THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE - Book review

 

The Maid of Buttermere is Melvyn Bragg’s twelfth novel and was published in 1987; my copy is a fourth impression, 1988. It’s a fictional account about the historical figures of a shepherdess Mary Robinson, the Maid of the story, and her suitor, Colonel Hope.

Taking place in 1802, the tale is told in the measured language of the period, and the point of view is omniscient.

It is clear early on (even if you haven’t read the giveaway blurb) that the main male character is suspect. He recounts to himself and the empty Morecambe Bay sands his identity: ‘I am Alexander Augustus Hope, Colonel, Member of Parliament for Linlithgowshire and brother to the Earl of Hopetoun’ (p20). Interesting to me, he also states: ‘now Lieutenant Governor of Tynemouth’ (p21) which is just down the road from where I live. Though carrying himself as a gentleman and of high birth, he is not averse to talk with anyone on an equal footing. He meets a fish-woman on the shoreline and tells her, ‘If they bathed you in oils, Anne Tyson, and put you in silk gowns, you’d be as fine a lady as them all’ (p24). In short, he’s a sweet-tongued womaniser. Not long after this conversation, he is having sex al fresco with a local woman Sally, and they depart, he promising to see her on the morrow, but lying.

Hope has a confederate, Newton, who seems to have a peculiarly strong hold over Hope. Their joint intention is for Hope to find and marry a rich heiress and as soon as possible afterwards run off with the loot to America. Newton’s dark presence hovers even when he is absent, like the black dog of depression. It is hinted at that he has committed murder, but I must have missed the actual revelation. A list or real characters is listed at the back; Newton’s name does not appear there, so it is possible he is to all intents and purposes Hope’s conscience.

In Chapter Two we encounter Mary Robinson who is a beautiful shepherdess and helper for her father in the Fish Inn. She has been discovered by poets and artists and her fame has spread and she gained the sobriquets ‘Mary of Buttermere’, the ‘Maid of the Lakes’ and the ‘Beauty of Buttermere’. Yet she has managed to repel all suitors, while attracting customers to her father’s hostelry. A local lad, Richard Harrison, is too tongue-tied to be her suitor, but at their first meeting he realises ‘She was everything they said she was’ (p41).  

While visiting the ancient upright stones of Castlerigg, Hope encounters a group comprising Colonel Moore, his wife and their ward, Miss Amaryllis D’Arcy. The young woman seems the ideal prospect for his purpose.

Mary is not short of friends, one of whom is Kitty, an old woman who lives in the wood, was ‘gypsy brown, the tan so shiny on the mild skin that it was like a fresh varnish. She sat in front of her turfed tepee like a re-located squaw – the mass of brown hair loosely braided and heaped on her head like a parcel carelessly tied with twine, her forget-me-not blue eyes looking at Mary only when she thought she was unobserved…’ (p97). Another friend is Alice, who married Tom, a boy who Mary had rejected.

Hope is referred to in several ways, among them ‘the man who called himself Hope’, John-Augustus, John, and Hope. This may imply that there is a touch of schizophrenia harbouring in the conman Colonel’s psyche. Indeed, Samuel Taylor Coleridge stated: ‘It is not by mere Thought, I can understand this man’ (p291).

Hope also makes the acquaintance of the attorney Mr Crump and his wife who constantly interrupts him, affording us a few humorous scenes: ‘ “We are in fact,” continued her husband, who took no offence at her interruptions, indeed, in these foreign circumstances, counted on them as if his sentences were much improved for being broken into…’ (p149).

Bragg’s descriptions naturally evoke the place, his own beloved Cumbria, as well as the period. ‘It was still damp, a little drizzle now and then, the fells purpling with misty mizzle, the greens of trees drenched greener, their green swan song before the winds and colds of autumn drained them yellow and blew them down’ (p252).

This is a true tragic and notorious story, fictionalised, and inevitably true love does not run smoothly: ‘The future had become impenetrable as any of the large darkening silent fells between which the coach rocked and waddled its way’ (p301).

Bragg has masterfully insinuated himself into all the characters – thanks to the POV he has employed – and given them depth and imbued them all with sympathetic traits and human flaws.

Note: My wife and I have visited the Lake District a number of times. It was fascinating to come across so many familiar places and names, such as Honister Pass, Derwent Water, Cockermouth, Lorton and Grasmere, to name but a few that crop up in the novel. I actually began reading this book for the first time during our latest trip there (18-22 July this year).

Visit to The Lake District, Cumbria

Over the years Jen and I have visited the Lakes several times. On this occasion – Tuesday 18- Saturday 22 July – we attempted to see places we hadn’t seen before. The journey of 95 miles to our hotel took just under two and a half hours and it was rain virtually all the way; almost torrential. We were being optimistic, because the weather forecast predicted rain every day – not surprising, since the District is very green and full of lake waters!

The next day (Wednesday) there was no sign of the promised rain. So we drove into Egremont, a pleasant market town complete with a war memorial statue, the statue of a haematite worker and a number of art galleries and the ruins of a twelfth century castle. 

Haematite worker sculpture

We popped into the Lowes Court in a Grade II Listed building and chatted to the two cheerful staff; up a splendid curved staircase there was an exhibition showing the renovations of the house and the fifty years of the gallery’s existence. We were directed to the Deja Brew for a coffee and cake, a popular watering hole.

We drove on to Ravenglass, a coastal village, but to all intents and purposes it was closed, so we had to look elsewhere for lunch! (We would doubtless return another day to ride on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway…)

Not far along the road we came to the entrance to Muncaster Castle, which has been the home of the Pennington family for over 800 years. It was deeded to the family on 1 December 1208 by King John, so maybe he was not all Bad. There are three main attractions here: the gardens, the house itself and the hawk and owl centre.

Unfortunately, due to the continued risk of bird flu, the bird displays were cancelled. Interesting to us, there was a Steppe Eagle called Amelia in its enclosure – Jen having recently published a children’s book entitled Amelia and the Witch’s Cat illustrated by her niece Amelia! 

Amelia the Steppe Eagle - and Jen

In 2021 a breeding unit was established here to breed various endangered species of raptor – with the ultimate aim of returning their number to the wild.

The Hub supplies a variety of grilled cheese sandwiches with names like The Italian Job (sun-dried tomato, garlic chutney and cheese blend) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Brie, Stilton, caramelised onion and cheese blend) – very tasty, and washed down with a Lakes Lager for me and a pot of tea for Jen. Cheerful and helpful staff. From here we ventured into the gardens, where there are a good number of intriguing wooden carved items.

Wooden statue

It was a glorious sunny and hot day. Thousands of trees have been planted here since the 1780s. There are over six miles of walks. Rhododendrons thrive here in the acid soil. There’s a profusion of exotic plants and shrubs gathered from around the world by family members in centuries past, interlaced with bright green ferns. Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain can be viewed from the grounds.

After touring the extensive gardens, we wandered around the house, first entering the Great Hall: here Sir John Pennington entertained Henry VI in 1464 when the defeated king sought sanctuary after the battle of Hexham in the Wars of the Roses. At the time Sir John was an elderly man; he had fought with Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

A door from the Great Hall leads into the Library, a stunning octagonal room created by John Pennington, First Lord of Muncaster in the 1780s. He was instrumental in the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade and a friend of Wilberforce.

Library of over 9,000 books

Then there is the fine dining room with its embossed leather ‘wallpaper’ and its immense table, cut from a single walnut tree and able to accommodate the seating of up to thirty guests.

Next there is the drawing room – in effect, such rooms were ‘withdrawing rooms’ where ladies would gather after the meal, leaving their menfolk to their cigars, brandy, port and Whitehaven rum! The walls are crammed with portraits – many of family members over the centuries. The room was shortened in the 1860s to provide a staircase at one end and, eventually, in 1885, a billiard room at the other. The walls of the billiard room are covered with wood panelling; the wood over the fireplace was bought in 1838 at the break-up of the Royal Naval ship HMS Temeraire which fought alongside Nelson’s flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar; the ship is immortalised by JMW Turner in his painting of the vessel being towed by a steam tug to the breakers yard.

The red-carpeted staircase is enhanced by three bas-relief marble wall panels of The Dancing Hours, sculpted by the neo-classical Antonio Canova.

Red staircase

    The Dancing Hours

On the landing hangs a full-length portrait of Thomas Skelton whose nickname was Tom Fool, because he dressed up in a chequered motley coat in the Pennington family colours of blue and gold. His motto was ‘all my living is in good strong beer’ which can be vouchsafed by his protruding beer belly. He was wont to act the fool on occasion and perhaps the term ‘tomfoolery’ originated through his antics.

Some of the bedrooms are said to be haunted, though not all.

We covered 85 miles that day.

Typical view

Next day (Thursday) there was still no promised rain. So we went through Crummock, Buttermere (atrocious parking, so didn’t stay), Honister Pass, Borrowdale, Keswick (too busy!), and Grasmere before finding on the road out the Kings Head Inn where we enjoyed excellent sandwiches, coffee, wine and lager. 

The Kings Head Inn

We then stopped in Ambleside and used our parking disc while seeking out the sheepskin shop we’d seen on a previous visit and bought a suitable pelt. Going via Kirkstone Pass, we ended up at Ullswater, and were able to park for free, and watched a school of kayakers paddle to the shore. We bought a ticket for the steamer Lady Dorothy (re-launched in 2001) and toured Ullswater. Here, on 23 July 1955, Donald Campbell set the world water speed record when he piloted his jet-propelled hydroplane Bluebird K7, clocking up a speed of 202.32mph. Campbell went on to break more speed records. On 4 January 1967 he died while attempting to beat his own record on Coniston Water. Near the end of the cruise we witnessed – and heard! – two RAF jets fly over us on their regular training runs.

RAF training flight

A mere 29 miles was covered this day.

Final full day (Friday) we drove into Cockermouth. The last time we’d been here it had been wet and miserable. This day it was warm and sunny. We had intended visiting the Wordsworth House; unfortunately it is shut on Thursdays and Fridays (should have checked!) Instead we took a leisurely stroll across a bouncy bridge and along the Memorial Walk on the banks of River Derwent and saw Jennings Brewery at the confluence of the Rivers Derwent and Cocker. There were dozens of blackbirds. On the other side of the fast-flowing river we saw the ruins of Cockermouth Castle; a portion of it is still inhabited. It was built in 1134 and the Percy family of Northumberland owned it from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The current owners, the Wyndham family took possession in the eighteenth century.

Cockermouth Castle

Back in the town we enjoyed scones and excellent coffee at the Moon and Sixpence café; yes, it’s a reference to one of William Somerset Maugham’s books (1919). There’s a pub called the Fletcher Christian – the notorious sailor and mutineer was born in the village of Eaglesfield near Cockermouth. Here too we saw the plaque showing the high-water mark of the 2009 flooding; it must have been horrendous.

Jen showing the high-water mark of the flood

In the afternoon we drove to Maryport. In 1748 Humphrey Senhouse II started to develop a planned town north of the River Ellen between Castle Hill and the Roman fort. He called the town Maryport after his wife Mary. The Senhouse family had already been collecting Roman artefacts over the years, going back to the 1500s. We therefore visited the Senhouse Roman Museum, which was created in 1985; in effect it took over the Naval Reserve Training Battery buildings. Among other things, it is the home of one of the largest collections of Roman altars; all of them found there over the last 430 or so years. 

A Roman style lookout tower has been reconstructed, affording a view across the Solway Estuary. The fort (which may have been called Alauna) and its surrounding community supplied Hadrian’s Wall with trade-goods, news, food and wine. The most famous tribune at Maryport was Marcus Maenius Agrippa (not to be confused with Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (died 12BC); Marcus Maenius was host to Hadrian (who was in Britannia to instigate the building of the Wall in 122AD).

Reconstructed Roman lookout tower, Senhouse Museum

There were two other known forts further north overlooking the Solway – Beckfoot and Bowness.

The following day (Saturday) we drove home to Blyth through rain for the entire journey of 110 miles.

Thus ended a pleasant break blessed with three days of surprisingly good weather, despite the forecasts!