their chances ill. The domestics who had escaped the slaughter instantly gave the alarm, and the town and neighbourhood were roused to arms by the sound of the horn, and by the backward ringing of the bells. The whole parish being assembled,

'All sorts of men showed their good will ;

Some bows and shafts did bear;
Some brought forth clubs and rusty bills,
That saw no sun that year.'

Beaumont, Lockwood, and Quarmby, seeing the Eland men approach, made a halt, and kept them at bay with their arrows, until these being exhausted, they were compelled to betake themselves to flight, and thought to make good their retreat into the thick copse of Aneley Wood: but Quarmby-who was, in truth, the hardiest of them, and one who had never ceased stirring up the less deadly vengeance of his companions-refused to turn his face,' and was soon mortally wounded by his foes:

'Lockwood, he bare him on his back,

And hid him in Aneley Wood,
To whom his purse he did betake
Of gold and silver good.'

They did not leave Quarmby until the breath was out of his body; they then continued for some time the pursuit of the other assassins in the direction of Huddersfield. The fate of Lacie is not known, as he is not mentioned in the story after his coming with the others from Furness Fells. Adam Beaumont, deprived of his lands, made his escape into

foreign parts, became a Knight of Rhodes, and after greatly distinguishing himself, was killed fighting against the Turks. Another version of the story is, that Lockwood took refuge in a solitary retreat, then called Camel, but now Canon Hall, five miles from Barnsley. This retreat becoming known, he fled to Ferrybridge, and next to Crossland Hall. The sheriff with a great company of men beset the house, and summoned him in the king's name to surrender. refused to obey, and defended himself for a time, but was induced by fair promises to surrender to the sheriff, who no sooner had him in his power than he put him to death. By this catastrophe the ancient family of the Lockwoods of Lockwood was utterly extirpated. The name of Beaumont still continued to exist, as it appears that Adam de Beaumont had a younger brother, from whom descended a race that flourished to the reign of Charles I.

He

Dr. Bentley has annexed the history of Sir John Eland to his account of Halifax; and from the investigation of MSS., the whole tragedy here related appears not only probable, but supported by collateral evidence. The deadly feud commenced by Sir John Eland, ended in the murder of the knight and his son, and the extinction of the male line of his family. All the broad lands became the inheritance of the sole surviving child and daughter, Isobel, who, being placed under the guardianship of Sir John Saville of Tankersley, afterwards became his wife, and founded the great and puissant house of Saville, now represented by the Earls of Scarborough, who still hold the manor.

The ballad already quoted concludes with an injunction to this Saville, who married the heiress, as follows:

'Learn, Saville, here, I you beseech,

That in prosperitie

You be not proud, but mild and meek,
And dwell in charitie.

'For by such means your elders came

To knightly dignitie;

But Eland he forsook the same,

And came to miserie.'

It may be added, that the house where lived Exley, from whose foul deed this tragedy originated, is still standing in the village of the same name. In its style of building, security sets at defiance convenience, but was fitted for those lawless times when might was right.1

1 Burke's Anecdotes of the Aristocracy, second series, vol. i.

PONTEFRACT CASTLE AND ITS ECHOES.

P

ONTEFRACT, one of the most notable historic sites of England, lies about two miles south-west from Ferrybridge, nine miles nearly east from Wakefield, and fifteen miles north-west from Doncaster, in Yorkshire. The town was a burgh in the time of Edward the Confessor. Ilbert de Lacy must be regarded as the founder of the castle, which subsequently became the scene of many events which have conferred upon it opprobrious repute in English history. Judging from the character of the position, on an elevated rock, commanding extensive and picturesque views, and the form of the surrounding earthworks, this fortress was evidently the work of that great Earl whose devotion and services had attached him to the Conqueror, by whom Ilbert de Lacy had made to him large grants of land; and according to the custom of the age, he enriched as well as founded several religious houses. Kirkstall Abbey and St. Oswald's still exhibit in their ruins a testimony of his munificence. Of the castle which he built at Pontefract in twelve years, there exist but slight architectural vestiges.

The remains of his monastic institutions are of greater

extent.

We pass over the several possessors of the castle to Henry de Lacy, who built the castle of Denbigh. His son was drowned in a deep well in this castle, when Pontefract devolved upon his daughter Alicia; and by her marriage with Thomas Plantagenet, nephew of Edward I., the vast estates of the De Lacys were transferred to the Earl of Lancaster.

Upon examining the remains of the round towers still visible at Pontefract, it appears that whilst their foundation may belong to Thomas Earl of Lancaster, all the walling above the set-off is later-not unlikely the work of Henry Duke of Lancaster, who died in 1382. The three sieges the castle underwent in the civil war of the Commonwealth, and the work of demolition ordered by the Parliament, have reduced it to a deplorable state of ruin. Originally it must have been a very grand, though never a very extensive structure. It is difficult to show the real intention of the mysterious subterranean passages. A heated imagination would at once mark them as places with many a foul and midnight murder fed ;' but the more practical ideas of those accustomed to examine those singular contrivances, would rather ascribe their purpose to a secret means of passing under the fosse, or as the approach to a well. The soft stone through which these passages are cut rendered the work easy. One of these passages to the north or upper portion of the castle descends for several feet by steps in a