Note 42 — Chapter XII

— The Most Hon. the Marquess of Ripon, K.G., Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and the Marchioness of Ripon, C.I., of Studley Royal, near Ripon, are descended from this leile-hearted and chivalrous Yorkshire race, in whom so many idealistic, stately souls, of a long buried Past, claim kindred.

Of what manner of men these Mallories were, the puissant owners of Studley Royal, is evident from what we are told concerning that Sir William Mallory, “who was so zealous and constant a Catholic, that when heresy first came into England, and Catholic service commanded to be put down on such a day, he came to the church, and stood there at the door with his sword drawn to defend, that none should come in to abolish religion, saying that he would defend it with his life, and continued for some days keeping out the officers so long as he could possibly do it.” — From the “Babthorpes, of Babthorpe,” Morris’s “Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,” first series, p. 227. — The Church referred to must have been the old Chapel at Aldfield, near Studley Royal. Aldfield was one of the Chapelries of the ancient Parish of Ripon. The old Chapel at Aldfield is now represented by the noble new Church which is seen in the distance, at the end of the long avenue, by all who have the rare happiness of visiting Studley Royal and the tall grey ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, Fountains, laved by the musical little River Skell. (Studley Church is twin-sister to Skelton Church, the Vyner Memorial in the Park of Newby. Skelton was likewise one of the old Ripon Chapelries.) This phrase “to abolish religion,” I opine, refers to the time of Edward VI., when the Mass was first put down, and a communion substituted therefor. — See Tennyson’s “Mary Tudor.” — There is a curious old traditional prophecy extant in Yorkshire, as well as other parts of England, that as the Mass was abolished in the reign of the Sixth Edward, so it will be restored in the reign of the Seventh!