[Illustration: THE MARKET CROSS AND PILLORY, BURTON-IN-KENDAL.]
On the night of April 30th, 1812, some evil-disposed persons placed no fewer than eleven gates across the road between Lancaster and Burton-in-Kendal, with intent to upset the mail; which indeed only narrowly escaped. These scoundrels were never caught.
Burton is, or was, a loyal place, and does what it can to celebrate national events. It cannot, in the very nature of things, with the slender resources at its command, do much, and its high-water-mark of effort is seen in a very ordinary gas-lamp, erected to commemorate the wedding of the Prince of Wales in 1863.
[Illustration: THE “DUKE OF CUMBERLAND” INN, AND FARLETON KNOTT.]
Farleton Knott—most hills in these parts are “Knotts”—strikingly overhangs the road to Kendal, rising in grey scarps, ridges, and terraces above a level stretch, where the humble old whitewashed “Duke of Cumberland” inn stands beside the lonely way. This is followed, at a considerable interval, by Crooklands inn, with the church of Preston Patrick on the right, and the hamlet of End Moor, all seated in, or overlooking, a green and fertile valley, where a silvery beck winds away in shining loops. The scene, with its rich grass and fine trees, might be in one of the bolder parts of Surrey, rather than in the north.
[Illustration: KENDAL CASTLE, AND THE ROAD INTO KENDAL.]
Now Kendal is approached, its ruined castle surmounting a rounded green hill and thrusting out ragged walls almost in the likeness of some rocky outcrop. Kendal Castle seems to have been so threatening a fortress—and it still looks especially formidable from the north, whence most of its possible enemies could come—that no one appears ever to have attacked it. They went round the other way, if another way could be found, or—better still—stopped at home.
At Kendal was born the much-married Katherine Parr, whose family at the time were lords of the castle. Thirdly, she was married by Henry the Eighth, and was so fortunate as to survive him. How little she regretted that Royal husband we may judge by the fact that, two months after his death she married, fourthly an old flame, Admiral Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and then, a year later, died, aged thirty-six.