222
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ s. n. to. 1
HEYSHAM ANTIQUITIES.
THE late summer rambles of the Royal
Archaeological Institute in the royal Duchy of
Lancaster have been noteworthy alike for
the pleasure they have afforded to the mem-
bers and for the invaluable stock of knowledge
they have imparted to archaeology in general.
Thus, during a visit made to the interest-
ing hamlet of Heysham, near Morecambe,
Sir Henry Howortn descanted learnedly on
the antiquarian notabilia of the locality, and
propounded views which were startlingly
at variance with historical accuracy. The
accomplished knight is apparently more at
home in matters Mongolian than in Lan-
castrian chronology. Ihus the Manchester
Courier, in an otherwise appreciative leader
on Sir Henry's inaugural address on historic
Lancaster, courteously found fault with his
" too Macaulay-like distinction between the
Lancashire of to-day and that of 150 years
ago "; while I beg modestly to dissent from
his views anent the antiquities of Heysham.
These latter are three in number the old
church, containing many objects of interest,
the ruined remains of St. Patrick's Chapel,
and the eight curious rock-hewn coffins on
the bold promontory overlooking the sea. A
quite recent inspection of these relics of the
past has sharpened my appreciation of Sir
Henry's remarks upon them, delivered on the
spot, though I am forced to oppose them
strongly. "Sir Henry Howorth, said the
Manchester Courier,
"lectured on the ruins of the old chapel of St. Patrick, and the coffins hewn in the solid rock, combating the notion of an Irish influence. Sir Henry contended that St. Patrick set out from Heysham to the Isle of Man, and thence to Ireland, and that, consequently, if there was any similarity between this old chapel of St. Patrick at Heysham and chapels in Ireland, the latter were the copies, and not originals."
The meagreness of the report contrasts markedly with the fulness of the lecturer's confidence. The glamour of the "Irish in- fluence" seems to have blurred his vision, and so warped his judgment. If facts do not exist militating against the awful theory, then facts must be invented to disprove it. For invented assuredly those facts are. Of course, it is intensely interesting to have the exact spot determined once and for ever whence the youth Succat left the Britannias and sped him on his work to evangelize the heathen Scoti in far-off lerne. But can it be decided so offhandedly ? Certainly not, in the absence of irrefragable proof, on Sir Henry's bare ipse dixit. The two Britannias (Prima anc Secunda) were regions large enough to have
afforded a hundred points for embarkation;
out who shall say at this distance of time
where lay the favoured one ? This, like the
tuture saint's birthplace, must for ever
remain shrouded in mystery. As a sug-
5estion I reverently accept Sir Henry's sur-
mise, but I distinctly reject its assumed
finality. But were it even established beyond
suspicion, it still remains to be demonstrated,
first that the embryo Apostle of Erin sailed
thence to Man, and secondly that the Heys-
ham chapel was the prototype, and not the
copy, of the Irish chapels. These arguments,
like their predecessor, rest upon a mere
hypothesis, which in my judgment has not
the dignity of a presumptio stat; whereas the
counter-supposition reaches it easily, because
naturally and in accordance with probability.
Thus, e.g., the Manx tradition that St. Patrick
floated the banner of Christianity on Peel
Hill decidedly refers to a late or, at least,
middle epoch of his apostolate ; besides,
had he announced the Evangel of Peace first
to the Manninghe, there would have been some
mention of it either in his ' Confessions ' or in
his epistle to Coroticus. Again, it is far more
likely that the Heysham chapel was a replica
of its sisters across the Mare Hibernicum,
seeing that it must have been posterior to
the saint's ministry. Whichever way we
look at Sir Henry's objection, this contention
must hold good. For St. Patrick's visit to the
spot (afterwards known as Kessam in Domes-
day times) was either before or after his voyage
to Ireland : if the former, then no chapel
could have been built there by him ; if the
latter, then it must have been a copy of the
Irish ones. But it is contended that the Heys-
ham chapel is of Saxon origin, and that it
Erobably suggested to the future apostle the
>rm of similar edifices in Ireland. Certainly
the archway still remaining in good pre-
servation is undoubtedly Saxon in style, but no
Saxon chapel could have existed in the saint's
youth ; and why and when was the building
dedicated to St. Patrick? Evidently after
his decease, and probably built after it too,
and equally probably in imitation of the
chapels raised by him in the land of his
adoption. To me, therefore, the very con-
verse of Sir Henry's reasoning is the more
correct view.
As to the stone coffins chiselled out of the hard rock, the "Irish influence" is not so clear. Curious they certainly are, and almost unique. Irish in the sense of monastic they may have been ; my theory is that they belong far more likely to the Viking age, when the royal Scandinavian pirates infested the coast. What more natural than that those
