Back home and back to school

But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

-- Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Reflections on the Revolution in France

Deo Gratias

I'm at L'Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes (actually, the town library in Sablé, a couple miles down the river). The food alone is enough to make one become a monk.

Haddon Hall

The English Castle par excellence, not the forbidding fortress on an unassailable crag, but the large, rambling, safe, grey, loveable house of knights and their ladies, the unreasonable dreamcastle of those who think of the Middle Ages as a time of chivalry and valour and noble feelings. None other in England is so complete and convincing.

Nikolaus Pevsner

O, the vision of the cross at Haddon

Today I found an odd stone slab in the churchyard of All Saints' Church in Bakewell, Derbyshire. The church itself is one of the most intriguing country parishes I've come across; if only there were more time to explore. The "Bakewell Cross" is perplexing from an empirical point of view, depicting the Crucifixion on one side and the Norse gods Odin and Loki on the other (at least that's what one book said). It's tall, black and looks out of place amongst the other headstones.

The nearby Matlock library has a book recording the following legend about the cross. Henry VII's elder son and heir to the throne, Prince Arthur, used to spend long periods of time in the Peak District, visiting his friend Sir George Vernon at Haddon Hall -- gorgeous Mediaeval country home/castle nearby. One day Arthur was strolling along the River Wye (just as I was... a rather idyllic place), and decided to take an afternoon nap on the grassy knoll at the foot of the cross. In his reverie there appeared to him a 'tall thin female dressed in white; her features sunken and wan, her lips of an ashy hew, and her eyeballs protruding, bright and motionless'. The wraith stared silently at Arthur for a few minutes, then said

"Unhappy royal Prince, mourn not thy fate which is not thine! One earthly pageant awaits thee, yea, it is at hand; and then, ah! then thou wilt drop into the lap of thy mother -- ah, thy mother earth! Forth comes to Britain's shore thy lovely, smiling bride -- ah! bride and widow of a royal boy!"

He awoke frightened and puzzled, then made his way back to Haddon. Upon returning he encountered one of his ministers, come to bring the news that his bride-to-be, Catherine of Aragon, had arrived in England and he was expected to return immediately to London and be married. So Arthur left Derbyshire, was married at St. Paul's, then died soon after. His last words, purportedly, were "O, the vision of the cross at Haddon".

We all know what became of Catherine afterwards, her unhappy marriage to Arthur's lecherous brother, Henry VIII, etc.

What seas, what shores, what islands

I'm currently in Oban (pronounced oh-bin), gateway to the Scottish Hebrides. Queen Victoria described it as "one of the finest places we have seen". Today I climbed to the dilapidated, ivy-covered castle of Dunolly, ancient seat of the MacDougall Clan. They were enemies of Robert the Bruce, and much of the castle's damage is from when he came through and brought them into submission.

On another note, it seems much too expensive to visit Iona... even from here.

ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE

THE captive Bird was gone;--to cliff or moor
Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm;
Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm:
Him found we not: but, climbing, a tall tower,
There saw, impaved with rude fidelity
Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye--
An Eagle that could neither wail nor soar.
Effigy of the Vanished--(shall I dare
To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds
And of the towering courage which past times
Rejoiced in--take, whate'er thou be, a share,
Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes
That animate my way where'er it leads!

William Wordsworth

Thomas Jones

One of my anscestors, Archbishop of Dublin in early 17th century... inscription over his tomb at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

DOMS
Thomas Iones
Archiepifcopus Dublin
Hyberniae Cancellarius
bis e Iufuciariis unus
Obiit 10 Apr: AD 1619