OF THE POLITICAL VALUE OF CASTLES UNDER THE SUCCESSORS
OF THE CONQUEROR.
It is rather remarkable that castles should not occupy, even
incidentally, a more prominent place in the “Domesday Survey,” as
they formed a very important feature in the country; were closely,
for the most part, attached to landed property; and were of great
political importance. No great baron was without a castle upon each
of his principal estates, nor was any bishop secure of his personal
safety unless so provided. At the death of the Conqueror, it was the
possession of Winchester Castle that gave to William Rufus the royal
treasure, and enabled his adherents to acquire the castles of Dover
and Hastings, and thus, at the commencement of his reign, to secure a
safe communication with Normandy. The king, it is true, had the people
on his side and owed his eventual success to their support, but the
barons of his party depended largely upon their fortresses. Archbishop
Lanfranc held Saltwood, which the earthworks show even then to have
been strong; Willam de Warren held Lewes and Ryegate and the strong
hill of Coningsburgh in Yorkshire; Chester belonged to Earl Hugh, who
was supported by his fifteen barons, each of whom had his castle; and
in North Wales the Earl held Diganwy, which, covered in front by the
Conwy water, closed the seaward pass from that aggressive district.
With the Earl and on the side of Rufus were Robert de Tilliol, who
held Flint and Rhuddlan, and Scaleby and other castles on the Scottish
border; while Bishop Wolstan, representing the English feeling, held
his episcopal castle of Worcester against Urso d’Abitot and a swarm of
Marcher barons who crossed the Severn to assail him.
Nevertheless, the lords of the castles were mostly on the side of Duke
Robert. Such were Alan the Black and Ribald his brother, the lords of
Richmond and Middleham; Stephen of Holderness, strong in his sea-girt
rock of Scarborough; the Mowbrays, Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutance,
Justiciary to the Conqueror, and a great soldier; and Robert Mowbray,
his brother’s son, who held the impregnable rock of Bamburgh and the
great castle of Axholm in the fens of Lincolnshire; both strong, though
in a different kind of strength. With them was the powerful Earl Roger
of Shrewsbury with his border following; and at a later period Robert
de Belesme, his successor, builder of Bridgenorth and Carreghova, and
superior lord of many border castles. In the west, Duke Robert was
supported by Bernard Newmarch, who held the castles of Brecknock and
Builth, and a large and fortified tract of Monmouthshire; with whom
were William of Breteuil, son of William Fitz-Osborn, and lord of
Hereford; Roger de Lacy of Ewias; and William Earl of Eu, the owner
of the strong rock of Hastings, who at that time held the castle and
walled city of Gloucester. Besides these great leaders were, on the
same side, Ralph Mortimer of Wigmore; Walter Giffard, whose castle
on one bank of the Buckinghamshire Ouse, combined with a similar
moated mound on the other, commanded that town and its river; Ralph
Guader, who held Norwich; and Hugh Bigot, his successor there, lord of
Framlingham, after Norwich the strongest place, both in earthworks and
masonry, in East Anglia. Between Bristol and Bath the Mowbrays ravaged
the country up to the tower of Berkeleyness, the present castle being
then but an earthwork; and with them were Hugh de Graintmaisnel, who
held Hinckley and Leicester castles; and William de Carileph, at first
one of William’s prime councillors; but who afterwards changed sides,
and was enabled to do so with safety from his possession of the keep
of Durham. Bishop Odo, who held Rochester Castle (even then a place of
great strength), and with it the passage of the Medway, placed there
Eustace of Boulogne; and himself, with his brother Earl Robert and five
hundred knights, held the Roman Pevensey, strengthened by a mound and
some other English additions in earth.
Rufus, however, with far more energy than his brother Robert, had also
the popular feeling on his side, which enabled him to make head even
against this powerful combination. He laid siege to Pevensey, and took
it after a seven weeks’ siege. He then assailed and took Rochester,
and finally Tonbridge, held by Gilbert Fitz-Richard, the consequence
of which success was the banishment of Bishop Odo. Robert Mowbray was
beaten back from before the walls of Ilchester Castle, now utterly
destroyed; and Bishop William was forced to surrender Durham. Carlisle,
wasted by the Danes in 877, received from Rufus a castle and a keep,
now standing; and Newcastle, similarly provided in 1080, also retains
its keep, and a gatehouse with some traces of the exterior wall. In
1098 Malcolm of Scotland, the husband of St. Margaret, was slain
before Alnwick, then better known as Murielden; and Mowbray was driven
from Tynewald Castle back upon Bamburgh, which seems to have been
finally taken by means of a “malvoisin,” which in this instance was
evidently an entrenched camp thrown up to the west of the castle, and
employed probably as the headquarters of a blockade. In this reign also
the conquest of South Wales was completed, and the foundations laid of
a chain of castles from Gloucester and Hereford to Pembroke, the main
links of which were Chepstow and Abergavenny, Caerleon and Cardiff,
Builth and Brecknock, Caerkennen, Caermarthen, Cardigan, Tenby, and
Carew. How far these Welsh castles were at once constructed of masonry
is uncertain. Besides Chepstow, two only, or at most three, and those
subordinate, Ogmore, Penlline, and Newcastle, exhibit decided Norman
features; but however this may be, neither Fitz-Hamon, Newmarch, nor
Arnulph of Montgomery were likely, in the face of foes so formidable,
to be satisfied with defences in any way inferior to the strongest of
that day.
The reign of Henry I. was prolific in castles. It is probable that to
him is due the greater number of our extant rectangular keeps, by the
construction of which he carried to completion the plans sketched out
by his father, which his brother had been too busy and too much pressed
to take in hand. In this reign, especially between 1114 and 1121, most
of the Welsh castles were completed. Bristol and Cardiff castles were
the work of Robert Earl of Gloucester. Bishop Roger of Salisbury built
Sherborne, Salisbury, the Devizes, and Malmesbury; and his brother,
Alexander of Lincoln, Sleaford and Newark. “Castella erant crebra per
totam Angliam.” Most of these were great and strong, very different
from the hasty and unlicensed structures of the succeeding reign.
Henry, like Rufus, commenced his reign with the taking of Winchester
with its treasures. Flambard, who had been entrusted with the great
episcopal castles of Durham and Norham, was imprisoned in the keep
of London. The outlawry of Robert Malet and Robert de Lacy, in 1101,
gave Henry their castles in Yorkshire and Suffolk; and in 1102 Ivo
de Graintmaisnel was driven from his mound at Hinckley, and forced
to flee the country. Also the King obtained, by forfeiture, the
castles of William de Warenne, though these were afterwards restored.
Henry, in 1103, laid his hands upon Arnulph de Montgomery’s castle of
Pembroke, and on those of Robert of Poitou, his brother, between the
Ribble and the Mersey. The death of William Earl of Moretaine brought
in the almost impregnable hill-castle of Montacute, with Trematon,
Launceston, Tintagel, Boscastle, and Restormel, and other Cornish
fortresses. The fall of Robert de Belesme gave the crown the castles
of Arundel,—a lesser Windsor in its plan, and scarcely inferior in
its position; of Shrewsbury, the mound of which still towers over the
Severn, and dwarfs even the extensive and incongruous railway-station
at its foot; of Bridgenorth, where a fragment of the keep shows what it
must once have been; and of Carreghova, of which the very traces are
well-nigh effaced. Belesme retired to Normandy, where he is said to
have been lord of thirty-four castles; but the fragments of his power
only betrayed him into further rebellion, so that he ended his life a
prisoner and an exile on the castled mound of Wareham.
There still remained, indeed, in private hands a considerable number
of castles, the owners of which found it convenient to give way, and
thus to retain a portion of their influence. Such were Bourne in
Lincolnshire; Malton, held by Fitz-John, in Yorkshire; Beaudesert in
Warwickshire; the episcopal castles of Newark and Sleaford, and that of
Oakham. There were also Warblington in Hampshire; and in Cumberland,
Egremont and Cockermouth.
The rebellion of 1118 gave to Henry the castles of Hugh de Gournay
in the west, of Stephen of Albemarle at Scarborough, of Eustace of
Breteuil, of Richard de l’Aigle, and of Henry Earl of Eu; together
with the Mowbray castles of Thirsk, Malzeard, and Burton in Lonsdale.
Nearly the whole of the strongholds thus acquired were retained by
Henry in his own hands, and Suger states that in Normandy the principal
castles were by him either destroyed or held: “Fere omnes turres et
quæcunque fortissima castra Normanniæ ... aut eversum iri fecit ...
aut si dirutæ essent propriæ voluntati subjugavit.” In either country
he laid hands on the castles; but where the delinquents held in both,
it was upon those in England that the forfeiture was most rigidly
enforced. Among the exceptions were William de Roumare, who was allowed
to hold Lincoln; and similar protection was shown to Ralph de Conches,
William de Tancarville, William de Warenne, Walter Giffard, and William
d’Albini. Among their castles were Ryegate, Lewes, Coningsburgh, and
Castle Rising, Buckingham and Arundel.
It has been said that Henry did not himself construct any new castles.
This is probable enough, as all the sites of importance had been
occupied by his father; but it is not improbable, judging from the
internal evidence afforded by their remains, that he completed such of
his father’s castles as were left unfinished. Of baronial castles, the
grand fortress of Kenilworth, by far the most important strong place
in the midland counties, was constructed in this reign, though very
probably upon an English site, by the founder of the house of Clinton.
In this reign also were probably constructed the masonry of Northampton
Castle, by Simon de St. Liz, and that of Old Sarum and Odiham by Bishop
Roger. The keep of St. Briavel’s, now destroyed, was reconstructed, or
built of masonry; and Ralph Flambard laid the foundations of and seems
to have completed the keep of Norham.
The issue of the contest between Matilda and Stephen turned very much
upon the castles over which each had control. It was again by the
seizure of Winchester Castle and its treasure that Stephen was able
to celebrate his coronation in the adjacent cathedral. It was under
the walls of Reading Castle, strongly placed between the meeting of
the Kennet and the Thames, that he trusted himself to meet Matilda’s
adherents, and with them to lay the corpse of her father before the
altar of the great Abbey that he had founded, and the ruins of which
have long survived those of its secular neighbour. From Oxford, strong
in its walled city and partially water-girdled keep, Stephen issued
his first charter, so full of promises to his new subjects; and thence
he went to Durham, one of the strongest castles of the North, to
meet David of Scotland, who had wasted the border from Carlisle to
Newcastle, and taken Alnwick and Norham, though foiled before Wark
and Bamborough. One of David’s principal concessions was the castle
of Newcastle. On the other hand, he obtained the confirmation to him
of that of Carlisle, long the gate of Scotland. The two, posted one
at each end of the lines of Severus and Hadrian, are still tolerably
perfect, as is the impregnable Bamburgh, the Norman keep of which, in
Stephen’s time, was new.
From Oxford, still his central stronghold, on his return to the
South, Stephen conceded his second charter, less distinct in its
promises as the danger of his position seemed less pressing. On the
report of his death in 1136, it was trust in their strong castles of
Exeter, Plympton, Okehampton, Norwich, Framlingham, and Bungay, that
encouraged Baldwin de Redvers and Hugh Bigot to rise in arms. Bath had
then a castle and was a walled town. Stephen laid siege to and took
the castle, and thence, with two hundred horse, rode to Exeter, where
Rougemont, its citadel, was strong and well garrisoned. The siege
was a remarkable one, and the warlike machines employed both within
and without were of a formidable character. The citizens were with
Stephen, so the attack was on the city front. The bridge from the city,
still standing, was one point of attack. A “malvoisin” was constructed,
whence stones were poured in upon the garrison; the walls were ruined,
and the towers much injured. Finally the well ran dry, and the garrison
surrendered upon terms. Plympton also capitulated, and Norwich was
taken.
On Stephen’s arrival from Normandy, in 1137, he secured the castles
of Bourne, Wareham, and Corfe, the two latter held by Fitz-Alured and
Redvers. A second rising, in 1138, timed with an invasion by the Scots,
turned in some degree upon the strength of the castle of Bedford, then
including a pair of moated mounds on the opposite banks of the Ouse, of
which one is entirely removed, and the other remains deprived of its
masonry, and shorn of its fair dimensions. This castle was held by the
sons of Milo de Beauchamp, its owner, and only surrendered after a long
and severe siege conducted by Stephen in person, which terminated in a
blockade. The defence was very able, and the surrender upon fair terms.
Meantime David, linking the interests of Matilda with his own claims to
the great earldom of Huntingdon, twice crossed the border in the spring
of 1128, retiring as Stephen approached, but a third time returning
in August. He took Norham, and much injured its superb keep, built
by Bishop Flambard in 1121, a noble ruin which still frowns over the
Tweed, and is rich in historical recollections. Bamburgh, Alnwick,
and Malton were held for Stephen by Eustace Fitz-John. Parts of the
wall and inner gate of Alnwick are of about this date; but Malton has
disappeared, though the earlier Roman camp may still be traced. David’s
progress was also checked by Clitheroe, a very strong castle, of which
the Norman keep, one of the very smallest extant, crowns the top of an
almost impregnable rock.
At this period Stephen’s position was most critical. Against him, on
the Welsh Marches, Talbot held Goderich and Hereford, while Ludlow
and Dudley, Shrewsbury and Whittington, were in the hands of Paganel,
Fitz-Alan, and William Peverel. Further south, the barons of Somerset
were encouraged against him by William de Mohun from his hold at
Dunster, strong naturally and by art; and by Fitz-John at Harptree,
a castle in the defiles of the Mendips; while Maminot both held and
strongly augmented Dover. Stephen, however, was active and he was
brave. Leaving Archbishop Thurstan to muster and encourage his northern
supporters, he himself marched south, strengthened the garrison of
Bath, and threatened Bristol. Thence he entered Somerset, and took by
siege the Lovel seat of Castle Cary, of which the earthworks cover a
hillside; secured Harptree by surprise, and thence doubled back upon
Hereford, which won, he next recovered the old British and English
fortress of Pengwern or Shrewsbury. Bristol alone held out, strong in
its newly-built keep, and in the presence of Robert Earl of Gloucester,
its builder.
The “battle of the Standard,” A.D. 1138, was fought in the open field,
under the leadership of D’Aumâle; but it was also named from North
Allerton, where, intersected by the railway, are still seen formidable
earthworks far older than Bishop Puiset’s castle which surmounted them,
and which was afterwards entirely razed by Henry II. The victory of
North Allerton was enhanced by the capture of Dover by Stephen’s Queen.
The castle of Carlisle still remained in the possession of King David,
and thence he renewed the war, and in the following year obtained
for his son Henry the earldom of Northumberland; with the exception,
however, of the castles of Newcastle and Bamburgh.
When, in 1139, Stephen’s change of policy lost him the support of
the clergy, led by his ambitious brother the Bishop of Winchester,
his first blow was struck at the episcopal castles. Of these, the
Devizes, Sherborne, and Malmesbury belonged to Bishop Roger of Sarum.
Malmesbury, an episcopal encroachment upon the adjacent Abbey, was
wholly the Bishop’s work, and is now utterly destroyed. Sherborne,
a very ancient episcopal seat, still retains its early earthworks,
and a keep and gatehouse, the work of Bishop Roger; and although of
the Devizes there remain but a few fragments of its circular keep,
the earthworks (the grandest in England) show that it may well have
deserved its great reputation. These Stephen seized upon, and he also
took Newark-upon-Trent, still admired for its lofty and extended front,
and for its magnificent Norman entrance. With Newark fell Sleaford,
both built by Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, nephew of Bishop Roger, and
also a great builder of castles. Sleaford is utterly demolished, and
being entirely post-conquestal, had scarcely any earthworks to preserve
its memory.
Among the events of this important year were the taking of Nottingham
and Marlborough Castles by Stephen; his attack on Ludlow; the
appearance on the scene of his rival, the Empress Matilda; and his
siege of Arundel, in which castle she took refuge with D’Albini and
Queen Adeliza his wife. Nottingham is gone. Of Marlborough only a fine
mound remains, upon which stood its circular keep. Much of Ludlow,
especially its rectangular keep, played a part in Stephen’s siege, as
did a part of the existing exterior wall, whence the grappling-hook
was thrown by which the King was hooked, and was being dragged up to
its battlements, when he was rescued by the Scottish Prince Henry.
Arundel preserves its earthworks pretty much as they must have appeared
in the reign of the Confessor; and with its shell-keep on its mound,
and the original gatehouse at its foot, gives to the modern visitor
a fair notion of the appearance of the defences before which Stephen
pitched his camp. It was also in 1139 that De Redvers, returning to
England, landed under the Conqueror’s castle of Wareham, on the margin
of the Poole water. From Wareham he proceeded to Corfe, a seat of the
Kings of Mercia, where he was besieged by Stephen.
It was during this period of the war between Stephen, Matilda, and
the Church party, that were constructed the multitude of unlicensed
castles (“castra adulterina”) employed not merely for the security
of the builders, but to enable them to prey upon their neighbours
with impunity. Nothing could well be worse than the circumstances
under which these castles were built, and the purposes for which they
were employed. “Stephen,” says John of Tynemouth, quoted by Dugdale,
“concessit ut quilibet procerum suorum munitionem, seu castrum, in
proprio fundo facere posset.” William of Jumieges and Malmesbury
compare the times to those of Normandy during the minority of Duke
William; and other writers declare the state of England to have
resembled that of Jerusalem during the Roman siege. There was no rule
and no responsibility. The unhappy peasants were forced to labour in
the construction of the strongholds of tyranny. It would seem that
these castles were built with great rapidity, and with but little
expenditure of labour upon earthworks, for in the next reign they
were destroyed without difficulty, and scarcely any of their sites
are now to be recognised. They were the work of the lesser barons,
probably with the connivance of their chief lords, or even of Stephen
and Matilda, who were little scrupulous as to the terms on which they
accepted assistance. This multiplication of castles without the licence
of the sovereign was no novelty, and was forbidden on the Continent by
the celebrated “Edictum Pistense” of Charles the Bald in 864, already
cited.
Another irregularity was the admission to the title of earl of several
persons unfitted to receive so great an honour, and whose only claim
to distinction was that they were leaders of mercenaries. Stephen was
not in a condition to endow all of them with the third penny of the
revenues of a county, the usual appanage of an earl. Many of the earls
created by Stephen stood, however, in a very different position. Such
were Geoffrey de Mandeville, Lord of Plessy and Walden, who accepted
the Earldom of Essex from both parties; Alberic de Vere, who built the
noble keep of Hedingham, and was the first of the long line of the
Earls of Oxford; Hugh Bigot, who held the Earldom of Norfolk; Richard
de Clare, who held that of Hertford; D’Aumâle, of Yorkshire; Gilbert de
Clare, of Pembroke; Robert de Ferrers, of Derby; and probably William
de Ypres, the Earldom of Kent. Stephen seems to have created, in all,
eight; and the Empress six,—Cambridge, Cornwall, Essex, Hereford,
Salisbury, and Somerset.
From Arundel, Matilda, it is said by Stephen’s courtesy, moved to
Bristol, where her brother, Robert Earl of Gloucester, held his castle
on the marshy confluence of the Frome with the Avon. Robert also at
that time held the royal castle of Gloucester, long since destroyed,
and a prison built on its site; and he was probably builder also of
the shell-keep still standing upon the mound of Cardiff. At that time
Matilda’s friends held Dover, with the square keep of Canterbury,
placed just within the _enceinte_ of the yet older city ditch, and
almost within bowshot of the still more venerable mound of Dane John.
Mention is also made of the castles of Trowbridge and Cerne as recently
erected. The latter was taken by Stephen by storm, before the attack on
Malmesbury. Trowbridge held out with success.
The great event of 1141 was the siege, or rather the battle, of
Lincoln. The castle had been surprised, and was held by Ranulph Earl of
Chester and his half-brother William de Roumare. As Stephen approached,
Earl Ranulph left the place secretly to procure assistance from the
Earl of Gloucester. This was afforded, and the two earls, with 10,000
men, some of them Earl Robert’s Welsh followers, crossed the Trent, and
found Stephen drawn up to receive them. The result of the battle was
the capture of Stephen, and the confirmation of Earl Ranulph in Lincoln
Castle. On this Matilda went to her royal castle at Winchester, a part
of the defences of the old Venta Belgarum, and characterised by a large
mound, now removed. Here Bishop Henry, safe in his rectangular keep of
Wolvesey, still standing near the Cathedral, in the opposite angle of
the city, treated with her almost as equal with equal, but acknowledged
her as Lady of England. Their accord, however, was neither cordial nor
of long duration. Upon the Queen’s return, in some discredit, from
London, an open quarrel broke out. She attacked Wolvesey, and the
Bishop retaliated upon the royal castle with better success.
Under the escort of Brian Fitz-Count and Milo, to whom Matilda had
given the Earldom of Hereford and the “Castle and Mote” of that ancient
city, she fled from Winchester, Earl Robert guarding her rear. They
were pursued. Matilda reached Ludgershall Castle in safety, and then
went to the Devizes; but Earl Robert was taken on the way by William
of Ypres, and imprisoned in Rochester Castle. Stephen was then a
prisoner in Bristol Castle; and in November, 1141, the Earl and King
were exchanged. A month later, at the Synod of Westminster, the pains
of excommunication were denounced against all who built new castles, or
offered violence to the poor,—a significant conjunction.
Stephen’s illness and Earl Robert’s absence in Normandy checked for
a short time active hostilities, and meantime Stephen held the Tower
of London, and Matilda the castle of Oxford. Late in 1142, Stephen
attacked and took Oxford, and blockaded the castle until the winter set
in, and the stock of provisions fell short. The Thames was frozen, and
the ground covered with snow, by the aid of which Matilda, robed in
white, escaped across the river, and fled to Fitz-Count at Wallingford.
The castle was then surrendered. Its grand mound is yet untouched;
and below it, upon the river, is a large square tower of the eleventh
century. Part of the city wall also remains.
Before Reading, Stephen had taken several strong but less important
fortresses, such as Bow and Arrow Castle on the Cliff of Portland,
which still remains, and Carisbroke, the strength of the Isle of
Wight. He took also Lulworth, in Purbeck, represented by a far later
residence. Cirencester, which he burned, seems never to have been
restored; and Farringdon, built in haste by the Earl of Gloucester,
was also swept away. Stephen’s strength, however, lay in London and
the east; and that of Matilda about Gloucester and Bristol, and in the
west. Stephen also held Pevensey. The great midland barons stood aloof,
biding their time. Thus Roger de Bellomont and his brother Waleran, of
Meulan, held Leicester with its Roman walls and English earthworks,
protected by the meads of the Soar; along the edge of which, and at
the foot of the mound, is still seen the Norman Hall, and hard by the
stately church of St. Mary de Castro, also in large part Norman. They
also held Mount Sorrell, at that time a strong castle built upon a rock
of syenite, but now quarried away, both rock and castle, to macadamise
the highways of the metropolis. Saher de Quincy was strong about
Hinckley, where the early mound, stripped of its masonry (if, indeed,
it ever received any), still guards the eastern entrance to the town.
The Earl of Chester held Lincoln as his own; and the hill of Belvoir,
the cynosure of the Midland, was guarded by the grand shell-keep of
Trusbut and De Ros, burned down and rebuilt after a tasteless fashion
in our own days.
In 1146, death deprived Matilda of the Earls of Gloucester and
Hereford. She retired to Normandy; but her place was taken by the
younger Plantagenet, her son. In this year also Stephen availed himself
of the presence of the Earls of Chester and Essex at his court to seize
their persons, and to force them to render up, the one the castles of
Lincoln and Northampton, the other that of Plessy, of which the moated
mound and contained church are still seen, and Stansted Montfitchet,
now almost merged in a railway station, and which then vied with the
old castle of the Bishop of London at Stortford. Walden, also thus
gained, is still famous for its earthworks, and for the fragment of
its Norman keep, composed, like Bramber and Arques, of flint rubble
deprived of its ashlar casing.
Earl Geoffrey having thus purchased his liberty, employed it in burning
the castle of Cambridge, the mound of which, sadly reduced in size,
still, from the interior of the Roman camp, overlooks the river. While
in pursuit of the Earl, Stephen is said to have built certain new and
probably temporary castles. More probably he refortified with timber
some of the moated mounds, such as Clare, Eye, and Bures, of which
there are many in Essex and Suffolk. Works in masonry he certainly had
neither time nor means then to construct. Soon afterwards the Bishop
of Winchester ceased to be papal legate, and found it convenient to
support his brother’s party, and persuaded him to refuse permission
to Archbishop Theobald to attend the new Pope at Rheims. Theobald,
however, defied the King, and on his return took shelter within the
unusually lofty walls and strong earthworks of Framlingham, a Bigot
castle in Suffolk. About this time mention is made of castles at
Cricklade in Wilts, at Tetbury and at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire. At
Coventry also there was a castle, and another at Downton in Wiltshire,
still celebrated for its moot-hill.
In 1149, York opened its gates to young Henry of Anjou, who assembled
a considerable force, with which he met the royal army at Malmesbury,
though without an actual collision. Of 1151 is on record a curious
convention in which the Earls of Leicester and Chester were concerned,
under which no new castles were to be built between Hinckley and
Coventry, Coventry and Donnington, Donnington and Leicester; nor at
Gateham, nor at Kinoulton, nor between Kinoulton and Belvoir, Belvoir
and Oakham, Oakham and Rockingham. In 1152 occurred the celebrated
siege of Wallingford, held for Matilda by Brian Fitz-Count. Enough of
Wallingford remains to show how strong it must formerly have been; and
the temporal was fully equalled by the spiritual power, for the town,
always small, contained just twice as many churches as apostolic Asia.
Stephen, unable to approach the Castle from its landward side, threw up
a work still to be traced at Crowmarsh, on the left bank of the river,
and there posted his engines. Young Henry, holding Malmesbury, Warwick,
and about thirty other not very distant castles, marched to the relief
of Wallingford, and invested the lines of Crowmarsh, besieging the
besiegers. Stephen advanced to their aid from London, and Henry seems
to have moved into the town, holding the passage of the river at the
bridge by a special work. Wallingford was thus saved, and Henry, early
in 1153, laid siege to Stamford, where, as at York, Hertford, and
Buckingham, two mounds commanded the river; and stormed Nottingham,
where were similar works upon the Trent. Stephen, falling back into the
eastern counties, took Ipswich, a castle of which even the site is lost.
The death of Eustace, Stephen’s son, in August, 1153, paved the way
to an arrangement between the rivals. Stephen was to remain King, and
Henry became his acknowledged successor. William, Stephen’s surviving
son, was to retain the Warenne castles and estates, which included
Ryegate, of which traces remain; Castle-Acre, with its mound and other
earthworks, placed within a Roman encampment; Castle-Rising, one of
the least injured and most remarkable Norman keeps in England; Lewes,
with its double mound and strong natural position; and Coningsburgh, an
English site of excessive strength, though not then as yet celebrated
for its noble tower. He also had the castles of Wirmegay and Bungay,
Norwich, and the castle and honour of Pevensey. It was also agreed that
the garrisons of the royal castles generally should swear allegiance to
Henry and to Stephen; and the castellans of Lincoln, London, Oxford,
Southampton, and Windsor gave hostages that on Stephen’s death they
would give them over to Henry. It was also agreed at a conference at
Dunstable in 1154, that all castles built since the death of Henry
I. should be destroyed (a clause which may be taken to show that no
absolutely new castles of very great importance had been built by
Matilda or Stephen); and that all mercenary troops should be sent back
to their own countries. The office of sheriff, as representing the
crown in the counties, was to be strengthened.
Stephen died in October, 1154, and his rival ascended the throne as
Henry II. without opposition.