[From Isle of Man, Cumming 1848]

CHAPTER XIII.

Peel.-The Castle.-The Round Tower.-The Cathedral.-The Crypt.-Duchess of Gloucester.-Thomas Earl of Warwick.The Guard-room.-The Moddey Dhoo.-Scenery about Peel.Glen Helen.-The Rennass Waterfall.-Glen Darragh.-St. Trinian's Chapel.-Coast-road from Peel to Kirk Michael.-Geological features.-Glen Willan.-Kirk Michael.-Bishop Wilson. -Discipline of the Manx Church.

HALLAND Town, Holene Town and Holme Town, as it was anciently called, and more recently Peel Town and Peel, derives its chief notoriety from the ancient castle and cathedral, situated on a small rocky islet at the mouth of the river Neb, which flowing westward through St. John's vale, and separating the parishes of Kirk German and Kirk Patrick, making a sudden turn to the northwards, forms a commodious harbour near the town,-a favourite rendezvous of the herring-fleet in the early part of the season ¹.

St. Patrick's Isle is in extent about five acres, being simply a prolongation northward of a small spur of the Horse Hill, which on the opposite side of the river commands the town of Peel. It consists of the ordinary clay schist of the neighbourhood, having the usual north-westerly dip of this side the mountain. Within its small area it contains the ruins of the venerable cathedral of St. Germanus, of the still more ancient church of St. Patrick, a fine specimen of a round tower, and the remains of other buildings, ecclesiastical as well as civil, of which the age and uses are in many instances extremely doubtful. The whole area is surrounded by embattled walls four feet thick, built of mixed fragments of clay-schist and the old red sandstone of the immediate neighbourhood, flanked here and there irregularly with towers. The erection of these walls may well be attributed to Henry, the third Earl of Derby, in 1593 ², probably under the direction of his son the Hon. William Stanley, who was that year Captain or Governor of the Isle, and afterwards Earl of Derby ³. In more ancient times insular position was considered (at least by the Celtic races) a sufficient defence; nor is it improbable that some reliance was placed on the hallowed character of the little isle itself. The island is now joined at its southern extremity with the mainland by means of a strong stone causeway, erected within the last century as a breakwater to secure the harbour from westerly gales.

In the midst of the green sward, which now has overspread nearly the whole of the area within the walls, and forms a short, sweet pasturage, is a pyramidal mound of turf, of a rectangular form, facing the four cardinal points, and measuring about seventy yards along each side. The angles have well-nigh disappeared, and it presents but the rude outline of its ancient proportion. It seems to have been an old Danish fort, thrown up probably about the beginning of the eleventh century ⁴.

Close by this mound, perched on the highest point of the island, rises the Round Tower, with its antique masonry almost wholly of the old red sandstone, regularly laid in courses of long and thin stones with the wide jointing filled in with coarse shell-mortar of extreme hardness. It is in every respect similar to those of Ireland, so admirably described by Mr. Petrie ⁵; and its position, a little to the north of the ruined church, seems to tally remarkably with the view which he has taken of the double purport of these buildings, as belfries and as keeps or places of strength for the protection of sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables, and into which in cases of sudden attack the ecclesiastics to whom they belonged might retire for security. There is a little door facing the east at the lower part of the tower, six feet nine inches above the ground, to which access seems to have been gained by a ladder; four small square-headed apertures near the top face the cardinal points, and one other is seen lower down on the north-west or seaward side$.

But the great point of attraction is the venerable Cathedral ⁶, on the south-eastern side of the isle.

St. Patrick, on his departure from the Isle of Man in 447, left behind him Germanus, a holy and prudent man, "ad regendum et erudiendum populum in fide Christi," says Jocelinus⁷. This was sixty-nine years prior to the foundation of the See of Bangor, and one hundred and fourteen before the mission of St. Augustine. Here then we stand upon the vestiges of the Cathedral-church of the most ancient existing See of the British Isles⁸. But of the original church of St. Germanus not a trace, as far as we can point out, remains. The building, of which we see here the ruins⁹, is cruciform, and was begun by Simon, who became Bishop of Sodor in 1226. His work is plainly the chancel its style is early English, with somewhat of an admixture of Norman character. It corresponds in the main with the architecture of the Cathedral-church at Drontheim, and is interesting in this view on account of the known connection of this See of Man and the Isles with that Archiepiscopate¹⁰.

The central tower, which is square and has a long square staircase-turret, rising to a height of sixty-six feet at the south-western angle, is evidently of a somewhat later date, though the chancel arch is early English. The north arch of the tower is early decorated, and the south arch somewhat later, as is also the western arch. The transepts are also of a decorated character, though with later insertions. The south transept has a western door, and near it a niche for holy water, and over against it on the opposite wall is a bracket for an image ¹¹.

The nave is of ruder workmanship throughout. It would seem to have had a south aisle, the piers and arches of which have been built up and later windows inserted, though it is not altogether improbable that the piers may have been originally incorporated in the wall with a view to the future enlargement of the building by the addition of the south aisle.

The battlemented character of the central tower, with the north and south transepts, is very remarkable, as presenting a combination of military and ecclesiastic purposes in the same building. It is both a cathedral and a fortress, though this does not appear to have been originally intended by Bishop Simon when he built the chancel. Under the chancel is a fine crypt, thirty-four feet by sixteen. A series of arched ribs springing from thirteen short pilasters support a pointed barrel vault: the entrance to it is by steps within the thickness of the south wall of the chancel, and it is lighted by a small aperture under the chancel east window.

Shakspere, in the second part of his play of Henry the Sixth, has made allusion to the Isle of Man as the place whither "dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloster's wife," should after three days' penance be sent to live "in banishment with Sir John Stanley." He, or the author from whom he has borrowed the substance of the second and third parts of that play, are clearly guilty of an anachronism in thus bringing together these two personages. From the events detailed at the commencement and end of that part of the play, the period occupied by it lies between the years 1445 and 1455, but Sir John Stanley had died in 1432, and was succeeded by Thomas, who appears hardly to have resided at all on the Isle of Man, being for a period of more than six years engaged as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and afterwards for five years one of the commissioners for the defence of Calais. The fact however of the confinement and death of the Duchess within the walls of Peel Castle is generally allowed, and this crypt under the chancel of the cathedral is pointed out as her prison-house.¹² They tell you, says the marvellous-loving Waldron, that ever since her death to this hour a person is heard to go up and down the stone staircase of one of these little houses on the walls constantly every night as soon as the clock strikes twelve. The conjecture is that it is the troubled sprite of this lady, who died as she lived, dissatisfied and mourning her fate ¹³.

Dame Eleanor was not the only state prisoner confined within these sea-girt walls. We read of Thomas Earl of Warwick, in the reign of Richard II., being banished hither, probably through the influence of Sir William Scroop, afterwards Earl of Wiltshire, who was at this time king of Man, having purchased the island from Sir William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. On the downfall of Richard his favourite the Earl of Wiltshire¹⁴ was beheaded, and the Earl of Warwick was set at liberty by the Duke of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV. In after-times we have notice of Edward Christian (who had been lieutenant-governor of the isle, and whom Sir Walter Scott seems to have confounded with his nephew William Dhone,) being confined a prisoner here by the Earl of Derby. And if these state-prisoners had liberty of range of the entire circuit of the isle, 't were no very miserable confinement, as far as scenery at least is concerned. There to the south rises the noble Horse Hill with its notable land-mark ¹⁵; a bold coast sweeps onwards to Contrary Head; the eastern side of the hill has a fine rounded swell forming a choice sheep-walk; then at its base comes the silvery Neb rippling over its gravelly bed adown a verdant valley, where grassy slopes are here and . there interrupted by clumps of trees and studded with neat villas. The vale in which stands the parish church of St. Patrick spreads out far southward, and is embayed in the majestic amphitheatre of mountains which fôrm the continuation westward of the ridge of Slieauwhallin. The South Barrule chain peeps up at various points beyond. Far to the eastward we look up the St. John's Valley, and here and there catch sight of the different mountain-crests which hedge it in and give such a rich diversity to the Glenfaba sheading. There is a lower chain in front towards the north-east which sweeps round from Rock Mount towards the coast near Lhergydhoo and Ballanayre. It consists of clay-schists which have been tilted on an axis¹⁶ by an intrusive mass of hornblende rock, of which the outburst may be seen by the road-side, where it passes at.the southern termination of the range from the Peel side down into the lovely Rennass valley. There is every reason for believing this upheaval to have been posterior to the Carboniferous æra, for it appears to have tilted also the old red sandstone of this neighbourhood to a high angle, and there is no evidence whatever of any disturbance of the area between the old red and the carboniferous limestone. It is very unfortunate that the whole line of junction of the schists and the old red sandstone in this neighbourhood is covered up by the tertiary gravels and clays except at the point where they come out together on the sea-coast, and here all the beds are so shattered by intrusive masses of igneous rock that we can learn nothing of their history in connection. Northward beyond this point the shore loses its bold character, and the fine sweep of Kirk Michael Bay and the further reach to Jurby Point, thirteen miles from Peel, presents, by its remarkable terrace-like appearance, a singular contrast to the nearer mountain scenery. The transition from the primary to the tertiary strata, and the character of the drift-gravel platform as a raised sea-beach, is nowhere more distinctly marked.

On a remarkably clear day the view which the Irish Sea presents to us on looking out over the ruined battlements of Peel Castle is that of a large inland lake, the Scotch and Irish coasts seem so completely to embay it. Burrow Head, in the south of Scotland, seems but a continuation of the land beyond Jurby Point. Luce Bay runs far inland, and its head cannot be seen, but the Mull of Galloway comes stretching down again towards us from the blue distance westward and southward; and then again the coast-line from Belfast Lough and the Copeland Isles to the mouth of Lough Strangford, and so on to Ardglas and Dundrum Bay, shuts up the scenery to the far west. And then southwards of Dundrum Bay the Mourne mountains rise up again with imposing magnificence and run far enough down the channel to be shut up by Contrary Head, which is but a mile or two off.

But the picture is not complete without taking in the ancient-looking town of Peel, which will remind northerns of some of the Highland sea-side towns built upon this same old red sandstone. It may be, after all, a question whether or no Peel itself does stand upon the old red sandstone, or whether the schist on which Peel Castle stands passes under the river and actually underlies the drift-gravel and boulder-clay, in which the foundations of the houses of the town are dug. Perhaps the Coal Company of Peel will undertake to solve the question by their borings in this neighbourhood! The old red sandstone however comes out finely from under the tertiary beds a couple of hundred yards north of the town, and presents a bold cliff to the westward and southward, though the sea has made great inroads upon its `and has dug out a fine series of caves and romantic gullies all' along -the coast where it is exposed. These gullies are a favourite resort of pebble-seekers¹⁷. At the base of them, generally speaking, is a fine gravelly beach, on which a little careful searching will discover madrepores, grey and red cornelians, agØes and jaspers; the former have been broken off from the carboniferous limestone, which there is every reason to believe lies exposed a few hundred yards from the shore; the latter have either been washed out of the old red conglomerate and primary rocks of this neighbourhood, or may have come from the washing of the drift-gravel by the mountain streamlets which cut their way through it and bring down with them alluvial deposits into these gullies. Yet these things could, after all, have no interest in the eyes of the lonely prisoners in Peel Castle. Had Fenella been a reality (as the guide, who shows the sally-port where she is said to have been last seen, gravely assures us), we might well fancy her fairy steps tripping along the gravelly beach, and ever and anon snatching up the sparkling pebbles which the last tide had cast at her feet. But for the rest, kingdoms were the baubles which glistened in their eyes, and one of them at least was so successful in the pursuit as to gain for himself the title of the Kingmaker.

We descend from the Cathedral to the guard-house hârd by the ancient gateway. Though one of the latesterected portions ¹⁸ of the Castle, and solidly built, decay has set its cold grasp upon it; the dew-damp rests upon the walls which of old echoed with the soldiers' mirth, and the hearth which blazed brightly is now desolate and black. But the Wizard of the North has thrown an air of enchantment over it which will endure till the notes of the last minstrel's lay have ceased to sound¹⁹.

The story of the spectre-hound or black dog of Peel Castle is thus told by Waldron²⁰ :

" They say that an apparition, called in their language, the Moddey dhoo, in the shape of a large black spaniel, with curled shaggy hair, was used to haunt Peel Castle, and has been frequently seen in every room, but particularly in the guard-chamber, where, as soon as the" candles were lighted, it came and lay down before the fire in presence of all the soldiers, who at length, by being so much accustomed to the sight of it, lost great part of the terror they were seized with at its first appearance. They still however retained a certain awe, believing it to be an evil spirit which waited to do them hurt, and for that reason forbore swearing and all profane discourse while in its company. But though they endured the shock of such a guest when all together, none cared to be left alone with it. It being the custom therefore for one of the soldiers to lock the gates of the castle at a certain hour, and carry the keys to the captain, to whose apartment the way led through a church, they agreed among themselves, that whoever was to succeed, the ensuing night, his fellow on this errand should accompany him that went first, and by this means no man would be exposed singly to the danger, for the Moddey dhoo was always seen to come out from that passage at the close of day, and return to it as soon as the morning dawned, which made them look upon this place as its peculiar residence.

" One night a fellow being drunk, and by the strength of his liquor rendered more daring than ordinary, laughed at the simplicity of his companions; and though it was not his turn to go with the keys, would needs take that office to testify his courage. All the soldiers endeavoured to dissuade him ; but the more they said the more resolute be seemed, and swore that he desired nothing more than that the Moddey dhoo would follow him as it had done the others, for he would try whether it was dog or devil. After having talked in a very reprobate manner for some time, he snatched up the keys and went out of the guard-room. In some time after his departure a noise was heard; but nobody had the boldness to see what occasioned it, till the adventurer returning they demanded the knowledge of him; but loud and noisy as be had been at leaving them, he was now become sober and silent enough; for he was never heard to speak more; and though all the time he lived, which was three days, be was entreated by all who came near him either to speak, or if he could not do that, to make some signs by which they might understand what had happened to him, yet nothing intelligible could be got from him, only that by the distortion of his limbs and features it might be guessed that he died in agonies greater than is common in a natural death. The Moddey dhoo was however never seen afterwards, nor would any one attempt to go through that passage; for which reason it was closed up and another way made. This accident I heard attested by several, but especially by an old soldier, who assured me that he had seen the Moddey dhoo oftener than he had hairs on his head."

Our journey to the north of the island from Peel may be made either by the coast-line or by the more inland route through the Rennass valley. This latter is much the further of the two as respects distance, but it has so many beauties peculiarly its own, that the general tourist in making the detour will find himself amply repaid; and if he has time at his disposal, he may be induced perhaps still further to lengthen the journey by following the valley and the stream beyond the point where the road to the north turns up Craig Willie and passes by Cronk-y-Voddey²¹. The continuation of Glen Helen in the direction of Little London beyond this point, is not in itself so striking as the more southern portion of the valley which the high road traverses. Its chief interest is derived from the Rennass waterfall and the wildness of the scenery around the spot where the waters fret and tremble, then dash onwards over the jagged edge of rock, and pour their whitened volume into the seething caldron below. But to this fall there is no carriage-road as yet, and the distance of a couple of miles thither and back from the bighway ²² must be made on foot or horseback.

It would after all, perhaps, be more desirable to make this point the object of a separate visit from Douglas, and the excursion might then include a peep into Glen Darragh (the Vale of Oaks), where is a (so-called) Druidical temple in good preservation, the Mona Mine of Ellersley on the Bishop's barony, and the ruins of St. Trinian's Chapel ²³ on the road-side near Crosby. The pedestrian or horseman having visited these places and the Rennass waterfall, might return to Douglas by the Baldwin valley, by taking the pass across the mountain between Sartel and Greebah.

The coast-road from Peel to Kirk Michael lies, except at one point, wholly upon the terrace of the drift-gravel, descending however in several places into the deep narrow valleys, which have been eroded in the drift partly by the action of the mountain streamlets and partly by that of the sea when the land was more depressed than it now is. These valleys are extremely picturesque, often well-wooded, studded over with cottages, opening out into the sea at the lower extremity with a fine alluvial terrace, and at the upper backed by some fine sweep of the mountain-range. They offer to the geologist peculiar facilities for the study of the pleistocene series, as well as several points of interest connected with the disturbances of the palaeozoic rocks, and he will therefore almost necessarily adopt the coastline in his journeyings ²⁴.

A description of Glen Willan, which is but a few hundred yards southwards of the point where the coast-road and the inland road unite near the Mitre hotel and the Ecclesiastical Court-house of Kirk Michael, will serve as a sample of all the other glens which have been excavated in the pleistocene series.

The road from Peel to Kirk Michael is carried across the lower part of Glen Willan by an embankment, with a bridge of a single arch in its centre, which permits the egress of the waters brought down from Slicaudhoo and Slieau-ny-fraughane. At the western extremity of this embankment a rustic gate admits to a winding path along that side of the valley towards the sea. A prominent point about 300 yards down presents itself to the artist as the proper station for taking a sketch. The foreground consists of the sloping banks which skirt either side of the purling streamlet with a profusion of broom, eglantine, gorse, daisies, primroses, veronicas and white campanelles. The sides of the valley incline at an angle of 40°, and its breadth at the bottom averages about 150 yards. Look upwards inland in a direction S.S.E. how exquisitely grouped are the cottages and trees by the mill and the rustic bridge ! A fine section is presented of the drift-gravel platform by the road-cutting in the north-eastern escarpment. We have atop about twenty-five feet of very coarse gravel ²⁵. This rests on a great thickness of fine sand, which passes into the loainy sand of the boulder formation. To the right is a rounded range of low hills of this formation, rising nearly 100 feet above the level of the drift platform. We have a magnificent view of the mountains beyond,-Sartel, Slieau-dhoo, Slieau-ny-fraughane and Slieau-hearne. The clouds flit across their summits and cast down creeping shadows into the ravines and along the verdant slopes.

If we turn round again to the north, and look out at the opening of the valley towards the sea, we trace the windings of the stream in the low alluvial flat, and beside it fishermen's cots, with the usual concomitants. The cattle stray upon the very verge of the cliff. The black-cap and spar row twitter in the gorse. The lark rises up aloft from the gravel terrace, and at heaven's gate sings; whilst the plover whirls around in mazy eddies with well-feigned anxiety about that corner of the field which is furthest off from the spot where she has deposited her four brown speckled eggs. The nearer murmur of the stream mixes with the farther-off dash of the breaker on the shore, and the wild cry of the curlew which sweeps by the mouth of the glen with the cackling of the geese which are nibbling the short herbage a little higher up.

Beyond, afar off, over the deep blue wave, the Mull of Galloway and Burrow Head are seen embracing Luce Bay; the sand-hills about Bishop's Court bide the rest of the Scottish coast. Here we have Kirk Michael close at hand, spreading out towards the mountains, but clustering round the modest church and the grave-yard where rests the earthly tabernacle of the holy Thomas Wilson. The humble palace where he dwelt during the half-century of his episcopate lies in the wooded glen beyond, and the tallest of the trees which we catch sight of there are said to have been planted by his hand. Let us remove and take a nearer view of these different objects.

Kirk Michael Churchyard has some points of interest which may cause us to loiter awhile within its precincts. Those old Runic monuments at the gateway indicate that for at least 800 years this spot has been the resting-place of the ancestry of the tenants of this ecclesiastical village; and they indicate that the persons to whose memory they were erected professed themselves Christians, which the more recent headstones might not perhaps lead us to conclude of the tenants of the graves beneath them. Yet the inscriptions of the more ancient stones are almost wholly hieroglyphic. This much however we can learn of the owner of one of them, that he was a Nimrod in his day, a mighty hunter as well as warrior. The animals of the chase as well as the beasts of the field are sculptured alongside of the figure of a warrior bearing his javelin and shield²⁶.

And we seem to have proof before us that since that time a change has taken place in the class of animals which must be considered upon the isle as fern naturd. The deer tribe was game in those days. But even the laws of Howel Dha could avail nothing against the advance of agriculture and civilization, and the area of the Manx mountains, even if placed altogether within a ring-fence, is much too circumscribed for the rambles of the corvine race ²⁷.

Another of these Runic monuments standing on the wall to the north of the gateway, in good condition, contains also amongst other devices that of a stag, and a figure apparently playing upon a harp. The churchyard is rich in these remains (there are five altogether), and they form a beautiful link in the chain of monumental history. We have first of all rude uncarved blocks and pillars frequently placed in a circle, as the Cairn Vichael in this parish; then these elaborately wrought crosses, with their singular Runic inscriptions and strange devices; we have then the coped coffin-lid, such as that preserved at Rushen Abbey; of sepulchral brasses, there are no recorded samples in the Isle of Man; lastly, we see the miserable, unmeaning, and too oft unchristian productions of the last two centuries, standing up a dense black crowd in every churchyard around.

Yet there is a recent monumental erection in the graveyard of Kirk Michael which may well excite attention. The parish-register says," The Right Reverend Father in God, Dr. Thomas Wilson ¹²⁸, Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man, buried near the east gable of the church, March 11th, 1755." Directing thither our steps, not to the east end of the present church, but of the old one, of which the gable has been preserved, we find a plain tomb railed in with iron, and bearing the following inscription²⁹: "Sleeping in Jesus, here lieth the body of Thomas Wilson, D.D., Lord Bishop of this Isle, who died March 7th, 1755, aged 93, in the 58th year of his consecration. This monument was erected by his son Thomas Wilson, D.D., a native of this parish, who, in obedience to the express command of his worthy father, declines giving him the character he so justly deserves. Let this island speak the rest."

If that appeal be made now, what must be the answer as far as the Church is concerned ? Bishop Wilson, in speaking of the general readiness with which ecclesiastical censures were submitted to in his episcopate, gives as one reason that there was no professedly Christian community besides the Established Church to which excommunicate persons might betake themselves; and in his 'History of the Isle of Man' he states that, excepting a family or two of Quakers, Dissenters of any denomination there were none. Such also is the testimony of his successor Bishop Hildesley when writing to the Archbishop of York in 1762 ³⁰ :" The adult natives, to a man I think I may say, are conformists to the established communion of the Church, and so exact and punctual for the most part ³¹ in their attendance on the public offices of divine worship (there being no less than 600 at the communion in a country parish church at Easter), that there is little or no occasion for presentments on this head."

What is the position of church matters now? Almost within the short space of the mile which intervenes between the churchyard where Bishop Wilson is interred and the palace where he lived are two meeting-houses ³², filled each succeeding Sunday with parishioners zealously attached to Wesleyanism in its different connections. And such is pretty generally the case throughout the island. The meetinghouses outnumber the parish churches in the proportion of four to one, and the congregations assembling within each respectively are very nearly in the same proportion. Yet the people are not hostile to, though alienated from, the Church, and there is far more hope of their restoration to the conformity of their fathers than is the case with the Separatists on the other side of the water. And it is perhaps not too much to say, that the remembrance of the great benefits, temporal as well as spiritual, conferred upon this isle by the bishops of the Church, foremost amongst whom stands, and will ever stand, the holy and apostolic Wilson, has contributed very largely to keep up the feeling which doubtless still exists in the minds of the great mass of the population, that the Established- Church is their church, and that it is a real blessing to the isle.

Footnotes

1 For an account of the Herring Fisheries, see Appendix, L.

2 Bishop Wilson states (History, p. 355) that Thomas Earl of Derby encompassed it with a wall and other fortifications; hut an order (preserved in the Lex Scripta of the Isle of Man) dated February 18th, 1593, issued from Lathom House, directs that the two garrisons of Castle Rushen and Peel should be again erected. If fortifications had previously existed at Peel, they were destroyed by Robert Bruce in 1313. The manner too in which the walls of the fortress join on to St. German's Cathedral, show them to be certainly posterior to that building. Simon would never have built his beautiful chancel to range evenly with, and form part of, the walls of a fortress.

3 He received from James I. afresh grant of the island, on terms equally liberal with those granted by Henry IV. to his ancestor Sir John Stanley in 1406. This grant was confirmed hy the English Parliament, A.D. 1610.

4 Mr. Grose, in his "Antiquities of England," vol. iv., gives it as his opinion that " from this eminence the commanding officer harangued his garrison." Mr. Train believes this to have been the hill named Sautwart, or Saint-hill, mentioned in the " Chronicon Manniæ" as the spot where the great battle was fought between Reginald and Olave in 1098.

5 See the Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, &c., by George Petrie, R.H.A. vol. i. Dublin, 1845.

6 A detailed account of the Cathedral of St. Germanus will be found in a highly valuable paper, by the Rev. J. L. Petit, in the Archeological Journal, No. 9, p. 49.

7 Sacheverell's Survey of the Isle of Man, p. 109.

8 It must he borne in mind that St. Patrick was on his way to Ireland, where he founded the See of Armagh, when he left Germanus in the Isle of Man.

9 Bishop Hildesley was the last bishop enthroned in this Cathedral.

10 The Bishops of Sodor and Man obtained their consecration from the Archbishop of Drontheim for many generations.

11The following are the dimensions of the building, as taken by Mr. Petit:

12 In later years, even down to the episcopate of Bishop Wilson, this crypt seems to have been used as the place of confinement for persons guilty of offences coming under ecclesiastical censure, such as incest and adultery.

13. Description of the Isle of Man, p. 110. "In the reign of Henry VI. among the friends of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, his Duchess, Dame Eleanor, was arrested. Roger Bolyngbroke, a man expert in necromancy, and a woman called Margery Jourdemain,surnamed the Witch of Eye, were charged with having at the request of the Duchess of Gloucester devised an image of wax like unto the king, the which image they dealt so with that hy their devilish sorcery they intended to bring the king out of life, for the which reason they were adjudged to die."-Falgan's Chronicle, p. 394.

14 The following are the terms of the record of sale of the island to Sir William Scroop :-" Wilhelmus le Scroop emit de Domino Wilhelmo Montacuto Insulam Euboniw id est Manniæ : Est nempe jus ipsius Insulæ, ut quisquis illius sit Dominus, Rex vocetur, cur etiam fas est Coronâ aureâ coronari."-See Sacheverell's Account of the Isle of Man, p. 72.

15 Corrin's Folly (as it is usually called) is said to have been erected by a farmer of Peel as a mausoleum for hiq " gude wife."

16 See Plate L, Section across the island.

17 The White Strand about a mile northward of Peel is particularly noted.

18"The tower, and other parts of the castle about the entrance, which is south of the Cathedral, seem to belong to the early part of the fourteenth century; the masonry is strong and careful, thoughnot very regular, and the blocks of stone larger than those used in other parts of the building."-The Rev. J. L. Petit, in the Archsnological Journal, Part 9.

19 But none of all the astonish'd train
Were so dismay'd as Deloraine ;
His blood did freeze, his brain did burn,
'T was fear'd his mind would ne'er return;
For he was speechless, ghastly, wan,
Like him of whom the story ran
That spoke the spectre-hound in Man.

Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.

20 Description of the Isle of Man, 1731.

21 Cronk-y-Voddey, the hill of the dog. It will be observed that according to the genius of the Manx language, the m at the beginning of the word moddey dog is, in a state of construction, changed into v. See Appendix, M. " On the Manx language."

22 We cannot speak of turnpikes in the Isle of Man, as no tolls are taken upon the highways, which are kept up chiefly by a tax of ten shillings per annum upon each pair of wheels of any vehicle,

23 This parish seems to abound in ruined oratories. There is one on the estate of Balla Crink, another at Balla quinney-mooar, a third at Balla-lough, and a fourth at Ballingan.

24 In following the coast-line northward from Craig-Mallin, he travels through the beds of the old red sandstone in the ascending order. The upper portion is greatly charged with carbonate of lime, and effervesces strongly with acids. It contains characteristic Devonian fossils, such as Favosites polymorpha, though there is every probability that it passes very soon into the lower carboniferousseries of the island. Whether the limestone which supplied the kilns about a mile north of Peel was simply a band of corn-stone in the Devonian series, or a true limestone of the Carboniferous age, there are hardly sufficient data to determine. At the mouth of the streamlet (Claveg) which runs down from Lhergydhoo, the old red sandstone is seen to rise on a bold undulation which in the next creek northwards is shown to have been caused by the protrusion of the mass of igneous rock which cuts off the Devonian beds to the north-east of a line hence to Rock Mount.

25 See Plate VIII. and the explanation of it.

26 This Runic monument, which stands just outside the churchyard gate, is in very good preservation. It is 7 feet 4 inches in height, 20 inches wide and 5 inches thick, of the blue clay schist of Spanish Head. The inscription is cut in Runes along the edge of the stone, and has been as usual variously read and interpreted. Sir John Prestwich read it (as given in Bishop Wilson's Life by Crutwell)-" Jualstr ! : Ujnr : Thurulf ! : Ein ! : Rautha : Ri ! Ti! Kru ! : Thono : Aft: Frithu : Duthur ! : Jao : " and he translates it thus: " Walter son of Thurulf, a knight right valiant, Lord of Frithu the Father Jesus Christ." There is no doubt of this being incorrect; the reading, in fact, is not consistent throughout. Mr. Train (`Isle of Man,' vol. ii. p. 36) gives the following as the reading and translation of Mr. Just, of Bury, Lancashire := "Voalfar : Sunr Thurulfs : Eins : Rautha : Rasti : Krus : Thono : Aft: Frithu Muthur : Sino :' =" Voalfar, son of Thurulf the Red, raised this cross for Frithu, his mother." A view of this stone is given in the Archeological Journal, vol. ii. p. 76; and in Kinnebrook's Runic Monuments of the Isle of Man.'

27 An attempt was made by James the seventh Earl of Derby to preserve deer upon the Calf Islet, but without success, as they swam across the Sound.

28 For an account of Bishop Wilson, see Appendix, N.

29 In the same churchyard we find the graves of his successors in the episcopate, Hildesley and Criggan; the former died in 1772, aged 74; the latter in 1813.

30 See Butler's Life of Bishop Hildesley, p. 418.

31For the discipline and order of the Manx Church, see Appendix, 0.

32 One of them is a few hundred yards to the south of the church gates.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML Transcription © F.Coakley, 2011