Jacobites, Airships and The Earl of Derwentwater's Lights

Breakfast TV was rather rock and roll this morning.  They had Bruce Dickinson on with his new airship - the largest ever built, which he reckons is the new eco way to travel; and Tim O'Brien from Jodrell Bank talking about the Northern Lights.

Last time I went out last night (about 8.30pm) there was a lovely clear sky and bright stars.  Apparently the Northern Lights were then seen hereabouts - Tim O'Brien said he photographed them in the hills near Sheffield, which is close.  When I go into the studio I'll ask those who indulge more in social media if the Northern Lights appeared here. I don't know why, because if they were, I'll just be sick.

When they were talking about the Northern Lights, I was thinking about the Jacobite connection.  "The Jacobite connection?" you say.  Yes, the interviewers asked Tim O'Brien to imagine how people felt about the Aurora before they knew the science of them, perhaps they were seen as a portent.  Then I thought, no, not a portent, but a marker, of something catastrophic.  When the Earl of Derwentwater joined the '15 rebellion (the one before Bonnie Prince Charlie), he was caught and imprisoned in London.  The fabulous Dorothy Forster rode to London in one night and saved her brother, Tom, but the Earl was hanged.  His remains were spirited away, and to quote this book:

A Good Book

"they were secretly conveyed to the family vault in Northumberland, by a little procession which travelled by night and rested by day.  On the night of Tuesday, 6 March 1716 the hearse carrying Lord Derwentwater's body approached Dilston.  That night, all over Engalnd, the sky was lit by a fiery brilliance - the aurora borealis was brighter than had been known before and darkness never came.  It was fearfully whispered to be an omen of heaven's wrath and from that time the Northern Lights became known throughout Northumberland as "Lord Derwentwater's Lights".

I love Northumbrian history, and I love the way we have some many castles we don't really bother with them.  In my childhood Dilston Castle was empty and unused.  It has been used for various purposes since, the last I knew being a residential school for people with special needs.  I think it was a police training college once, but I'm not sure.  So many castles, what can you do with them all?

p.s. do you think Bruce Dickinson and Frankie Dickinson are related?  If Bruce Dickinson was originally Northumbrian that would be so cool.  He does live in a castle, I think.