52 Rev. J. W. Dunn on Warkworth, 



at the head of a figure. Some observers have gone so far as 

 to assert that the recumbent image is that of the Blessed 

 Virgin, but this cannot be maintained. Mr Hartshorne con- 

 jectures that the Hermitage was founded by the second Lord 

 of Warkworth, in memory of his wife Mary Plantagenet, 

 whom he sorrowingly survived, and who was buried by her 

 side in Alnwick Abbey in the year 1368. He adduces archi- 

 tectural reasons, and also the improbability of the story of 

 the poem in support of this opinion. To this, however, an 

 apologist for the poem might reply, that this second master of 

 Warkworth does not seem to have lamented his loss for any 

 lengthened period, certainly not long enough for the hewing 

 of this Hermitage out of a rock. 



The noble lady died on the 1st September 1362. Her 

 husband died as I have said in 1368, but in this brief in- 

 terval he contracted a second marriage and had a son and a 

 daughter. 



Then as to the evidence from the architecture. A refer- 

 ence to the poem shews that the bishop and Mr Hartshorne 

 both fix the period of the foundation of the Hermitage at the 

 same or nearly the same date, their only difference being as 

 to the founder and the occasion of such foundation. 



The poem makes the visit of Hotspur's son to the hermit 

 ten years after the battle of Shrewsbury, or in the year 1413. 

 At this period the perpendicular had doubtless taken the 

 place of the decorated style of architecture, and so, as Mr 

 Hartshorne justly notices, it must have been considerably 

 before this that the graceful window of the Hermitage con- 

 fessional was carved out of the natural rock. But the hermit 

 of the poem tells us that — 



" Full fifty winters all forlorn 

 My life I've lingered here — 

 And daily o'er this sculptured saint 

 I drop the pensive tear." 



Fifty years from 1413 will bring us to 1363, which does not 

 disagree with the style of architecture, and places us more- 

 over in the period of the second Lord of Warkworth, who is 

 supposed by Mr Hartshorne to have been the founder, and 

 who may after all, therefore, have granted this retired and 

 quiet spot to Bertram of Bothal for " penitence and prayer." 

 Mr Longstafie, in the treatise before mentioned, suggests 



effigies of females, except in the later perpendicular period, when, at least, the 

 cognizances of families are not uncommon at the feet of ladies. But no rule 

 is applicable to so anomalous an example as this. 



