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PREFACE

Since opinion concerning the date of the Bewcastle Cross has varied so widely, I have thought that the considerations brought forward in my monograph, The Date of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses (1912), might fitly be supplemented by such a series of descriptions and opinions as would enable the student who might not have ready access to a large library to trace the history of antiquarian. thought on this subject. The present selection will be found, I believe, to contain the most important papers and passages relating to this monument between the year 1607, when Nicholas Roscarrock, a guest of Lord William Howard's at Naworth Castle, touched upon it in a letter to Camden, and 1861, when Father Haigh resumed his earlier study in his Conquest of Britain.

I shall not undertake here to deduce all the conclusions which might be drawn from a comparison of these accounts. Some of them will be immediately apparent to the attentive reader; others will be pointed out in the notes. Three or four facts, however, are sufficiently curious to be remarked. One is that the first two persons that deal with the cross, Roscarrock and Camden, refer it to the twelfth century. Another is that the chequers on the north side, on which they based their opinion, serve now, though for a different reason, to suggest the same general period. A third is that the two persons who are most responsible for creating the popular impression that the cross was erected in the seventh century, Haigh and Maughan, contradict each other and themselves on the most

essential points. A fourth is that nothing appears to have been more legible upon the monument two centuries and a quarter ago than at present: Cynnburug, for example, is as clear in the most recent photograph as it was to Nicolson in 1685.

The engravings, if compared with the photographs in my recent book, will show how fancy rioted in the earlier delineations, and how inexactly the sculpture was rendered throughout the eighteenth century. With greater accuracy in the representation of the facts, and an exacter science in the interpretation of them, it may be hoped that the cross will soon be assigned to its proper historical place, where, instead of being a stumbling-block and cause of bewilderment, it may serve to illustrate the characteristics of the age to which it belongs.

YALE UNIVERSITY,

July 9, 1913.

SOME ACCOUNTS

OF THE BEWCASTLE CROSS

I. ROSCARROCK'S LETTER TO CAMDEN, 1607.

[The first mention of the Bewcastle Cross that I have found is in the following sentence from a letter by Nicholas Roscarrock, then residing in the family of Lord William Howard ('Belted Will '), written to William Camden from 'Nawarde' (Naworth Castle) Aug. 7, 1607 (see Camdeni Epistolæ, pp. 90-92, and Surtees Soc. Publ. 68. 506-7). Roscarrock calls Camden's attention to two errors in the latter's fifth edition of the Britannia, and evidently hopes that Camden (addressed as Clarenceulx king-of-arms) can utilize his suggestions in the sixth edition, which bears date the same year. On September 7 Camden had a fall from his horse, and during the confinement of nine months which resulted, he put the last hand to the sixth edition (Dict. Nat. Biog.). Accordingly, Roscarrock's letter must be earlier than Camden's edition of 1607.

For further information concerning Roscarrock, consult Surtees Soc. Pub. 68. 505-9, and Dict. Nat. Biog.]

Understanding (good Mr. Clarenceulx) that your Britayne ys at this present in printinge, and reddy to come forthe, I thought fitt (in a small showe of our ancient love) to geve you notice of twoe escapes in the last edition.

. . Yf you have any occasion to speak of the Cross of Buechastell,1 I assure myselfe the inscription of one syde ys, Hubert de Vaux; the rather, for that the checky coate3 ys above that on the same syde; and on the other the name of the Ermyt that made yt, and I canne in no sorte be brought to thincke it Eborax,5 as I perceave you have been advertised.

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