John o’ Gaunt is not to be avoided in Lancaster, castle or town. He is, indeed, to be found pretty well all over the country, for he was not merely Duke of Lancaster (although that was no small matter), but owned manors in almost every part of England. Moreover, from him sprang the House of Lancaster, the Red Rose, whose struggles with the Yorkist White Rose form so long and bloody a series of chapters in English history. Here, in Lancaster, from “John o’ Gaunt’s Chair,” the topmost turret of the castle keep, down to Horseshoe Corner, the great Duke is everywhere, and figures on picture-postcards, china, and silver spoons with a fine impartiality. Horseshoe Corner is an otherwise commonplace crossing of streets where, in the middle of the roadway, a horseshoe is inserted. It is the representative, at this long interval of time, of a shoe cast by John o’ Gaunt’s horse on the spot, and is renewed every seven years. St. Mary’s Church, adjoining the castle, and separated from it only by that sad spot on the terrace where criminals were hanged in the times of public executions, is a fine bold structure of Perpendicular character, and possibly a good deal might be said of it in the architectural way; but it interests me chiefly as containing a memorial brass, now very much the worse for wear, to Thomas Covell, Governor of the castle forty-eight years, Coroner forty-six years, and six times Mayor of Lancaster. He died in 1639, aged seventy-eight, and is the subject of the following encomiastic verse: Cease, cease to mourne, all teares are vaine to aide, Hee’s fledd, not dead; dissolved, not destroy’d. In Heaven his soule doth rest, his bodie heere Sleepes in this dust, and his fame everie where Triumphs; the towne, the country farther forth, The land throughout proclaimes his noble worth. Speake of a man soe kinde, soe courteous, So free and every waie magnanimous, That storie told at large heere doe you see, Epitomiz’d in briefe: Covell was hee. He is represented standing, with hands clasped in prayer; a long robe, open in front, disclosing his tall military jack-boots. [Sidenote: _A GOOD-FELLOW GAOLER_] No merrier fellow than the good Covell ever presided over dungeon and little-ease. Prisoners who were fortunate enough to be consigned to Lancaster Castle used it as a country house; and, so that they fairly gave their parole to return, went and came very much as they pleased. Some of them, that is to say. Popish recusants were sure of the best attention, and the Bishop of Carlisle, writing with some heat upon the subject, declared “they have liberty to go when and whither they list; to hunt, hawk, and go to horse-races.” Enjoying life himself, Covell was kindly disposed to others of like temperament. To Burton, however, one of the Puritans who was sent to Lancaster Castle to have his ears cropped, this high-spirited Governor was a “beastly man.”