Dacre Castle, one of the outermost of a chain of border fortresses
stretching down the valleys of the Eamont and the Eden in
Cumberland, is a plain quadrangular building, with battlemented
parapets, and four square turrets, one at each corner; it is now
converted into a farm house. The moat is filled up, although the
site is still to be traced, and the outworks are destroyed. There
are two entrances--one at the west tower, and another between
the towers in the east front. The walls are about seven feet in
thickness. There are two arched dungeons communicating by steps
with the ground floor; and access was obtained to the roof by means
of four circular staircases, one in each tower; some of which are
now closed up. The staircases, however, did not conduct to the top
of the towers; this was gained by means of stone steps from the
roof of the Castle.
Bede mentions a monastery, which being built near the river Dacor,
took its name from it, over which the religious man Suidbert
presided. It was probably destroyed by the Danes, and never
restored; and there are no vestiges of it remaining: the present
church is supposed to have been built from the ruins.
William of Malmesbury speaks of a Congress held at Dacre in the
year 934, when Constantine, king of Scotland, and his nephew
Eugenius, king of Cumberland, met king Athelstan, and did homage to
him at Dacre. This fact is singularly corroborated by there being
in the Castle a room called to this day the "room of the three
kings," while the historical fact itself is entirely forgotten
in the country. This proves the antiquity of the tradition,
which has survived the original building and attached itself to
the present, no part of which dates from an earlier period than
the fourteenth century. That Dacre was in those remote times a
place of some importance is evident from the meeting aforesaid.
The occasion appears to have been the defection of Guthred, with
Anlaff his brother, and Inguld king of York, when Athelstan levied
a great force, and entered Northumberland so unexpectedly, that
the malcontents had scarcely time to secure themselves by flight.
Guthred obtained protection under Constantine, king of Scotland,
to whom Athelstan sent messengers, demanding his surrender, or
upon refusal, he threatened to come in quest of him at the head of
his army. Constantine, although greatly piqued at this message,
yet afraid of the formidable arms of Athelstan, consented to meet
him at Dacre; to which place he came, attended by the then king of
Cumberland, where they did homage to Athelstan.
After the Conquest, if not before, Dacre was a mesne manor held of
the barons of Greystoke by military suit and service. The parish,
manor, rivulet, and castle, were all blended with the name of
the owners. Their arms, the pilgrim's scallop, may possibly have
been taken from their being engaged in Palestine; but as the name
of their place dates as far back as the time of Athelstan, the
Dacres no doubt took their name, like most of the families of the
district, from the place where they were settled, and with all
deference to the cross-legged knight[18] in the church, who may
or may not have battled at the siege of Acre, its present Norman
spelling is more likely to have arisen from the manner in which
it is entered in the Domesday Book than from any exploits of his
before that famous fortress. That they were men of high spirit and
enterprise, and favourites of the ladies, there exists convincing
evidence. Matilda, the great heiress of Gilsland,[19] was by
Randolph Dacre carried off from Warwick Castle, in the night-time,
while she was Edward the Third's Ward, and under the custody and
care of Thomas de Beauchamp, a stout Earl of Warwick; and Thomas
Lord Dacre dashingly followed the example of his ancestor, nearly
two centuries afterwards, by carrying off, also in the night time,
from Brougham Castle, Elizabeth of Greystoke, the heiress of his
superior lord, who was also the King's ward, and in custody of
Henry Lord Clifford, who, says Mr. Howard, probably intended to
marry her. Their vigour and ability displayed as wardens of the
Marches must also add favourably to our estimate of them as men.
Sandford in his MS. gives the following curious account, written
apparently immediately after the repair of the Castle by the Earl
of Sussex:--"And from Matterdale mountains comes Daker Bek; almost
at the foot thereof stands Dacker Castle alone, and no more house
about it, And I protest looks very sorrowfull, for the loss of its
founders, in that huge battle of Touton feild: and that totall
eclips of that great Lord Dacres, in that Grand Rebellion with
lords Northumberland, and Westmorland in Queen Elizabeth's time,
and in the north called _Dacre's Raide_.
"----but it seems an heroyick Chivaleir, steeles the heir of Lord
Moulton of Kirkoswald and Naward and Gilsland, forth of Warwick
Castle, the 5th year of King Edward the 3rd; and in the 9th year of
the same king had his pdon for marying her and Created Lord Dacres
and Moulton. In King Henry the eight's time the yong Lord Dacres
steels the female heir of the Lord Graistoke forth of Broham Castle
besides Peareth: where the Lord Clifford had gott her of the king
for his sons mariage: and thereupon was the statute made of felony
to marry an heir. And thus became the Lord Dacres decorate with all
the hono^{rs} and Lands of the Lord Graistok a very great Baron:
but the now Earle of Sussex Ancesto^{re} had married the female
heir of the Lord Dacres in King Edward the 4th time, before the
Lands of Graistock came to the Lord Dacre's house."
The Barony of Greystoke, which comprehends all that part of
Cumberland, on the south side of the Forest of Inglewood, between
the seignory of Penrith and the manor of Castlerigg near Keswick,
and contains an area comprehending the parishes of Greystoke,
Dacre, and part of Crosthwaite, and nearly twenty manors, was given
by Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Cumberland, to one Lyulph, whose
posterity assumed the name of the place, and possessed it until
the reign of Henry the Seventh, when their heiress conveyed it in
marriage to Thomas Lord Dacre, of Gilsland, whose family ended in
two daughters, who married the two sons of the Duke of Norfolk.
Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, the Duke's eldest son, had, with
his wife, Lady Anne Dacre, the lands of Greystoke, which have since
continued in his illustrious family.
The original fortress of Greystock was built in the reign of Edward
III. by Lord William de Greystock, that nobleman having obtained
the king's license to castellate his manor-house of Greystock in
the year 1353. Being garrisoned for Charles I., it was destroyed by
a detachment of the Parliamentary army in June, 1648, except one
tower and part of another. The Castle was almost entirely rebuilt
about the middle of last century by the Hon. Charles Howard, and
additional extensions were subsequently made by his great-grandson,
the eleventh Duke of Norfolk, who bequeathed it to the present Mr.
Howard, by whom the work of renovation was continued and completed
in 1846. In the night of the 3rd and 4th of May, 1868, it was very
seriously damaged by fire.
Elizabeth Greystoke, Baroness Greystoke and Wemme, was a minor
at the time of her father's death. She was the only daughter of
Sir Robert Greystoke, knight, who died June 17th, 1483, in the
lifetime of his father, Ralph, seventeenth Baron Greystoke. By an
inquisition held after the death of that nobleman, it was found
that he died on Friday next after the Feast of Pentecost, in the
second year of King Henry VII., namely, June 1st, 1487. He was
succeeded by Elizabeth, his grand-daughter and heiress, who during
her minority was a ward of the crown, and had special livery of all
her lands in 1506. This lady married Thomas, ninth Baron Dacre of
Gillesland, and third Lord Dacre of the North; by which marriage
the Barony of Greystoke became united with that of Gillesland.
The nobleman in whose custody the King had placed his ward was
Henry the tenth Baron Clifford, better known as Lord Clifford
the Shepherd. He had married a cousin of Henry VII., and on the
accession of that monarch had been restored, by the reversal of
his father's attainder, to his honours and estates. Their sons had
been educated together, and brought up in habits of intimacy; and
the friendship thus formed in youth was continued after the one had
succeeded to the crown as Henry VIII., and the other had ceased
to be " Wild Henry Clifford," and had been advanced by his royal
kinsman and associate to the dignity of Earl of Cumberland.
Of the Lady Elizabeth it is stated that "lord Clifford gott her
of the king for his son's marriage;" or for himself, "who probably
intended to marry her." These suppositions lose something of their
importance when we learn that a considerable disparity in years
existed between Lord Clifford and the Lady, as well as between her
and his son; the former being nearly thirty years her senior, and
the latter almost a dozen years her junior; and during a great
portion of her minority, the first Lady Clifford, though probably
residing much apart from her husband, or unhappily with him, was
yet alive. He was, however, a nobleman nearly allied to the king,
of great power and influence in the north of England, and had been
neighbour to the old Lord Greystoke, her grandfather. Under the
circumstances, the selection made by the sovereign was a natural
one. Her youth, her rank, and her rich inheritance, were a prize
worthy of the aspiration of the noblest among her peers, whoever
may have been the suitor intended for her by the king; and they
were won by one who afterwards showed that he was as gallant in war
as he had proved himself to be daring and loyal in love.
Lord Dacre, after imitating the spirited bearing of his ancestor
in his love affair, exhibited it in an equal degree in a more
serious enterprise, when it was attended with equal success. He
had a principal command in the English army in the battle of
Flodden Field, which was gained on the 9th of September, 1514,
over the Scots, who had invaded the kingdom during the absence of
Henry VIII. at Tournay. He commanded the right wing of the army;
and wheeling about during the action, he fell upon the rear of
the enemy and put them to the sword without resistance, and thus
contributed greatly to the complete victory which followed.
The gratitude of his sovereign for his faithful services invested
him with the dignity of the most noble Order of the Garter, and
with the office of Lord Warden of the West Marches. He died
October 24th, 1525, and was buried with his wife, under the rich
altar-tomb, in the south aisle of the choir of Lanercost.
Brougham Castle in the thirteenth century, the time of John de
Veteripont, the most ancient owner that history points out, is
called in instruments wherein his name is mentioned, the _house of
Brougham_; from which it is inferred that license had not then been
procured to embattle it. It came to the Cliffords by the marriage
of his grand-daughter Isabella, the last of the Veteriponts,
with Roger, son and heir of Roger Clifford, of Clifford Castle,
Herts, whom the king had appointed guardian to her during her
minority.[20] This Roger de Clifford built the greater part of the
Castle, and had placed over its inner gateway the inscription--THIS
MADE ROGER; "which," says Bishop Nicholson, "some would have to
be understood not so much of _his_ raising the Castle, as of the
Castle raising _him_, in allusion to his advancement of fortune by
his marriage, this Castle being part of his wife's inheritance."
On the death of Roger, who was slain in the Isle of Anglesey, in a
skirmish with the Welsh, his widow, during her son's minority, sat
as sheriffess in the county of Westmorland, upon the bench with the
judges there, "concerning the legality of which," says the Countess
of Pembroke, "I obtained Lord Hailes his opinion."[21]
Her grandson Robert built the eastern parts of the Castle. During
the subsequent centuries it fell several times into decay, having
been destroyed by the Scots and by fire, and was as often restored.
King James was magnificently entertained at Brougham Castle, on
the sixth, seventh, and eighth days of August, 1617, on his return
from his last journey out of Scotland. After this visit it appears
to have been again injured by fire, and to have lain ruinous until
1651 and 1652, when it was repaired for the last time, by Anne,
Countess of Pembroke, who tells us, "After I had been there myself
to direct the building of it, did I cause my old decayed Castle
of Brougham to be repaired, and also the tower called the _Roman
Tower_, in the said old castle, and the court house, for keeping
my courts in, with some dozen or fourteen rooms to be built in it
upon the old foundation." The _tower of leagues_ and the _Pagan
tower_ are mentioned in her Memoirs; and also a state room called
_Greystocke Chamber_. But the room in which her father was born,
her "blessed mother" died, and King James lodged in 1617, she never
fails to mention, as being that in which she lay, in all her visits
to this place. After the death of the Countess, the Castle appears
to have been neglected, and has gradually gone to decay.