Whalley church, one of the most curious and venerable parish churches of England, shelters the ashes of John Paslew, last Abbot of Whalley. Upon the simple stone are cut a floriated cross and chalice, with the words "_Jesu fili dei miserere mei_." Only the fewest traces, chief of which is a beautiful gateway with groined roof, remain of this great abbey, one of the richest in the north of England, charitable, hospitable, with an especially warm welcome for wandering minstrels. Its walls have been literally levelled to the ground, like those of the rival Cistercian foundation at Sawley, a few miles above. But the "White Church under the Leigh," believed to have been originally established by the missionary Paulinus in the seventh century, preserves the abbey choir stalls, whose crocketed pinnacles tower to the top of the chancel. Their _misereres_ are full of humour and spirit. An old woman beating her husband with a ladle is one of the domestic scenes that tickled the merry monks of Whalley. We could have lingered long in this ancient church for its wealth of fine oak carving, its pew fashioned like a cage, its heraldic glass, and, in the churchyard, the three old, old crosses with their interlacing Runic scrolls, one of which, when a witch read it backward, would do her the often very convenient service of making her invisible. But we had time only for the thought of Abbot Paslew, who, refusing to bow to the storm like the Abbot of Furness, had raised a large body of men and gone to arms for the defence of the English monasteries against the royal robber. He was a leader in the revolt of 1537, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The Abbot of Sawley, William Trafford, old jealousies forgotten, took the field with him. But monks were no match for Henry VIII's generals, the rebellion was promptly crushed, the Abbot of Sawley was hanged at Lancaster, and Abbot Paslew was taken, with a refinement of vengeance, back to Whalley and gibbeted there, in view of the beautiful abbey over which he had borne sway for thirty years. The country folk had depended upon it for alms, for medical aid, for practical counsel, for spiritual direction, and we may well believe that, as they looked on at the execution, their hearts were hot against the murderers of him who, when he grasped the sword, had assumed the title of Earl of Poverty. The mound where he suffered is well remembered to this day. The flying hours had been crowded with impressions, tragic, uncanny, pitiful, and we had yet, in going to the station, to run the gantlet of a tipsy town, for it was a holiday. We had found Clitheroe drinking, earlier in the afternoon, and now we found Whalley drunk. One unsteady individual, wagging his head from side to side and stretching out a pair of wavering arms, tried to bar my progress. "Wh-where be g-goin'?" he asked. "To the train," I answered curtly, dodging by. He sat down on the wall and wept aloud.