[This is the twenty-first of a series of articles giving a
brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a
sketch of a person, activity or
institution connected to the area]
Carlisle Cathedral
is, after Oxford,
the second smallest of the ancient Anglican cathedrals and it has been unlucky
in its building history. Its pleasures are modest but it is remarkable that the
City of Carlisle
has a cathedral at all and all visitors to the area should seek it out.
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| Carlisle Cathedral |
Work began on the building in 1122 and it gained cathedral
status in 1133. A basic problem is that the cathedral is constructed using the
local Red Sandstone, a friable (easily crumbling) material which readily loses
colour and surface quality. Originally in the Norman style it was rebuilt in
the Gothic manner in the 13th century, only to be badly damaged in a
fire of 1292. Repairs were undertaken: the Choir and East
End were completed by 1322 and the much admired East Window by
1350. The Nave was duly completed some years later and an attractive painted
wagon-roof erected.
During the Civil War in the 1640s, the Scottish Presbyterian
Army, allied to the Parliamentarians, tore down 5 of the 7 bays of the nave to
build defensive walls and the bays were never rebuilt, leaving a truncated
edifice. Unsurprisingly the cathedral required a thorough restoration in Victorian
times and it was directed sympathetically by Ewan Christian, the saviour of
Southwell Minster.
The cathedral has fine choir stalls with noteworthy
misericords but its most celebrated feature is the large nine-light East
Window, in Flowing Decorated Gothic. The medieval glass itself has mainly been
lost but the complex window tracery (the intersecting ornamental ribwork in the
upper parts of Gothic windows) is thought by many to be the finest in England –
although the writer I most respect, Alec Clifton-Taylor, reckons Selby Abbey’s
is marginally better.
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| Choir, Roof and East End at Carlisle |
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Hadrian’s Wall, which
skirts Carlisle, was built from 122
AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, stretching about 73 miles
from Bowness-on-Solway on the Solway Firth to Wallsend at Newcastle
and the North Sea. The Wall is entirely in England and does not represent the border
between Scotland and England. The
purpose of the Wall is puzzling; it is said to be defensive but to garrison
such a long wall would be enormously expensive and anyhow the Picts and Scots
north of the Wall did not pose a credible threat to imperial Rome. Maybe it was
built as a symbolic demonstration of Rome’s
might and vanity, or more likely it served as a controllable entrance and exit
for traders, upon whom taxes could be levied.
Anyone who has visited modern Rome or Venice will know that
the Romans and Venetians are dab hands at fleecing visitors and perhaps they
first practised their cunning ways on the luckless Scots frozenly tottering
south over the wind-swept Cheviot Hills. If the purpose of the Wall was to keep
the Scots out, (the Picts took leave of history mysteriously) it must be said
that its success has been mixed. The Scots now are simply everywhere
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| Hadrian's Wall: an unpopular posting |
Mind you for many centuries the poverty-stricken Scots saw
little advantage in moving South to the poverty-stricken English. The
scholastic philosopher Duns Scotus, who travelled widely was an
exception, and the epitaph on his tomb in Cologne
tells his story; Scotia me genuit. Anglia me suscepit. Gallia
me docuit. Colonia me tenet. ("Scotland brought me forth. England
sustained me. France
taught me. Cologne
holds me.")
In due course, this tempting notion that England might
sustain them gained currency among the Scots. Scottish political life in the 16th
and 17th centuries was rather fraught and the Crowns and later the
Parliaments were unified in 1603 and 1707 respectively. Patronage emanated from
London so any
ambitious Scot hot-footed it there. The stream of Scots became a flood in 1760
when James Stuart, Earl of Bute, became George III’s first minister, conferring
profitable office on many of his fellow-Scots. James Boswell famously discovered that Scots were none too popular
from the mouth of formidable Dr Samuel Johnson, whose jibes at the Scots amused
all London. Boswell
tried and failed to make his fortune at the English Bar but he came back to London constantly, much
attracted by its company and especially its fleshpots, much livelier than
whatever was on offer in mainly Presbyterian Edinburgh.
Actually, at least the company in Scotland
was pretty good: The Scottish Enlightenment got under way in the second half of
the 18th century and philosopher and historian David Hume had his salon in Edinburgh,
Adam Smith in Glasgow
revolutionised economics with his Wealth of Nations and philosophic Thomas Reid in Aberdeen
founded the Scottish
School of Common Sense.
Most of all the building of the New Town of Edinburgh began, creating at last a
highly civilised environment.
Yet the stream of Scots across the Wall continued unabated.
The British Empire in India, Africa and points East gave a multitude of
opportunities to the thrusting Scots and even today the Jakarta Highland Games
are the largest such event in Asia and bibulous Burns Suppers are consumed with
relish from Manitoba to Mandalay. The historian and sage Thomas Carlyle swapped Ecclefechan for the cosmopolitan delights of
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea and J M Barrie’s Peter Pan is commemorated in Kensington Gardens rather than in his native
Kirriemuir.
The 20th century saw an influx of political
Scots. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
was a liberal legend; Bonar Law,
though born in Canada, dourly led the Conservatives: the Labour Party had a
string of Scots leaders – Keir Hardie,
Ramsay Macdonald, William Adamson, Arthur Henderson, John Smith and baleful Gordon Brown (Alastair Darling
was much more charming). Even the Royal Family had a Scots injection when
lively Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married
the future George VI in 1923. The
“poison-dwarf” species of Scotsman, 5ft high, with red hair and a fiery temper
prospered in England
too as the career of Leeds United hero Billy
Bremner testifies.
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| Cheerful Gordon Brown |
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| Poison-dwarf Billy Bremner |
So the Scots have always done well south of the Wall. Currently, devious First Minister Alex Salmond peddles his insane ideas about Scottish Independence and has wrung out of David Cameron (whose family originally hailed from Inverness) a referendum date. A No vote should be a certainty but sensible London Scots like me will not have a vote and I am not totally confident. I guess hard-headed oil-rich Aberdonians will know on what side their bread is buttered and the Edinburgh professional classes – fund managers, lawyers, prudent bankers (yes, that is a wee joke) will also vote No. But we need to beware of Weegies and their Wains (Glaswegians and their children, of course) who are irredeemably contrarian, who after all backed Red Clydeside and with whom chip-on-the-shoulder nationalism plays well.
If the vote is Yes, expect a mass exodus to England of yet more Scots anxious to protect
their hard-earned bawbees and to enjoy the balmy pleasures of Southern
England. The English may well leave them to stew in their bagpipes, whisky and deep-fried Mars bars. As for me, like all Scots, I am sentimental. When I
finally turn up my toes there may be a corner of a foreign field that is
forever Scotland.
More likely, my final appearance will be at a Home Counties municipal
crematorium, but maybe some kind soul will scatter my ashes from the Brig o’
Balgownie or “Where Gadie rins, at the back of Benachie”.
SMD
2.12.12
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012
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