S. Robert of Knaresborough, who died 1218, was the son of one John
Thorne of York, of which city his brother was mayor. Leland informs us
that he forsook "the lands and goodes of his father to whom he was
heire as eldest sonne." Leaving his home he came to Knaresborough,
where he found a certain knight ensconced in a cave scooped out of the
rock by the side of the Nidd, and dignified by the name of S. Giles's
Chapel. But the knight had had enough of it, and _instante
diabolo_ quitted his cave and made it over to Robert Thorne, and
"returned like a dog to his vomit," which is a monastic way of putting
the fact that he returned to his wife and family.
[ILLUSTRATION: SCULPTURE IN ROYSTON CAVE. Representing S. Christopher
and other saints, men in armour and ladies.]
Robert, however, did not spend an entire year in the cave, for certain
_latrunculi_ having stolen _hys bred, hys chese,_ _hys sustenance_,
he quitted the grotto--doubtless at the approach of winter--and estab-
lished himself in much more comfortable quarters at Bramham. He was
certainly a hermit who boiled his peas, for we are told that he maintained
four men-servants; two were occupied in tilling his farm, one attended
to his personal wants--was, in fact, his valet--and one went about with
him on his begging expeditions.
The cave is 10 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 7 feet high. There is an
image of a knight at the entrance, by some supposed to be more modern;
it is, however, said that S. Robert did much himself to adorn and
enlarge his chapel.
It was in this cave that Eugene Aram and Richard Housman murdered
Daniel Clarke on 8th February 1745, for the sake of some jewellery and
plate they had induced him to bring to S. Robert's Chapel with him.
It was not till fourteen years after that the body of Clarke was found,
and Mrs. Aram declared that her husband and Housman had murdered him;
Housman turned King's evidence, and Aram was hung on 16th August 1759.
Roche hermitage in Cornwall occupies a spire of rocks of schorl that
shoots 100 feet above the surrounding moor. Built into the rocks is a
little chapel, and beneath it is the hermit's cell. This seems to have
been occupied continuously down to the Reformation, and various stories
are told of the tenants.
There was once a steward under the Duchy named Tregeagle. He was a
peculiarly nefarious agent, and very hard upon the tenants. His spirit
is still supposed to roam over the moors, and not to be able to find
peace till he has dipped the water out of Dozmare Pool with a nutshell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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