writes Shakspeare, perpetuating alike the name of the place and the memory of the Duke of Lancaster's adventure,--an adventure brought before us in an invective by the fiery Hotspur, which I may, perhaps, be pardoned for introducing here:
"My father, my uncle, and myself, Did give him that same royalty he wears: And,--when he was not six and twenty strong, Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw, sneaking home,-- My father gave him welcome to the shore: And,--when he heard him swear a vow to God, He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue his livery, and beg his peace; With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,-- My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd, Swore him assistance, and performed it too. Now, when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee; Met him in boroughs, cities, villages; Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths, Gave him their heirs; as pages follow'd him, Even at the heels, in golden multitudes. He presently,--as greatness knows itself,-- Steps me a little higher than his vow Made to my father, while his blood was poor, Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg."
The cross set up to commemorate the landing was shifted from place to place when endangered by the sea, and lastly to Hedon, where it still remains, as already mentioned. It was at the same port that Edward IV. landed, with an excuse plausible as that of the duke whose exploit he imitated.
Though it be "naked" still, and toilsome to walk on, the shore is by no means barren of interest. By-and-by we come to firm ground, mostly covered with thickly-matted grass; a great irregular, oval mound, which represents the bowl of the spoon reversed. Near its centre is a fenced garden and a row of cottages--the residence of the life-boat crew. A little farther, on the summit of the ridge, stands the lighthouse, built by Smeaton, in 1776, and at the water's edge, on the inner side, the lower light. The principal tower is ninety feet in height, and from the gallery at the top you get an excellent bird's-eye view over sea and land. Most remarkable is the tongue of sand along which we have walked, now visible in its whole extent and outline. It is lowest where the breach was made, and now that the tide has risen higher, the chalk embankment seems scarcely above the level of the water. Beyond that it broadens away to the shore of the estuary on one side, and the coast of Holderness on the other--low, sweeping lines which your eye follows for miles. By the waste of that coast the Spurn is maintained, and the Trinity Sands are daily enlarged, and the meadows fattened along Ouse and Trent. First the lighter particles of the falling cliffs drift round by the set of the current, and gradually the heavier portions and pebbles follow, and the supply being inexhaustible, a phenomenon is produced similar to that of the Chesil Bank, on the coast of Dorsetshire, except that here the pebbles are for the most part masked by sand.