sites, for no new villages have arisen in the valley since the conquest, though many have disappeared. We can, however, name the respective patron saints. The Collegiate Church of Wensley is dedicated to the Holy Trinity; the Collegiate Church of Middleham, to our Blessed Lady and St. Alkelda the virgin; Coverham and Redmire, to our Blessed Lady; Spennithorne, to St. Michael the Archangel; Aysgarth, to St. Andrew; East Witton (old), to St. Martin; Thornton Steward, Askrigg, and Bolton, to St. Oswald, the king and martyr; and West Witton to St. Bartholomew. In most of these churches were one or more chantries, with an officiating priest attached to each; which were founded by pious individuals, in order that the adorable sacrifice of the altar might be continually offered for their souls and for all Christian souls. These chantry priests also usually assisted the rector or vicar in administering the Sacraments to his parishioners. Besides the yet existing churches just mentioned, there were many chapels long ago destroyed; amongst which may be named All Saints, at Thoralby, founded by Maria de Nevile, Lady of Middleham, in 1316; a chapel at Dale Grange; that of St. Restitutus, at Thornton Rust; of Saints Peter and Paul, at Leyburn; of St. Anne, at Bolton; of All Saints, at Harmby; of St. Thomas, at Carlton; of St. Simon, in Coverdale; a chapel at Studhow; and "a little hospital with a chapel of Jesus at the east end of Middleham." At Fors, the community of Jorevalle maintained a cell. In the reign of Henry III., A. D. 1270, Ralph Fitzranulph, Lord of Middleham, dying without issue male, his estates were divided between his three daughters; when the castle and lordship of Middleham fell to the "fair and gentle" Mary, who married Robert e de Nevile, son of the Lord of Raby, (lineally descended in the paternal line from Uchtred, the great Saxon Earl of Northumberland) and who survived her husband forty-nine years. From this marriage descended the Earls of Westmoreland, and ever afterwards Middleham was a favourite residence of the powerful Neviles. (1) There dwelt the mighty Earl of Salisbury, and his yet mightier son-the renowned “kingmaker," Warwick. There, too, dwelt Richard, Duke of Gloucester, (2) Warwick's son-in-law, afterwards England's Third Richard; and there that monarch's only son, Edward, Prince of Wales, was born, in 1473, and died in 1484, "The White Rose" early drooping. A room in the now ruinous castle is called "The Prince's Chamber."(3) There, too, common history avers Edward IV. was held (1) This great family at different periods have enjoyed the Dukedom of Bedford, Marquisate of Montague, Earldoms of Richmond, Kent, Salisbury, Warwick, and Avergavenny, and the Baronies of Fauconberg, Latimer, Furnival, Ousely, Nevile of Essex, and two baronies of Nevile; all borne by separate members of the house. (2) His mother was Cecilia Nevile, daughter of the Lord of Middleham. (3) It is a fact little known to casual readers that on this Prince's death, King Richard appointed his nephew, John, Earl of Lincoln, son of John De La Pole, Duke of Suffolk, by his wife the Princess Elizabeth Plantagenet, successor to the throne. On the accession of Henry VII., this young prince was naturally regarded with jealousy by the new king. He retired to his aunt, the dowager duchess of Burgundy, but returning to support Lambert Simnel's insurrection, fell at the battle of Stoke, June 16th, 1487. The rapid elevation of the De La Poles is remarkable. In the time of Edward III, William De La Pole was a wealthy merchant of Ravensere and Hull. On one occasion he lent the king £18,500; became chief baron of the Exchequer and knight banneret, and was frequently employed in embassies. His son Michael, also originally a merchant, was created Earl of Suffolk, by Richard II.. and made Lord Chancellor, but was ultimately deprived of everything. His son Michael was, however, restored to his father's dignities, and was father of Michael, Earl of Suffolk, killed at Azincour, 1415. William, son of the first earl succeeded, who became so celebrated in the sixth Henry's reign as Queen Margaret's favourite. He was created Marquis and Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chancellor, Lord High Admiral, and, in fact, Dictator; but his honours only led to a bloody death. Edward IV. restored his son, John De La Pole, to his peerage dignities, and this nobleman eventually married Elizabeth, (second sister of Edward IV. and Richard III.,) by whom he had John, Earl of Lincoln, declared presumptive heir to the throne of England by the latter sovereign, but who was killed in his father's life-time; Edmund, who succeeded as Earl of Suffolk, and was beheaded in the Tower, "for safety sake," by Henry VIII., A.D. 1513; and Richard De La Pole, who entered the service of Louis XII., and assumed the appellation of "The White Rose." prisoner in charge of his first cousin, George Nevile, the magnificent Archbishop of York; but later research, as well as Rymer's Fædera, confutes this, for the king undeniably exercised not only full liberty but regal powers while resident at the castle, which he frequently was, it being his mother's birth-place. Shakspere has adopted the popular error, and gives a version of Edward's escape in the third part of Henry VI., Act iv. Sc. 5. Stowe says, "by faire promises he escaped and came to London." It was on the towers of Middleham Castle, Richard, Earl of Salisbury, displayed the standard of rebellion in 1459, and from thence, he, attended by Sir Thomas Harryngton and others, marched up Coverdale and through Craven, into Lancashire, at the head of five thousand men. The result was the battle of BloreHeath, in Staffordshire, where Henry the Sixth's troops were defeated, with the loss of their leader, Lord Audley, his principal officers, and two thousand four hundred men, on the 23rd of September. The Earl being afterwards wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Wakefield in the following year, was placed in Pontefract Castle, and ransomed his life for a large sum, but some of the commons, who disliked him, took him thence by violence, or rather probably the connivance of his guards, and beheaded him. After his death, Sir John Nevile, brother to Ralph, first Earl of Westmoreland, was made Constable of the castle for life, with an annuity of 100 marks on the Manors of Worton and Bainbridge. In September 1471, the captain of the Earl of Warwick's navy, commonly called the Bastard Falconbridge, son of William Nevile, Earl of Kent and Lord Falconbridge, was beheaded in Middleham Castle, by order of the Duke of Gloucester, although he had the King's pardon. In a play called George-a-Green, written by John Heyward, about 1599, Edward IV. is made to give the castle to an old warrior, aged 103 years, named William Musgrave, as a reward for taking the king of Scots prisoner; but, for all this, history furnishes not the slightest foundation. Meanwhile, another powerful family arose in Wensleydale; the baronial house of Scrope. The earliest mention of them here occurs in 1287, when they held three cariecates of land at Bolton. They rapidly rose in importance, and divided into two lines; the Lords Scrope of Bolton, and the Lords Scrope of Masham and Upsal. Both these peerages are now abeyant, but a junior branch of the former, now chief of the name, is still seated at Danbysuper-Yore. Richard, Lord Scrope, High Chancellor of England, in the third year of Richard the Second's reign, (1379), obtained leave to build a castle at Bolton; which Leland tells us took eighteen years in building, and cost 18,000 marks, or, £12,000. The lords, both of Middleham and Bolton, were munificent benefactors to the Church; but the gifts of the Neviles were principally on their domains in the palatinate of Durham. June 10th, 1457, the archdeacon of Richmond granted a licence to Richard, Earl of Salisbury, to have Mass celebrated in the chapel of his castle at Middleham portions of that chapel yet remain. We now must close our hasty ecclesiastical view of Middleham. Richard III., who, as already noticed, was, for family reasons, very partial to that town, determined to raise the rectory into a collegiate church, with a dean, six canons, four clerks, a clerk sacristan, and choristers; and he obtained a Bull to that effect, from Pope Sixtus IV. This Bull was proclaimed by the Abbots of Jorevalle, St. Mary's of York, and Fountains, in the parish church of Middleham, July 24, 1482. 66 Henry VII.," says Leland, "took the new college land away," leaving the incumbent the rank of Dean, with some unusual privileges. The founder of Bolton Castle, Chancellor Serope, had obtained license for a chantry of six priests in his castle, but not thinking this sufficient, he further procured licenses enabling him to make Wensley Church collegiate, with as many priests as he thought proper (which appears never to have been carried into effect), and to appoint a priest to St. Anne's, at Bolton. Another establishment in Wensleydale remains to be mentioned, which no historian has hitherto noticed; the Preceptory of Knights Templars, on Penhill, just above the little village called Temple. Of this we know nothing, save that the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem had lands on Penhill; transferred to them no doubt, like others in England belonging to the Temple, when that Order was suppressed in 1313. All record of this Preceptory is lost; even tradition is silent. A few years ago the ruins were accidentally brought to light. The then proprietor, W. J. Anderson, Esq., of Swinithwaite Hall, ordered the removal of an unseemly mound, which, on excavation, proved to be the remains of the Chapel. Care was immediately taken, and the whole exposed. The outline is very perfect, and the walls are about two feet high. It contains the altar and some very singular stone coffins. Outside the east wall a great number of stone coffins were found, lying side by side, containing the bones of the warrior monks. Subsequently the foundations of many other buildings were laid bare, and pieces of armour, bits, spurs, &c., discovered, clearly betokening a cavalry station. These are all interesting relics. They remind us of the humbly heroic comrades and successors of Hugh de Payens and Raymond du Puis, and 66 of the Red Cross Hero teach, Dauntless in dungeon as in breach; The brand, the bridle, or the oar." Leland mentions the "ruine of a castlet or pill" on Penhill, which has much puzzled succeeding antiquaries; no H |