Those who travel now through the delightful, rural country of the West of England are hardly apt to think of wars or of devastations and tribulations. It is not easy to realize there that a region now so peaceful and so carefully cultivated was for a long time ravaged by hostile people who dashed from the neighboring Welsh mountains. Yet that disturbed period can be suggested, and not disagreeably, during a walk upon those extraordinary, red, mouldering walls of Chester, that have stood since the Romans in the year of our Lord 61 erected them around their castrum, giving historic name to the place, and that in the Middle Ages received many striking attentions from the bold Welshmen. From the battlements may be seen the picturesque stone bridge, built in 1280 by command of Edward I., to replace a wooden structure that gentlemen from the Principality seemed to have determined should be maintained in the worst possible order. These and other relics of the past will serve to bring to mind the time when the represented action of this stirring story occurred, during the often romantic life of the ages of the Crusades.

Scott states, in an introduction that he wrote during the last year of his life, that, rather by the advice of a few friends, “The Tales of the Crusades' was determined upon as the title of" a series of novels, of which "The Betrothed" was the first. The second, "The Talisman," was published simultaneously, and with it forms the series. The two were issued when there was a general supposition that they were by the "Author of Waverley," and that Scott was that "Author;" and but a short time before circumstances produced demonstration of the correctness of the supposition. His works of fiction were then, as speculative business ventures, most rapidly projected. Scott himself, with some satirical humor, has given an account of a supposed agency for producing them. It forms a part of the original introduction to the novel sketched in this chapter, and consists of "Minutes of Sederunt of a general meeting of the Shareholders designing to form a jointstock company, united for the purpose of writing and publishing the class of works called the Waverley Novels, held in the Waterloo Tavern, Regent's Bridge, Edinburgh, 1st June, 1825." The persons represented to be there present were characters of the previously issued novels. The date of this mythical meeting was only about seven months before bankruptcy revealed the commercial character of the production. Our attention now, however, is

more agreeably attracted, especially on the Welsh Border to affairs represented in "The Betrothed."

This story is founded upon one Scott had long before mentioned, "a very interesting one; and as it was sufficiently interwoven with the Crusades, the wars between the Welsh and the Norman lords of the Marches was selected as a period" when the scenes of a work of imagination might be advantageously exhibited.

"Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by the learned Grialdus de Barri, afterwards Bishop of Saint David's," begins "The Betrothed," was preaching in castle and in town, to prince and to knight, the cause of the Third Crusade, when Gwenwyn, British Prince of Powys-Land, was thought to have enrolled himself in the army for recovering the Holy Sepulchre, and to have repressed his sworn hatred against his English neighbors, and thus apparently to have followed the teaching of the churchman who urged that war should be waged against the Infidel rather than between Christian men. In this condition he had accepted the Christmas hospitality of Sir Raymond Berenger, "his nearest and hitherto one of his most determined enemies," an old Norman warrior who in spite of all opposition held the "Castle of Garde Doloureuse, upon the marches of Wales," a very strong place, "which some antiquaries have endeavored to identify with the Castle of Colune, on the river of the same name. But the length of time, and some geographical difficulties, throw doubts upon this ingenious conjecture" (so Scott himself informs us). There are a number of ancient fortified places along the former fighting grounds between England and Wales that might suggest the Garde Doloureuse; but as the author himself seems to have represented a generic rather than a specific example, the traveller may well enough fancy that stronghold at a place, not far from Chester, certainly deserving a visit on account of its celebrity and picturesque attractiveness, -the Valley of Llangollen. There, will be found a quiet little town between great hills, and, among their recesses, the beautiful and considerable remains of Valle Crucis Abbey; and, upon the lofty conical top of one of them, standing in "awful majesty, the dilapidated fragments of Castell Dinas Bran," or Caer Ddinas Bran - Crow Castle. To be sure, archæological nicety may object that this castle is ancient Welsh, and therefore not supposably Norman; but it dates back to the times of the Tale (and

far more remotely indeed), and is very curious, especially in its site, and as appropriate and accessible and probable a scene as any of the action represented at the Garde Doloureuse.

Dinas Bran occupies a commanding and peculiar situation, the visitor will admit, one that seems to be especially created to be defended, a summit area of perhaps two acres, from which, in every direction, the grass and gorse-grown hill slopes steeply and abruptly hundreds of feet into deep valleys. Beyond these, northward, rise, like vast terrace-walls, the long, gray limestone strata of a mountain side, and southward a range of great green hills; while eastward, through the wide, deep, valley vista of Llangollen, appears the pleasant English country, extending to a level horizon miles distant; and westward stands many a rough height of Welshland, penetrated by vales that lead to Corwen, or to Valle Crucis Abbey. Little remains of the castle (as the writer found it), only a ragged line of the straight west wall, a trifle of the south, more of the east, and a few broken arches and corridors and a vague sort of fosse north, built of small fragments of limestone strongly cemented. Originally it occupied nearly the whole summit of the hill, and was about two hundred and ninety feet long and one hundred and forty feet wide. Within it were two wells of water; and these, with the exterior fosse and the steep slopes around the strong walls, rendered it impregnable. Its broken remains are yet very conspicuous and picturesque amid the surrounding scenery. pleasant path, perhaps a mile and a half long, leads between hawthorne hedges and across fields to it from Llangollen town. While one walks the soft turf carpeting its now empty courtyard, and looks over the ruin out upon the wide landscape, one can fancy it to have been the castle where the Prince of Powys-Land visited Sir Raymond Berenger, and met that knight's daughter Eveline, his sole child, "the inheritor of his domains and of his supposed wealth, aged only sixteen, and the most beautiful damsel upon the Welsh marches."

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"Many a spear had already been shivered in maintenance of her charms; and the gallant Hugo de Lacy, Constable of Chester, one of the most redoubted warriors of the time, had laid at Eveline's feet the prize which his chivalry had gained in a great tournament held near that ancient town. Gwenwyn considered these triumphs as so many additional recommendations to Eveline; her beauty was incontestable, and she was heiress of the fortress

which he had so much longed to possess, and which he began now to think might be acquired by means more smooth than those with which he was in the use of working out his will." To be sure his relations and those of his race to the English were adverse; and there was indeed another objection to his suit for her hand, "which in later times would have been of considerable weight, Gwenwyn was already married." But a soldier of the cross could find ecclesiastical means to obviate this difficulty. "The idea of the rejection of his suit did not for a moment occur to him." Alliance with a sovereign like himself seemed an honor that could not be declined. With this feeling, he prolonged his visit. He admired the heiress; and after he left the Garde Doloureuse, as of course he eventually did, his admiration, as does happen sometimes in that of bold men for fair women, produced tremendous effects.

He went to his seat, Powys Castle, and there held a festival, when the effects began to appear. This last place can be geographically and architecturally identified, existing, as it yet does, about twenty miles west of Shrewsbury near Welshpool, and rather more than that distance across the country by rail, south from Dinas Bran. "Powys Castle," we are told, " is intimately connected with a large and important portion of the historic affairs that occurred in the Middle Ages; and more particularly with those interesting events, which occurred in the warfare on the borders, denominated the marches of Wales. The first notice which history takes of this place is about the year 1109, when" a euphoniously named gentleman, Cadwgan ap Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, flourished in its vicinity and founded the Castle, continued by a Gwynwynwyn who inherited it at about the period of this story. Without rehearsal of small details of history, it may be stated that Powys Castle is, or was, a venerable pile... pre-eminent for its fine situation and commanding terrace," worthy to "be made a Villa d'Este in miniature, situated in a well-wooded park, about a mile from Pool, . . . and constructed of red sandstone...in the ancient style of domestic architecture, participating of the castle and mansion. . . . The site" overlooks "a vast tract of country, the greater part of which was formerly subject to its lords." Now a large and magnificent residence, it was, in Gwenwyn's time, "a low, long-roofed edifice of redstone, whence the castle derived its name ... Castell-Coch, or the Red Castle, as it was then called." There Gwenwyn, holding his festival in a barbarous state, received a communication from Sir

Raymond declining a matrimonial alliance between him and the Lady Eveline, for which it is quite safe to suppose he had applied. The Prince, excessively displeased at this repulse, after the manner of the time and of his rank and race, demonstrated his emotion by collecting his people, and attacking Sir Raymond's castle, where he was bravely resisted. Unfortunately, however, Sir Raymond was killed during a sortie. The Lady Eveline, from the ramparts, beheld the death of her father; but, brave as she was, she did not despair. Christian-like, she repeated prayers in the chapel, and then directed continued defence, that was stoutly maintained. In a not unparelleled manner, also, she made a vow; and her vow was, to marry the man who should rescue her from the really dangerous position in which her fierce suitor was by degrees placing her.

While one views the landscape presented from the broken walls of Dinas Bran, one can fancy how, after she had encouraged her garrison during a sharp attack on them, when the grounds below were filled with wild, half-savage enemies, - how, after looking far and wide, — down the valley, particularly, — she gladly heard a distant alarm, and how then she beheld Sir Hugo de Lacy, of Chester, with his troops, very opportunely relieve the beleaguered and disperse the Welsh. And one can fancy how the courageous and beautiful young lady thought of her vow, and of Sir Hugo's former devotion to her. Next one may imagine a procession bearing up the hill the recovered body of Sir Raymond, and afterward his honorable burial ceremony. Then one can follow the Lady Eveline during a visit to her deliverer, Sir Hugo, at his camp, where she soon received a more acceptable proposal than that of the expelled Prince of Powys-Land, -a proposal that did not result, however,

in immediate marriage.

This sketch, without being an utter immolation of romance and its secrets, may narrate that, for reasons discoverable, Sir Hugo escorted the Lady to a Benedictine nunnery at Gloucester, of which her aunt was abbess. The style of journey and its incidents were wonderfully different from those of the railway ride now between Llangollen and that interesting cathedral city. The twelfth century travellers, spending a night on the way, tarried with a mysterious relative of Lady Eveline, — the old Lady of Baldringham, who lived in a "rude and lonely dwelling, low embowered among oaken woods," where she "still maintained the customs of