilded wings projected.

Most impressive and realistic these must have seemed in the eyes of the beholders. But there were also ‘realistic effects’ to be seen—lightning, earthquakes, and the destruction 177of the world by fire—as the following items show:—

Payd for the baryll for the yerthequake	iiijd.
Payd for starche to make the storm	vjd.
Payd for settynge the world of fyer	vd.

How realistic also must have been the crossing of the Red Sea! For the children of Israel did actually cross it in the sight of all. ‘Halfe a yard of Rede Sea’—there it is down in black and white among the properties belonging to Israel in Egypt.

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The mediæval Miracle Plays have long been dead in our country, but we still have with us the remains of the great mediæval Fairs. In the days when few people travelled if they could possibly stay at home, and when for the whole of the winter months the state of the country roads prohibited all travelling except that on horseback, fairs were a necessity. The right to hold an annual fair was therefore an eagerly sought privilege.

178Thus Beverley, Bridlington, Hedon, Howden, Hull—all these towns very early obtained the right to hold annual fairs. The Hedon townsfolk had their fair every year ‘on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, and for seven days after,’ from the year 1162; and this fair continued to be held on Magdalen Hill down to 1878. The charter for the holding of a fair at Hull was granted in 1299, and the eleventh day of October, 1911, saw Hull Fair still in full swing.

To these mediæval fairs would come a large concourse of merchants, minstrels, pedlars, jugglers, and rogues. To them would come also householders and the stewards of manor-house and castle, eager to buy cloth, silks, ribbons, pots and pans, boots and shoes, wine, wax, malt, a store of butter to last over the winter, or a store of salt for preparing the winter meat supply.

Among the entertainment providers would come the owner of the ‘wild beast show’—the show consisting of a solitary elephant or dromedary, or, much more frequently, an ape and a bear. If it is a bear that is the showman’s stock-in-trade, then there will be a chance for dogs that have grown sated with indulgence in the sport of bull-baiting to experience a new sensation.^[42]

179Hither also would come that strange product of the middle ages—the pardoner. He professes to have from the Pope power to grant pardons for sins committed, or even for sins to be committed, if only satisfactory payment is forthcoming. To prove his genuineness he has a wallet full of parchments, brought straight from Rome, and all duly stamped with large seals. And if that is not enough for his credulous audience he has holy relics to show—a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat, and a feather from the wing of the angel Gabriel.

He has also the shoulder bone of a holy Jew’s sheep, which is guaranteed to cure disease in any cow, calf, ox, or sheep, if the bone be but washed in a bucket of water and the sick animal’s tongue well cleaned with this water. ‘One penny’ is all his charge. ‘Bring your buckets full of water. Now’s your chance! If you lose it, your sick cow, calf, ox, or sheep may be dead in the morning, and you’ll be sorry ever afterwards that you didn’t take my advice.’

Thus does the rascal do a roaring trade.

With the Trade Unions of our days almost everyone is to some extent acquainted. Certainly everyone who lives in a town is acquainted with them. For, in the first place, most workmen in a town belong to a trade union; and, in the second place, many who are not ‘workmen’, in the usual meaning of the word, are made uncomfortably aware of the existence of one or other of the Trade Unions when what is called a ‘Strike’ takes place.

180Many people, if asked their opinion, would say that Trade Unions are a purely modern institution—that it is only in our own times that workmen have found the usefulness of binding themselves together in a ‘Union’ for the obtaining of benefits which singly they could not expect to gain. But such an opinion would be wrong. Trade Unions, though called by a different name, existed in our country six, seven, and even eight hundred years ago.

What we call by the name of Trade Unions were in former times known as Craft Gilds. They had this name because they were clubs, or fraternities, or brotherhoods, of men who were engaged in some branch or branches of handicraft, and who paid a fine—originally known as gildi—to obtain the privileges of membership.

In all towns there were found these Craft Gilds. Thus in 1406 Beverley had thirty-eight, and the Craft Gilds of Kingston-upon-Hull in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included those of the Weavers, the Tailors, the Glovers, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Shipwrights, the Bricklayers, the Cobblers, the Shoemakers, the Coopers, the Brewers, the Innholders, the Bakers, and the Barber Chirurgeons. Each of these crafts had its own Gild. But, on the other hand, the Goldsmiths, Pewterers, Plumbers, Glaziers, Painters, Cutlers, Musicians, Stationers, Bookbinders, and Basketmakers had to be content with one Gild among them; and a strange medley their Gild must have been.

There was one great difference between these Craft Gilds and our Trade Unions. Whereas the men who belong to the latter are the employed workmen, those who belonged to the former were both the employers and the employed, both the masters and the men. Hence the rules of the Gilds were framed not only to protect the workmen against hard and unjust masters, but also to protect the masters against dishonest and careless workmen, and, in addition, to protect 181the public from being defrauded by either dishonest masters or idle workmen. How each of these good results was effected will be seen from the following extracts, taken from the rules of different Craft Gilds belonging to Kingston-upon-Hull.

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First, we will consider the protection of the workman. Before a Weaver might set up in business for himself he must pay xijd. to the Alderman of his Gild for the inspection of his workhouse by the searchers, who would search whether his workhouse were ‘good and able’ or not. If they were satisfied on this point, then the owner was permitted to begin business on payment of an ‘upsett’ of iijs. iiijd. No woman was allowed to work at this trade within the town upon pain of xls. Nor might a Tailor keep any manner of workman tailor employed within his dwelling-house. Again, no Joiner might withhold his servant’s wages over the space of six days after the same were due. If he did, the servant could get from the Warden an order for their payment, and the master’s penalty for disobeying this order was xijd.

For the protection of the masters there were corresponding laws:—

If any of the brotherhood of the Bricklayers, being at work with any man, do, in the time of his work, resort unto the alehouse or do play at dice, cards, or any other unthrifty game, he shall forfeit and pay for every time so doing viijd.

So also, in the rules of the Shipwrights, a very heavy penalty was imposed upon the workman who for mere caprice threw down his tools and left his work unfinished:—

If any person shall be lawfully retained in work by the day, and shall unjustly and unlawfully leave or 182depart from the same until such time as the same work shall be fully finished, he shall forfeit and pay to the master warden for every such offence forty shillings of lawful money of england.

The protection of the public was equally well looked after. No person might set up or keep an Inn, unless he could make and furnish four comely and decent guest beds; and every Innholder was obliged to have in his house, ready-made, four bottles of hay, to be shown to the searchers at all times when they came to make search. Thus the comfort of both man and beast was ensured to travellers.

All manufactured goods were to be open to inspection by the searchers of the particular Gild, and any scamped or fraudulent goods were ‘seized and forfeited.’ Thus a rule of the Shoemakers’ Gild stated that—

The searchers shall well and diligently search and try all boots, shoes, buskins, slippers and pantoufles,^[43] whether they be made of leather well and truly tanned and curried, and well and substantially sewed with good thread, well twisted and made and sufficiently waxed with wax well rosined, and the stitches hard drawn with hand leathers.

Boots and shoes made under these regulations were intended to last in wear for a substantially long time, and brown paper inner soles and wooden heels would stand a poor chance of passing the inspection of the searchers. On the shelves of the Hull Museum may be seen some pairs of boots made and worn two hundred and fifty years ago, and still almost ‘as good as new.’

A rule of the Brotherhood of Cobblers reads quaintly. But, doubtless, it proved a very useful rule:—

If any cobbler shall keep any work brought to him 183longer than two days, without consent of the owner, he shall forfeit for every offence the sum of two shillings and sixpence.

One is bound to imagine that there was in those days a brisk trade in ‘Boots Mended While You Wait.’

Prices were also well looked after. ‘That no one presume to sell a pound of candles for more than one penny, or a gallon of the best ale for more than the same, or a gallon of small ale for more than a half-penny’—so runs one of the laws as to prices. Bakers’ charges were regulated according to the price of wheat. A farthing and a half-penny were fixed as the price of loaves, but the weight of the loaf varied. Thus in 1267, when wheat was one shilling a quarter—

White bread	cost ½d. per 13 lbs.
Wheat bread	”   ”   ”  20  ”
Horseloaves[44]	”   ”   ”  27  ”

The employment of cheap unskilled labour was expressly guarded against. In general, no master might keep more than one or two apprentices, and each apprentice must serve for a space of seven years. By the latter rule there was a kind of guarantee that an apprentice would learn his craft thoroughly before becoming a journeyman. No alien might be taken as an apprentice, and in many towns night-work was forbidden, as being usually inferior to day-work.

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When an apprentice had ‘served his time’ and learned his craft, he might, in his turn, become free of his Gild and so earn the right to sell the product of his hands. But this right to sell was carefully guarded, as the following regulations of the Coopers and the Bakers show:—

No cooper, unless he be first free burgess of this town 184and free of this company, shall keep any shop in this town upon pain of 5s. weekly.

No person or persons dwelling without this town shall sell any bread or cakes within this town otherwise than on the Tuesdays and Fridays, market days, in open market.

If a craftsman was thus protected against undue competition from outsiders, so he was protected against undue competition from those who had a desire to encroach on someone else’s preserves. Carpenters might not work as joiners or as shipwrights, cobblers might not work as shoemakers, nor might shoemakers work as cobblers. ‘Every man to his own trade’ was a maxim of the middle ages, and there was then no call for a ‘William Whiteley’ or a ‘Selfridge’s, Ltd.’

Sunday labour and Sunday trading were expressly forbidden in all Gilds:—

No shopwindows of the fraternity of Shoemakers shall be opened upon the sabbath days in pain of every default viijd.

No brother exercising the crafts or mysteries of a Barber or Peruke-maker shall upon the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, either out or in time of divine service, work, or keep open his shop, on pain to forfeit for every time he shall be found so doing the sum of ten shillings.

Again, it is interesting to find that ‘Sunday Closing’ was provided for in the following regulation:—

No Vintner or Aleseller shall sell any ale or wine unto any one before 11 o’clock on Sunday, unless to strangers, under penalty of vjs. viijd.

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Most interesting of all the thirty-eight Craft Gilds of 185Beverley is that of the Minstrels. The charter of this Gild was confirmed by ‘the gracious goodness of our most virtuous sovereign Lord and Lady, King Philip and Queen Mary,’ and is said to date ‘from the time of King Aethelstan, of famous memory.’

In 1520 the tower of St. Mary’s Church, Beverley, fell, and destroyed in its fall the greater part of the nave of the church. Various families of the town undertook the rebuilding of some portion of this, and one portion—the north-east pillar and the wall and roof above it—was rebuilt at the expense of the Gild of the Minstrels. This fact is recorded on a tablet placed high up on the pillar, where may be read these words:—

Attached to the east face of the pillar are also figures of five ‘meynstyrls,’ each gaudily coloured and holding his particular musical instrument—a tabor and pipe, a large viol, a shawm, a cittern, and a wait or hautboy.

186Besides these numerous Craft Gilds there were Merchant Gilds, or, as we should call them to-day, ‘Trading Companies.’

The distinction between the two kinds of Gilds is not always clear, and in some cases a trader belonged to both. But in general the Craft Gilds contained men who by their daily work changed the form of a thing, while the Merchant Gilds contained those whose daily work consisted of trading in a thing without changing its form. Thus, the Merchant Tailors bought and sold cloth, but the Tailors made the cloth into clothes. And just as to-day it is ‘much more respectable’ to be an egg-merchant than to be a pastry-cook, so, five centuries ago, it was equally ‘more respectable’ to be a merchant-tailor than a tailor pure and simple.

Chief among the Merchant Gilds of Kingston-upon-Hull were the Gild of the Merchant Adventurers, originally known as the ‘Brotherhood of St. Thomas of Canterbury,’ and the Hull Merchants’ Company. During the reigns of the Tudor and Stuart Kings, these did much to foster the trade of Hull with the great ports on the other side of the North Sea.

A charter was granted to the Hull Merchants’ Company by Queen Elizabeth, and King Charles II. renewed it on receipt of ‘fifty pounds of good and lawful money of England.’ The members of the Company met in the Merchants’ Hall—the upper story of the red-brick building on the south of the Market Place, now known as the Choir School—and a ‘merchant’s mark’ is still to be seen cut in three stone panels in the front wall of the building.of the building. They were a wealthy Company, and at one time had much power. Fines or ‘upsetts’ for the privilege of membership ranged from 6s. 8d. to £20.

187It is interesting to find that the Hull Merchants’ Company acted as a Post Office for foreign correspondence. ‘Masters of ships’—so ran one of the laws governing their Exchange—must

hang up a bagg a week before their sailing, that merchants may putt their letters therein, and soe the masters to take the same away the night before they intend to saile.

Equally interesting is it to find that the Hull merchants of the seventeenth century were, evidently, firm believers in the modern doctrine of ‘Protection.’ For, by one of the statutes regulating the trade of the port, all alien merchants must bring their goods to the Exchange and must pay one penny in the pound for the privilege of sale.

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What an insight into the working-lives of the townspeople, whether traders or craftsmen, we have given us in the ancient documents of the Merchant Gilds and Trade Gilds! As Canon Lambert says in his Two Thousand Years of Gild Life, they ‘bring back into view the everyday life of the town in the centuries of which they treat. As we study them we can mingle again in the vigorous life of the narrow streets. We can learn how it was that the men of that time built houses of which the mortar stands to-day as hard as stone; we can picture the barber looking askance at the upstart man who presumed as surgeon to molest his ancient right of letting the blood of his customers at the fall of the leaf; we can look into the mysteries of the brewing-vat as it was before tea had usurped the time-honoured place of the pewter at the breakfast tables of society; we can see the shipwrights who made the ships of Elizabeth at work; we can walk, as it were, along the 188small booths and shops, and judge of the quality of the goods which had come from Hamburg or Muscovy, or which had been fashioned with such care in the workshop behind the parlour.’

Of the Religious or Social Gilds, which existed at even earlier times than the Merchant and Craft Gilds, something was said in Chapter XVIII. The fate which overwhelmed the Religious Gilds during the reign of Edward VI. had, doubtless, some effect on the Trading Companies and Brotherhoods of Craftsmen. But the last-named were very largely excepted from the Suppression of the Gilds in 1547, and their gradual decay and final extinction were due to the introduction of new industries and new methods of working. The Hull Merchants’ Company became extinct in 1706, there was still existing at Beverley in 1752 the Brotherhood of the Barkers or Tanners, and the last entry in the Book of the Hull Fraternity of Coopers is dated 1788.

In a previous chapter were described the various buildings of a monastery and the mode of life of its inmates. And at the end of the chapter reference was made to the gradual loss of those high ideals which had been the origin of the many hundred monasteries that existed in our country at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The results of that loss will now be described.

The benefits to the country at large arising from the 189establishment of these religious houses had been great. They served as hotels for the rich and as almshouses for the poor. The Cistercian monks were pioneers in agriculture. Both monks and friars got together libraries of books—that at Meaux Abbey contained 324 volumes in 1539—and were mostly diligent scribes. Thus they helped to spread the means of learning.

But by the beginning of the sixteenth century many Houses had outlived their usefulness. Their inmates had decreased in numbers until only six monks remained where sixty had once been. Laxity of discipline crept in with this decrease of numbers. Hence it seemed right to suppress the small and useless religious houses, and to apply their revenues to other useful purposes.

This was the thought in the minds of both Cardinal Wolsey and the Pope of Rome when in 1524 the one applied for a certain Papal Bull and the other granted it. It was to the effect that various small monasteries to the annual value of three thousand ducats should be suppressed, and their revenues used to endow the new ‘Cardinal College’ which Wolsey was then planning to build at Oxford. Four years later permission was granted to suppress others to the annual value of eight thousand ducats. In the following year King Henry VIII. was given permission to suppress others to the annual value of ten thousand ducats, and to apply their revenues to the foundation of new cathedrals.

‘Very right and proper,’ you will probably think. ‘The money was going to be put to a better use.’ Yes, but these suppressions might point out to some unscrupulous adviser of the King a means whereby large supplies of money could easily be obtained; and if the King happened to be in need of money and was not very scrupulous as to the manner in which that money were obtained, it might become a very dangerous precedent.

This is just what it did become. King Henry VIII. was not a particularly scrupulous man in more ways than one, and his chief adviser after Cardinal Wolsey’s death was particularly unscrupulous. Acting on the advice of Thomas Cromwell, Parliament, at the close of 1535, ordered a ‘Visitation’ of the monasteries throughout the country, and the presentation of a report based on the results of this. Accordingly, two ‘Visitors’ were appointed, who in the short space of six weeks visited, or were said to have visited, eighty-eight monasteries in the dioceses of Coventry, Lichfield and York.

The report presented to Parliament was named The Black Book, and its nature was such that in February, 1536, Parliament ordered the suppression of all monasteries that 191had an annual income of less than £200. As a result 376 religious houses were suppressed, their inmates were transferred to the larger houses or left to shift for themselves, and their lands, to the annual value of £32,000, were forfeited to the King. All the monasteries and nunneries in the East Riding thus came to an end except those at Kirkham, Meaux, Watton and Bridlington, whose annual incomes amounted to £269, £299, £360 and £547 respectively.

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In most parts of the country this suppression of the smaller monasteries caused no great stir. Undoubtedly some of them needed suppression. Undoubtedly, too, the report which got about, that the confiscation of the wealth of the religious houses would provide so much money for the government that there would thenceforth be no taxes for the common folk to pay, tended to prevent an outcry from being raised by the people. But in two counties there were rebellions. The first, in Lincolnshire, proved of little account; but the second, which had its origin in Yorkshire, was a formidable rising to which was given the name of The Pilgrimage of Grace.

In this rising all the north of England was concerned. 192The great Abbeys of Yorkshire exercised a powerful influence over the minds of the people, and a widespread religious ferment broke out. Lord Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Sir Robert Constable of Flamborough, Sir Thomas Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and many other northern nobles threw in their lot with the rebellious commoners. Soon forty thousand men were enrolled under the command of Robert Aske, a Westminster lawyer and brother of John Aske, the lord of the manor of Aughton-on-Derwent.

The demands of Aske and his followers were:—

(1) The restoration of the suppressed monasteries;

(2) The expulsion of counsellors of low birth from the King’s court;

(3) The holding of Parliament and of a Court of Justice at York as well as at London.^[45]

Thus the rebellion had both a religious and a political aspect, but the former was that which was most apparent. The suppression of the smaller monasteries was to be followed by the closing and pulling down of the smaller parish churches, and the church plate was to be confiscated as had been that of the abbeys and priories. That was—so people said—the intention of Thomas Cromwell, the counsellor of low birth against whom their second demand was aimed. So the men of the North were up in arms in defence of their religious liberties; and as they marched behind the processional crosses brought from their parish churches, they wore on their sleeves a roughly-made badge of the ‘five wounds of Christ.’

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Robert Aske had been crossing by the ferry from Brough to Barton at the close of the ‘long vacation’ of 1536 when he was told by the boatmen that the Commons were ‘up’ 193in Lincolnshire. Another London barrister, William Stapleton, the son of Sir Brian Stapleton of Wighill, similarly heard of the Lincolnshire rising while he was waiting at Hull to cross the river. He had been staying with his eldest brother, ‘a very weake, craysid and ympotent man’, in the Grey Friary at Beverley. This was apparently a much-frequented health resort; for his brother was ‘lying there for chaunge of ayer as he had doon the somer before from Maye till after Mydsommer.’

It was three o’clock on the morning of October 5th when Christopher Stapleton’s servant brought word to William that

all Lyncolnshere was up from Barton to Lincoln ... and that Grauntham way was stopped as well as Lincoln, so that no man could passe to london vntaken.

So William Stapleton had perforce to remain waiting in Hull.

Meanwhile Robert Aske was sending out letters to the men of the East Riding, and on Sunday, October 8th, the 194town bell at Beverley was set ringing and the townsmen ‘took oathe to the comons.’ Then

with greate noyse, showtes, and cryes they made proclamation everye man to appere at Westwood grene the morrowe after with suche horse and harnes as they had upon payne of death.

Great was the alarm of the ‘weake, craysid’ Christopher at these doings, and he gave orders to his people that they should keep themselves within doors. But his wife had determined otherwise, and went out to talk over the hedge and learn what was happening. ‘Where is your husband and his folkes that he cometh not as other dooth?’ she was asked, and her reply made quite clear which way her sympathies lay. ‘They be in the freers, goo pull them oute by the heddes.’

Christopher Stapleton’s wife had evidently paid more heed to the advice of a certain Carthusian monk, ‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure,’ who was at that time an inmate of the Grey Friary, than she had to the commands of her husband.

The lady’s suggestion came very near being carried out on the following morning. But appearances were saved by William Stapleton and his brother Brian’s coming out on the ‘Westwood grene’ to take their oath, while ‘certayne honnest men’ were sent to record the oath of Christopher. Whereat Christopher’s wife and the Carthusian monk were ‘very joyous and merye,’ while outside on the ‘grene’ there were unanimous cries: ‘Maister William Stapulton shelbe our Captayne.’

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William Stapleton thus became one of the leaders of the insurgents. By his orders Hunsley beacon and Tranby beacon were fired; men came in from Newbalde and North 195Cave, Brantyngham, Cottingham and Hassell; and a small army of nine thousand marched to Wighton Hill, there to meet Robert Aske, who had ‘raysed all Howdenshire and Marshelande.’

Following the plan of campaign decided upon at Weighton, Aske with the main part of the army of insurgents marched to York, which surrendered on October 16th, and thence to Pontefract, which he captured four days later. Meanwhile Stapleton laid siege to Hull, encamping his men close to the Beverley Gate. The city was being held for the King by Sir Ralph Ellerker and Sir John Constable, neither of whom would hear of surrender; for they were determined, as Sir John Constable put it, rather to ‘dye with honneste than lyve with shame.’

An easy way to effect the capture of the town was pointed out by one of Stapleton’s men, who said that

with one barell of pyche fiered and sent downe with the tyde he would sett on fyer all the shippes in the haven.

But Stapleton would have none of such methods, and, much to the disgust of the more unruly of his men, he even forbade the firing of the windmills near the Beverley Gate.

The leader of this besieging force was a strict disciplinarian. He would allow no pillaging, and gave orders that every man must pay honestly for what he took. But ‘spoylinges and prevy pickinges’ did happen, nevertheless;

wheruppon he badde watche and take some therewith, and prove what he shuld doo. And theruppon they toke one Barton a fletcher whiche the said William had put in trust to kepe their vittall, and also one nawghty fellow a saynetewary^[46] man of Beverley and a comen picker taken with picking muche thinges.

196Wheruppon ... he cawsed to take the same twoo, and made them beleve they shulde dye, and theruppon assigned a freer to them being in his companye, advysing them to make them clene to God ...; after the whiche so doon the said William callid for one Spalding a waterman and in the presence of all men causede them to be called oute, and the seyntuary man was tyed by the middell with a rope to thende of the bote and so haled over the water and seuerall tymes put downe with the oore over the hedde. And thother seeing him thought to be so handiled, howbeit at the request of honest men he being a howsekeper, he was suffered to goo unponyshed and so bothe bannyshed the hoost.

A very satisfactory mode of punishment it turned out 197to be. For after this ‘there was never spoile in the company of the said William.’

The conclusion of the Pilgrimage must be briefly told. The defenders of Hull finally surrendered on honourable terms. Aske, after taking Pontefract, went south to Doncaster, where negotiations were opened with the Duke of Norfolk, Commander-in-Chief of the King’s forces. As a result of these negotiations Aske was granted a safe-conduct to visit the King in London, and returned home on January 8th, with a promise that the King would visit York next Whitsuntide and hold there a Parliament at which all grievances should be considered. Satisfied with this success Aske disbanded his men.

All might now have gone well. But unfortunately for those who had been concerned in the rebellion, a certain Sir Francis Bigod and John Hallam, a servant of Sir Robert Constable, formed plans for seizing the towns of Scarborough, Beverley, and Hull, and beginning the rebellion again. Their attempts failed, and were made the occasion of a withdrawal of the terms previously offered by the King, and the taking of ruthless measures to stamp out the insurrection.

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The results of the Pilgrimage of Grace proved terrible for the ringleaders. Robert Aske was decoyed to London, arrested, tried at Westminster, exhibited as a traitor in each of the towns where he had been welcomed as a deliverer of the people, and finally hanged, drawn, and quartered at York. Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains on the Beverley Gate of Hull, Lord Darcy was beheaded on Tower Hill, Sir John Bulmer was hanged at Tyburn, and his wife was burnt at the stake. The abbots of Fountains, Rievaulx, and Jervaulx, together with the Prior of Bridlington, were also hanged at Tyburn; and an excuse was thus made for the forfeiture of their Houses to the King.

When, in 1536, the decree for the suppression of the smaller monasteries was issued, Parliament thanked God that ‘in divers and great solemn monasteries of the realm, religion is right well kept and observed.’ The Abbots of some of these were induced to surrender voluntarily—‘willingly to consent and agree’ to the destruction of their Abbeys and the confiscation of all their property. The Abbots of others were convicted of high treason, and their Abbeys declared forfeited. One hundred and fifty surrendered during 1538–9, and by 1540 all had been suppressed.

199The sale of the Abbey lands realised a sum of money equal to £8,500,000 in the money of to-day, and the value of the plunder from the shrines—gold, silver gilt, and silver crosses, chalices, and candlesticks—was not less than another million pounds. The total cash value to the King amounted to nearly £15,000,000 in our money. Of this huge sum about one-half was spent on public purposes—the foundation of new bishoprics, the building of schools, and the organisation of harbours and other national defences.^[47] The remainder went into the pockets of the King’s courtiers, many of whom rose from comparative poverty to a position of wealth.

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What the Suppression meant to the religious houses of the East Riding may be judged from the following letter, written in 1538 by a servant of Thomas Cromwell to his master:—

Pleasythe your good Lordshipp to be advertysed. I have taken downe all the lead of Jervayse,^[48] and made itt in pecys of half-foders, which lead amounteth to the numbre of eighteen score and five foders,^[49] with thirty and foure foders, and a half, that were there before. And the said lead cannot be conveit, nor caryed unto the next sombre, for the ways in that contre are so foule, and deep, that no carrage can passe in wyntre. And as concerning the raising and taken downe the house, if itt be your Lordshipps pleasure I am minded to let itt stand to the Spring of the yere, by reason of the days are now so short it wolde be double charge to do itt now. And as concerning the selling of the bells, I cannot sell them above 15s. the hundreth,^[50] wherein I would gladly know your Lordshipps pleasor, whether 200I should sell them after that price, or send them up to London. And if they be sent up surely the carriage wolbe costly frome that place to the water. And as for Byrdlington I have doyn nothing there as yet, but sparethe itt to March next, bycause the days now are so short, and from such tyme as I begyn I trust shortly to dyspatche itt after such fashion that when all is fynished, I trust your Lordshipp shall think that I have bene no evyll howsbound in all such things, as your Lordshipp haith appoynted me to doo. And thus the Holy Ghost ever preserve your Lordshipp in honor. At York this fourteenth day of November by your most bounden beadsman.

That Cromwell’s ‘most bounden beadsman’ faithfully kept his promise we see to-day in the condition of Bridlington Priory. What we call the ‘Priory Church’ is merely the nave of the church of the Augustinian Priory. Chancel and transepts have equally disappeared. So have the cloisters, chapter house, frater, dorter, Abbot’s house, and the numerous farm buildings which once stood within the Priory walls. Of the walls themselves nothing remains but the ‘Bayle Gate.’

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A worse tale has to be told of the wilful destruction of the other monasteries, nunneries, and friaries in our Riding.

Of Kirkham Priory, on the bank of the river Derwent, there are remains only of the once beautiful gateway, the cloister court, and the east end of the church. What is now the Swine parish church was once the chancel of the nunnery church. Of the Black Friary at Beverley there are remains of the boundary wall. The oriel window of the Prior’s house is to be seen built into the modern ‘Watton Priory,’ and a few stones of the Priory of Haltemprice are built into a farmhouse which now 201occupies part of its site. Of the great Abbey of Meaux—founded in 1150 by William le Gros, Earl of Holderness, in redemption of a vow that he would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and rebuilt four times during the next hundred years—there now remains not one stone in place above ground. And of the Friaries once flourishing in Hull nought remains but their mere names.

‘Even where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall the dogs lick thy blood also, O King.’ Such was the text which a certain Grey Friar used when he had occasion to preach before King Henry. A bold man he must 202have been thus to take his fate into his hands. What the fate of Friar Peto actually was is not recorded, but we know that the Grey Friars and the Carthusian Monks were treated with particular brutality.

Of the monks of the London Charterhouse five were hanged at Tyburn, and their bodies afterwards cut up. Ten were removed to Newgate on May 29th, 1537. Sixteen days later the following report was issued:—

There are departed	5
There are even at the point of death	2
There are sick	2
There is healed	1

Later on all but one are reported as dead, and three years afterwards that one was hanged at Tyburn. With his name we are already acquainted—‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure.’ Surely never was monk given a less appropriate name than his turned out to be.

In four different centuries has England suffered the pangs of that deplorable kind of war which we are accustomed to describe by the adjective ‘Civil.’ And in each case has the cause of the war been the same—a disagreement as to who should be the ruler of the country’s destinies. In the twelfth century it was a struggle between the King and a would-be Queen, in the thirteenth a struggle between the King and his barons, in the fifteenth a struggle between two royal families, and in the seventeenth a struggle between King and Parliament. It is the fourth of these wars that 203has gained, from the bitterness of the struggle and the catastrophe which ended it, the additional description of ‘Great.’

Both King and Parliament are among the oldest of our national institutions. In the days of the Angles and Saxons the head of the Government was the King, but his power had not been absolute. There was a body of King’s Counsellors, the Witena-gemōt, who had power to depose the King if necessary, and in whose hands rested the elections to the throne.

No idea of hereditary right to the throne then existed, and after the Norman Conquest the same right of election by the people—expressed through the Great Council—remained. It was not, in fact, till the accession of Edward I. that the principle of hereditary succession to the throne of England became firmly recognised. Edward I. was the first of our sovereigns to become King simply because he was the son of his father, and without an expression of the will of the nation.

On the death of Queen Elizabeth it happened that the throne of England fell to the King of Scotland—a King who may be described as one-fourth English, one-fourth French, and one-half Scots, in blood. It is, therefore, not altogether strange that James I., ‘the wisest fool in Christendom,’ should fail to see things from an Englishman’s point of view, or that he should be unable to understand English customs and English institutions.

Thus it was that the King began to quarrel with his Parliament, and when Charles I. became King in his father’s stead things grew rapidly worse. According to his view, he was King of England by the manifest will of God, and as the elect of God he was bound to consult none but God; while all his subjects were bound to obey his will, as they would the will of God.

204But according to the view taken by Parliament, the King was one factor only in the Government. Commons, Lords Temporal, Lords Spiritual—the ‘Three Estates of the Realm’—had the King for their head. He was, as it were, the keystone of the arch, of no power by himself, but of very great power when fitted into his place in the government of the country. Such was the view of Parliament in the early years of King Charles’ reign. Later on the Members of Parliament thought they had made a new discovery—that the arch would hold itself up without the help of its keystone.

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When Charles came to the throne, England was engaged in a war upon the Continent. From his first Parliament the King demanded supplies of money to carry on this war, but was told that he must first redress the ‘grievances’ under which the nation suffered. This not being the reply that he had expected, he dissolved Parliament and began to raise money by a system of compulsory loans obtained from all townsfolk who were deemed wealthy enough to provide them. From the town of Hull the two Commissioners, who attended at the Town Hall for the purpose, demanded and received the sum of £332 13s. 4d.

At the same time seaport towns were ordered to provide armed vessels towards a fleet of one hundred ships which was being equipped. Hull’s share was three ships large enough to transport 1350 men.

As his second Parliament proved no more tractable than his first had been, the King now decided to govern without a Parliament at all; and this he did from 1629 to 1640. During this time he continued to raise money by what many people considered to be illegal taxes—such as ship money, or money provided by seaport and inland towns for the fitting out of imaginary fleets; and tonnage and poundage, a 205levy on every tun of wine imported and every pound’s worth of merchandise bought and sold.

It was only to be expected that some people would object to pay taxes which were said to be illegal. In fact many people were to be found who said, ‘We will pay no taxes which we, through our Members of Parliament, have not sanctioned.’ The famous John Hampden was one of these; and when the King’s Judges said to Hampden, ‘You and everybody else must pay,’ there were scores of people up and down the country who proclaimed openly in the market-places, 'Well, we won’t pay, that’s all.’

Matters were thus getting into a very unpromising condition when, in 1639, the King levied an army of 22,000 men to make war upon the Scots, who had shown just as strong objections to using the King’s prayer-book as the English people had shown to paying the King’s taxes. At the head of this army Charles marched north, and took up his quarters for a time at York, from which place he paid a visit to Hull.

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Let us now see what Hull was like when Charles visited it for the first time.

The plan of Kyngeston-vpon-Hvll given overleaf is reproduced from the very carefully drawn plan of a famous Dutch engraver named Hollar, and shows the appearance of the town in 1640. Surrounding the town to the north and west are the town wall and the moat, repaired and cleaned out by royal orders the previous year. North Gate and Hessle Gate span the moat and thus prevent ingress from both the Humber and the Hull. At each of the intervening three gates—Low Gate, Beverley Gate, and Myton Gate—the moat is spanned by a draw-bridge, and at the ends of Postern Gate Street and Blanket Row there are in the moat stakes for the support of bridges.

208Within the town wall are plainly to be seen the chief streets and buildings. What was called The Ropery is our Humber Street, which then formed the actual bank of the Humber. Holy Trinity Church is far and away the largest of the buildings. St. Mary’s Church has now no tower, this having fallen in 1540—or, as tradition puts it, having been ‘pulled down to ye bare ground’ by order of the King. The sites of the Black Friary and White Friary are yet unbuilt upon.^[51] The Suffolk Palace, begun by Michael de la Pole in 1384, confiscated to King Henry VIII., and converted by him into a ‘Sitidell and a special kepe of the hole town,’ rented of the Hildyards of Winestead by King Charles I. in 1639, and used as a magazine for military stores, forms an imposing pile of buildings. Its gardens stretch almost as far as the Beverley Gate.

On the opposite side of the river Hull, the ancient village of Dripole has disappeared, and its place is taken by a new line of fortifications consisting of a ditch and wall, the latter strengthened by the addition of two ‘Blockhouses’ and a ‘Castle.’

This line of fortifications, together with a strong bridge over the Hull, was constructed by order of King Henry VIII. when he visited Hull in 1541; and its cost, £23,000, was provided by the King from the revenues of the suppressed monasteries. Large quantities of building materials from the White and the Black Friaries were used in its construction.^[52]

The welcome accorded to King Charles on this his first 209visit to Hull was most cordial. Outside the Beverley Gate he was met by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Recorder, who delivered to him the keys of the town, to be received back from the King’s hands with gracious words. In the speech made by the Recorder to his ‘Most Gracious Sovereign’ occurs this promise:—

‘We make bold, with the utmost zeal and fidelity that can be, to give your Majesty a full assurance of our most sincere loyalty, and will adhere to you against all your enemies with the utmost of our lives and fortunes.’

Then came the turn of the Mayor, who, in presenting the King with a long ribbon, which Charles at once tied in a knot and placed in his hat, said:—

‘Vouchsafe, great Sir, to accept the emblematic bond of our obedience, which is tied as fast to your Majesty, your Crown, and the Church, as our souls are to our bodies, and we are resolved never to part from the former until we part from the latter.’

But how hollow and insincere these words were was very shortly to be made apparent. Probably Charles himself recognised their tone of insincerity, and was doubtless much better pleased with the ‘purse of curious workmanship, containing one hundred guineas’ which accompanied the giving of the ‘Hull favour.’ That night the King lodged at the house of Sir John Lister^[53] in High Street—that known to us as ‘Wilberforce House’—the next night he lodged at Beverley, and the following day he again reached York.

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These events were happening in the month of April, 1639. On the twenty-third of the same month three years later, 210Charles paid his second visit to Hull. And what a different reception was then to await him!

During these three years the relations between King and Parliament had been steadily growing more strained. Each recognised the possibility of there being in the future an appeal to arms; and each recognised, too, the importance of possessing ‘the most important fortress in the whole kingdom, and its vast magazine, which far exceeded the collection of warlike stores in the Tower of London.’^[54]

It was the King’s misfortune that Parliament, and not he, secured possession of Hull. Early in 1642 the Commons appointed Sir John Hotham, Member of Parliament for Beverley, to be Governor of Hull; and sent him down to take possession of the town, with orders not to deliver it up without the King’s authority ‘signified by both Houses.’ On April 23rd the King himself set out from York on the same errand, taking care to send forward from Beverley an officer charged with the message that the King would shortly arrive to dine with the Governor of the town.

But the result of this message was not what the King had expected it to be. Having consulted Mr. Pelham, one of the two Members of Parliament for the town, Sir John Hotham caused the bridges to be drawn up, the gates to be closed, and the walls to be lined with soldiers. The Mayor and townsfolk were ordered to keep within their houses.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning when the King, with a bodyguard of some three hundred soldiers, arrived before the Beverley Gate, where only three years before he had received such a cordial welcome. Now, when he 212commanded Sir John Hotham to open the Gate, he was met with a polite refusal. The Governor was very sorry to have to disobey the King’s command, but ‘he durst not open the gates to him, being intrusted by the Parliament with the safety of the town.’

To the offer of the King, that he would leave all his train outside the Gate, with the exception of twenty horse, the Governor proved equally unresponsive.

From eleven o’clock till four o’clock the parleying of King and Governor went on. Then the King ‘retired to a little house without the walls, and after an hour’s stay returned’ and demanded a final answer. Would Sir John Hotham admit the King to ‘a town and fort of our own, wherein our own magazine lay;’ or would he forthwith be proclaimed a traitor?

Sir John chose the latter alternative, and was at once proclaimed guilty of high treason by the King’s heralds. Then the King withdrew to Beverley, and the first act of open hostility between Parliament and King was ended. The Great Civil War had, in fact, begun.

The events of April 23rd, 1642, were immediately followed by the sending of letters to Parliament. Sir John Hotham forwarded an account of how he had obeyed the orders of Parliament to the best of his ‘understanding and utmost endeavours, though with some hazard of being misconceived by His Majesty’; while the King wrote demanding that ‘his said town and magazine might be immediately delivered 213up unto him, and that such severe exemplary proceedings should be taken against those persons who had offered him that insupportable affront, as by the law was provided.’

To the King’s letter no reply was given. But in reply to that of Sir John Hotham a deputation of members was sent to thank him and the soldiers under him for their services. Two warships were ordered to sail immediately to Hull under the command of the Earl of Warwick; and the following resolutions were passed by the two Houses:—

(1) That Sir John Hotham has done nothing but in obedience to the commands of both Houses of Parliament.

(2) That this declaring Sir John Hotham a traitor—being a Member of the House of Commons—is a high breach of the privilege of Parliament.

Copies of these resolutions, and of the ‘Declaration’ which accompanied them, were printed and spread abroad among the people. So also, from a printing-press established in St. William’s College at York, were issued pamphlets giving the King’s version of recent affairs. In one of these King Charles states his views in these words:—

We would fain be answered, what title any subject of our kingdom has to his house or land that we have not to our town of Hull? Or what right has he to his money, plate, or jewels, that we have not to our magazine or munition there? If we had ever such a title we would know when we lost it? And if that magazine and munition, bought with our own money, were ever ours, when and how the property went out of us?

The answer of the Houses of Parliament to the King’s questions was contained in A Declaration of the Lords and Commons on the 26th of May:—

By the known law of the kingdom, the very jewels 214of the Crown are not the King’s proper goods, but are only intrusted to him for the use and ornament thereof; as the towns, forts, treasure, magazine, offices, and people of the kingdom, and the whole kingdom itself, are intrusted to him, for the good and safety, and best advantage thereof; and as this trust is for the use of the kingdom, so ought it to be managed by the advice of the Houses of Parliament, whom the kingdom has trusted for that purpose.

While letters, pamphlets, and declarations were thus being composed, both King and Parliament were making preparations for actual warfare. And herein are seen the far-reaching effects of the prologue to the drama of the Great Civil War. The King had not—so the Royalist historian, the Earl of Clarendon, tells us—‘one barrel of powder, nor one musket, nor any other provision necessary for an army; and, what was worse, was not sure of any port to which they might be securely assigned; nor had he money for the support of his table for the term of one month.’

To purchase a supply of arms and ammunition by the sale of her own jewels, as well as of the Crown jewels, which Parliament was shortly to declare were ‘not the King’s proper goods,’ the Queen had sailed to Holland; and as the result of her journey a small ship, named the Providence, arrived in the Humber and was run ashore in Keyingham Creek. Sir John Hotham, hearing of its arrival, sent out from Hull a party of soldiers to seize its cargo. But his men were unsuccessful, and thus a small supply of military stores reached the King at York.

Meanwhile Parliament was busy in borrowing money ‘to raise forces which should defend the Protestant religion ... and the privileges of Parliament.’

These few words show us what was really the cause of the 215trouble. There had been growing up in the country a strong religious spirit which we call Puritanism, and the Puritans hated everything that savoured of Roman Catholicism. The Queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Roman Catholic, and the King was thought to have leanings to ‘idolatry’ himself. It was feared, in fact, that King Charles’ intention of raising an army of 22,000 soldiers for service in Ireland, and of arming them from the magazine at Hull, was only a subterfuge. What he really intended, so the Puritans said, was to overawe Parliament, and make England again a Roman Catholic country.

By the judicious spreading abroad of such pamphlets as the following—

More news from Hull; or a most happy and fortunate prevention of a most hellish and devillish plot, occasioned by some unquiet and discontented spirits against the town of Hull, endeavouring to command their admittance by casting balls of wild fire into the town, which by policy and treaty they could not obtain

—Parliament succeeded in borrowing a large sum of money, and large quantities of plate.

On June 3rd there assembled on Heworth Moor, close to the walls of York, a huge gathering of the King’s adherents, whose help was asked in ‘the defence of true religion, and of the laws and constitutions of this kingdom.’ The King was here accompanied by his son, Prince Charles, a bodyguard of 150 knights in armour, and some 800 soldiers. A month later the Court was moved to Beverley, where the King took up residence in the house of Lady Gee, a short distance within the North Bar.

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Now began the first of two sieges which the town of Hull sustainedsustained during the war. The King’s forces are said to have 216amounted to 3,000 foot soldiers and 1,000 horsemen. Two hundred of the latter, under the command of Lord Willoughby de Eresby and Sir Thomas Glemham, were sent to establish forts at Paull and Hessle, on the shore of the Humber, above and below the town. A similar number of the former were employed in digging trenches to divert the stream which gave the town its water-supply.

But the Royalists were no match for the defenders of the town. The Governor called a Council of War, and the Council decided on a bold stroke of defence—nothing less than the cutting of the banks of the Humber and the Hull. This was immediately carried out, with the result that the low-lying lands surrounding the town were submerged, and any widely-planned measures of attack were rendered impossible. Sir John Meldrum, a Scots officer whom Parliament had sent down to assist the Governor, also organised a surprise attack on the King’s forces. The foot soldiers 217fled at the first blow, and the horse soldiers, thus left unsupported, were compelled to retreat to Beverley.

Luck was, it seemed, entirely against the King. Off Paull one of the Earl of Warwick’s ships of war fought with and sank a vessel bringing guns and ammunition to him, and in an engagement in the village of Anlaby a barn was set on fire which contained a large portion of the ammunition which he then possessed. These reverses caused the King to decide on raising the siege, and on retiring to York.

The measures adopted by the Governor for the defence of Hull thus proved entirely successful. But an interesting side-light on these measures is thrown by The Humble Petition of the Gentry and Inhabitants of Holderness, which was signed by ‘neer three hundred’ of his ‘Majesties most loyall and oppressed subjects,’ and ‘delivered to His Majestie at Beverley the sixth of July, 1642.’ The petitioners declare that they have

for the space of four moneths (with much patience and prejudice) endured great and insupportable Losse ...

They further complain that the cutting of the river banks Drowning part, and indangering the rest of the Levell of Holderness, is a Presumption higher than was ever yet attempted by any Subject.

The answer of ‘the Kings most excellent Majestie,’ signed by Lord Falkland, contains many fair words, and a promise that he will

by drawing such Forces together as he shall be able to leavie, endeavour the Petitioners Relief in their present sufferings—

a promise which the ‘Gentry and Inhabitants of Holderness’ probably did not consider altogether satisfactory.

218Queen Henrietta Maria, who had during all this time been raising supplies of money for her husband, set sail from Holland on February 2nd, 1643, bringing with her a supply reckoned by popular rumour at £2,000,000. For nine days the small fleet accompanying her battled against a storm, and the Queen’s personal bravery was shown when she kept up the spirits of her terrified attendants with the jest that ‘Queens of England are never drowned.’

After a second start she eventually reached Bridlington Quay, and slept once more on land. But in the early hours of the February morning the little seaport was awakened with the noise of guns, and the crashing of shot among the houses. Four ships of the Parliamentarians were outside the harbour firing at the Dutch vessels which had brought over her and her supplies.

Once again the Queen showed her courage. For, hurrying to a place of safety in what scanty clothing she could lay hands on, she remembered that she had left behind her little lap-dog, and would not rest content until she had returned to her bedroom and rescued it. The rest of that night the Queen spent taking refuge in a ditch, but the morning brought to her aid some of the forces of the Earl of Newcastle, and the journey to York was accomplished in safety.

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Less than twelve months after the first siege of Hull, the town came within an ace of falling into the hands of the King, and this through treachery on the part of its former defender.

Sir John Hotham, who had on more than one occasion shown a certain amount of indecision, and who was credited by some with secret leanings to the King’s party, was greatly angered by the decision of Parliament that its forces in the North of England should be under the command of another Yorkshireman, Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax. Considering himself 219and his services slighted, he now, with his son, Captain Hotham, plotted to give up the town to the Queen.

But the plot was discovered, owing to counter-treachery on the part of one of his relatives; and on June 29th Captain Mayer, in command of the Hercules, then lying in the Humber, landed a hundred men and seized the castle and block-houses.

Meanwhile the Mayor, Mr. Thomas Raikes, had placed a guard over the Governor’s house, and had secured possession of Captain Hotham. The Governor himself effected his escape, passed out of the town by the Beverley Gate, attempted unsuccessfully to cross the river Hull at Stoneferry and at Wawne, decided to attempt to reach his house at Scorborough, was met in Beverley by his nephew, Colonel Boynton, and was knocked off his horse and captured by one of the latter’s soldiers.

Both father and son were sent to London on board the Hercules, and were then committed to the Tower. After an imprisonment lasting for seventeen months they were tried at the Guildhall, and condemned to death on a charge of ‘traitorously betraying the trust imposed upon them by Parliament.’ New Year’s Day, 1645, saw the execution of Captain Hotham on Tower Hill, the following day saw that of his father.

220To return to the events of 1643—Lord Ferdinando Fairfax was appointed Governor of Hull in place of Sir John Hotham, and to raise money for the payment of his soldiers sold to the Trinity House his store of family plate. The agreement made on the occasion runs as follows:—

Whereas I Ferdinando Lord Fairfax, Lord Gen̄all of the Northerne forces raised for the Kinge, & Parlmᵗ; and Governor of the Towne of Kingston upon Hull, have received the some of ffoure hundered pownds, & foure shillings of the Guild, or Brotherhood of Maisters Pilotts, & seamen of the Trynity howse of the said Towne, for the use of the King, & Parlmᵗ: I doe hereby grant, bargaine, & sell sev̄all peices of silver plate conteining in weight one thousand six hundered ffiftie six ownces, to the said Trynity howse, & their successours for ever and have delivered the said plate to Willm Peck, & Willm Rayks Wardens of the said howse to the use thereof. In witnesse whereof, I have hereto sett my hand & seale the 4th day of September, Anno dni 1643

Two days before the signing of this agreement the second siege of Hull had been begun by the Marquis of Newcastle, with a force of 4,000 horse soldiers and 12,000 foot. This had been rendered necessary by the fact that Newcastle’s Cavaliers would not leave their Yorkshire homes on a march southward, while the hated Roundheads remained in possession of a stronghold from which they could with ease ravage the surrounding country. Hence Newcastle wanted, above all things, to gain possession of the town.

The second siege of Hull was very largely a repetition of the first. The besiegers cut off the water-supply, and also succeeded in mounting guns within half-a-mile of the 221town walls. With these guns much damage was at first done; for by constructing a furnace for the heating of balls, the gunners were enabled to fire red-hot balls over the walls of the town. But this was not for long, Lord Fairfax’s erection of a flanking battery soon putting these guns out of action.

At the beginning of the siege the Governor’s son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had been driven out of Beverley, had taken refuge within the walls with a large body of cavalry. But horse soldiers are not of much use in repelling a siege, and their horses are likely to be a severe hindrance. So it was in this case; and when the opportunity was afforded by the arrival of some of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers at Barton, Sir Thomas and his ‘twenty troops of horse’ were ferried across to Lincolnshire.

On the 22nd of September—a day being held in the town as one of fasting and humiliation—Cromwell himself crossed over the Humber, bringing a fresh supply of muskets and powder. The town was now once more entirely surrounded by water. For a fortnight before this the former Governor’s plan of 222cutting the rivers’ banks had been carried out, and the Royalists thus compelled to abandon their positions.

Things were going badly for the besiegers. On September 28th their powder magazine at Cottingham was blown up, but whether by accident or by treachery is not known. On October 5th a reinforcement of 500 men crossed over to Hull from Lincolnshire, and six days later the garrison made a successful sally and captured one of a pair of huge guns known familiarly as ‘the Queen’s pocket pistols.’ That night the Marquis of Newcastle determined to raise the siege, and on the 12th of October the besieging army withdrew to York, smaller by one-half than it had been six weeks earlier.

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The importance of the two sieges of Hull cannot be overestimated. Had the first been successful, the King would have been in the position to strike a decisive blow before the forces of Parliament were organised. In 1643 the King’s plan of campaign was that his three armies—his own at Oxford, that under Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and that under the Earl of Newcastle in Yorkshire—should converge on London, the headquarters of Parliament.

But for this plan to succeed two obstacles must be removed. The Parliamentarians held the seaport towns of Plymouth and Hull. The siege of each was undertaken; and the siege of each failed, mainly because Parliament held ‘the command of the sea.’ Thus, in the words of the great historian of the Great Civil War, ‘Hull and Plymouth saved the Parliamentary cause.’

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To have behind it a history that goes back certainly for eight hundred years, and in all probability for a thousand, is something of which a school may be proud. Such is the rightful boast of the Beverley Grammar School.

As far back as the year 1100 there is mention of the schoolmaster in the Minster records. But the earliest known mention of the school is contained in a letter written in 1276 by Walter Giffard, Archbishop of York, to his bailiff at Beverley. In this letter the bailiff is directed to

maintain John Aucher and his two companions attending school at Beverley from Michaelmas last, 322with 2s. a week, and their small necessaries in fitting style; and pay 36s. for three gowns for their use.

But centuries before this the Beverley Grammar School must have been in existence. For it was part and parcel of the Collegiate Church of Saint John of Beverley, and one of the first duties of a collegiate church was to establish and maintain a school for the education of youth. Therefore, just as the Minster of St. Peter at York maintained a school—and a very famous one too—as early as the year 730, so the Minster of St. John of Beverley will undoubtedly have maintained a school for many years before the Norman Conquest. Its foundation is, in fact, believed to date from the eighth century.

Beverley Grammar School is, far and away, the oldest school in the East Riding. But not long after, if not before, the date of the first written evidence of it, there was in existence another East Riding School—the Howden Grammar School. Its origin was similar to that of the Beverley school, for in 1265 the parish church of Howden was turned into a collegiate church, and the rector was replaced by a body of canons, whose duty it became to establish a school. This duty they fulfilled, and the 323Howden Grammar School thus came into being some time before 1312.

The beginnings of Bridlington Grammar School are shrouded in mystery. It was originally a school attached to the Bridlington Priory, and its earliest mention occurs in a document promising that a royal grant formerly paid to the ‘Prior and Convent of St. Marie, Byrdlington,’ should be continued, whereas other similar grants were then being withdrawn. This was in the year 1450.

The fact that this document was issued by King Henry VI. gives the Bridlington Grammar School some claim to the title of ‘A Once Royal School.’ The royal grant was made—using the King’s words—‘for the great affection and singular devotion that we have to the glorious confessor, Saint John of Bridlington’; and by it the Prior and Canons of Bridlington were bound

as in finding of XII. Quarasters, and a maister to teach them both gramer and song.

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The Hull Grammar School is a notable example of a chantry school. It owes its existence to the piety of John 324Alcock, Bishop of Rochester, who in 1482 founded ‘The Chauntrie of Bisshoppe Alcocke in the parish churche of the Trinities in Hull.’

This means, in other words, that the founder purchased lands and gave them to the Church, on the understanding that the rent of these lands was for ever to be used for the stipend of a priest who should each day

at th’aulter of Our Ladie and St. John the Evangelist ... pray for the soules of King Edward IV., the founder, and all christien sowles.

But Bishop Alcock’s chantry priest was to do more than this. For the license granted by the King states that he

is bounde to kepe a fre scole of grammer within the saide towne of Hull, and teche all scolers within the saide towne of Hull, and teche all scholersscholers thither resorting, without taking any stipend or wages for the same, and should have for his own stipende £10, and shoulde paie yerelie to the clarke to teche children to sing 40s., and to 10 of the best scolers in the scole every of them 6s. 8d. by yere.

The Grammar Schools of Hull and Pocklington resemble each other in that each was founded by a distinguished churchman and associated with a parish church. As John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester, founded the one, so John Dowman, Canon of St. Paul’s and Archdeacon of Suffolk, founded the other.

But whereas the Hull school was founded in connection with a chantry, the Pocklington Grammar School was 325closely associated with a Religious Gild. Its foundation deeds—dated 1514—speak of it as the foundation of

the Master, Wardens and Brethren of the Brotherhood or Gild of the Name of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas in the parish church of Pocklington.

The same deeds state that the founder, John Dowman, endowed the school with lands sufficient to pay £13 6s. 8d. a year to the Master and Wardens of the Gild for

finding with the same a fit man sufficiently learned in the science of grammar to teach and instruct all and singular scholars resorting to the town of Pocklington for the sake of education.

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Each of the five East Riding Schools mentioned has been spoken of as a Grammar School. This name exactly 326describes their purpose; for they existed in order that boys might learn the mysteries of Latin Grammar. Together with the study of this went the reading of Latin authors, usually taken in the following order:—Aesop and Terence, Vergil, Cicero, Sallust and Cæsar, Horace and Ovid.

If you should find yourself wondering why this great attention to the study of Latin, there is a very simple explanation to be given. Latin was then the universal language of professional men. It was written, spoken, and read by all those of the educated classes. Priests, doctors, lawyers, merchants—all used it. The building-accounts for the Beverley North Bar are written in Latin, the Minster records are written in Latin, the Town records are written in Latin. A knowledge of Latin Cwas the gateway to a commercial as well as a professional career.

Until 1349 it was the custom for boys to translate their Latin authors into Norman-French, this being the ordinary language of ‘gentlefolk.’ But then the change of making English the medium of translation was introduced; and thirty-six years later an English chronicler lamented that, because of the change, ‘grammar-school children knew no more French than did their left heel.’

What a lively time the schoolboy had in those ‘good old days’! Hours of study, from early morning till bedtime; subjects taught, Latin grammar and Latin authors—these being plentifully varied with such pleasant interludes as that pictured in the seal of Louth Grammar School. Little 327wonder that Shakespeare, himself an ‘old boy’ of the Stratford-on-Avon Grammar School, had memories of

Little wonder, also, that in the churchwardens’ accounts for Howden there occur numerous payments for ‘glasse for repairing the schollehouse windows.’ Boys will, of course, be boys, as long as the world lasts, and even in the seventeenth century they had to work off their excess of high spirits somehow or other.

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Grammar Schools were not the only class of schools in existence during former days. There were two other kinds. Song Schools were closely connected with the services in large churches. They ranked below the Grammar Schools, and their scholars were taught to read, write, and figure, as well as to sing the various portions of the church service. The Choir School attached to Holy Trinity Church, Hull, is a modern representative of the mediæval Song School.

Of less rank, again, were the Reading Schools. Populous towns might possess a school of each kind, as did Howden in 1401. But often the Song School and the Reading School were combined in one; and sometimes, as at Bridlington, the Grammar School was also a Song School.

But generally the vicar or the chantry priest was the master of the Grammar School, while the parish clerk was the master of the Song School. Any decrepit old man who had sufficient learning, but who had fallen on evil days, might be the master of the Reading School; where it would be his duty to teach the petits, or little ones, their ABC. Sometimes the petits had their name changed into English, and were then known as the Petties, or as the ABCies. 328The latter of these two names was usually written in a very quaint form—abseies.

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In the extracts from the foundation deeds of the Hull and Pocklington Grammar Schools given on pages 325 and 326 are two noticeable points. First, in both the master is to teach all boys who may come to the school, and in the one first quoted it is expressly stated that he is not to take ‘any stipend or wages for the same.’ The school was to be a Free Grammar School.

This does not mean that no charges at all were to be made. The teaching was free; but all boys were expected to pay for luxuries, such as fires, candles, writing and washing materials, cock-fights, and birchings. Cock-fights, especially on Shrove Tuesday, were a regular school institution, and Pocklington Grammar School still preserves its silver cock-fighting bell. Doubtless school cock-fights were well worth a special fee, but fancy having to pay a fee for the privilege of being birched—a sure case of insult added to injury!

Boarders, too, were not kept for nothing. Far from it. John Aucher and his two companions at Beverley Grammar School had their board paid for at the rate of 8d. each per week, and they were also provided with pocket-money for their ‘small necessaries.’

329The foundation of a Free Grammar School was looked upon as a great benefit to the town in which it was established. This we see clearly in the complaint made in 1660 by the Vicar of Pocklington on behalf of the inhabitants of the town. The complaint stated that there were then

not above eight or nine little boys in the school, whereas formerly, by the pains and industry of some former masters, there had been six or seven score scholars in our school, of which three or four score of them hath been tablers, gentlemen’s sons, which was a great benefit to this our town.

Secondly, the salaries paid to the masters of the Hull and Pocklington Grammar Schools are interesting. The Pocklington master was to be paid £13 6s. 8d. a year, the Hull master £3 6s. 8d. less. But in a few years’ time the salary of the latter had risen to be almost as high as that of the more-favoured master at Pocklington.

In 1548, ‘John Olyver, Bachelor of Artes, incumbente, being of thaidge of 46 yeres, of honeste conversacione and lyvinge, and well lerned,’ was to receive a ‘yerely stipend of £13 2s. 3d.’ Shameful to say, this was not paid in full, the amount actually received by John Olyver being first £13 2s. 2¾d., and later £13 2s. 2½d. Then, the source of income becoming stopped, the poor master got nothing, until the Mayor and burgesses took up his cause and successfully sued the Court of Exchequer for the amount due yearly.

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With the Reformation there came in 1548 what was called the Chantries Act. This, by confiscating their revenues, put an end to all such chantries as that founded by Bishop Alcock. It proved also a death-blow to all Song Schools and to many Grammar Schools. Their ancient endowments were seized by the Government, which engaged itself to replace the endowments of the Free Grammar Schools with 330fixed annual payments; but as it promptly forgot all about its engagements these did not prove of much value.

Under these circumstances the inhabitants of Beverley made known their grievances to King Edward VI. Their town was, they said—

a market towne and the greatest within all Estryding of your Majesties countie of York, having a grete nombre of youthe within the same, and fife thowsaund persons and above, whereof some of them be apte and mete to be brought up in learning, whiche are not, for so much as there is neither gramer schole, or any other schole, as yet founded, wherewith they might be brought up in any vertuous studdie.

No satisfactory reply was forthcoming to the inhabitants’inhabitants’ petition that the King would, out of the confiscated revenues 331of the Minster of St. John, found ‘one Fre Gramer Scole’ in their town. So it was left to the Town Governors to take over the finances of the old school. The school which had its origin in the Minster was thus re-established by the Town—an historic event which is embodied in its modern coat-of-arms.

The town records contain mention of many interesting payments made on behalf of the school by the Town Governors. In 1567 there occur the following:—

Item gyven to the Schole maister his players	17s.
Item payd to the waits for playing when the Schole maister’s players played	3s.	4d.

In 1606 a new school was built in the Minster Garth, and during the following years there are several records of the purchase of books for the school:—

Item for a dictionary for the Schollers	3s.	4d.
Item for another booke bought at Crossfaier, and for bringinge one fro Cambridge	6s.	6d.
Item for a booke and for chaines for two other bookes in the schole	18s.	10d.

The Beverley Grammar School still possesses its ancient library of books; among which are an edition of Vergil printed in black letter at Florence, one of Terence printed at Paris in 1552,1552, one of Cicero printed at Basle in 1553, and a very early edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, containing gruesome illustrations of practical methods of torture. But there is now no need for chains to preserve these books from being surreptitiously ‘borrowed.’

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The Grammar School at Hull also had its revenues confiscated, but these were afterwards in part restored. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the school was rebuilt, mainly at the expense of Alderman Gee, who contributed for the 332purpose the sum of eighty pounds and twenty thousand bricks. In his will, Alderman Gee put a further bequest thus:—

I give and bequeath to the schoole of Hull which I builded through God’s goodnes, two houses in the Butchery.... I give these houses for ever for and towards the said Schoolmaster’s fee for his good teachinge and bringinge upp youth.

Pocklington Grammar School was saved through the efforts of Thomas Dowman, the nephew of its founder, who obtained a private Act of Parliament to continue the existence of the school.

What happened to Bridlington Grammar School is uncertain. But we know that in 1636 an inhabitant of Bridlington, by name William Hustler, gave ‘forty pounds yearly out of his estates for the maintenance of a schoolmaster and usher in a school-house, by him to be founded and erected.’ This endowment still forms a part of the revenues of the school.

Howden Grammar School also managed to survive, and lives to-day in the side chapel of the parish church that has been its home for several centuries.

Other smaller Grammar Schools, founded by private individuals, formerly existed in the East Riding. Marmaduke Langdale founded one at Sancton in 1610, Lord D’Arcy founded another at Kilham in 1633, and John Blanchard in 1712 left funds for the salary of a grammar school master at Barmby-on-the-Marsh.

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We have now reached the beginning of the eighteenth century, and there has so far been no mention made of Girls’ Schools. The reason is not far to seek. There were no schools for girls in the far-off days when the Grammar Schools of Beverley, Howden, Bridlington and Hull came into being.being.

334Girls were then not considered to need any more education than that which they could get at home. To know how to cook a meal, to make wool into cloth, and to make cloth into clothes—what more was it possible for girls to learn? These very useful lessons they could learn at home. A few specially favoured girls of high birth were probably brought up and taught book-learning in some of the nunneries of the East Riding; but of this there are no records.

The first endowed school for girls as well as boys was founded in 1655, and from this date onward numerous girls’ schools came into existence. Some of these were styled Boarding Academies for Young Ladies; others of a humbler nature were known as Charity Schools.

One of the latter was that founded by Alderman Cogan at Hull in 1753. This provided clothing and instruction for twenty poor girls, each of whom could remain at the school for three years. The number of girls was afterwards increased to sixty. They wore white straw bonnets, brown merino frocks, and blue cloth cloaks, all trimmed with orange. The Cogan Charity School still flourishes, but the old-time charity costume is no longer worn.

Several old charity schools formerly existed in the towns of the East Riding. Bridlington had a Spinning School in which twelve poor girls were taught ‘carding, spinning, and knitting.’ Beverley had its Blue-Coat School for boys, a school afterwards amalgamated with the Grammar School; and three other Spinning Schools were in existence in Hull at the close of the eighteenth century.

Of the same class is the Marine or Navigation School belonging to the Hull Trinity House. This, founded in 1786, now provides board, clothing, and education for about 150 boys, who are intended for a sea-faring life. So valuable is the education they receive in all that belongs to a sailor’s life, that each of the ‘white-ducked’ boys is said to ‘carry 336a captain’s certificate in his pocket’ when he leaves the school.

A school of a very special kind was that conducted on board the H.M. Training Ship ‘Southampton.’ The Southampton, an old ‘three-decker,’ after serving as a battleship in the early years of last century, was sent to the Humber to become a floating Industrial School. For forty-three years it fulfilled its duty, during which time some 2,600 boys were educated on it for a life at sea.^[74]

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In towns private schools of all classes were increasing rapidly when the nineteenth century opened. A Directory of Hull for the year 1831 shows that there were then in the town seven Ladies’ Boarding Academies, four Gentlemen’s Boarding Academies, twelve Classical and Commercial Academies, and no fewer than seventy-four Day Schools.

The following is the advertisement issued by the Principal of a Commercial and Mathematical Academy in 337the year 1787. In it the mysterious letters appended to the Principal’s name may be taken to stand for ‘Writing Master.’

GENTLEMENS’ CHILDREN are instructed in the first principles of English, so as to be enabled to read and write their native Language with elegance and propriety; the English Grammar agreeable to the strictest rules of Syntax, resolving a sentence into its different parts of speech. The free and natural method of Writing, and striking by command of hand; Arithmetic, Merchants’ Accounts, or the Italian Method of Book-Keeping; Mensuration; Gauging; Surveying of Land; Plain and Spherical Trigonometry; Euclids Elements; Navigation; Algebra, and the Use of the Globes.

YOUNG GENTLEMEN are Boarded and taught Geography, by familiar lectures, founded on rational principles and demonstration, and such as are of age and capacity taught to read Milton and Young, with proper emphasis and cadence.

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Meanwhile many of the old Grammar Schools in England had fallen on very evil days. In 1840 some of those to which the term ‘decayed’ could be most fitly applied were 338converted into Elementary Schools. Twenty-four years later a Schools’ Enquiry Commission was appointed by the Government to enquire into the condition of the Grammar Schools throughout the country. The following are details from the report of the Commissioners.

At Beverley in 1865 there were only fifteen boys, and the school premises were ‘dirty and the furniture out of repair.’ At Hull no classics were taught; only two boys out of sixty-seven were learning French, and two German; Algebra and Euclid were ‘not attempted.’ At Sancton the children paid nothing, and ‘received instruction which was worth nothing.’ At Barmby-on-the-Marsh the vicar was receiving £97 from the Grammar School endowment, and out of it paying £2 to the village school.

Bridlington Grammar School was, we know, held in 1866 in a room near the Corn Exchange in the ‘Old Town’; and some eight or ten scholars were in attendance. It was then temporarily closed, and its funds were carefully nursed by Mr. Thomas Harland, who meanwhile succeeded in interesting others in its refoundation.

As the result of Mr. Harland’s labours, various funds were amalgamated, including those of the Spinning School previously mentioned; and eventually a site for the school was obtained, and new buildings were erected. These were opened in 1899 by Lord Herries, the Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding, and have since been twice enlarged.

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It has been shown how Hull and Pocklington owe their Grammar Schools to pious founders. That the days of pious founders are not wholly past and gone, we have proved to us in the existence of Hymers College at Hull.

‘Hymers’ owes itself to two brothers, John and Robert Hymers, each a native of the North Riding and an ‘old boy’ of Sedbergh School.

The elder of these two brothers, who was born in 1803 at Ormesby in Cleveland, became a distinguished mathematical scholar, and a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. Somewhat late in life he was appointed rector of Brandesburton, where he spent his last thirty-five years. On his death in 1887 it was discovered that he had left almost his whole fortune for the foundation of a Grammar School. The wording of a portion of his will ran as follows:—

And, subject to the payment of my debts ... I give and bequeath all the residue of my real and personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever to the Mayor and Corporation of the port of Kingston-upon-Hull, in the county of York, wherewith to found and endow a Grammar School in their town on the model of the Grammar Schools at Birmingham and Dulwich, for the training of intelligence in whatever social rank of life it may be found amongst the vast and varied population of the town and port of Hull.

The amount of money thus bequeathed was roughly £200,000. But, unfortunately for the testator’s wishes, the will was declared to be null and void, because by the use of the words ‘found and endow’ it violated an ancient law. By the Statute of Mortmain, passed by Parliament in the year 1279, money might not be left to found and endow what was really a religious institution. Had the will said ‘to found or endow,’ things would have been all right. But, as it was, the Statute of Mortmain, though passed six hundred years before, was then still the law of the land; and in the eyes of the law the testator’s wishes counted for nought.

342However, by the goodwill and generosity of the younger of the two brothers, a sum of £50,000 was devoted to the carrying out of Dr. John Hymers’ wishes. With this the estate known as the Botanic Gardens was purchased and the College buildings erected, a portion being set aside to provide the necessary endowment for carrying on the school. Within the last few years the Mayor and Corporation have provided funds for the addition of a wing devoted to the teaching of Science and Art.

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Right through the nineteenth century efforts were being made to give a real education to the poorer classes. The great force at work during the early years of the century was the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor. This Society was established in 1809, and by 1831 had more than 1300 schools; all of which were not only built but also carried on by voluntary subscriptions. Ten years ago there were 173 National Schools in the East Riding.

By the Education Acts of 1870 and 1880 a system of elementary education was established, and in 1891 this education became free.

344Since the last-mentioned year the strides made have been enormous. The education of the children of the East Riding has been taken in hand by the East Riding Council, the Hull City Council, and the Town Councils of Beverley and Bridlington. Old and useless schools have been replaced by new and up-to-date ones; new Elementary, Secondary and Technical Schools, and High Schools for Girls have been built and equipped; and a School of Art and a Navigation School for adults have been established. Most important of all, however, is the system of Scholarships by which many boys and girls are now climbing from the village school to the ‘Varsity’ college.

A brief record of the most famous lives in local history. Each of the persons named was born in the East Riding, and living persons are excluded.

Saint John of Beverley. Born at Harpham, and died in A.D. 721. Became Bishop of Hexham and of York. Was canonised by the Church in 1037, and afterwards became one of the most famous saints of the north of England. See pages 135–140.

Alured, or Alfred, of Beverley. Born at Beverley in 1109. Became Treasurer of the Church of St. John of Beverley, and Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Rievaulx. Wrote a history in Latin, entitled Annals of the Deeds of the Kings of Britain, and a Life of St. John of Beverley.

345Roger of Howden. Born at Howden, and died in 1201. Became a Clerk, or Secretary, to Henry II., and later a King’s Justice for Yorkshire. Was the author of a Latin history of England from A.D. 732 to A.D. 1201.

William of Newburgh. Born at Bridlington in 1136. Was brought up at the Priory of Newburgh, and wrote in Latin a History of English Affairs, which takes rank as ‘the finest historical work left to us by an Englishman of the twelfth century.’ See page 269.

Peter of Langtoft. Born at Langtoft, and died in 1307. Was a Canon of Bridlington Priory, and author of a Chronicle of England, written in Anglo-Norman verse. See page 269.

John Hotham. Born at Scorborough, and died in 1336. Became Bishop of Ely, and twice Lord Chancellor of England.

John of Bridlington. Born at Thwing about 1324. Was successively Precentor, Almoner, Sub-Prior, and Prior of Bridlington Priory. Became so famed for his piety that after his death many miracles were believed to be wrought at his tomb.

Sir Michael de la Pole, first Earl of Suffolk. Born at Hull, and died in 1389. Became, successively, Mayor of Hull and Admiral of the King’s Fleets in the Northern Parts, a Knight of the Garter, Lord Chancellor of England, and the first Earl of Suffolk. His is the first example in British history of a prosperous merchant’s becoming a peer of the realm. See page 116.

Walter Skirlaw, LL.D., Born at South Skirlaugh, and died in 1406. Became Bishop, successively, of Lichfield, Bath, and Durham. Built the tower and chapter 346house of Howden, and Skirlaugh Chapel—now the parish church. Also built several bridges in the north of England, and helped to build the central tower of York Minster.

John Alcock, D.D. Born at Hull about 1428. Became Bishop, successively, of Rochester, Worcester, and Ely. Was a Privy Councillor and twice Lord Chancellor of England. Founded the Hull Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge. See pages 270–271.

John Fisher, D.D. Born at Beverley in 1459. Became Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and Bishop of Rochester. Was famed for his ‘grete and singular virtue,’ and was beheaded on Tower Hill for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII. as the ‘Supreme Head of the Church.’ Was largely instrumental in founding St. John’s College, Cambridge, and formed a library which was considered to be ‘the finest in Christendom.’ See pages 270–272.

Sir John Pickering, Kt. Born at Flamborough in 1544. Was the son of very poor parents, yet became a Privy Councillor and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. Was twice chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

Sir John Lister, Kt. Born at Hull in 1585. Became twice Mayor of Hull, and was five times elected M.P. for his native city. Entertained King Charles I. on his visit to Hull in 1639. Founded in 1642 the ‘Lister Hospital’ for six poor men and six poor women.

Luke Fox. Born at Hull in 1586. Was a Younger Brother of the Trinity House, and revived the attempt to discover the North-West Passage, whence he gained the nickname ‘North-West Fox.’ Explored in 1631 the Channel west of Baffin Land which now bears his name.

347Thomas Lamplugh, D.D. Born at Octon, near Thwing, in 1615. Was a Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford, and became successively Dean of Rochester, Bishop of Exeter, and Archbishop of York.

Sir Philip Monkton, Kt. Born at Cavil, near Howden, about 1620. Was a devoted supporter of King Charles I., for whom he fought bravely at the battles of Atherton Moor, Naseby, and Rowton Heath. Was knighted for his bravery in 1644.

Andrew Marvell. Born at Winestead in 1621. Was an ‘old boy’ of the Hull Grammar School, became Assistant Latin Secretary to the Council of State, and was M.P. for Hull for nineteen years. Also gained considerable reputation as a poet, but is best remembered as ‘a pure-minded patriot in the most corrupt times.’ See pages 272–275.

Christopher Nesse. Born at North Cave in 1621. Was the son of a husbandman, but became a notable Non-conformist preacher, and suffered much persecution after the Restoration.

Thomas Watson, D.D. Born at North Ferriby in 1637. Was the son of a seaman, and an ‘old boy’ of the Hull Grammar School. Became a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of St. David’s. Was a liberal benefactor to his old school, and rebuilt the alms-houses known as ‘Watson’s Hospital.’

Richard Boyle, K.G., third Earl of Burlington. Born at Londesborough in 1695. Was Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and Lord High Treasurer of Ireland. Became famous as an amateur architect. Rebuilt Burlington House, London, and carried out large schemes of plantation at Londesborough Hall.

348Richard Osbaldeston, D.D. Born at Hunmanby, and died in 1764. Became successively Dean of York, Bishop of Carlisle, and Bishop of London.

John Green, D.D. Born at Beverley in 1706. Was an “old boy” of Beverley Grammar School, and became Dean of Lincoln and later Bishop of Lincoln. In 1772 was the only Bishop in the House of Lords ‘to vote in favour of the Bill for the relief of Protestant Dissenters.’

William Mason. Born at Hull in 1724. Was a son of the Vicar of Holy Trinity and became a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Chaplain to the King. Gained considerable renown as a poet, and would have been appointed Poet Laureate but for his political opinions.

Sir Samuel Standidge, Kt. Born at Bridlington Quay in 1725. Took a leading part in establishing the Greenland Fishery Trade, and fitted out a ship for the discovery of the North Pole. Was knighted when Mayor of Hull in 1795, and was four times elected Warden of the Hull Trinity House.

Sir Christopher Sykes, Bart. Born at Roos in 1749. Was distinguished as a mathematician, architect, banker, and M.P. for Beverley. Refused a baronetcy from Mr. Pitt, but asked that it should be given to his father, the rector of Roos.

Robert Thew. Born at Patrington in 1758. Was the son of an innkeeper, and became engraver to the Prince of Wales.

William Wilberforce. Born at Hull in 1759. Became M.P. for his native town at the age of twenty-one, and was for twenty-eight years one of the two M.P.’s for Yorkshire. Devoted his whole life and all his wealth to obtaining the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies, the Act for which was passed a few days after his death in 1833. See pages 275–279.

349Adrian Hardy Haworth. Born at Hull in 1767. Became a renowned botanist and entomologist, and formed a collection of 40,000 insects, the most important of which are now in the British Museum.

Sir Benjamin F. Outram, Kt., M.D. Born at Kilham about 1770. Entered the Medical Naval Service, and became Medical Inspector of Naval Hospitals. Was knighted in 1850.

Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, Bart. Born at Sledmere in 1771. Was M.P. for the city of York for thirteen years. RaisedRaised in 1802 two squadrons of Yeomanry, known as the ‘East Yorkshire Wold Yeomanry.’ Was a great lover of books, and formed at Sledmere ‘one of the finest private libraries in England,’ which in 1824 was sold for £20,000.

Sir Tatton Sykes, Bart. Born at Sledmere in 1772. Devoted himself to sheep-farming and the breeding of race-horses, and, by the introduction of bone manure, wrought great improvements in the cultivation of the Wolds. Was a fearless sportsman, and a true specimen of ‘The Fine Old English Gentleman.’ See pages 279–281.

Thomas Jackson. Born at Sancton in 1783. Was the son of a farm labourer, and became ‘in spite of the adverse circumstances of poverty and lack of education,’ a famous Wesleyan divine. Was twice elected President of the Wesleyan Conference.

William Spence, F.R.S. Born at Bishop Burton in 1783. Was an ‘old boy’ of Beverley Grammar School, and became one of the founders of Blundell, Spence, & Co., Ltd., Hull. Was deeply interested in Entomology, and was one of the authors of Kirby and Spence’s Introduction to Entomology, the most popular natural history book of its day.

350Sir James Alderson, Kt., M.D., F.R.S. Born at Hull in 1795. Succeeded his father as physician of the Hull Royal Infirmary, and became President of the Royal College of Physicians. Was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1869.

Frederick Huntingdon, M.D. Born at Hull in 1796. Was surgeon of the Hull Royal Infirmary for thirty-four years, and is recorded on his monument in Christ Church, Hull, as ‘one of Nature’s gentlemen, whose life was passed in doing good.’

James Hall. Born at Scorborough in 1801. Was a ‘model country squire ... and a devoted upholder of English field sports,’ and held the Mastership of the Holderness Hunt for thirty years.

Sir Henry Cooper, Kt., M.D. Born at Hull in 1807. Was physician of the Hull Royal Infirmary for twenty-seven years, and as Mayor of Hull was knighted when Queen Victoria visited the town in 1854. Was the first Chairman of the Hull School Board, and has his memory perpetuated in the ‘Sir Henry Cooper Schools.’

Thomas Earle. Born at Hull in 1810. Was a gold medallist of the Royal AcademyAcademy, and designed the statue of George the Fourth in Trafalgar Square, London, and that of Queen Victoria in Pearson Park, Hull, beside many others.

Sir James Hudson, K.C.B. Born at Bessingby in 1810. Entered the Government Service and held many important posts in the United States, South America and Italy. Was created a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1855.

Henry Dawson. Born at Hull in 1811. Was the son of poor parents, and became a self-taught artist. Struggled hard against adversity, and gained renown as a landscape painter only towards the end of his life.

351Hugh Edwin Strickland. Born at Reighton in 1811. Was a notable student of natural history, and became Reader in Geology at the Oxford University. Was accidentally killed in a railway tunnel.

Charles Henry Bromby. Born at Hull in 1814. Was a son of the Vicar of Holy Trinity, and an ‘old boy’ of the Hull Grammar School. Became the first Bishop of Tasmania.

Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert, LL.D. Born at Hull in 1817. Became a distinguished scientist, and was knighted by Queen Victoria for his discoveries in agricultural chemistry.

Humphry Sandwith, C.B., D.C.L. Born at Bridlington in 1822. Travelled widely, became Inspector-General of Hospitals in the Russo-Turkish War, and helped to defend the fortress of Kars. Was decorated by Queen Victoria as a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

John Bacchus Dykes, Mus. Doc. Born at Hull in 1823. Was a grandson of the Vicar of St. John’s, and became Minor Canon and Precentor of Durham Cathedral. Composed more than two hundred hymn tunes, and was joint editor of Hymns, Ancient and Modern. After his death, a public subscription of £10,000 was raised in his honour to found musical scholarships.

Charles Alfred Lee, M.D. Born at Hull in 1825. Took a large share in the support of the Hull Royal Infirmary and the Newland Orphan Homes, and, on his death in January 1912, bequeathed £150,000 for the foundation of ‘Rest Houses’ for the aged poor.

Sir William Christopher Leng. Born at Hull in 1825. Was an ‘old boy’ of the Hull Grammar School. 352Took up journalism after some years spent as a chemist, and became the editor of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph. Was knighted for his public services in 1887.

The Hon. Sir John Hall, K.C.M.G. Born at Hull in 1824. Emigrated to New Zealand, entered Parliament, and became Premier in 1879. Was decorated by Queen Victoria as a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

John Robert Mortimer. Born at Fimber in 1825. Devoted more than fifty years of a long life to the most thorough exploration of the earthworks and burial mounds around Driffield, and did more than anyone else to extend our knowledge of the early inhabitants of the East Yorkshire wolds.

Charles Henry Wilson, first Baron Nunburnholme. Born at Hull in 1833. Became, in 1867, senior partner in the shipping firm of Thomas Wilson, Sons & Co., and built up the largest privately-owned fleet of steamships in the world. Sat in Parliament as M.P. for his native town for thirty-two years, and was raised to the peerage in 1906. See pages 280–283.

Arthur Wilson. Born at Hull in 1836. Became a partner in the firm of Thomas Wilson, Sons & Co. in 1867. Was a great sportsman, and was M.F.H. to the Holderness Hunt for twenty-five years. See pages 280–283.

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