And to many an eye was revealed the sight,
While the corn stood green that Midsummer-day;
As Sir Lancelot Threlkeld the ancient Knight
With all his horsemen went over the height:
O'er the steep mountain summit went riding away.
And then as the twilight closed over the dell—
Where the corn stood green that Midsummer-day—
Came the farmers and peasants all flocking to tell
How Sir Lancelot's troop had gone over the fell!
And the widows sat listening, and spinning away.
And the widows looked mournfully round the old hall;
And the corn stood green on Midsummer-day;
"He is come at the good Lord Clifford's call!
He is up for the King, with his warriors all!"—
Said the widows there spinning the eve away.
"There is evil to happen, and war is at hand—
Where the corn stands green this Midsummer-day—
Or rebels are plotting to waste the land;
Or he never would come with his armed band"—
Said the widows there spinning the eve away.
"Our old men sleep in the grave. They cease:
While the corn stands green on Midsummer-day—
They rest, though troubles on earth increase;
And soon may Sir Lancelot's soul have peace!"
Sighed the widows while spinning the eve away.
"But this was the Promise the Shepherd-Lord—
When the corn stood green that Midsummer-day—
Gave, parting from Threlkeld's hearth and board,
To the brave old Knight—and he keeps his word!"
Said the widows all putting their spinning away.
NOTES TO "SIR LANCELOT THRELKELD."
The little village of Threlkeld is situated at the foot of Blencathra about four miles from Keswick, on the highroad from that town to Penrith. The old hall has long been in a state of dilapidation, the only habitable part having been for years converted into a farm house. Some faint traces of the moat are said to be yet discernible. This was one of the residences of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, a powerful knight in the reign of Henry the Seventh, step-father to the Shepherd Lord. His son, the last Sir Lancelot, was wont to say that he had "three noble houses—one for pleasure, Crosby in Westmorland, where he had a park full of deer; one for profit and warmth, wherein to reside during winter, namely, Yanwath, near Penrith; and the third, Threlkeld, on the edge of the vale of Keswick, well stocked with tenants to go with him to the wars." Sir Lancelot is said to have been a man of a kind and generous disposition, who had either taken the side of the White Rose in the great national quarrel, or at least had not compromised himself to a ruinous extent on the other side; and has long had the reputation of having afforded a retreat to the Shepherd Lord Clifford, on the utter ruin of his house, after the crushing of the Red Rose at Towton, when the Baron (his late father) was attained in parliament, and all his lands were seized by the crown.
The Cliffords, Lords of Westmorland, afterwards Earls of Cumberland, were a family of great power and princely possessions, who for many generations occupied a position in the North West of England, similar to that held by the Percies, Earls of Northumberland, in the north-east.
Their blood was perhaps the most illustrious in the land. Descended from Rollo first Duke of Normandy, by alliances in marriage it intermingled with that of William the Lion, King of Scotland, and with that of several of the Sovereigns of England.
Their territorial possessions corresponded with their illustrious birth. These comprised their most ancient stronghold, Clifford Castle, on the Wye, in Herefordshire; the lordship of the barony of Westmorland, including the seigniories and Castles of Brougham and Appleby; Skipton Castle in the West Riding of Yorkshire, with its numerous townships, and important forest and manorial rights, their most princely, and apparently favourite residence; and the Hall and estates of Lonsborrow in the same County.
The Cliffords are said to be sprung from an uncle of William the Conqueror. The father of William had a younger brother, whose third son, Richard Fitz-Pontz, married the daughter and heiress of Ralph de Toni, of Clifford Castle, in Herefordshire. Their second son, Walter, succeeding to his mother's estates, assumed the name of Clifford, and was the father of the Fair Rosamond, the famous mistress of King Henry the Second. He died in 1176. His great-grandson, Roger de Clifford acquired the inheritance of the Veteriponts or Viponts, Lords of Brougham Castle in Westmorland, by his marriage with one of the co-heiresses of Robert de Vipont, the last of that race. It was their son Robert who was first summoned to sit in parliament, by a writ dated the 29th of December, 1299, as the Lord Clifford.
The Cliffords were a warlike race, and engaged in all the contests of the time. For many generations the chiefs of their house figure as distinguished soldiers and captains; and most of them died on the field of battle.
Roger, the father of the first lord, was renowned in the wars of Henry III. and of Edward I., and was killed in a skirmish with the Welsh in the Isle of Anglesey, on St. Leonard's day, 1283.
His son Robert, the first Lord Clifford, a favourite and companion in arms of Edward I., was one of the guardians of Edward II. when a minor, and Lord High Admiral in that monarch's reign. He fell at the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314.
Roger, his son, the second lord, was engaged in the Earl of Lancaster's insurrection, and had done much to deserve political martyrdom in that rebellious age: but a feeling of humanity, such as is seldom read of in civil wars, and especially in those times, saved him from execution, when he was taken prisoner with Lancaster and the rest of his associates. He had received so many wounds in the battle (of Borough bridge), that he could not be brought before the judge for the summary trial, which would have sent him to the hurdle and the gallows. Being looked upon, therefore, as a dying man, he was respited from the course of law: time enough elapsed, while he continued in this state, for the heat of resentment to abate, and Edward of Carnarvon, who, though a weak and most misguided prince, was not a cruel one, spared his life; an act of mercy which was the more graceful, because Clifford had insulted the royal authority in a manner less likely to be forgiven than his braving it in arms. A pursuivant had served a writ upon him in the Barons' Chamber, and he made the man eat the wax wherewith the writ was signed, "in contempt, as it were, of the said King."
He was the first Lord Clifford that was attainted of treason. His lands and honours were restored in the first year of Edward III., but he survived the restoration only a few weeks, dying in the flower of his age, unmarried; but leaving "some base children behind him, whom he had by a mean woman who was called Julian of the Bower, for whom he built a little house hard by Whinfell, and called it Julian's Bower, the lower foundation of which standeth, and is yet to be seen," said the compiler of the family records, an hundred and fifty years ago, "though all the walls be down long since. And it is thought that the love which this Roger bore to this Julian kept him from marrying any other woman."
Roger de Clifford was succeeded in his titles and estates by his brother Robert, the third baron, who married Isabella de Berkeley, sister to Thomas, Lord Berkeley, of Berkeley Castle; in which Castle, two years after it had rung with "shrieks of death," when the tragedy of Edward II. was brought to its dreadful catastrophe there, the marriage was performed.
This Robert lived a country life, and "nothing is mentioned of him in the wars," except that he once accompanied an army into Scotland. It is, however, related of him, that when Edward Baliol was driven from Scotland, the exiled king was "right honourably received by him in Westmorland, and entertained in his Castles of Brougham, Appleby, and Pendragon;" in acknowledgement for which hospitality Baliol, if he might at any time recover the kingdom of Scotland out