HUDLESTON : EXCUESION. 
115 
We obtain our knowledge of the geology of the country round 
Harrogate chiefly from Mr. Fox Strangway's " Memoir," whilst 
the excellent work of Davis and Lees treats of the West Riding 
as a whole. 
The Permian rocks in the eastern part of Claro, though 
mostly unfossiliferous, are not without interest. The Lower Marl 
has a very slight development ; but 5 feet of red and grey marls, 
belonging to this section, are to be seen in St. Helen's Quarry, 
south-east of Knaresborough. These are the marls to which 
allusion will presently be made in connection with the subject of 
rock staining. 
The most important member of the series is the Magnesian 
Limestone. Only a few fossils have been found in this district, and 
those chiefly from the lower beds, though traces of Axinus may be 
seen in beds which are highly dolomitzed. At Knaresborough 
the yeflow earthy variety is most frequent. It lends itself to the 
formation of caves, and, owing to its pecuharly friable structure, 
imparts a character to the gorges through which nearly all the 
haiTied and bm-nt. The route between the two towns was so desolated that 
forest tenants were partly excused their rent to the King under the plea of 
impoverishment. 
The more modern historj- of Knaresborough commences with the gi'ant by 
Edward III. to John of Gaunt (a.d. 1371.) since which time the town and 
district may be said to have followed the fortunes of the duchy of Lancaster. 
About the same period Skipton was gi'anted to Robert, Earl of Clifford, the 
ancestor of that ruthless partizan of the House of Lancaster, who slew the boy 
Earl of Rutland at the Battle of Wakefield. 
We cannot doubt that, during the wars of the Roses, the disti'ict between 
Knaresborough and Skipton must have been strongly Lancastrian ; and thus 
it came to pass that, when Henry YI. and Queen Margaret lay at York in the 
spring of 1461, an order was issued, in the name of the King, to summon all 
"Uege men of the forest and demesne of Knaresburgh" to join the Lancast- 
rian ainny. This was a few days before that fatal Palm Sunday which witnessed 
the complete triumph of the Yorkists at Towton on the banks of the Cock, 
When the rivers ran all gory. 
And in hillocks lay the dead ; 
And seven and thirty thousand 
Fell from the white and red. 
A battle wherein more Englishmen died than any other that has yet been fought. 
