Drops, while she folds them for a prayer And blessing on the lovely pair. 'Twas then the Maid of Rokeby gave Her plighted troth to Redmond brave ; And Teesdale can remember yet How Fate to Virtue paid her debt, And, for their troubles, bade them prove A lengthen'd life of peace and love. Time and Tide had thus their sway, Yielding, like an April day, Smiling noon for sullen morrow, Years of joy for hours of sorrow! END OF CANTO SIXTH. NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. Note I. On Barnard's towers and Tees's stream, &c.-St. I. p. 3. Barnard Castle, saith old Leland, "standeth stately upon Tees." It is founded upon a very high bank, and its ruins impend over the river, including within the area a circuit of six acres and upwards. This once magnificent fortress derives its name from its founder Barnard Baliol, the ancestor of the short and unfortunate dynasty of that name, which succeeded to the Scottish throne under the patronage of Edward I. and Edward III. Baliol's tower, afterwards mentioned in the poem, is a round tower of great size, situated at the western extremity of the building. It bears marks of great antiquity, and was remarkable for the curious construction of its vaulted roof, which has been lately greatly injured by the operations of some persons to whom the tower has been leased for the purpose of making patent-shot! The prospect from the top of Baliol's tower commands a rich and magnificent view of the wooded valley of the Tees. Barnard Castle often changed masters during the middle ages. Upon the forfeiture of the unfortunate John Baliol, the first king of Scotland of that family, Edward I. seized this fortress among the other English estates of his refractory vassal. It was afterwards vested in the Beauchamps of Warwick, and in the Staffords of Buckingham, and was also sometimes in the possession of the Bishops of Durham, and sometimes in that of the crown. Richard III. is said to have enlarged and strengthened its fortifications, and to have made it for some time his principal residence, for the purpose of bridling and suppressing the Lancastrian faction in the northern counties. From the Staffords, Barnard Castle passed, probably by marriage, into the possession of the powerful Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, and belonged to the last representative of that family when he engaged with the Earl of Northumberland in the ill-concerted insurrection of the twelfth of Queen Elizabeth. Upon this occasion, however, Sir George Bowes of Sheatlam, who held great possessions in the neighbourhood, anticipated the two insurgent Earls, by seizing upon and garrisoning Barnard Castle, which he held out for ten days against all their forces, and then surrendered it upon honourable terms. See Sadler's State Papers, vol. II. p. 330. In a ballad, contained in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. I. the siege is thus commemorated: Then Sir George Bowes he straight way rose, After them some spoyle to make; These noble erles turned back againe, And aye they vowed that knight to take. : |