THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF
THE TWELFTH CENTURY (_continued_).
The castles of the shires of Nottingham and Derby, of Yorkshire,
Lancashire, and Cheshire, complete the tale of the fortresses south of
the Tees and Lune. Nottingham, one of the castles ordered and possibly
built by the Conqueror, on a rock high above the Trent, contained
one of the grandest of the rectangular keeps. It was removed in the
seventeenth century, and replaced by a building of about the same
dimensions, but of very different character. At the foot of the rock
were the two mounds thrown up in the tenth century to command the
passage of the Trent, but these also have been removed. Another castle
upon the Trent was that of Newark, the work of Alexander, Bishop of
Lincoln, in the twelfth century. The very considerable remains include
the front towards the river, an imposing mass of masonry, the effect
of which is heightened by the great gatehouse upon its flank, a Norman
work of very unusual size and splendour. The ground plan of this castle
is nearly square, and may represent a Roman encampment. There was a
castle at Worksop.
The oldest and most remarkable of the Derbyshire castles is that of
Castleton or Peveril in the Peak, with its small but strong rectangular
keep, built on the edge of the precipice, at the base of which is the
celebrated cavern, one of the marvels of the Peak. Bolsover, now nearly
all rebuilt, was also a Peveril castle. Of Sheffield, the castle of
the Furnivals and Talbots, placed upon the junction of the Sheaf and
the Don, nothing now remains. There seem to have been early castles,
or perhaps fortified houses, at Codnor, a Zouch seat, Melbourne, and
Gresley. Also Bogis and Hareston were Derbyshire castles in the reign
of Henry II.
The wide expanse of Yorkshire contained much worthy of defence, and was
inhabited by a race of men not indisposed to provide it. The mounds of
York, both of the first class in bulk and elevation, were posted on
either bank of the Ouse, here a deep and broad stream. Of these mounds,
one stands on the junction of the Foss with the Ouse, above a tract
of marshy ground, between it and the wall of the Roman Eboracum. Here
the Conqueror placed his first castle, and in the keep and within the
spacious area below he posted William Malet and his 500 knights and
their followers. Amidst much of modern work the old walls may still
be traced, and a very fine shell, though of Early English date, still
stands on the summit of the mound. The other mound, the Bayle Hill,
south of the river, and connected with the earthworks of the later
city, was also fortified by William, but in haste and with timber only,
which does not appear ever to have been replaced with masonry. The
city is strongly fortified with walls and a ditch, and the celebrated
gateways or bars contain each a nucleus or core of Norman masonry. Next
to York in importance is Scarborough, the stronghold of William le
Gros, Earl of Aumarle, and the citadel of Holderness. The castle may
be said to contain the whole table top of a rocky promontory, defended
on three sides by a precipitous cliff, at the foot of which is the
German Ocean, while towards the land is a deep natural depression. The
approach was over a narrow causeway, raised upon arches, broken in
the centre by a drawbridge and bridge tower, covered at the outer end
by a strong barbican, and terminating below a lofty rectangular keep,
much of which still remains, and by the side of which was the final
entrance, and probably another drawbridge. In the words of Robert de
Brunne—
“Was there none entree
That to the castle gan ligge
But a straight causee
At the end a drawbrigge.”
Scarborough is not only a strong castle by nature and by art, but is
capable of containing several thousand men,—in fact, a small army.
South of Scarborough, also upon the coast, but where the natural
advantages of the cliff had to be supplied by enormous earthworks, was
Skipsea, held and strengthened by Drogo, William’s Flemish lieutenant
in that country. Aldbrough was also a Holderness castle, built by Odo
of Aumarle, of which there remain only the mound and the wall.
Between Scarborough and York stood Malton, a seat of Earl Siward, and
held by David of Scotland against King Stephen. The masonry is now
gone, but the site is still marked by the Roman camp within or upon the
edge of which the castle stood. North of Malton is Pickering, once
the burh of the English Morcar, where are the remains of a shell keep
upon the mound. Here the mound is central between and common to both
wards. The general enclosing curtain is tolerably perfect, and the
whole affords an excellent example of the manner in which the Norman
architects dealt with an earthwork when the mound stood in the centre
of an enclosure, instead of as usual upon one side of it. On the edge
of the Honour of Pickering is Hamlake or Helmsley, the seat of the
Barons de Ros before they inherited Belvoir, and where the remains
of a very late rectangular keep stand on one side of a rectangular
court, having two regular gatehouses, walls built against lofty banks,
and beyond them strong and extensive outworks in earth and masonry.
It is difficult to form an opinion upon the age of these earthworks.
They impinge upon and are certainly later than a small Roman camp. At
Mulgrave and Normanby were castles; at the latter are still parts of a
rectangular Norman keep. Mulgrave stands on the sea cliff. It was the
seat of the Saxon Wada and afterwards the Castle of Nigel Fossard and
the Mowbrays. At Gilling some early vaults and walls are worked into
the later castle of the Fairfaxes. Thirsk, Black Bourton in Lonsdale,
and Malzeard, the “capita” of three Mowbray Baronies, all contained
castles of some importance in the twelfth century. Of Malzeard and
Bourton the earthworks are considerable. Tadcaster, a place of strength
both in Roman and Danish times, possessed also a Norman castle, of
which, however, only the mounds remain; and there is even less of Hugh
Puisèt’s work of Northallerton, surrendered to Henry II. in 1174, and
ordered to be destroyed in 1177. Its earthworks are intersected by a
railway. Of Tanfield, a Fitz-Hugh and Marmion castle, there are still
some small remains.
The great castle of North Yorkshire is Richmond, so called by Earl
Alan, who obtained in 1070 the possessions of the English Edwin, and
removed the seat from the adjacent Gilling, where the earthworks long
remained, to a stronger position on the Swale. The Norman Castle was
built in 1071: it includes a large area, most part of which is defended
by a natural cliff. The containing wall is mostly original, and within
its substance is a curious small Norman chapel. The rectangular keep
is placed at the weakest part of the circuit next to the town, and in
front of it are the remains of a barbican. The well-known “Registrum
Honoris de Richmond” specifies to which part of the castle the castle
guard of each great tenant was due, and the Hall which the family of
Scolland were bound to maintain and guard to this day bears their
name. The town was also walled. Near Richmond are the scanty and late
remains of Ravenswath, a Fitz-Hugh castle, and lower down the Swale
was Bedale, the castle of “Le beau Bryan de Fitz-Aleyne,” now entirely
gone, though the site is still pointed out. The warlike habits of the
Lords are, however, represented by a curious portcullis closing the
door of the belfry in the parish church. Middleham Castle, on the edge
of its celebrated moor, was founded by Ribald, brother to Earl Alan,
and ancestor in the female line of the great family of Neville, under
whom the Norman keep received its handsome addition and gained its
fame. Masham, a castle of the Scropes, is now a mere ruin. Drax seems
to have been held by Ralph Paganel as early as the reign of Stephen.
Merhall, in Weston, a castle of the Barons Lancaster, is reputed to
have been demolished by King John. Killarby, Albruck-on-Tees, and
Cawdwell were early castles, as were Armanthwaite, Bowes, Hatlesey,
Sigston, and Whorlton. Of Gleaston, the moot-hill remains, which is
thought to have been surmounted by a keep; and Hornby was also a
Lonsdale castle. The passes of the Lune were, however, more celebrated
for their defensive earthworks, due to the Danes or the English, than
for Norman castles.
Coningsborough, on the Don, is no less from its position than its
architecture one of the most remarkable of Yorkshire castles. Its grand
cylindrical tower, supported by buttresses of great depth and height,
is superior in design and workmanship to that of Pembroke, and almost
rivals Coucy. It stands on the summit of a steep rocky knoll, and has
been inserted into an earlier Norman wall, which is built upon the
steep edge of the rock and encloses a court of moderate area. Upon the
slope are the remains of the entrance and fortified approach, and at
the base of the hill is a ditch, or rather a ravine, and on one side
beyond it an outwork in earth. Probably the hill has been occupied as
a place of strength from a very early time, but the masonry is the
work of the Warrens Earls of Surrey, and is worthy of their greatness.
Knaresborough Castle, on the Nidd, visited by Henry II. in 1181,
occupies the top of a rocky promontory. Here the keep, though of Norman
form and dimensions, is of Decorated date, and remarkable for the
excellence of its details. The adjacent town has also been fortified,
though apparently by a ditch and bank only. Pontefract, another
celebrated Yorkshire castle, is also peculiar. Here the castle encloses
a large and elevated platform of rock, scarped and revetted all round,
and at one end of which, enclosing an earthen mound, is the circular
keep. Much of its masonry is of the eleventh or the early part of the
twelfth century. Its subterranean passages and chambers, of Norman
date, are curious. Besides these, Yorkshire contains many other castles
connected for the most part with great baronial families, and playing
their part in the defence of the country against the Scots. Harewood,
reputed a Danish seat, was the castle of Robert de Romeli; Skipton,
also built by that family, contains some early parts, and has always
been inhabited. Kilton was a castle of Cleveland, as was Castleton,
where the Bruces fortified a moated mound. Burton was granted by the
Conqueror to the same family, having been a seat of Earl Morcar; Danby
was also a Bruce castle, and Skelton Castle, built in 1140, was the
head of their barony. There was also the Archbishop’s castle of Cawood,
and Crake, a castle of the Bishops of Durham, said to be mentioned
in the seventh century. Baynard was a castle of the Lords Wake of
Cottingham; Leeds Castle was besieged by Stephen in 1139; Wilton was an
early castle of the Bulmers; Guisborough was founded in 1120; Sandal
Castle, under the walls of which was fought the battle of Wakefield,
was a late Warren castle, but the mound and earthworks are on a large
scale and old. Yorkshire contained also a considerable number of
fortified houses, some of which bore the names of castles, though
whether of early date is uncertain; such were Ryther and Slingsby.
There is said to have been a castle at Upsal, and one at Hilderskelf,
in the grounds of Castle-Howard. Wressill and Sheriff Hutton in their
present forms are very late, but the latter has an early history, and
near the parish church are some remarkable earthworks, which it is
thought mark the site of an early castle.
Yorkshire is rich in earthworks, and especially in moated mounds. Many
have already been mentioned as having been incorporated into later
castles; there are others of at least equal age and strength which do
not seem ever to have been connected with masonry: such are Mexbrough,
Castleton, Wakefield, Levington on the Leven, and others on the Lune.
Some of these are known to have been the seats of English Earls and
Thanes, and after the Conquest fell into disuse and decay, though at
that period they were probably formidable.
Lancashire, in the castle-building age, was not recognised as a county,
but was divided between the part then included in Yorkshire and the
tract between the Mersey and the Ribble. This latter formed the great
Barony of Roger of Poitou, a younger son of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury.
His castle of Penverdant or Penwortham is named in “Domesday,” and its
colossal mound is still called the Castle Hill, but the “caput” of
the barony was the Castle of Clitheroe, the small but strong square
keep of which stands on the point of a steep promontory of rock, and
must have been nearly inaccessible to assault. Upon Earl Roger’s fall,
Clitheroe came to the Lacys. The great castle of Lancashire is at
Lancaster, well placed high above the broad water of the Lune, and
within the area of a Roman castrum, whence it derives its name. Here,
as at Carlisle, the railway is so laid out as to show the castle to
great advantage. The castle is attributed to Roger of Poitou, but the
Norman keep, a grand structure, ninety feet high, appears somewhat
later, as is the Edwardian gateway, also a superb specimen of military
architecture. Unfortunately, being a prison, the whole is closed
against antiquarian visitors. There was a castle at Liverpool said
to have been built by the same Roger in 1076. Merhull and Kirkby are
Lancashire castles attributed to Gilbert Fitz-Reinfrid. There seems to
have been a castle at Manchester, on the Irwell, just outside the old
town, in Leland’s time, and one at Greenhalgh, and one near Rochdale,
probably at Castleton, where was the burh of the English lord. At
Halton is also a lofty burh, as usual near the church, indicating the
site of the “aula” of the English lord, and of the keep of his Norman
successor. Castlehead in Atterpole, near Cartmel, is also reputed
an early castle. The castles of Holland, Hornby, Peel, Thurland,
Ulverston, and Glaiston are probably of later date.
Cheshire, the palatine earldom of Hugh, named, probably by his
posterity, “the Wolf,” standing upon the Welsh border, demanded and
was supplied by many strong places. Chester, the seat of the earldom,
represents the Roman Deva, the Castra Legionum; and the Norman castle,
with a small and early rectangular keep occupying one corner of the
area, stands on the verge of the river Dee. Near to Chester in Wirrall
was Shotwick, of which the earthworks remain, and higher up upon the
Dee was Holt. Beeston is almost the only remarkable fortress in the
county. It stands on the platform of an inaccessible rock. The masonry
is probably late, but the deep well may be a part of the Norman castle.
All the fifteen barons of the palatinate, feudatories of Earl Hugh,
had castles, but these, representing private estates, mostly continued
to be occupied and became fortified houses. The sites and more or less
of the remains are to be seen of Halton and Kinderton, the castles of
William Fitz-Hugh and Venables; Shipbrook of the Vernons; Nantwich
of Piers Malbanke; Malpas of Robert Fitz-Hugh; and Dunham of Hamo de
Massy. There were also castles at Frodsham, Oldcastle, Uttersford,
Pulford, Dodleston, Shockleach, Nantwich, Stockport, Burton,
Ullerwood, Runcorn, West Derby, Northwick, Castle Cob, and probably
some others. A large number of these sites are marked by moated mounds,
and there are besides many similar mounds in the county to which
masonry does not appear to have been added.
Thus, between the Thames and the Tees, the Bristol Avon and the Lune,
the central parts of England contained at the close of the reign of
Henry II. at the least 214 castles, of which about 17 had rectangular
and 44 shell keeps. As to the remaining 153, nothing is accurately
known, or they are found not to have belonged to either of the great
types. Of these castles probably at least 180 stood on old English
sites, and very few indeed can be said with certainty to have stood
upon altogether new foundations.
There remain to be considered the castles of the northern counties,
Westmoreland and Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland, for centuries
exposed to invasions from beyond the Tweed, and fortified accordingly.
In this tract were at least four castles of the first class,—Durham,
Bamburgh, Norham, and the strongly-posted town and castle of Berwick;
and of the second class Brough, Appleby and Brougham, Cockermouth,
Carlisle, Prudhoe and Newcastle, Ford and Alnwick, and Warkworth.
Besides these were others, some perhaps at times almost their equals
in importance, but the continued incursions of the Scots were fatal to
the English fortresses, as were those of the English to the Scotch,
and thus many on both sides the border were again and again burned and
levelled, until they were either not rebuilt or only represented by
peel towers and castellets, which again were destroyed, so that of very
many castles the names only are preserved.
The lake country of Westmoreland was strong and contained little to
attract plunderers; but on its edge on the winding Eamont is Brougham
Castle, with a pure Norman keep, bearing testimony to the power of
the Barons Vipont, its early lords. It stands upon the side of a
well-preserved Roman camp, as does Brough, another Norman castle, also
with a rectangular keep. A similar keep at Appleby is still inhabited.
Kendal Castle is probably an early fortress, though nothing remains
of it but an encircling and not very early wall. Westmoreland is
peculiarly rich in fortified manor-houses, some of which may be on old
sites, though the greater number, like the castle of Penrith, belong
to a later period. There were peels or castellets at Bewly, Hartley,
Howgill, and Pendragon.
Carlisle is the citadel of Cumberland, and was for centuries the
most important fortress in the North, playing a considerable part in
every Scottish war. The name proclaims it to be of British origin, and
its position led to its adoption by the Romans; and, indeed, it is
said that the ditch of the southern of the two great lines of defence
thrown up by that people divides the castle from the town. Cumberland
bears many marks of Danish invasions, and in one of these in the
ninth century Carlisle was laid waste, and so remained, until in 1093
William Rufus founded the castle and added the town to his kingdom. His
successor raised the town into an episcopal city and completed what
was needed in the castle. Patched and neglected as is the keep, still
the principal features of the castle and the encircling walls are for
the most part original. Rose Castle, the episcopal seat, higher up the
river, is on an old site and in part old. Cockermouth, a castle of
William de Meschines and the Lords Lucy, remains, and near it, towards
St. Bees, is a fragment of Egremont, also built by De Meschines.
Scaleby, on the most exposed frontier, a De Tilliol castle—though
not of the eleventh century—is perfect; which cannot be said of
Bewcastle, built by the Lords de Vaux. Naworth, still inhabited, was
inherited by the Howards from the Dacres, who also probably gave name
to Dacre, rather a strong house than a castle. Besides these there
are or were strong places at St. Andrews, Askerton, Blencraik, St.
Bees, Castle-Corrock, Corby, Cannonby, Dalby, Dilston, Down Hall,
Dunvalloght, Drawdykes, Greystock, Horton, Harington, Hay-Castle,
Heton, Highgate, Irton, St. John’s, Featherstone, Kirk-Oswald, Kyloe
tower, Liddell Strength, Linstock, Lorton, Millom, Ousby, Rowcliffe,
Shank, Triermain, and Wolsty. Many of these are dotted about the more
exposed parts of the county; others are in the rear of the Roman wall.
The castle of Durham, taken alone, is rivalled both in position and
grandeur by Bamburgh, but taken in conjunction with the cathedral and
attendant buildings,
“Half church of God, half fortress ’gainst the Scot,”
the group is without an equal. The main feature of the castle is the
circular keep, a rebuilding of probably the oldest and most complete
of that type in Britain. The lower ward also is spacious, and includes
many buildings, some of them of early Norman date. The castle is posted
upon the root of the rocky peninsula included by a fold of the Tees,
and stands between the city and the grand old shrine and final resting
place of St. Cuthbert. The older parts were probably built in the reign
of the Conqueror, about 1088, when William, having banished Carileph,
held the temporalities of the see; other authorities attribute the work
to Bishop Comyn in 1072. The two chief castles of the Bishopric are
Raby and Barnard Castle, for Norham is virtually in Northumberland.
Raby, the celebrated seat of the Nevilles, is of Norman origin, as is
Barnard Castle, though its fine round tower is later. In plan this
castle much resembles Ludlow, to which its position is not inferior. It
is named from Barnard de Baliol. Branspeth, also a Neville castle, is a
noble structure, but of later date than Raby. Bowes has a late Norman
keep. Besides these may be mentioned Lumley, Staindrop, Streatlam,
Witton, Stockton, and Bishop Auckland. In the local quarrels the names
also occur of Evenwood Castle, near Auckland, Hilton, Holy Island, and,
better known from its later possessors, Ravensworth. The Bishopric was
well fortified, and was besides intersected by the deep ravines of the
Tees, and possessed the Tyne for a frontier.
“Foremost,”—the quotation is drawn from the writings of an author who,
beyond any other of the present day, makes his own mark upon what he
writes,—“in interest among the monuments of Northumberland, in the
narrower sense of the earldom beyond the Tyne, stand the castles;
the castles of every size and shape, from Bamburgh, where the castle
occupies the whole site of a royal city, to the smallest pele-tower,
where the pettiest squire or parson sought shelter for himself in the
upper stage, and for his cows in the lower. For the pele-towers of
the Border-land, like the endless small square towers of Ireland, are
essentially castles. They show the type of the Norman keep continued
on a small scale to a very late time. Perhaps many of the adulterine
castles which arose in every time of anarchy, and were overthrown at
every return of order, many of the eleven hundred and odd castles
which overspread the land during the anarchy of Stephen, may not have
been of much greater pretensions. At any rate, from the great keep of
Newcastle,—were we not in Northumberland we should speak of the far
greater keep of Colchester,—to the smallest pele-tower which survives
as a small part of a modern house, the idea which runs through all is
exactly the same. The castles and towers then, great and small, are
the most marked feature of the county. They distinguish it from those
shires where castles of any kind are rare; and the employment of the
type of the great keeps on a very small scale distinguishes it from
the other land of castles. In Wales the Norman keep is not usual;
the castles are, for the most part, later in date and more complex in
plan; and the small square private tower, the distinctive feature of
the North, is there hardly to be found. Northumberland has much to show
the traveller in many ways, from the Roman wall onward, but the feature
which is especially characteristic is that it is the land of castles.”
Northumberland is said to have contained sixty castles, but this must
include many fortified houses and castles of the private gentry.
Alnwick, better known as the seat of the earls of Northumberland than
from its builder and early lords, is a very fine example of a baronial
castle. The keep or central ward includes an open court, entered by a
Norman gateway encrusted by a Decorated gatehouse, and round which,
incorporated with the curtain, were the hall, kitchen, chapel, and
the lord’s lodgings. Most of the court has been rebuilt, but the old
lines and much of the old foundations have been preserved, and the
effect is probably not unlike that of the original Norman court. The
concentric defences, walls, towers, and barbican are old, though not
original. The castle stands between the town and the Alne, beyond which
is the park. The builder seems to have been Eustace de Vesci in the
late Norman period, before 1157. Three miles to the north is the tower
of Highfarland. Warkworth, built by one of the Fitz-Richard family in
the reign of Henry II., was much injured by William the Lion, who laid
siege to it in 1176, but still retains large remains of the original
work. Tynemouth, an island fortress, seems to have been a seat of Earl
Waltheof; it was long afterwards a Percy castle. Prudhoe, a castle of
the Umfravilles, built in the middle of the eleventh century, has a
small Norman keep, and most of the original curtain wall. The additions
include a barbican and a curious chapel over the gateway. The original
castle was attacked without success by William of Scotland in 1174.
The castle of Newcastle, high upon the bank of the Tyne and included
within the walls of the town, was built by Robert Curthose in 1080,
and is a very perfect example of a rectangular Norman keep, with a
curious oratory within the fore-building and a great number of mural
passages and chambers, so that in many respects it has the appearance
of being half a century later than its recorded date. It is also well
preserved, saving some injudicious alterations made many years since,
and it is accessible to every visitor, being in the hands of the local
antiquarian society, and under the safe and skilful protection of the
historian of the Roman wall.
Bamburgh is probably the oldest, and in all respects the noblest and
most historical of the Northumbrian fortresses. It was founded by the
flame-bearing Ida in the sixth century, when it was enclosed by a
hedge and afterwards by a wall, but most of its circuit was already
fortified by a natural cliff of great height. The castle occupies the
whole of this elevated platform of basalt, one side of which is upon
the sea beach. The wall is built along the edge of the precipice,
and rising above all is a magnificent square Norman keep of rather
late date, somewhat altered indeed within and still inhabited, but
retaining most of its original features, and altogether presenting a
very grand appearance. Bamburgh, like Alnwick, has come under the wand
of the enchanter, and any reference to it would indeed be incomplete
which took no notice of the following passage drawn from the _Saturday
Review_:—“At Bamburgh, above all, we feel that we are pilgrims come to
do our service at one of the great cradles of our national life. It is
the one spot in northern England around which the same interest gathers
which belongs to the landing-places of Hengest, of Ælle, and of Cerdic,
in the southern lands. It is to the Angle what these spots are to the
Jute and the Saxon. The beginnings of the Anglian kingdoms are less
rich in romantic and personal lore than are those of their Jutish and
Saxon neighbours. Unless we chose to accept the tale about Octa and
Ebussa, we have no record of the actual leaders of the first Teutonic
settlements in the Anglian parts of Britain. The earliest kingdoms seem
not to have been founded by new comers from beyond the sea, but to have
been formed by the fusing together of smaller independent settlements.
Yet around Bamburgh and its founder, Ida, all Northumbrian history
gathers. Though its keep is more than five hundred years later than
Ida’s time,—though it is only here and there that we see fragments of
masonry which we even guess may be older than the keep,—it is still a
perfectly allowable figure when the poet of northern Britain speaks
of Bamburgh as ‘King Ida’s fortress.’ The founder of the Northumbrian
kingdom, the first who bore the kingly name in Bamburgh, the warrior
whom the trembling Briton spoke of as the ‘flame-bearer,’ appears, in
the one slight authentic notice of him, not as the leader of a new
colony from the older England, but rather as the man who gathered
together a number of scattered independent settlements into a nation
and a kingdom. The chronicler records of him that in 547 ‘he took
to the kingdom’; but nothing is said of his coming, like Hengest or
Cerdic, from beyond sea. And all the other accounts fall in with the
same notion. Henry of Huntingdon, though he has no story to tell, no
ballad to translate, was doubtless following some old tradition when
he described the Anglian chiefs, after a series of victories over the
Welsh, joining together to set a king over them. And all agree in
speaking of Bamburgh, called, so the story ran, from the Queen Bebbe,
as a special work of Ida. Whatever may be the origin of the name, it
suggests the kindred name of the East Frankish Babenberg, which has
been cut short into Bamberg by the same process which has cut short
Bebbanburh into Bamburgh. Yet Bamburgh was a fortress by nature, even
before Ida had fenced it in, first with a hedge and then with a wall.
Here we see the succession of the early stages of fortification,
the palisade first and then the earthen wall, the _vallum_, not the
_murus_, of the Roman art of defence. But, whether hedge or wall, the
site of Bamburgh was already a castle before it had been fenced in by
the simplest forms of art. That mass of isolated basaltic rock frowning
over the sea on one side, over the land on the other, was indeed a
spot marked out by nature for dominion. Here was the dwelling-place
of successive Bernician kings, ealdormen, and earls; here they took
shelter as in an impregnable refuge from the inroads of Scot and
Dane. Here the elder Waltheof shut himself up in terror, while his
valiant son Uhtred sent forth and rescued the newly-founded church
and city of Durham from the invader. Here Gospatric the Earl held his
head-quarters, while he and Malcolm of Scotland were ravaging each
other’s lands in turn. In earlier days a banished Northumbrian king,
flying from his own people to seek shelter with the Picts, defended
himself for a while at Bamburgh, and gave the native chronicler of
Northumberland an opportunity of giving us our earliest picture of the
spot. Baeda, without mentioning the name, had spoken of Bamburgh as
a royal city, and it is not only as a fortress, but as a city, that
Bamburgh appears in the Northumbrian chronicler. He speaks of ‘Bebba
civitas’ as ‘Urbs munitissima non admodum magna.’ It did not take in
more than the space of two or three fields; still it was a city, though
a city approached by lofty steps, and with a single entrance hollowed
in the rock. Its highest point was crowned, not as yet by the keep of
the Norman, but by a church, which, according to the standard of the
eighth century, was a goodly one. This church contained a precious
chest, which sheltered a yet more precious relic, the wonder-working
right hand of the martyred King Oswald. We read, too, how the city,
perched on its ocean rock, was yet, unlike the inland hill of the elder
Salisbury, well furnished with water, clear to the eye and sweet to
the taste. We see, then, what the royal city of the Bernician realm
really was. It simply took in the present circuit of the castle. The
present village, with its stately church, is, even in its origin, of
later date. But by the time that we reach the event in the history of
Bamburgh which is told us in the most striking detail, the keep had
already arisen; the English city had become the Norman castle. In the
days of Rufus, when the fierce Robert of Mowbray had risen a second
time in rebellion, the keep of Bamburgh, safe on its rock and guarded
by surrounding waves and marshes, was deemed beyond the power even
of the Red King to subdue by force of arms. The building of another
fortress to hold it in check, the ἐπιτειχισμὁς, as a Greek would have
called it, which bore the mocking name of _Malvoisin_, was all that
could be done while the rebel earl kept himself within the impregnable
walls. It was only when he risked himself without those walls, when he
was led up to them as a captive, with his eyes to be seared out if his
valiant wife refused to surrender, that Bamburgh came into the royal
hands.”
At Mitford is a very peculiar Norman keep still held by the descendants
of its early lords. Bothal, the Ogle Castle, may be old, but its
present remains are scarcely so, and this is also the case with
Morpeth, a castle of the De Maulays.
Of Berwick Castle the remains are inconsiderable and are encroached
upon by the railway station, but the adjacent town has a bank and ditch
and a low tower or two or bastion, of its ancient defences, and within
these is a citadel of the age of Vauban. Higher up and on the opposite
or English bank of the Tweed is the grand episcopal castle of Norham,
the special care of the bishops of Durham. Its rectangular keep is of
unusual size, and though entirely Norman, of two periods. Parts of its
containing wall are also original, as is the gatehouse, and about it
are various earthworks, remains apparently of some of the sieges which
it has undergone, and beyond these are the lines of a large Roman camp.
Norham, attributed to Bishop Flambard in 1121, was surrendered to
Henry II. by Bishop Puisèt in 1174, and was entrusted to William de
Neville in 1177. Beneath the walls and within the adjacent parish
church Edward entertained and decided upon the claims to the Scottish
throne. Among the more considerable of Northumbrian castles were Ford,
Chillingham, Wark, and the Umfraville castle of Harbottle. There should
also be mentioned as occurring in border story, Aydon, Bavington,
Belsay, Bellister, Birtley, Blenkinsop, Bywell tower, Burraden tower,
Capheaton, Carlington, Chipchase, Cornhill, Cockle Park tower,
Coupland, Dale, Duddon tower, Edlingham, Errington, Elsdon, Etal,
Eskott, Farne, Fenwick tower, Horton, Houghton, Heaton, Hirst, Hemmell,
Kyloe, Langley, Littleharle and Lilburn towers, Lemington, Newton
tower, Ogle, Pontland, Simonsburn, Spylaw, Swinbourne, Shortflatt
tower, Tarot, Tynemouth, Thirlwall, Wallington, Widdrington, Witton,
Williesmotewick, and a few more peels and castellets and early moats,
showing where strong houses formerly stood. The fact was, that for many
centuries no owner of land near the Scottish border could live without
some kind of defence, and a careful survey, while it might fail to
discover traces of some of the above, would probably establish those of
many as yet unrecorded.
It appears, then, that in the four northern counties there are at least
103 strong places, of which ten boast rectangular Norman, and one or
perhaps two, shell, keeps, while of ninety-one little is known.