Fair are thy groves, thy fields lie bright and bland, Where evil has no sway I put my flower of song into thy hand And turn my eyes away To meet Fate's eyes, malign. Sometimes, when twilight holds and fills the land, Take thou this song-flower in thy tender hand There in the day's decline. My life lies dark before me-all unplanned- I leave my song-flower folded in thy hand, And turn my life from thine. [Written in connection with a visit of the members of the Manchester Literary Club to Bolton Abbey, June 16, 1883.] O trace the evolution of a legend is not within the scope or purpose of this paper. I like to believe that behind every beautiful myth there may be some substratum of fact which has formed as it were the nidus of it. In these days when Robin Hood and many another hero, in whose corporeal existence it has been our delight to believe, are, by a mysterious critical alchemy, being converted into mythical shadows of the early dawn, nothing is safe, and it is possible that the White Doe of Rylstone may share the same fate. The legend, however, as it was presented to Wordsworth is preserved in Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven, and is to this effect: Not long after the dissolution of the monasteries, and in the time of Queen Elizabeth, "a white doe, say the aged people of the neighbourhood, long continued to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone over the fells of Bolton, and was constantly found in the abbey churchyard during divine service; after the close of which she returned home as regularly as the rest of the congregation." True or not, this little bit of legend or tradition T furnished Wordsworth with the germ of his metrical romance. In 1807 the poet visited the neighbourhood of Bolton, and the idea occurred to him of associating the tradition with the scenery of the neighbourhood and the fate of a family of Nortons who had a hall and estates at Rylstone close by. Rylstone Hall, as Whitaker describes it, stood in an aperture of the hills which separate the villages of Aire and Wharfe. When he visited it there were still in the ancient garden some dwarfed and stunted flowers which had survived the neglect of more than two centuries. Before the white doe was seen by the aged people coming on Sunday morning to the priory church, there had been a short-lived rebellion, known as "The Rising in the North," which had in it some striking and tragic incidents, and among them the downfall of the house of Norton. A ballad was written about it, which may be found in the Percy collection, wherein the Nortons figure prominently. The play of a poetic mind was brought to bear upon the legend, the historical incidents, and the ballad; these were blended together, and the result is the metrical romance which Wordsworth has given us. Wordsworth's mind was of an independent type, and he was not a poet who was very largely influenced by any other poet; but four years before he visited Bolton, he had, on one of his Highland tours, met Scott, who repeated to the poet and his sister a part of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which was then in manuscript and subsequently to be published in 1805. Wordsworth was much impressed with this romance of chivalry, and to the last regarded it as the finest of Scott's poetical works. It may have suggested to him the idea of writing a metrical romance on his own account. Anyhow, in the year 1807 his mind seems to have been under the influence of ballad and tradition, for, besides the "White Doe," he wrote the "Founding of Bolton Priory," the "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle," and the "Horn of Egremont Castle." Before setting to work upon the White Doe romance, he had been reading the Faery Queen, and the influence of Spenser is acknowledged and apparent. In the introductory poem, which is addressed to his wife, he says: Oft beside our blazing fire, When years of wedded life were as a day The gentle Una, born of heavenly birth, To seek her knight went wandering o'er the earth. It is worthy of note as a coincidence that about the time when the white doe was making its mysterious pilgrimage, Spenser was creating the beautiful legend of Una and her milk-white lamb. In the preface to the Faery Queen, Spenser says: "The method of a poct historical is not such as of an historiographer, for an historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne, accounting as well the times as the actions; but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and then recoursing to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a pleasant Analysis of all." Wordsworth exercised not only the poet's power of giving to airy nothings a local habitation and a name, but the poet's licence in dealing with his materials. He invented a reason for the white doe's pilgrimage, used just so much of the Percy ballad as suited his purpose, and arranged and falsified historical events in the same way. The rebellion which has been called the Rising in the North occurred in 1569, the twelfth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was the result of an endeavour to marry Mary Queen of Scots to the Duke of Norfolk-a scheme which was favoured by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who, along with others, thought the marriage might be made acceptable to Elizabeth. The result, however, was disastrous. It was intended to consult her on the matter through the Earl of Leicester, but unfortunately news of the scheme reached her indirectly, and no doubt, as the ballad says quaintly, "like a royal queene she swore." She regarded the plan as treasonable, and summoned the carls to appear before her. They declined, and finding themselves, by force of circumstances, placed in a rebellious attitude, after some hesitation set up the standard of revolt, and announced their intention, among other things, of restoring the old Catholic faith. Many gentlemen of the Yorkshire dales and their retainers joined the earls, and among them the most notable was old Richard Norton, who brought eight sons and his tenantry along with him. His standard was the old banner of the pilgrimage of grace, showing upon it the cross and five wounds of our Lord, and it became the standard of the rebellion. How the earls met-how they and their followers entered Durham, tore the Bible, and caused mass to be said there-how they laid siege to Barnard Castle, held for the queen by Sir George Bowes, and eventually took it-how forces were sent against them-how they were disintegrated and dispersed, and of the vengeance which followed-all these are matters of history which cannot be dwelt on here. Wordsworth, as has been said, arranged the incidents to suit his story, and there are many deviations on his part from historical fact. For instance, he makes the Norton family interest centre in Rylstone Hall; but the opening incidents of the rebellion in which Richard Norton played a part took place elsewhere, and Ripon is said to have been the scene of the raising of the famous banner and of some of the initiatory movements of the rising. When the summons came to the Earl of Northumberland he was at his house at Topcliffe, near Ripon, as the preface to the Percy ballad tells; and when he had decided not to obey the queen's summons, that ditty makes him say: |