only its carved and panelled wainscot in good preservation, but a part of its ancient furniture.

It was, however, but the year preceding this appendage of state apartments, that the earl was compelled to defend the strongest parts of his castle against the efforts of a formidable insurrection which had broken out in the northern counties, in consequence of the king's dissolution of the smaller monasteries. It was excited and headed by Robert Aske, a man of great courage and considerable military skill, and who dignified his undertaking by the captivating appellation of The Pilgrimage of Grace. He was powerfully seconded by the zeal of the Roman catholics, and more particularly by the monks, friars, and nuns, who being expelled from their houses, and turned loose, as it were, upon the world, appealed with such effect to the superstitious feelings and compassion of the lower orders, that in a very little time not less than forty thousand individuals had assembled in support of the cause. They bound their adherents by a solemn oath, and, after publishing a specious declaration of their views, they advanced with arms in their hands, and with banners, on which were depicted the five wounds of Christ, whilst their priests, marching in

front, exhibiting their crucifixes, kept alive and inflamed their ardour. In this manner, restoring the monks to their monasteries as they went on, and compelling all whom they met to join them, they had the audacity to lay siege to the castles of Pomfret, Skipton, and Scarborough*. Pomfret was surrendered to the insurgents by lord d'Arcy and the archbishop of York; but the earl of Cumberland, with a resolution worthy of his ancestors, sent to assure his sovereign, that although five hundred gentlemen, whom he retained at his cost, had already deserted him, he would defend his castle of Skipton against them allt. And not only did he do this, but through his influence with the canons of Bolton, he prevented their joining the spreading defection of the neighbouring religious houses.

Wealth and prosperity now set in with a full tide on the latter days of this first earl of Cumberland; for, in 1538, by the death of Henry earl of Northumberland, brother of his second wife, lady Margaret Percy, without issue, the whole Percy fee, which had been settled by the earl of Northum

* Vide Burnet, vol. i. p. 229.-Henry, vol. ii. p. 298. + Herbert's Life of Henry VIII. p. 483.-Whitaker, p. 340.

berland about four years before on his nephew lord Henry Clifford, became vested in his, the earl of Cumberland's family; an acquisition which, comprehending all the western part, or nearly one-half of Craven, gave to the Cliffords, in conjunction with their own fee in the same district, and the estates which they shortly afterwards acquired by the dissolution of Bolton Abbey, an almost entire command over this division of Yorkshire.

The surrender of Bolton Abbey into the hands of the king, which had been contemplated more than two years before, took place on January the 29th, 1540, Richard Moone, the prior, and fourteen canons being then resident; and on April the 3d, 1542, his majesty granted to the earl of Cumberland, as a reward of his loyalty, not only the dissolved house of Bolton, with its immediate site and grounds, but all the estates belonging to its endowment in Skipton and elsewhere, equalling altogether in value the whole of the Cliffords' fee.

As it is probable that Bolton Abbey, like almost every other religious house, fell into decay very speedily on its dissolution, it being customary to unroof immediately, and otherwise destroy, the habitable parts of such foundations; and as there is

reason to suppose, when after a desertion of more than two years, it became the property of the first earl of Cumberland, that it even then exhibited much of the picturesque effect of a ruin, it will in this place, without doubt, be gratifying to learn what are the peculiar beauties of its situation, and what is the state of its remains; a desideratum which cannot better be supplied than in the rich and glowing language of Dr. Whitaker.

"Bolton Priory,” says this eloquent topographer, "stands upon a beautiful curvature of the Wharf, on a level sufficiently elevated to protect it from inundations, and low enough for every purpose of picturesque effect. In the latter respect, it has no equal among the northern houses, perhaps not in the kingdom.

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Opposite to the east window of the Priory Church, the river washes the foot of a rock nearly perpendicular, and of the richest purple, where several of the mineral beds, which break out, instead of maintaining their usual inclination to the horizon, are twisted, by some inconceivable process, into undulating and spiral lines. To the south, all is soft and delicious; the eye reposes upon a few rich pastures, a moderate reach of the river, suf

ficiently tranquil to form a mirror to the sun, and the bounding fells beyond, neither too near nor too lofty to exclude, even in winter, any considerable portion of his rays.

"But, after all, the glories of Bolton are on the north. For there, whatever the most fastidious. taste could require to constitute a perfect landscape is not only found, but in its proper place. In front, and immediately under the eye, lies a smooth expanse of park-like enclosure, spotted with native elm, ash, &c. of the finest growth; on the right an oak wood, with jutting points of grey rock; on the left, a rising copse. Still forward, are seen the aged groves of Bolton Park, the growth of centuries; and farther yet, the barren and rocky distances of Simon-seat and Barden Fell, contrasted with the warmth, fertility, and luxuriant foliage of the valley below.

"About half a mile above Bolton the valley closes, and either side of the Wharf is overhung by solemn woods, from which huge perpendicular masses of grey rock jut out at intervals. "This sequestered scene was almost inaccessible

till of late, that ridings have been cut on both sides