Marmion

by Walter Scott

  Stanza XIV. line 257. ‘St. Cuthbert was, in the choice of his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about two years before. {1} His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert. The Saint was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more intolerable, as, like Sinbad’s Old Man of the Sea, he journeyed upon the shoulders of his companions. They paraded him through Scotland for several years, and came as far west as Whithorn, in Galloway, whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by tempests. He at length made a halt at Norham; from thence he went to Melrose, where he remained stationary for a short time, and then caused himself to be launched upon the Tweed in a stone coffin, which landed him at Tilmouth, in Northumberland. This boat is finely shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only four inches thick; so that, with very little assistance, it might certainly have swam: it still lies, or at least did so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at Tilmouth. From Tilmouth, Cuthbert wandered into Yorkshire; and at length made a long stay at Chester-le-street, to which the bishop’s see was transferred. At length, the Danes continuing to infest the country, the monks removed to Rippon for a season; and it was in return from thence to Chester-le-street, that, passing through a forest called Dunholme, the Saint and his carriage became immovable at a place named Wardlaw, or Wardilaw. Here the Saint chose his place of residence; and all who have seen Durham must admit, that, if difficult in his choice, he evinced taste in at last fixing it. It is said, that the Northumbrian Catholics still keep secret the precise spot of the Saint’s sepulture, which is only intrusted to three persons at a time. When one dies the survivors associate to them, in his room, a person judged fit to be the depositary of so valuable a secret.’-SCOTT.

  ‘The resting-place of the remains of this Saint is not now matter of uncertainty. So recently as 17th May, 1827,-1139 years after his death-their discovery and disinterment were effected. Under a blue stone, in the middle of the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at the eastern extremity of the choir of Durham Cathedral, there was then found a walled grave, containing the coffins of the Saint. The first, or outer one, was ascertained to be that of 1541, the second of 1041; the third, or inner one, answering in every particular to the description of that of 698, was found to contain, not indeed, as had been averred then, and even until 1539, the incorruptible body, but the entire skeleton of the Saint; the bottom of the grave being perfectly dry, free from offensive smell, and without the slightest symptom that a human body had ever undergone decomposition within its walls. The skeleton was found swathed in five silk robes of emblematical embroidery, the ornamental parts laid with gold leaf, and these again covered with a robe of linen. Beside the skeleton were also deposited several gold and silver insignia, and other relics of the Saint.

  ‘(The Roman Catholics now allow that the coffin was that of St. Cuthbert.)

  ‘The bones of the Saint were again restored to the grave in a new coffin, amid the fragments of the former ones. Those portions of the inner coffin which could be preserved, including one of its rings, with the silver altar, golden cross, stole, comb, two maniples, bracelets, girdle, gold wire of the skeleton, and fragments of the five silk robes, and seme of the rings of the outer coffin made in 1541, were deposited in the library of the Dean and Chapter, where they are now preserved.’-LOCKHART.

  For ample details regarding St. Cuthbert, see ‘St. Cuthbert,’ by James Raine, M. A. (4to, Durham, 1828).

  line 263. For ‘fair Melrose’ see opening of Canto II, ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ and Prof. Minto’s note in the Clarendon Press edition.

  Stanza XV. line 292. ‘Every one has heard, that when David I, with his son Henry, invaded Northumberland in 1136, the English host marched against them under the holy banner of St. Cuthbert; to the efficacy of which was imputed the great victory which they obtained in the bloody battle of Northallerton, or Cuton-moor. The conquerors were at least as much indebted to the jealousy and intractability of the different tribes who composed David’s army; among whom, as mentioned in the text, were the Galwegians, the Britons of Strath-Clyde, the men of Teviotdale and Lothian, with many Norman and German warriors, who asserted the cause of the Empress Maud. See Chalmers’s “Caledonia,” vol. i. p. 622; a most laborious, curious, and interesting publication, from which considerable defects of style and manner ought not to turn aside the Scottish antiquary.

  ‘Cuthbert, we have seen, had no great reason, to spare the Danes, when opportunity offered. Accordingly, I find in Simeon of Durham, that the Saint appeared in a vision to Alfred, when lurking in the marches of Glastonbury, and promised him assistance and victory over his heathen enemies; a consolation which, as was reasonable, Alfred, after the battle of Ashendown, rewarded, by a royal offering at the shrine of the Saint. As to William the Conqueror, the terror spread before his army, when he marched to punish the revolt of the Northumbrians, in 1096, had forced the monks to fly once more to Holy Island with the body of the Saint. It was, however, replaced before William left the north; and, to balance accounts, the Conqueror having intimated an indiscreet curiosity to view the Saint’s body, he was, while in the act of commanding the shrine to be opened, seized with heat and sickness, accompanied with such a panic terror, that, notwithstanding there was a sumptuous dinner prepared for him, he fled without eating a morsel (which the monkish historian seems to have thought no small part both of the miracle and the penance,) and never drew his bridle till he got to the river Tees.’-SCOTT.

  Stanza XVI. line 300. ‘Although we do not learn that Cuthbert was, during his life, such an artificer as Dunstan, his brother in sanctity, yet, since his death, he has acquired the reputation of forging those Entrochi which are found among the rocks of Holy Island, and pass there by the name of St. Cuthbert’s Beads. While at this task, he is supposed to sit during the night upon a certain rock, and use another as his anvil. This story was perhaps credited in former days; at least the Saint’s legend contains some not more probable.’-SCOTT.

  See in Mr. Aubrey de Vere’s ‘Legends of the Saxon Saints’ a fine poem entitled ‘How Saint Cuthbert kept his Pentecost at Carlisle.’ The ‘beads’ are there referred to thus:-

  ‘And many an age, when slept that Saint in death,

  Passing his isle by night the sailor heard

  Saint Cuthbert’s hammer clinking on the rock.’

  The recognised name of these shells is still ‘St. Cuthbert’s beads.”

  Stanza XVII. line 316. ‘Ceolwolf, or Colwulf, King of Northumberland, flourished in the eighth century. He was a man of some learning; for the venerable Bede dedicates to him his “Ecclesiastical History.” He abdicated the throne about 738, and retired to Holy Island, where he died in the odour of sanctity. Saint as Colwulf was, however, I fear the foundation of the penance-vault does not correspond with his character; for it is recorded among his memorabilia, that, finding the air of the island raw and cold, he indulged the monks, whose rule had hitherto confined them to milk or water, with the comfortable privilege of using wine or ale. If any rigid antiquary insists on this objection, he is welcome to suppose the penance-vault was intended by the founder for the more genial purposes of a cellar.

  ‘These penitential vaults were the Geissel-gewolbe of German convents. In the earlier and more rigid times of monastic discipline, they were sometimes used as a cemetery for the lay benefactor of the convent, whose unsanctified corpses were then seldom permitted to pollute the choir. They also served as places of meeting for the chapter, when measures of uncommon severity were to be adopted. But their most frequent use, as implied by the name, was as places for performing penances, or undergoing punishment.’-SCOTT.

  Stanza XVIII. line 350. �
��Antique chandelier.’-SCOTT.

  Stanza XIX. line 371. ‘That there was an ancient priory at Tynemouth is certain. Its ruins are situated on a high rocky point; and, doubtless, many a vow was made to the shrine by the distressed mariners, who drove towards the iron-bound coast of Northumberland in stormy weather. It was anciently a nunnery; for Virca, abbess of Tynemouth, presented St. Cuthbert (yet alive) with a rare winding-sheet, in emulation of a holy lady called Tuda, who had sent him a coffin: but, as in the case of Whitby, and of Holy Island, the introduction of nuns at Tynemouth, in the reign of Henry VIII, is an anachronism. The nunnery of Holy Island is altogether fictitious. Indeed, St. Cuthbert was unlikely to permit such an establishment; for, notwithstanding his accepting the mortuary gifts above mentioned, and his carrying on a visiting acquaintance with the abbess of Coldingham, he certainly hated the whole female sex; and, in revenge of a slippery trick played to him by an Irish princess, he, after death, inflicted severe penances on such as presumed to approach within a certain distance of his shrine.’-SCOTT.

  line 376. ruth (A. S. hreow, pity) in Early and Middle English was used both for ‘disaster’ and ‘pity.’ These two shades of meaning are illustrated by Spenser in F. Q., Bk. ii. I. Introd. to Canto where Falsehood beguiles the Red Cross Knight, and ‘workes him woefull ruth,’ and in F. Q. I. v. 9:

  ‘Great ruth in all the gazers hearts did grow.’

  Milton (Lycidas, 163) favours the poetical employment of the word, which modern poets continue to use. Cp. Wordsworth, ‘Ode for a General Thanksgiving’:-

  ‘Assaulting without ruth

  The citadels of truth;’

  and Tennyson’s ‘Geraint and Enid,’ II. 102:-

  ‘Ruth began to work

  Against his anger in him, while he watch’d

  The being he lov’d best in all the world.’

  Stanza XX. line 385. doublet, a close-fitting jacket, introduced from France in the fourteenth century, and fashionable in all ranks till the time of Charles II. Cp. As You Like It, ii. 4. 6:-’Doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat.’

  line 398. Fontevraud, on the Loire, 8 miles from Saumur, had one of the richest abbeys in France. It was a retreat for penitents of both sexes, and presided over by an abbess. ‘The old monastic buildings and courtyards, surrounded by walls, and covering from 40 to 50 acres, now form one of the larger prisons of France, in which about 2000 men and boys are confined, and kept at industrial occupations.’ See Chambers’s ‘Encyclopaedia,’ s. v., and Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, 2d. S, I. 104.

  Stanza XXI. line 408. but = except that. Cp. Tempest, i. 2. 414:-

  ‘And, but he’s something stain’d

  With grief that’s beauty’s canker, thou might’st call him

  A goodly person.’

  line 414. Byron, writing to Murray on 3 Feb., 1816, expresses his belief that he has unwittingly imitated this passage in ‘Parisina.’ ‘I had,’ he says, ‘completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably.’ Byron is quite right in his assertion that, if he had taken this striking description of Constance as a model for his Parisina, he would have been attempting ‘to imitate that which is inimitable.’ See ‘Parisina,’ st. xiv:-

  ‘She stood, I said, all pale and still,

  The living cause of Hugo’s ill.’

  Stanza XXII. line 415. a sordid soul, &c. For such a character in the drama see Lightborn in Marlowe’s Edward II, and those trusty agents in Richard III, whose avowed hardness of heart drew from Gloucester the appreciative remark:-

  ‘Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes drop tears.’

  Richard III, i. 3. 353.

  Stanza XXIII. line 438. grisly, grim, horrible; still an effective poetic word. It is, e.g., very expressive in Tennyson’s ‘Princess,’ sect. vi, where Ida sees

  ‘The haggard father’s face and reverend beard

  Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood,’ &c.

  See below, III. 382.

  Stanza XXV. line 468. ‘It is well known, that the religious, who broke their vows of chastity, were subjected to the same penalty as the Roman vestals in a similar case. A small niche, sufficient to enclose their bodies, was made in the massive wall of the convent; a slender pittance of food and water was deposited in it, and the awful words, VADE IN PACE, were the signal for immuring the criminal. It is not likely that, in latter times, this punishment was often resorted to; but among the ruins of the abbey of Coldingham, were some years ago discovered the remains of a female skeleton, which, from the shape of the niche, and position of the figure, seemed to be that of an immured nun.’-SCOTT.

  Lockhart adds:-‘The Edinburgh Reviewer, on st. xxxii, post, suggests that the proper reading of the sentence is vade in pacem-not part in peace, but go into peace, or eternal rest, a pretty intelligible mittimus to another world.’

  Stanza XXVII. line 506. my = ‘of me,’ retains the old genitive force as in Elizabethan English. Cp. Julius Caesar, i. I. 55:-

  ‘In his way

  That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood.’

  line 516. The very old fancy of a forsaken lover’s revenge has been powerfully utilized in D. G. Rossetti’s fascinating ballad, ‘Sister Helen’:-

  ‘Pale, pale her cheeks, that in pride did glow,

  Sister Helen,

  ‘Neath the bridal-wreath three days ago.’

  ‘One morn for pride and three days for woe,

  Little brother!’

  Stanza XXVIII. line 520. plight, woven, united, as in Spenser F. Q., II. vi. 7:-

  ‘Fresh flowerets dight

  About her necke, or rings of rushes plight.’

  lines 524-40. The reference in these lines is to what was known as the appeal to the judgment of God. On this subject, Scott at the close of the second head in his ‘Essay on Chivalry,’ says, ‘In the appeal to this awful criterion, the combatants, whether personally concerned, or appearing as champions, were understood, in martial law, to take on themselves the full risk of all consequences. And, as the defendant, or his champion, in case of being overcome, was subjected to the punishment proper to the crime of which he was accused, so the appellant, if vanquished, was, whether a principal or substitute, condemned to the same doom to which his success would have exposed the accused. Whichever combatant was vanquished he was liable to the penalty of degradation; and, if he survived the combat, the disgrace to which he was subjected was worse than death. His spurs were cut off close to his heels, with a cook’s cleaver; his arms were baffled and reversed by the common hangman; his belt was cut to pieces, and his sword broken. Even his horse shared his disgrace, the animal’s tail being cut off, close by the rump, and thrown on a dunghill. The death-bell tolled, and the funeral service was said for a knight thus degraded as for one dead to knightly honour. And if he fell in the appeal to the judgment of God, the same dishonour was done to his senseless corpse. If alive, he was only rescued from death to be confined in the cloister. Such at least were the strict roles of Chivalry, though the courtesy of the victor, or the clemency of the prince, might remit them in favourable cases.’

  For illustration of forms observed at such contests, see Richard II, i. 3.

  line 524. Each knight declared on oath that he ‘had his quarrel just.’ The fall of an unworthy knight is referred to below, VI. 961.

  Stanza XXIX. line 545. This illustrates Henry’s impulsive and imperious character, and is not, necessarily, a premonition of his final attitude towards Roman Catholicism.

  line 555. dastard (Icel. doestr = exhausted, breathless; O. Dut. dasaert = a fool) is very appropriately used here, after the description above, St. xxii, to designate the poltroon that quails only before death. Cp. Pope’s Iliad, II. 427:-

  ‘And die the dastard first, who dreads to die.’

  Stanza XXX. line 568. Cp. Julius Caesar, ii. 2. 35:-

  ‘It seems to me most strange
that men should fear;

  Seeing that death, a necessary end,

  Will come when it will come.’

  Stanza XXXI. line 573. the fiery Dane. See note on line 10 above. Passing northwards after destroying York and Tynemouth, the Danes in 875 burned the monastery on Lindisfarne. The bishop and monks, with their relics and the body of St. Cuthbert, fled over the Kylve hills. See Raine, &c.