That which in 1060 was a cognomen, in 1086 had become a nomen. In 1074

Odericus refers to him simply as Picod, one of the five whom Earl Roger

placed over his new earldom of Shrewsbury, and again as Picot de Sai,

when, in 1083, the Earl vowed to found Shrewsbury Abbey. Edric, Picot’s

predecessor at Clun, was, without doubt, the Edric Silvaticus, or the

Wild, so well known on the Welsh marches. Picot lived till about 1098,

and was succeeded by his son, Henry de Say, who flourished in the reign

of Henry I., and seems to have been alive as late as 1129-30. In his

time, or that of his successor, and probably son, Helias de Say, Clun

and Obley were eliminated from Ringau, and erected into an independent

Hundred and Honour; becoming, in fact, a marcher lordship, such as

Oswestry. Helias left a sole child, Isabel de Say, Lady of Clun, who

married—first, William Fitz Alan; second, Geoffrey de Vere, when the

barony contained 11¾ knights’ fees; and third, William Boterell, in

whose time it seems to have been that the castle was stormed and burned

by Llewellyn and his Welshmen.

William Fitz Alan was the son of Alan, son of Flaald, who obtained from

the Conqueror the manor of Oswaldestre or Blancminster, which in 1148

had belonged to Meredith ap Blethyn, a somewhat singular instance of a

Welsh landholder so far to the east of Offa’s Dyke. Meredith built a

castle there, which, on Fitz Alan’s death in 1160, was in the custody

of the sheriff, who sank a well there, and provided it with stores and

palisades for defence. William Fitz Alan’s next brother, Walter, was

ancestor of the House of Stewart. William’s first wife was a niece of

Robert Earl of Gloucester. His second was Isabel de Say, by whom he

left—

William Fitz Alan, who inherited Clun and Oswestry. He obtained an

annual fair from King John for Clun. It seems probable that the Castle

of Clun burned by the Welsh was the timber structure inhabited by

Edric, and that it was replaced by works in masonry, including the

existing keep, by this William, who, dying, 1210, left

William Fitz Alan, who died at Clun about 1215, and was succeeded by

his brother,

John Fitz Alan, Lord of Clun and Oswestry, who held the barony but not

the castle of Clun, and who died about 1243, leaving a son,

John Fitz Alan, who acquired Arundel Castle from his mother, and died

1267, leaving—

John Fitz Alan, Lord of Clun and Oswestry, and Earl of Arundel, who

died 1272.

It was upon his death that an inquisition was ordered into the

condition of Clun Castle, which was reported to be small, but pretty

well built. The roof of the tower wanted lead, and the bridge to be

repaired. Outside the castle was a bailey, enclosed with a fosse, and

a gate not yet finished. In the bailey stood a grange, stable, and

bakehouse. In the town were 183 burgages. The tenants held by castle

guard, each finding a serviens and horse for forty days at 4½d. per

day. The burgesses were to provide twenty men when the lord hunted.

In 1293, Richard Earl of Arundel received £200 from his Welsh tenants

in Tempsett for a charter. At his death in 1301, Clun Castle was worth

no more than the expenses of its maintenance, or £20 per annum. There

were two water-mills.

Clun continued to be held by a long succession of Fitz Alans, few of

whom were likely to have resided, until, the male line failing, Mary,

daughter and co-heir of Henry Fitz Alan, married Thomas Howard, Duke

of Norfolk, and carried the earldom of Arundel and the barony and

castle of Clun into that family in the person of her son, Philip Earl

of Arundel, who died 1595, under an attainder. Thomas, his son and

successor, was restored in blood, but only partially in property, so

that, though titular lord of Clun and Oswaldestre, he never possessed

the estates, which were granted by King James to his grandfather’s

brother, Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, who founded the almshouse

at Clun. From Henry Howard, Clun and Oswestry passed by will to his

nephew, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, whose younger son, Sir Robert,

has a monument in the church of Clun, and by whose descendants the

property was sold.

COCKERMOUTH CASTLE, CUMBERLAND.

This castle occupies the point of a steep and, in part, rocky knoll

which intervenes between the confluence of the Derwent and the Cocker,

two rivers of Cumberland, the one, on the north, flowing immediately

at the foot of the rock, the other, on the south and west, separated

from it by an irregular strip of land from 50 yards to 70 yards broad,

of uneven surface, and covered by a part of the town which shares its

name with the castle. It is not until 120 yards below the castle that

the actual meeting of the waters takes place. Two of the sides of the

position are thus fortified by nature; the other, the root of the

promontory, has no such protection. It seems to have been covered by an

artificial ditch, connecting the cliff of the Derwent with the sloping

bank of the Cocker. This, however, has been filled up, and all that

remains of it is a tradition, confirmed by slight depression in the

soil.

The castle, following the outline of the rock, is triangular in plan.

Its north and south sides face towards the Derwent and the Cocker, and

are in length 110 yards and 120 yards. They crest the slope at about

36 feet above the level of the water, and are connected by a base line

of 76 yards, in which is the entrance, facing towards the east. The

castle commands much of the town, and is placed outside of it to the

north and east. The parish church stands within the town upon a height

opposite to, and south-west of, the castle, the Cocker in its narrow

valley flowing between them.

The curtain within which the castle is contained, is about 30 feet

high, and is capped at its western or acute angle by a half-round

tower, and at the two angles of the base are two rectangular towers,

that to the north-east being the gatehouse. Between them is a small

buttress turret, solid, and 8 feet square. There are also two rather

large buttresses, additions upon the south curtain near the east end,

and three small flat ones upon the older front of the wall, at the west

end. On the exterior of the north wall are seven buttresses of various

dimensions and dates.

The triangular interior of the castle is subdivided by a cross line of

buildings, about 60 yards from the base, into two wards, the lower or

eastern, four sided, being the larger, and the upper or inner being

a small triangle. Where the cross wall unites at its south end with

the curtain is, upon the latter, a small square tower, called the

“Bell Tower,” and at the north end a much larger tower, containing the

kitchen. Between these, on the cross wall, is the inner gatehouse. The

level of the upper ward is about 6 feet above that of the lower. This

gatehouse is not central, being 34 yards from the north, and 19 yards

from the south curtain. It is rectangular, or nearly so, and in plan a

capital =⟙=, the outer portal being in the centre of the cross head,

the inner one in the foot, and a large chamber in the stem between

them. The head is 36 feet broad, with a projection of 18 feet, and the

gatehouse is 60 feet deep. The cill of the outer entrance being 6 feet

above the outer ward, must have been approached by some kind of bridge

or inclined plane, of which all traces are now gone. The outer arch is

lofty and segmental, of 9 feet opening. It supports a screen parapet,

embattled, behind which is an opening or machecoule 9 feet broad and 4

feet deep. Behind this is an equilateral arch opening into a passage 10

feet deep, vaulted and ribbed from the four angles, the ribs meeting at

the centre with two ridge ribs, the central point of the eight being

without boss or circle. Beyond the passage is a second arch of 8 feet

opening, and beyond it a sort of vaulted passage or vestibule splayed

and 9 feet deep, opening into the interior of the gatehouse at the

first-floor level. Beyond and right and left of this inner vestibule

are two doors of 2 feet opening, one segmental and one shoulder headed.

These open each into a small acutely vaulted prison, about 8 feet by

16 feet, lighted by a small loop. From each there opens, in the outer

wall, a small door into a mural garderobe. In the centre of each prison

is a small square trap, which is the only entrance into the lower

prison or dungeon, which is of the size of and vaulted as the upper

one, but without any other opening. Two holes in the upper vaults seem

intended to carry a horizontal bar from which a prisoner or his food

might be lowered through the trap. These prisons are placed on each

side of, and parallel to, the gateway, in the thick cross head of the

=⟙=.

[Illustration: COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.]

The basement of the gatehouse-chamber, 21 feet broad by 29 feet deep,

and about 10 feet high, is quite plain, and without loops. It is

entered in the west wall, from the upper ward, by a flight of twelve

steps, beneath a lancet doorway. The covering of this room was the

timber floor of the gatehouse. The first floor, also 21 feet by 29

feet, has in its side walls two doorways, of 3 feet opening, and

acutely pointed, which led into the lateral chambers. In its west wall,

but near the north end, is the inner gateway, piercing a wall 9 feet

thick, and opening into the upper ward. This passage is vaulted. It

has no portcullis, and but one rebate for a door. In the north side of

the passage a narrow, shoulder-headed door leads into a small vaulted

lodge, looped towards the upper ward.

Entering this ward, on the left, is the door descending to the

basement, and further on, right and left, are two doors, each lancet,

and at the top of flights of twelve steps, which descended into the

basements of the lateral chambers. The gatehouse had an upper floor,

now mostly gone.

There were two lateral chambers on each side of the gatehouse, parted

by an east-and-west cross-wall, now destroyed. The large spaces thus

formed are not quite rectangular. That on the north averages about 26

feet east and west by about 35 feet north and south; and that on the

south is a mean square of about 35 feet. Of the four chambers by which

these spaces were occupied, the basements of the two next the gatehouse

were covered with a pointed vault. Except these, the floors above

were timber. The walls of the southern rooms are mostly destroyed,

those of the northern are tolerably perfect, and show the windows and

fireplaces of a first and second floor, with small mural chambers in

the north-east angle. The southern chamber abutted upon the curtain,

in which is seen a rude round-headed arch, now a postern, but which

has a Norman aspect, and looks as though intended originally for the

recess of a loop. The small square bell-turret, of about 18 feet by 10

feet, at the south-west angle of this chamber, stands upon and slightly

projects from the exterior of the curtain. The basement looks of the

age of the curtain; the superstructure, of that of the cross buildings

and inner gatehouse.

At the other or north end of the cross buildings is the kitchen tower,

a very remarkable structure. In plan it is nearly rectangular. It is

composed of a basement and a first floor. The basement is reached from

the upper ward by fifteen descending steps, down a vaulted passage in

the wall, at the head of which is a round-headed door of Decorated

date. The chamber is about 30 feet square, having a central octagonal

pier without base or cap, whence spring eight ribs meeting eight other

ribs which spring from corbels in the angles and form responds in

the centre of each face. Each of the four bays thus formed is again

spanned by ribs springing diagonally from the responds. There are

no ridge-ribs, and the vaulting spaces are filled up with rubble.

The arches are pointed, and the vault about 20 feet high. In the two

eastern spaces are square-headed loops, opening on the lower ward

and now concealed by a modern building. In the north wall is a small

water-drain. This chamber was probably a cellar, introduced and vaulted

to place the stone floor of the kitchen on the level of the hall. It

is called a chapel, but bears no indication of having been intended or

ever used as such.

Above the cellar is the kitchen, the floor of which is level with that

of the hall, and about 10 feet above that of the upper ward. In plan

it is rather rhomboidal than rectangular. The two eastern angles are

right angles, that to the north-west acute, and that to the south-west

obtuse. The north and east sides measure 35 feet and 37 feet, and the

opposite sides 29 feet and 38 feet respectively. In the south wall are

two fireplaces, 11 feet broad by 2 feet deep, with remains of stone

hoods, and with square vertical funnels running up a common shaft at

the inner end of each fireplace. The funnels also receive those from

the fireplaces in the rooms to the south, the whole forming one stack.

Over these fireplaces, high up in the south wall, is a large long loop,

square headed, and about 2 feet wide. In the east wall are two other

loops of the same width, and about 24 feet long, crossed by a transom,

square headed, but placed within shoulder-headed recesses. These

openings are clearly intended to carry off the vapour. North of these

loops is a small door, whence a narrow mural stair ascends 10 feet to a

second door that opened upon a gallery along the north wall.

In the centre of the north wall is a bold pier, 7 feet wide by 4 feet

deep, from which spring laterally two pointed arches, thus forming two

recesses. The soffits are ribbed, one with two and one with three ribs,

plainly chamfered. In each recess is a loop, square headed, and opening

on the curtain, and above, 10 feet from the floor, is a string which

supported the floor of a timber gallery, which ran along this north

side, and was carried out in front of the pier, and thus overlooked

the culinary operations. It was entered at the east end from the door

already mentioned. In its west end was another door, opening into a

mural chamber, not now accessible, but which may have communicated with

the hall. Above the gallery were two other loops. At the gallery level

the pier is pierced by two narrow passages, with round-headed doors,

which lead to a small chamber in the curtain, probably a garderobe.

Below, the lateral faces of the pier are hollowed, as for cupboards.

The west wall of the kitchen is now chiefly occupied by a large lofty

arch, of 15 feet span, and about 30 feet high, evidently a modern

insertion together with the wall above, and opening into what was

the hall. On the south side of it are traces of a part of the old

buttery-hatch. To the north is the only door of the kitchen, 4 feet

broad, and shoulder headed, and which opened from the lower end of

the hall. It is curious that so large a kitchen should have had no

other outlet. Grose gives a drawing taken in 1774, which shows this

west wall of the kitchen before the great arch was inserted. The wall

contains an immense hole or gap, above which, on the outside, is the

weather moulding of the high-pitched roof of the hall. The kitchen was

very lofty, and had an open timber roof the corbels of the hammer-beams

of which remain. Above was the parapet, one side of which belonged to

the outer curtain.

Abutting from the west wall of the kitchen, in the rebuilding of which

the moulding showing the pitch of the hall roof has been removed, was

the east, or lower end of the hall, a building 30 feet wide by about 50

feet long, of which the curtain formed the north side. The south wall

is levelled nearly to the ground, but its foundations show its exterior

buttresses, and the place of the door in the basement near the east end

of the wall. The western wall, dividing it from the withdrawing-room,

is gone. The basement below the hall seems to have been about 10 feet

high. It was covered by the timber floor. The entrance was in the south

wall, close to the east end, probably by an interior stair. One jamb

of the doorway remains, richly moulded in the Decorated style, though

much decayed. The hall had three large windows in the north wall, which

is strengthened outside by three buttresses, evidently added to the

older wall when the hall was built. The windows are of the fashion

so common in the halls of Decorated castles. They are of two lights

trefoiled, with a transom, and in the head a quatrefoil. That next

the east end has a stone window-seat, and the others may have been so

provided. Outside, the windows have a good drip-stone. Probably the

fireplace was in the south wall. In the east wall, near the south end,

is a large plain trefoil-headed recess, not even chamfered, resembling

a large piscina, with a stone shelf. It was possibly intended to place

the dishes upon when received from the adjacent buttery-hatch. South

of this a small door leads into a well-stair, which led to the roof,

and is lighted by a small and very neat foliated circle. The cant or

filling up of the adjacent angle of the kitchen is produced by this

staircase. The hall had an open timber roof, some of the corbels of

which remain.

The rooms west of the hall extend to and include the western or angle

tower. The room next the hall had two large Tudor windows in the

curtain; they are flat topped, of three lights, with a transom, and

within flat-arched recesses; they are evident insertions. The interior

of the west tower is roughly four sided, and the gorge wall is gone.

It had a basement with three loops, with large splayed and pointed

recesses, and above were three floors, each with an excellent one-light

trefoiled window of Decorated date; the two lower are towards the west;

the upper, a marked feature in the view of the castle from the town,

is towards the south. In the north wall a straight stair leads up to

a mural garderobe, the opening of which is projected upon two corbels

high up at the junction of the curtain with the tower. The lower part

of this tower seems original; the upper part has been rebuilt, no doubt

in the Decorated period. Twenty-two feet in the rear of the tower

remains the base of a doorway which led into these chambers from the

upper ward. The well was a yard or two from the entrance to the room

below the hall. Its place is now marked by a pump.

The _Lower Ward_ is much obscured by the erection against the north

curtain of a dwelling-house, and against the south, of stables,

both modern. A building has also been placed against the east wall,

connected with the gatehouse. The south-eastern angle is formed by the

_Flag Tower_, 32 feet square, and projecting outwards about 9 feet upon

the two curtains. It has a basement and two upper floors, each entered

from the court, and the two latter by external separate stone stairs.

A third stair, also exterior, ascends from the east curtain to the

battlements. The arrangement is altogether peculiar. Moreover, the roof

of the tower is high pitched, having the south gable stepped in the

Scottish fashion, flush with the outer wall, while the north gable is

set in about 3 feet so as to allow of a rampart walk along three sides

of the tower. The tower is occupied, and locked up.

The tower corresponding to this, and forming the north-east angle of

the ward, is the gatehouse. It is rectangular, 50 feet broad by 22 feet

deep, and pierced by the gateway passage, with spacious rooms on each

side and above, all inhabited. The outer gateway is round headed, and

rather less than half a circle. The passage is vaulted, and has rebates

for a central and two outer doors, of which that next the entrance

seems to have been inserted to replace a portcullis. Over the front,

beneath a long flat label, are five shields of arms: 1. What seems to

have been a cinquefoil within an orle of crosslets flory, Umfranville.

2. Barry of 6, Multon. 3. Three luces haurient, Lucy. 4. A lion

rampant, Percy. 5. A saltire, Nevile. The gatehouse has two floors over

the gateway in the Perpendicular style, and later than the lower part,

which is Decorated. To this has been added an upper story, built into

the battlements of that below, which appear in the face of the wall.

The portal is flanked by two flat pilasters, which have been partially

concealed by the addition of a _Barbican_, composed of two lateral

walls of 18 feet projection, and 7 feet 6 inches thickness, terminating

in square piers, which supported a cross arch of entrance, over

which was a parapet, now gone. These walls were about 12 feet high,

parapeted, and the ramparts reached by two lateral straight stairs

niched in the wall. There was no doubt originally a drawbridge to

the main gate, which may have been moved forward when the barbican

was added. Grose’s drawing shows a sort of ravelin of earth in front

of this outer entrance, which probably was thrown up during the

Parliamentary struggles. All this front, outside the walls, has been

levelled and converted into a garden and approach. Outside the north

and south curtains, between the wall and the top of the slope, is a

walk of about 9 feet broad.

The accounts of this castle claim for it a very remote origin, and

describe the knoll upon which it stands as artificial. This, however,

is not the case. The knoll is evidently natural, and the point of a

tract of high land which is bounded by two rivers. The position is not

the less strong, and is such as either Britons, Romans, or Saxons might

very well have availed themselves of. There is, however, no positive

evidence that they did so, and nothing now seen is of necessity older,

or as old, as the Conquest. The foundations of the western tower, and

of the greater part of its contiguous curtains, so far as they contain

the upper ward, are probably Norman, and may be the work of William de

Meschines, in the reign of Henry I. As the works could scarcely have

been confined to so small an area as the present upper ward, it is

probable that the whole of the present area was included in the Norman

castle, and that the cross ditch was then excavated. How the area was

then occupied, where was the hall, where the kitchen, does not appear;

probably not on the present site, seeing that the windows are evident

insertions in, and the buttresses additions to, the north curtain.

Moreover, no part of the line of buildings dividing the upper from the

lower ward shows any trace of Norman work. Whatever or wherever were

the Norman buildings, they probably stood until the Decorated period,

or early in the fourteenth century, when the present cross buildings,

the kitchen and the hall, seem to have been erected, and much of the

curtain rebuilt or strengthened.

The outer gatehouse and the south-eastern tower are not unlikely to

be of the same date, though there have been large additions to, and

alterations in, the former building, in the Perpendicular period,

when the barbican was added. The Tudor windows in the upper ward

are the only traces of still later alterations. The effects of the

Parliamentary strife upon the building, beyond the removal of the

roofs, do not appear to have been serious; and, as the gatehouse seems

always to have been inhabited, no doubt some sort of attention was paid

to it, and to the flag tower. More recently, a dwelling-house has been

built within the area, within one window of which hangs a curious relic

of the past, in the shape of an escutcheon of Percy and Lucy quartered,

in old stained glass.

The remodelling of the Norman castle in the Decorated period was

probably the work of Anthony de Lucy, who held the lordship from 2

Edward II. to 17 Edward III., and was an active soldier, a great

military chief in the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and

likely enough to put into the best possible order a castle important

both to his own estates and to the national frontier committed to his

charge.

The Perpendicular additions, including the armorial shields over the

gateway, must have been later than 22 Richard II., when Maud, the

Lucy heiress, carried Cockermouth Castle to Henry Percy, who agreed

to quarter her arms. The Umfranville shield commemorates Maud’s first

husband, Gilbert, Earl of Angus. The Nevile shield is that of Henry

Percy’s first wife, who was a daughter of Ralph Lord Nevile. As this

Henry was a very considerable person, and survived till 1408, it is

probable that he built or rebuilt the upper part of the gatehouse

between 1388–9 and 1408.

Cockermouth Castle has but a scanty history, which perhaps accounts for

the perfect condition of its outer walls. In 1221 Henry III. ordered it

to be laid siege to, and, if taken, destroyed; but this fate it either

escaped, or, if carried out, it was restored a century later with great

completeness. It makes no figure in the Wars of the Roses, nor does it

appear to what extent it shared in the vicissitudes of the house of

Percy. The town seems to have been taken by surprise in 1387 by a band

of Scottish marauders. Mary of Scotland rested here, no doubt on her

way from Workington to Carlisle, after her landing in Cumberland. In

August, 1648, the castle, held for the Parliament, was attacked by the

Royalists of the neighbourhood, and held out a month, till relieved

by the Parliamentary General Ashton. It seems to have been spared the

usual fate of English castles of that period at the hands of one or the

other party. In 1688, the only habitable parts were the gateway and the

courthouse, probably the adjacent building.

DESCENT.

Cockermouth was the “caput” of the barony of Allerdale, usually called

in the Inquisitions the Honour of Cockermouth. There is no collected

list of the lands held of the Honour, but they seem to have been

extensive, and are specified in divers inquisitions from time to time,

with the names of their holders. The original grantee seems to have

been William, brother of the well-known Ranulph de Meschines, Earl

of Chester. He received, either from the Conqueror or from Henry I.,

the territory of Copland, between the Dudden and the Derwent, and was

probably the founder of the castle of Cockermouth, as he was of the

Monastery of St. Bees. His son Ranulph died childless, and his heir was

Cicely, who married Robert de Romilly, Lord of Skipton. Cockermouth

came to Alice, their third daughter and co-heir, who married William

FitzDuncan, Earl of Moray, in Scotland, nephew to King Malcolm. Amabel,

their second daughter and co-heir, had Egremont, and married Reginald

de Lucy, living 20 Henry II.; while Cicely, the elder daughter, married

William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, who died 1179. Their second

daughter, Hawise le Gros, married, first, William de Mandeville, Earl

of Essex, and secondly, William de Fortibus, in her right Earl of

Albemarle, and who (1215) had restored to him by King John the manor of

Cockermouth, and (1216) certain confiscated lands held of the Honour.

In February, 1221, King Henry ordered the Sheriff of Westmoreland

to summon his forces to lay siege to, take, and utterly destroy the

Castle of Cockermouth; but later in the year the manor was granted

again to the Earl. It is said that this Earl held half the castle,

which escheated to the Crown, and was granted in 1323 by Edward II. to

Anthony, Lord Lucy, who held the other moiety. The descent, however, is

exceedingly obscure. It appears that Richard de Lucy, Amabel’s son, had

Egremont, and died about 15 John, leaving Amabel and Alice. His wife,

Ada de Morville, married secondly, Thomas de Multon, and left issue,

while Multon’s two sons by a former wife married—1. Lambert de Multon

to Amabel; and 2. Alan de Multon to Alice, the co-heirs.

Lambert’s great-granddaughter, the heiress of Egremont, married Thomas

de Lucy, and Alan’s son, Thomas de Multon, took the name of Lucy, and

died 33 Edward I., and probably held the Castle of Cockermouth. He

was followed by his sons, Thomas, who died childless, 2 Edward II.,

and Anthony de Lucy, a great baron and military leader in the Western

marches. He died 17 Edward III., leaving Thomas de Lucy, who died

seized of Cockermouth Castle and Honour 39 Edward III., having married

his remote cousin, Margaret de Multon, the heiress of Egremont, and

thus reunited the whole inheritance, the second moiety of Cockermouth

having been acquired by his father.

Thomas and Margaret had Anthony de Lucy, aged twenty-four, 39 Edward

III., and Maud. Anthony had Joan, who died young, 43 Edward III.,

seized of the castle and Honour, when Maud became the heiress. She

married Gilbert de Umfranville, Earl of Angus, who died 4 Richard

II. They had but one son, Sir Robert, who predeceased his father,

childless. The earl died 4 Richard II., seized of the castle and

Honour, and Maud then, 8 Richard II., married Henry de Percy, Earl

of Northumberland. The inheritance, failing the heirs of her body,

was settled upon the heirs male of her husband, who were to bear the

arms of Percy and Lucy quarterly. This remainder took effect, and

Cockermouth passed to the descendant of Percy by his first wife,

Margaret, daughter of Ralph Lord Neville, whose arms appear over the

gateway of Cockermouth, as do those of the Earl of Angus.

Earl Henry was slain at Braham Moor, 1408. Hotspur, his valiant son,

fell at Shrewsbury. Henry, the next earl, and lord of Cockermouth,

fell at St. Alban’s, 1455, as did his son Henry, at Towton, in 1461.

Henry, the next earl, met a violent death in the Tower in 1489, being

the fifth lord of Cockermouth of that brave, brilliant, and unfortunate

race. Henry, the next earl, died a natural death in 1527, as did his

son Henry, childless, in 1537. The next inheritors were his nephews,

sons of his brother, Sir Thomas; the earl Thomas, who was beheaded,

leaving an only daughter, 1572, and Earl Henry, who died 1585. Henry,

the next earl, died 1632, and was followed by Earl Algernon, who

died 1668, whose son, Earl Jocelyn, was the last male of the ancient

race, his son Henry having died young. Elizabeth, Baroness Percy, the

daughter and sole heir, married Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset.

Algernon, their son, created Earl of Egremont and Baron Cockermouth,

died 1750, and was father of Elizabeth, the Seymour-Percy heiress; but

Duke Algernon had also a sister, Katherine, upon whose son, Sir Charles

Wyndham, the earldom and barony, and the castle of Cockermouth, were

settled, and so descended to George, the last earl, who died without

a successor in 1845, bequeathing Cockermouth to his natural son.

Cockermouth Castle, therefore, having descended through the houses

of De Meschines, De Fortibus, Multon, Lucy, and Percy, can boast a

connexion with some of the most celebrated of the northern barons. It

has, however, another, and certainly not less brilliant, association.

In the adjacent town was born William Wordsworth, and the green

court, flower-crowned walls, and gloomy dungeons of the castle are

commemorated in one of the sweetest of his sonnets:—

FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.

“Thou look’st upon me, and dost fondly think,

Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,

We, differing once so much, are now compeers,

Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink

Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link

United us; when thou, in boyish play,

Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey

To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink

Of light was there; and thus did I, thy tutor,

Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave,

While thou wert chasing the wing’d butterfly

Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,

Up to the flowers whose golden progeny

Still round my shatter’d brow in beauty wave.”

THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE OF COLCHESTER, ESSEX.

When Hubert of Rie, standing at early dawn between the church and his

castle,

“Entre li mostier e sa mote,”

welcomed, harboured, and under the escort of his three sons, sent

forward his hard-bested lord by the road still known as “Le Voye le

Duc,” he probably little thought that the incident would become matter

of history, and still less could he have anticipated the splendid

reward, for this and other faithful services, his sons were to receive,

twenty years later, from that same sovereign in a foreign and then

unconquered land. Whether Hubert himself took part in the conquest

is unknown; he certainly did not desert his mote and mostier in the

Cotentin for any English possessions, but of his sons, Ralph and

Adam received lands as under tenants in the counties of Nottingham,

Derby, and Kent; and Eudo, called by Dugdale the fourth son, but the

principal representative of the family in England, appears in the

Survey as tenant in chief of sixty-four manors in the counties of

Beds, Cambridge, Essex, Hants, Herts, Huntingdon, Lincoln, Norfolk,

Northampton, and Suffolk.

Of these manors twenty-five were in Essex, in which county Eudo,

entitled from his office “Dapifer,” resided, and his possessions there

lay in twelve of its twenty hundreds. In Colchester the lordship and

demesne of the town were held by the king. Eudo’s interest there was

but moderate, consisting of five houses, 40 acres of land, and a claim

to the fourth of certain lands held “in elemosina Regis.” How he

maintained his military position we are not told, or why he settled in

Colchester. The only Essex castle mentioned in Domesday is Rageneia or

Ralegh. “In hoc manerio fecit Suen suum castellum,” nor do any of the

old mottes, of which there are several, as Bures, Great Birch, Ongar,

Plessy, and Stansted, appear to have belonged to Eudo. His office of

Dapifer or Sewer he held under the Conqueror and his two successors,

and he so witnessed a charter by William at Honfleur in 1074, and

others by Rufus in 1093, and by Henry I. Though described as “Dapifer

Domini Regis totius Angliæ,” he seems to have belonged to the ducal

not the royal court, for the sewer of England, according to Spelman,

was the brother of Robert Fitz Hamon of Morganwg, who appears in the

Survey in Colchester and elsewhere as “Hamo Dapifer.” It is related

that in consequence of the high character borne by Eudo the burgesses

of Colchester moved William Rufus to place him in charge of their town.

That he was so placed appears from a document quoted by Dugdale, and

his connexion with the place is shown by the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I.,

in which, among other entries relating to Colchester, are items for

“the lordship of the king’s ploughlands of the land of Eudo Dapifer,

8s. 10d.,” and from “the farm of his land, paid into the treasury,

£91. 3s. 0d.” This was after Eudo’s death, when Hamo de Clare was in

charge. As the crown held the lion’s share of the town, Eudo’s position

there must have been supreme. His first step was probably to build a

castle, and upon his own land, for when in 1096 he founded St. John’s

Abbey, one of its endowments, specified in the foundation charter, was

“omnes proventus capellae, in castello de Colcestria,” which endowment

is described in a confirmation by Richard I. (1 R. I.) as “capellam

castelii Colcestre, cum decimis et obventionibus,” explained by Morant

to have consisted in tythes of certain lands in and about the town.

Eudo’s rank, as an Essex and Colchester land owner and the king’s

representative in the town, might very well induce him to erect a

castle there. The position was a good one for a district destitute

of any very striking inequalities of surface. It was within the

Roman area, and covered on two sides by the Coln. The ancient wall,

originally Roman, had been repaired by Edward the Elder, and included

the town and the proposed site. A legendary document, quoted in the

_Monasticon_ [i. 724], states that Eudo built the castle on King Cole’s

foundation; “in fundo palatii Coelis quondam regis,” which may be taken

to show that there was an older building on the spot. If so it must

have been Roman. Most of the chief towns in England contained a castle

constructed long before the arrival of the Conqueror, though not a

building of stone, and of these strong places the king or some great

Norman baron usually availed himself, substituting, as occasion served,

Norman masonry for the earlier and less perfect defences. Sometimes the

castle was within the circuit of the town, as at Chichester, Chester,

Leicester, and Lincoln, Roman cities with English additions; sometimes

it was outside the town wall, but abutting upon it, as at Carlisle,

Warwick, and Winchester. In each case the castle had its own proper

defences, so that while, on the one hand, it could be held with the

town against a common foe, on the other it could be held against the

town, and used to overawe the citizens. Here the castle was placed

within the Roman area, in its north-eastern quarter, and stood, not

improbably, on the site of some considerable Roman building, to which

the existing, but not accessible, sewers are thought to have belonged.

Eudo died in 1120 at his castle of Preaux in Normandy, and was buried

here at St. John’s. He lived, therefore, twenty-four years after his

religious foundation, and somewhat more than that time after the

construction of his castle. He was also the founder, some time in the

reign of Henry I., of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, in the suburbs

of Colchester. He married Rohaise, whom Dugdale in his _Baronage_,

citing Will. of Jumièges, calls the daughter of Walter Giffard, Earl of

Buckingham, and widow of Fitz Gilbert, an error which, admitted into

the earlier, is corrected in the later edition of the _Monasticon_,

whence it appears that Rohaise was the daughter of Fitz Gilbert and a

preceding Rohaise, and was married to Eudo in her nonage, “ante habiles

annos nupta est.” She laid the second stone of St. John’s, Eudo himself

laying the first. The issue of this marriage was Margaret, Eudo’s sole

heiress, who married William de Magnaville, and was mother of Geoffrey

Earl of Essex, and in her right seneschal or sewer of Normandy.

Geoffrey, who played his cards to great advantage between Stephen and

the Empress Maud, received from the latter the lands of Eudo Dapifer

in Normandy, with the office of Dapifer, and an option, under certain

circumstances, of the lands of which Eudo died seized in England.

These, however, he does not seem to have obtained; in the contemporary

Pipe Rolls they are accounted for as in the Crown, and they do not

appear in the Inquisitions on Geoffrey’s descendants.

The castle, which from the endowment of its chapel must certainly

have belonged to Eudo, came into the possession of the Crown. Morant

cites a grant of it by Maud to Alberic de Vere, from an early edition

of the _Fœdera_ (xiii. 251), but there is no such deed in the later

or the latest edition. He also cites a deed in his own possession, of

the reign of Richard or John, showing that with other demesne manors

the castle of Colchester and the Hundred were in the king’s hands, and

in the custody of the sheriff of Essex. In Stowe’s _Annals_ mention

is made of a certain Hubert de St. Clare who warded off an arrow from

Henry I. at the siege of Bridgenorth in 1165 at the cost of his own

life, and whom Stowe calls Constable of Colchester, and adds that

the king gave his daughter to William de Lanvalai. William, who was

an Essex baron, certainly obtained the Constableship from King John

(2 John), by a payment of 200 marcs. He died 12 John, leaving William

his son, who was made Constable 17 John, but soon after joined the

rebels. His daughter Hawise was afterwards given in wardship to Hubert

de Burgh, who married her to his son John. King John visited the castle

six times, in 1203, 1205, 1209, 1212, 1214, and 1216, staying three

days during his two penultimate visits, and eleven days during his last

visit. In 1214 Stephen Harengot was in charge in succession to Matthew

Mantell; also Hugh de Albemunt, carpenter, had an order for 23 marcs

for work done, to which, in 1215, 20 marcs were added for repairs,

and the burgesses were informed that Harengot was responsible for the

king’s rents. In April of that year Harengot was to have timber from

a wood near the town, for its defence, “ad illam claudendam,” and

Hugh de Neville was to permit the same. In July, John’s suspicious

character led him to substitute for Harengot William de Lanvalai, who

had married, as already stated, the daughter of a previous Constable.

In this year the castle was besieged and taken by Saher de Quincy, who

also burned the town. Both were afterwards recovered by King John.

In March, 1216, is recorded a list of one hundred and thirteen persons,

knights, squires, and attendants, cross-bowmen and foot-soldiers, from

their names probably French mercenaries, to whom the king gave a safe

conduct for a passage from the castle of Colchester to London. In April

Harengot was again in charge, and in August he had a credit for 100

marcs out of a fine due of a thousand. This was for the payment of the

garrison of the castle. In November, 1217, Richard de Mont Fitchet was

ordered to give William, Bishop of London, seizin of Kingsworth wood

belonging to the castle of Colchester, and to remove thence his own

servants. In July, 1218, the king’s bailiffs of Colchester were to

respond for the farm of the town to the bishop, as they had used to do

when Harengot held the castle. The bishop was at that time negotiating

for the king with the French invaders, who for a time actually held

the castle. After John’s death the bishop (October, 2 Henry III.) had

a credit on the farm of Colchester for £20 expended “in waristura”

(munition) for the castle. In 1222 the sheriff of Essex, then in

charge, was to transport certain timber, cut by the Constable of Dover

Castle, to the port of Colchester. In January, 1223, the bailiffs of

the town had credit from the Exchequer for 100s. advanced by them to

the Constable of the castle. The Exchequer seems to have guarded the

revenue closely, for in 1224 the Bishop of London is called upon to

refund £20 paid to William, late Bishop of London, for the repairs

of the king’s castle of Colchester. In April, 1225, the Prud-hommes,

“probi homines,” of Colchester are to hand over the farm of the town to

the Constable for the repairs of the castle. The Bishop of London seems

occasionally to have had charge, for in 1227 he is ordered to send to

the king some person who may be trusted to deliver over the castle

from the bishop to the king.

Hubert de Burgh seems at one time, with the wardship of Hawise de

Lanvalai, to have held the Constableship of the castle; so that though

not actually hereditary, some regard seems to have been had to descent.

De Burgh was dispossessed in 1232, and was succeeded by Stephen de

Segrave, and he by Thomas de Clare, who was Constable in 1265–6, when

12 June, 1256, Henry III. granted the castle and the fee-farm of the

town to Guy de Montfort for life, he maintaining the castle in repair.

He was one of Henry’s unpopular foreign favourites, and was deprived

in 1258. William de Wayland followed, who, 18 December, 1273, resigned

it to John de Burgh, the last who held the office with any shadow of

hereditary claim. In 1275 it was held by Richard de Holebrook, and

immediately afterwards the castle became the county prison, in charge

of the sheriff, and ceased to possess any military value. In 1347 some

of the prisoners taken in France were lodged at Colchester; no doubt in

the castle.

The Constable of the castle was also steward of the hundred of

Tendring, and bailiff of the same, holding courts for the several

manors composing it. The castle was perfectly independent of the town,

and like most castles so situated was extra-parochial, and had a

separate jurisdiction. Seventeen manors were appendant to it, and paid

suit and service at its court. In matters spiritual it was connected

with St. John’s. It appears from an Exchequer judgment in 1290, that

the abbots of St. John, who received the tythes forming the endowment

of the castle chapel, were wont to provide a chaplain, who celebrated

the offices three days in each week, either in St. Helen’s Chapel or in

the King’s Chapel in the castle, as the Constable might direct. Long

afterwards the abbot was fined 12 marcs for having neglected this duty.

St. Helen’s Chapel stood, and indeed, though desecrated, still stands

about 100 yards north-east of the keep, and just outside the line of

the castle wall.

As the castle ceased to possess any military value it was from time to

time granted away to various persons. Henry Duke of Lancaster, son of

Henry IV., had it in 1404. Henry VI. gave it to his queen, and Sir John

Howard had it for life from Edward IV. In those days about 160 acres

of land passed with the castle. In 1496–1509 it was held by John Earl

of Oxford. Its final alienation was by James I., who gave it in fee,

in 1629, to Hay, Earl of Carlisle. The immense thickness of its wall

and its central position led to its being held for Charles in the war

with the Parliament, when its commander was Sir Charles Lucas, a member

of a local royalist family, and the descendant of the grantee of St.

John’s Abbey lands. The siege and capture by Fairfax and the subsequent

military executions are well-known matters of history. The _enceinte_

wall was probably then pulled down, and the castle rendered untenable.

Soon afterwards what remained was sold to a person named Wheeley, who

attempted to pull down the keep, with only partial success. Since then

it has been in the Gray and Round families, and has been properly cared

for, as indeed it still is.

DESCRIPTION.

The keep, the only remaining portion of the castle, is a peculiar

and, in many respects, a very remarkable structure; remarkable for

the unusually large area which it covers; for its want, even in its

original state, of a proportionate height; for the arrangement and

design of its parts and details; for the materials of which it is

composed; and for the workmanship by which they are put together.

Not only is its origin disputed, but the purpose for which it was

constructed is still the subject of a controversy, the settlement of

which can only be effected by the internal evidence afforded by the

building itself, the minute details of which possess on that account

peculiar interest.

It is in plan rectangular, and, at its interior ground-level, which is

also, very nearly, that of the top of its exterior spreading plinth, it

measures, exclusive of its six projections, 152 feet north and south,

by 111 feet east and west, and with its projections 171 feet by 146

feet. The two northern angles are capped by two rectangular turrets,

of which the north-west is on the west face 29 feet broad with 8 feet

projection, and on the north face 30 feet with 8 feet projection. The

north-east turret is 29 feet on the east and 27 feet on the north face,

with projections of 8 feet. The south-west turret projects from the

south end of the west wall 14 feet, and has a breadth of 40 feet. The

south-east turret occupies a similar position on the east front, but

is in plan a half-circle with a diameter or breadth of 50 feet, and a

projection of 25 feet. The south wall has a buttress on its face at

each end. That at the east end is 20 feet broad by 8 feet projection,

and that at the west end 12 feet broad by 8 feet projection. This

latter protects the entrance.

On the longer or east and west faces are two intermediate pilasters 8

feet broad by a foot projection, and on the north face one pilaster 8

feet broad by 18 inches projection. Against the semicircular turret are

placed four pilasters 4 feet 10 inches broad by a foot projection, and

at the springing two half pilasters 2 feet 5 inches broad. Turrets,

buttresses, and pilasters, with one exception, rise to the present

summit unbroken by set-off or string-course. The exception is the

north-west turret, which, at the first-floor level, is reduced on its

north face from 30 feet to 24 feet, the 6 feet forming a shelf or

landing for an entrance door. The plinth is carried round the building

and capped by a plain chamfer. Below this the walls spread laterally

inside and outside, until at a depth of some 30 feet they have a base

of about 30 feet. The part above ground was cased with ashlar which

has been stripped off. This excessive depth and breadth of foundation

is very unusual. The two northern turrets are solid to the first-floor

level, as are the two southern buttresses, one indeed being solid

throughout. The south-west turret contains a well-staircase which

ascends from the basement to the summit. The south-east turret contains

a crypt at its ground-level.

The space within the walls, measuring 126 feet by 87 feet, was

unequally subdivided. A portion, in width from 36 to 40 feet broad,

was walled off at the south end and occupied as an entrance passage,

a well-chamber, a prison vault, and the crypt beneath the chapel.

The space northwards was again subdivided into an east, west, and

middle compartment by two walls running north and south. The eastern

compartment, 91 feet by 22 feet, was aired rather than lighted by three

loops in the east and one in the north wall. One of these loops was in

the last century converted into a door, but has since been walled up.

The central loop is now a door. In the south end a small doorway leads

into the crypt. This compartment was entered by a doorway in the cross

wall, 3 feet 9 inches broad, but having a rebate for a door. The wall

is 7 feet thick. The middle compartment was 80 feet long by 15 feet

broad, but its western wall, which was 7 feet thick, was removed, it is

said, in 1683. A trace of it remains at the south end, and at the north

end a projection in the wall shows that the door of communication was

at that end. This compartment has a single loop in its north end, and

in its south end a doorway leading into the prison vault.

The western or larger compartment from which the others were entered

was 90 feet long by 36 feet broad. It had a loop in its north end,

and three in its west side. In its south wall was probably the inner

doorway corresponding to the main entrance. It is said that there

exists a pit or drain beneath the floor of this chamber, a sewer

from which, of Roman construction, passes westward through the wall

towards the river. The loops throughout this ground floor are of

one pattern. They are round-headed, 6 inches wide, in the end of a

splayed recess which opens by a set-off into a flat-sided recess 7

feet wide and 3 feet 6 inches deep. These recesses are round-headed,

and rise from the floor-level about 12 feet. The recess and the arched

head are constructed mainly of tiles. The set-off or reveal is of

ashlar. All the arches throughout, of both doors and recesses, are

round-headed. The three compartments were covered in with whole timber

joists supporting the floor of the upper chamber. The ground floor was

about 15 feet high, and, save the vault and crypt, seems to have been

intended for stores.

The main entrance is on this floor, at the west end of the south side.

A doorway of 7 feet 7 inches opening was flanked on each side by two

niched columns with plain bases and capitals, with stiff foliage of

Norman character. Above the capitals is a plain chamfered abacus. The

head is composed of three members, each a bold roll or bead. The two

inner members spring from above the capitals, the outer member, with a

dripstone worked in two bands of half-circles, springs from the abacus

alone. The abacus is stopped within the portal by a square groove for a

portcullis, probably of iron, behind which is a rebate for a door with

a hole for a stout wooden bar. Five or six steps, now concealed or

gone, led up to this doorway, nor are there any traces of a drawbridge.

Within the portal, in the wall, here 14 feet thick, on the left, is a

small round-headed niche, the flat sides and back of which are carved

with low bas-reliefs of certain bishops and saints, including St.

Christopher. They are fairly executed, and probably the work of some

ingenious porter.

[Illustration: COLCHESTER CASTLE.

FIRST FLOOR.

GROUND FLOOR.

Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.]

The door opens into a lobby or entrance passage 12 feet broad by 36

feet long. The right-hand wall is an open arcade, modern, but probably

representing an older wall, shutting off the well-chamber. The south

end is now open, but was crossed by a wall 10 feet thick, which no

doubt contained the inner door leading into the great ground-floor

chamber. On the left is first the door of the great staircase, then a

niche 8 feet broad and 9 feet high and 7 feet deep, and semi-domed. A

short passage, vaulted and groined, leads into the great staircase, a

cylinder 16 feet diameter, with a newel of 2 feet. It has loops to the

south and west, and forty-seven steps lead to the present summit. At

the twenty-third step a passage with three steps branches off to the

first floor.

The well-chamber, 15 feet by 26 feet, contains the well, now closed

by a pump. It is 5 feet diameter and 65 feet deep, and was lined

with ashlar, of which the upper part has been stripped off. The

well was discovered in the last century. It is said that in it was

observed a lateral culvert, intended as a waste-pipe to carry off

any overflow that might otherwise injure the foundations. In the

south wall was a recess 8 feet broad and 7 feet deep, round-headed

and semi-domed, now a window. Probably the buckets stood in it. Here

also a modern stair descends to the vaults. The well-chamber is not

vaulted. Next east, separated by a wall 9 feet thick, is the prison;

this is a barrel-vaulted chamber 15 feet by 30 feet, entered from the

middle compartment by a doorway of 3 feet opening; it supports the

ante-chapel. East again of this vault a wall, 13 feet thick, divides

it from the crypt. The western part of the crypt, the cross limb of

the =⟙=, is rectangular, 14 feet by 28 feet, vaulted and groined, and

entered from the eastern compartment; it has a loop in its south wall.

The stem of the =⟙= is the crypt proper, 31 feet long by 14 feet broad

and 14 feet high to the crown of its barrel vault. Its east end is

semicircular and semi-domed. A loop in the centre of the apse has been

converted into a window. In this crypt is said to be a drain falling

southwards towards the river. This completes the account of the ground

floor.

From the staircase a door opens into the lobby above the entrance

passage, and which was probably of the same size. At present the east

and north walls are modern. The south end of this lobby is occupied

by a flat-sided and flat-backed recess, 10 feet broad, 10 feet deep,

and about 12 feet high, which has a chink or chase in its floor for

the passage of the portcullis. As the recess is wider than the grate

there are no lateral grooves. Above is a cavity where was inserted

the ring or hook whence the grate was suspended. On the left of the

staircase door is a smaller door, which opens into a garderobe which

shares the turret with the staircase. It is 15 feet 6 inches long by

10 feet 4 inches broad, barrel-vaulted, with loops to the west and

north, and beneath each a seat and a shoot in the wall. The loops have

been enlarged into windows, and the chamber is used as a record-room.

Outside, in the north wall of the turret, close to its junction with

the curtain, is a bold deep bracket, composed of seven stones and a

tile, at the top projecting about a foot, which may have supported the

shaft of a garderobe from the battlements, or may have been connected

with some sort of bretasche or timber erection. Its use is not clear.

The east wall of the lobby divides it from the modern library, which

stands over the ancient ante-chapel, and was probably the principal

private apartment in the keep. It had three recesses, no doubt with

loops, in its south walls. Two are now windows, and one a fireplace.

Outside this chamber, to the north, is a modern corridor, the space of

which was apparently a part of the ante-chapel. In its east wall is

a round-backed niche 10 feet broad, through which a passage has been

broken, most injudiciously, into the chapel. From the ante-chapel a

lofty round-headed doorway opened into the west end of the chapel.

The chapel is composed of a nave and apse, and of four lateral recesses

or side chapels. It is in length 45 feet and in breadth 15 feet, and

17 feet 6 inches high to the crown of its barrel vault. The apse is

semicircular and semi-domed, of the same height with the nave. The

westernmost pair of recesses are 14 feet wide and 12 feet deep, with

semi-domed ends. The eastern pair are 11 feet wide and 11 feet and 14

feet deep, and both semi-domed. In the east wall of the south recess is

a niche as for a side altar. The lateral vaults are accommodated to the

main vault. The groins or lines of intersection are plain. The apse has

a central recess, now a window, and two lateral smaller recesses with

loops, unaltered. As the walls are everywhere very thick and the five

original apertures could not have exceeded eight inches, the chapel

must have been more than usually dark. It contains no ornamentation

of any kind, not even an abacus or plinth. The masonry appears to be

rubble of a very ordinary character. It is thickly plastered. This is a

very curious and rare example of a castle chapel.

The first floor, north of the chapel and the entrance lobby, is divided

into a larger west and a smaller east chamber. The eastern chamber

is 21 feet by 88 feet, the western 61 feet by 100 feet, the increase

of size over the lower area being due to a slight reduction in the

thickness of the walls.

The eastern chamber is entered from the western by a doorway in the

dividing wall. In its north end is a loop, in its east wall two

fireplaces; north of the one are two loops and one south of the other;

between them is a fourth loop and a mural garderobe. This chamber, 3

feet 6 inches by 9 feet 3 inches, has an eastern recess 3 feet wide,

and in it a small loop beneath which is the seat, and a shoot opening

in the wall. There are two doors opening from the main chamber 3

feet 3 inches apart. It is probable that the chamber was divided by

a partition of wood, so that there was a fireplace in each room, and

the garderobe was common to the two, with a door opening from each.

The north-east turret here contains a vaulted chamber, 13 feet by 10

feet and 16 feet high. It has one loop to the north and two to the

east, now broken into one. In the west wall is an indication either of

a fireplace never completed, or of one walled up. This was probably a

bedchamber.

The western chamber may possibly have been subdivided, like the lower

floor, by a wall raised upon that now removed; and an unequal space

between the loops in its north wall favours this view. More probably,

however, the wall was not so raised, and the irregular space may be

caused by a wish to keep the loops clear of the external pilaster.

The chamber, supposing it to have been of the full breadth, had four

loops in the north wall, and in the west wall two fireplaces, having

two loops between and two beyond each, six in all. The fireplaces are

spacious, round-headed, with rounded backs set with tiles on edge

in herring-bone pattern. They stand in a broad pilaster of a foot

projection, and are quite plain. They are of tile, of one pattern

throughout, and at a height of about 14 feet the flue is stopped, and

divides into two branches which open in the face of the wall, one on

each side of the pilaster, in the hollow angle, as at Rochester and

in the Tower of London. These fireplaces do not seem to have had any

hood. Over one of them is a sort of weather moulding of tile, which

looks as though part of a hood, such as is still seen over the west

door of St. Botolph’s Church. There is, however, a second fragment on

the jamb of the fireplace, which could not be part of a hood. These are

probably the remains of the weather mouldings of the roofs of cottages

built within the area of the keep after the whole was gutted and laid

open. The loops of this floor, like those below, are of one pattern.

A recess, 7 feet wide, flat-sided and round-headed, commences at the

floor-level and rises about 14 feet. At a depth of 3 feet 6 inches is

a rebate or reveal, from which commences a splayed recess, ending in a

loop eight inches wide.

In the north wall, at its west end, is a plain doorway, and a recess

corresponding to a doorway in the outside of the wall, which opened

upon the shelf already mentioned, as in the east face of the north-west

turret. This shoulder formed a landing, 6 feet by 8 feet, whence a

staircase descended by a face of the wall to the ground. The walls

show where the staircase was let into it by the discontinuance of the

regular coursing, but this also shows the staircase to have been an

afterthought. The original staircase was probably of wood. The door

has evidently been walled up from an early period. In the west side

of this doorway is a smaller lateral doorway opening into a groined

lobby, which leads into a staircase and a garderobe, which occupy the

north-west turret. The garderobe is 7 feet by 2 feet, with a loop to

the east and the seat and drain to the west, and in the north wall a

recess as for a lamp. A few feet south of the seat and its shoot a

second shoot is seen in the outer wall. This probably belonged to a

garderobe in the battlements, now gone. The staircase is a well, 6 feet

diameter, of which twenty-four steps remain. It evidently led from

the first-floor level to the summit. The fragment of the turret seems

to show that the original height of the wall was about 32 to 36 feet.

This and the main staircase are cut short by the removal of the upper 5

feet or 6 feet of the wall. They open upon the present top of the wall,

which has been levelled, and a slight battlement and rear wall built to

make the walk safe. There does not seem to have been a second floor.

Many years ago, about 1683, the then proprietor of the castle,

ignominiously known as having removed the upper part of the walls and

gutted the interior of the building, discovered that a part of the

ground floor rested upon vaults. These he opened and examined, and

they are still accessible. The vaults are two in number, built side by

side, each 22 feet wide and 96 feet long. They are crossed by a wall

6 feet thick, and thus formed into two vaults of 60 feet and two of

30 feet. The wall between them is 8 feet thick. When discovered they

were full of earth, so full that it was evident the contents of the

foundations had been heaped and used as a centring, the arch being

turned upon the earth or the stones laid upon it. Of one vault the roof

is flat, held up by the mere cohesion of the masonry. These vaults

had no original entrance, and were evidently works of construction

only, not intended to be used. Several breaches were made, so that one

vault can be entered from the other; and a breach was also made in the

north wall of the keep below the exterior ground-level, through which

a good deal of this soil was removed, and thus the cavities admit of

a partial examination. The masonry is wholly rude rubble, composed

of large pebbles and boulders and fragments of stone, uncoursed, and

with a very free use of mortar. The vaults are described as pointed,

but the excessive rudeness of the work and the nature of the centring

would account for any irregularity in the figure of the arches. To the

eye they appear rudely semicircular. That these vaults are of the date

of the keep is evident from their relations to the other walls, part

of which rest upon them. The present entrance is in the floor of the

well-chamber.

For some reason, possibly from an apprehension of defective foundation

in a wet sandy soil, it seems to have been thought necessary to take

extraordinary precautions against an unequal settlement of the parts of

the keep. Hence probably the extensive area, the low altitude of the

walls, and the excessive breadth of their foundations. Hence, also,

probably, the decision to elevate the floor of the interior above the

exterior ground, by the use of vaulting. If such was the cause of these

unusual precautions, the result has been perfectly successful, for

there is no mark of subsidence anywhere to be seen.

Although a main entrance at the ground-floor level is by no means

unknown in Norman keeps, and is found at Carlisle, Ludlow, and

Bamborough, it was not usual, and an examination of the present

entrance at Colchester leads to the conclusion that it was not

originally so here. It is evident not only that the present ornate

doorway is an insertion, but that the outer part of the wall above has

also been taken down for a considerable height, and clumsily rebuilt.

This was done to allow of the insertion of a portcullis. Without this

it would have been sufficient to remove the lower masonry only, but the

grate required head-room when raised, and to gain this a more extensive

alteration was necessary. Immediately above the dripstone are a few

courses of ashlar, derived, no doubt, from the old work; but above this

the wall is of very inferior uncoursed rubble, very different from the

regular courses of stone and tile seen in the wall on either side. When

the outer door case was inserted the wall within was also lined with

ashlar, and the ring stones of the inner arch and of the entrances to

the great staircase were also so cased. Above, the recess into which

the portcullis was lifted is of tile, and evidently original; but the

floor with the aperture or chase, and the flat back of the recess are

later. In all probability there was originally a recess with perhaps a

loop where the great doorway now is, and there was certainly a recess

above, with probably a loop also. When this door was opened, in the

latest Norman period, the original entrance on the first floor, in the

north front, was probably walled up, as it still remains. It has been

suggested that the great doorway replaced a postern, but posterns in

Norman keeps were very unusual indeed, especially at the ground-level,

and there seems no reason for supposing one here. Probably when the

keep was constructed there was no _enceinte_ wall, but when this was

built, the keep became far more secure, and as it was convenient to

have an entrance from the town side, the change was made.

There is something to be said for the pertinacity with which this

keep has been asserted to be a Roman building. Not only is its design

peculiar, but this is also the case with the material employed, and

in some degree with the workmanship. The walls, though cased with

ashlar on the plinth, and though ashlar is largely employed in the

quoins up to the first floor, contain great quantities of the large,

square, thick tile so characteristic of Roman work. Moreover, these

tiles are mostly whole, as though they had not been employed in an

older building, and they are laid in bonding or chain courses, single,

double, triple, and even in four courses, with intervening bands of

cement stone in small rudely-squared blocks. Sometimes the tiles are

laid on edge, sometimes slightly inclined, with here and there a

tendency to herring-bone, and the greater part of the interior dividing

wall is regular herring-bone, and a very fine example of it. Most of

the recesses within the walls were not originally looped, and are

round-backed and semi-domed, which is unusual in Norman keeps. Outside

the building, high up in the walls, are traces of a number of apertures

or perhaps only sunken spaces, about 2 feet 6 inches square. One of

these is shown in an early drawing as containing a sun-dial, no doubt

an insertion. It has been supposed that these represent tablets with

an inscription, but there is no evidence for this. What they were for

it is difficult even to guess.

All these features, and some others not actually present, have been

adduced to justify the opinions of General Roy, King, and others, in

favour of the Roman origin of the building, which is asserted to have

been constructed to contain and guard the shrine of a Pagan deity, and

afterwards to have been converted by the Normans into a fortress. Such

conversions of Roman buildings into mediæval fortresses were, no doubt,

common enough in Italy and France, and not unknown in England, as at

Pevensey and Porchester, but nevertheless there scarcely seems ground

for supposing this building to be Roman, or other than a Norman keep.

The combination of the rectangular plan with angle turrets and

intermediate pilasters of slight projection is distinctly and

peculiarly Norman. As to the unusual dimensions of the building, in

size and height Norman keeps varied considerably, from Clitheroe and

Goderich up to Norwich or London. The projection of the turrets also

varies from mere pilasters as at Bowes and Scarborough to regular

turrets as at Dover and Kenilworth. The half-round projection and

the chapel within are indeed rare, being confined to Colchester and

London, but no one conversant with the smaller Norman churches could

hesitate to class these among them. The spreading plinth is also a

Norman feature, and is seen at Norham and Kenilworth. Thick and solid

walls at the ground floor are also common. One of the most usual Norman

arrangements was to place at one angle a well-staircase communicating

with each floor and with the roof, while at another angle was a similar

staircase commencing at the first floor.

The Norman entrance, though sometimes on the ground floor, was more

usually, as originally here, on the first floor. Neither was it always

protected by a forebuilding. Neither Goderich, Clitheroe, nor Chester

were so protected. The well in Norman keeps, though often in the wall,

was also found in other situations. At Norwich and Castle Rising it

was within the area, and at Bamborough. Mural chambers, especially for

garderobes, are common in Norman keeps, especially at the first-floor

level. Here are three, and a larger chamber, besides the chapel and

ante-chapel. The shoots of Norman garderobes usually open on the face

of the wall, the lower stone projecting a little to keep the filth

clear of it, as at Ludlow and Carlisle. The opening of the flues of the

fireplaces upon the face of the wall, close to a pilaster, is a purely

Norman device. The use of loops on the first floor, though with large

splayed recesses, is also Norman, and a part of the jealous system that

pervaded those keeps. Usually it was only at the second floor that the

loops became windows. In Norman keeps the floors were almost always of

timber, the joists being supported, when necessary, by posts or props,

as seen at this day in the Tower of London.

As to material the use of new and clear and unbroken tiles by no means

shows a work to be Roman. Those of St. Botolph’s Priory Church were

evidently never used before. The only conclusion is that they were

manufactured in imitation of those introduced by the Romans. Neither

is the mortar that usually described as of Roman composition. It is

decidedly white or light in colour, with a great preponderance of sand,

so much so as in some parts to have prevented its setting. Where the

mortar is in masses it may contain fragments of tile or stone, but

there is no trace of pounded brick in its composition. It is generally

ill-mixed, and contains large fragments of sea-shells. The putlog holes

in size and position are such as are usually observed in buildings of

the eleventh and twelfth centuries, though probably not confined to

them. The soffits of the vaulting of the staircase and mural chambers

everywhere are impressed deeply with the figure of the boards used as

centring, or what is called technically lagging. The carpenter’s work

in Norman keeps seems to have been very rudely performed, and the rough

boards were spread over thickly with mortar to bring them to a surface.

This is well seen at Colchester.

Taking all these features into consideration there ought to be little

doubt that Colchester keep is a Norman structure, built probably about

the close of the eleventh century, by one of the sons of Hubert de Rie.

The keep is the only part of Colchester Castle now standing. The wall

_enceinte_ has long been removed, probably about 1650, but its general

line to the east, north, and west is indicated by three earthbanks.

To the south the ground has been levelled. The entrance from the town

was on this side. This was the main gate, but there was also a second.

The area thus enclosed appears to have been rather above three acres.

Various Roman remains have been discovered within and about this area.

CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.

Conisborough, or, as it was anciently and more correctly called,

Coningsborough or Coningsburh Castle, is one of the most remarkable

of the strongholds in the North of England, standing high above the

bank of “the gentle Don,” about half-a-mile below its reception of the

Dearne, in the midst of a grand sylvan amphitheatre. Its name declares

it to have been a seat, and its position to have been a fitting seat,

of Saxon royalty; and the mighty earthworks which constitute its most

ancient defences, proclaim the value of the possession and the power

of the founder: moreover, the great enchanter of romance has thrown

a charm over the scene and invested it with an interest not the less

deep that it is wholly fictitious. Those, and they are many, who

ascend the guarded mount, care little for the great Norman Earl who

raised its tower; to them it is peopled with the creations of Scott.

The chamber remains, though roofless, in which he places the funeral

banquet of Athelstan, and the oratory is still unaltered within which

Rowena poured forth her very mingled devotions. The present view must

necessarily be of a more prosaic character. It must take notice of

the great earls whose tower stands almost unrivalled as an abiding

evidence of their feudal magnificence and constructive skill. Although

Conisborough may not be compared to Coucy in dimensions, and the power

even of the House of Warren pales before that of its more than royal

Sires, the lesser but older tower is not inferior to its great rival in

position, excellence of material, or delicacy of workmanship.

[Illustration: CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.]

He who selected the hill of Conisborough as the site of a stronghold,

if not, as King James said on visiting a similar position, a thief in

his heart, must have thought security of the first importance, and have

been prepared to expend a vast amount of human labour in obtaining it.

What he had to deal with was an isolated knoll of rock and gravel,

rising at about 400 yards from the bank of the river to a height of

about 175 feet, naturally steep on every side, though rather less so

to the south-west, where the exterior ground is somewhat higher. On

this side, distant about a furlong, stands the ancient church of St.

Peter, and about it the village of Conisborough. The top of the knoll

has been levelled and trimmed into a platform of a rounded outline, 90

yards north-east and south-west, by 60 yards in the cross direction,

thus enclosing about three-quarters of an acre. From this summit the

slopes have been scarped steeply down to the bottom of an immense ditch

about 60 feet below the crest. The outer slope or counterscarp of the

ditch varies in height, or rather depth, according to the character of

the ground, and for about two-thirds of its circumference is crested

by a steep bank, which gives the ditch a depth of from 18 to 25 feet,

and the exterior slope of which dies away into the natural fall of

the hill-side. Towards the south-west, or town side, where the ground

occupied by the church is about 25 feet higher than the _terre-plein_

of the castle, the intervening hollow is occupied by a large outwork,

resting upon the main ditch, a branch from which embraces and separates

it from the town, and thus is formed an outer ward, convenient either

for the lodgment of troops or the secure pasture of cattle. The

principal approach must always have been on this side and across this

earthwork. At no other point could so safe or so convenient an approach

have been contrived; scarcely, indeed, one practicable for a horse

with a rider on his back, still less for a litter or a vehicle on

wheels. Such, as regards the earthwork, was, and still is the original

fortress, the seat and stronghold of the king from whose office the

borough was named, and, supposing the walls and keep to be removed, and

the crest of the platform, the counterscarp of the ditch, and the outer

edge of the earthwork to be palisaded, the place would still be one of

great strength and equal to the accommodation of even a royal following.

When Earl Warren, soon after the Norman Conquest, visited his

newly-acquired lordship, he must have been struck with the general

analogy of its chief seat to the strong places he had left behind him.

The mound or motte, here natural, the circular ditch around it, and

the entrenched outworks covering the weaker side, resting upon the

ditch and protected by a branch of it, were features as well known in

Normandy as in England. No doubt he intended to add to the fortress

those works in masonry that were just then become popular upon the

Seine and the Orne; but the internal evidence of the oldest remaining

work in stone, the encircling wall, shows it not to have been his

work. Probably he found the works required at Lewes, Ryegate, and

Castle-acre, quite enough to occupy his means, and was obliged to be

content with such defences as he found already to his hand, and to

his son or grandson is to be attributed the earliest extant masonry,

the older part of the curtain, and a part of the outer gatehouse at

the foot of the hill. There is no reason to suppose that there ever

was a Norman keep. Probably the whole inner ward, as at Exeter and

Restormel, was regarded as a shell keep. The present tower is certainly

a rather later addition. The view here given shows the ascent from the

gatehouse. On the left is seen the exterior of the curtain of the main

ward.

[Illustration]

The castle, as now seen, is composed of a keep, an inner and an outer

ward, and the steep slope between them. The _Outer Ward_ is the

earthwork on the western side. There are no traces of the gateway by

which this must have been entered, nor of any curtain wall surrounding

it, or buildings within it. Probably its defences were always of timber

placed upon the earthbank which crowns the scarp of the ditch and must

have been thrown up out of it.

Crossing the centre of the earthwork, the way into the castle reaches

and traverses the main or inner ditch by a modern causeway of earth,

replacing the ancient drawbridge, and reaches the base of the hill

between two thick and lofty walls, parallel, and 10 feet apart, like

those at the entrance to Berkhampstead. The cross walls which connected

them at each end, and were perforated by the portal arches, are gone.

The gatehouse thus formed had probably a timber covering, and perhaps

an upper floor above the entrance passage, with an embattled platform

above all. The lateral walls are, or have been, continued up the hill.

That on the left on entering was carried straight up the slope till

it abutted upon, and was united to, the curtain of the inner ward.

The wall on the right hand springs from a small, solid, round turret

which flanks the inner end of the gatehouse. It is carried obliquely up

the slope, gradually approaching the upper entrance, which it reaches

at a right angle towards the middle of the southern front. This wall

protects the roadway from the lower to the upper gate; and is itself

commanded from the curtain wall above. It may be said to traverse the

_Middle Ward_, if that term be applied to the slope of the hill between

the ditch and outwork below and the containing wall of the inner ward

above. It is, in fact, the glacis of the inner line of defence.

Of the _Inner Ward_ there is at this time no trace of an exterior

gatehouse. Probably the entrance was a mere archway in the curtain,

as at Bridgenorth and Kenilworth, or Cardiff, flanked in addition by

a projecting shoulder of the wall which still remains. An exterior

gatehouse, though not an unknown, was not an essential feature in a

Norman castle. Entering the inner court, the wall to the left shows

abundant traces of buildings attached to it. It is evident that here,

right and left, were the principal structures for domestic purposes, as

the hall, kitchen, and probably the chapel, attached to and with walls

bonded into the curtain. The rectangular space between these buildings,

14 feet by 24 feet, may have been, as it was at Tickhill, a gatehouse

with a portal opening into the inner ward.

[Illustration: PILASTERS AS SEEN FROM OUTSIDE.]

The inner ward is somewhat of an oval figure, but contained within a

wall of many straight lengths, in fact a very irregular polygon, fitted

to the natural outline of the ground. The older part of this curtain

is, in substance, of good coursed rubble, from 6 feet to 7 feet thick,

and from 30 feet to 35 feet high. The outer face was of ashlar, and

much of it remains, either perfect, or with marks showing where the

stones have been stripped off. The angles were quoined with ashlar

blocks inside and outside, and there are several exterior pilasters,

locally called “pillars,” broad, of slight projection, and with one

or two sets-off, being of a late Norman character. In the north-west

angle, high up in the wall, is a round-headed arch which probably

opened into a tower, capping the angle, but now gone. A part of the

west wall seems to have been rebuilt when a new hall and kitchen were

required, and in it are the remains of a large fireplace, and corbels

either for a lean-to roof, or for an upper floor. The battlements

are everywhere gone. The north and west walls are tolerably perfect,

and much remains of the east, but towards the south the wall is

broken down. This part seems the latest, and to have been rebuilt in

a slovenly manner. Upon the wall are five small half-round turrets,

solid, like those at Knaresborough. The curtain has no bond into the

keep, which has been built into its line, so as to form a part of it.

At this part, the north-east of the _enceinte_, in a salient of the

curtain, is a small staircase and passage in the wall much blocked

with rubbish. King calls it a postern, but it was very evidently a

garderobe. The area of this inner ward has been cleared out and the

buildings removed, all except the keep. The only traces of walls in the

court are along its north, west, and south sides, showing that there

were buildings against the curtain 310 feet in length by 22 feet in

breadth.

[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE BASE OF ONE OF THE BUTTRESSES OF THE KEEP.]

[Illustration: CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.—VIEW OF THE KEEP AS AT PRESENT.]

_The Keep_ is the glory of Conisborough, and though inferior in size

to Cæsar’s or Beauchamp’s Tower at Warwick, is more than their equal

in its masonry, and more complete, inasmuch as it is a keep, and those

are subsidiary towers. It stands nearly at the north-east extremity,

and at the highest part of the inner ward, actually upon the line of

the curtain, of which two of its buttresses and the intermediate wall

form a part. It is constantly described as standing upon an artificial

mound, which is certainly not the case. Indeed, no artificial mound

could bear so concentrated a weight. It stands upon the natural

surface, here a rock. It has no special ditch, and the ground shows

that it never had any. There was, indeed, no need of the usual ditch,

which was represented by the natural steep, and the exterior ditch at

its base.

[Illustration: KEEP, FROM OUTSIDE THE CURTAIN.]

The tower is a cylinder, resting upon a bold spreading conical base.

Against it, at equal intervals, are six bold, massive buttresses,

having flat faces, but slightly tapering in plan so as to be

half-hexagons with two long sides and a short face. They rest upon

bases which expand outwards, but very little laterally. The tower

at the ground-level is 66 feet diameter, from which its buttresses

project 9 feet more, so that it covers an interrupted circle of 80

feet. Where the buttresses spring from, or are united to, the tower,

they are 15 feet 6 inches broad. They taper in plan 6 feet 6 inches, so

that the face of each is 9 feet broad. At 20 feet from the ground the

battering base ceases, and the tower is there 52 feet diameter, and the

buttresses project 8 feet, while their taper is represented by a base

of 14 feet 6 inches, and a face of 9 feet. This is at the first-floor

level, and here the walls are 14 feet 11 inches thick.

The exterior of the tower from this level is vertical, being in fact

a cylinder, and without any string moulding or set-off above the

chamfered top of the base. Inside, the walls are reduced in thickness

by three sets-off or ledges, corresponding to the four floors, each

floor resting upon a ledge. The wall is thus reduced to 12 feet 6

inches in thickness at the summit. The tower is now at one point 90

feet high, and was originally probably about 120 feet to its conical

top. The buttresses, when complete and battlemented, were about 94 feet

high. The whole structure is built of a fine-grained light-coloured

limestone, in blocks about 12 inches high by from 1 to 3 feet long,

laid in courses, not regularly sorted, though the largest stones are in

the base. Both inner and outer faces, staircases, and mural chambers,

are also of excellent ashlar. The joints generally are rather open, the

horizontal joints varying from half-an-inch to one-and-a-half inches,

the vertical joints rather closer. The vaulting is mostly sound rubble.

The mortar has fallen out of the joints of the ashlar, but the stone

is fresh and sharp, and there are no settlements. The courses are all

well defined, and may be counted both within and without. Outside, the

base is composed of eighteen courses, and the cylinder of sixty-one,

from which the buttresses rise seven courses more. Inside, the first

floor contains nineteen courses, the second twenty-five, and the third

nineteen, being sixty-three for the whole cylinder. The fourth floor is

gone, or nearly so. The exterior of the building is perfectly plain,

save the two small circular lights of the oratory, which have a sort

of ball moulding. There are several loops, but in the whole building

but one exterior doorway, and two main windows. All the arches are

full-centred; no trace of a pointed arch, and all is of one date.

Nothing can be more substantial, plainer, in better proportion, or

better suited to the purpose for which it was built.

The interior is divided into a basement and four stages, of which

the uppermost was in the roof, and at the battlement level; all are

cylindrical. The basement is a domed vault, of which the floor is the

natural surface of the rock. It is 22 feet diameter. The walls to the

springing are 10 feet high, and both dome and walls are perfectly

plain. There are no loops, or even holes, or lateral recesses, or

openings of any kind: no seats, no vents, no sewer, so far as can be

seen. In the centre is the well, lined with ashlar, and rather above

2 feet diameter. It is said to be 105 feet deep, but is now partially

choked up. It must have been sunk as a larger shaft, and then lined

to its present diameter. Exactly above it is a ragged hole, which

represents the only entrance to the basement, and which must have been

provided with a ladder. It is evident that this vault was a cellar or

store, and by no means a prison. Space here, as indeed in most other

keeps, was too valuable to be employed, save in some manner likely to

be of use during a siege.

[Illustration: CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.—THE KEEP.]

The entrance to the tower is at the first-floor level, on the

south-east side, at the top of the base, and therefore 20 feet from

the ground. The doorway is 4 feet 9 inches wide, quite plain, and flat

topped, but the lintel is composed of five stones joggled together

as a platband, and above is an arch of relief, the tympanum of which

is formed of two large stones, divided vertically. There was no

portcullis, only a stout single door of one valve, stayed by two bars,

the holes for which, 7 inches square, are in the right or hinge-jamb 9

inches deep, and in the lock-jamb 6 feet. In the joints near the cill

are two holes, evidently for the iron gudgeons of a small drawbridge,

so light as to be worked from within the doorway. The present exterior

stone staircase is modern, but the original stair was probably much of

the same character, only the support must have been separated from the

tower by the length of the bridge, probably about 7 feet, or a foot

longer than the height of the doorway. It is singular that there should

be no portcullis, since it could have been worked conveniently from

the window recess above, and its presence would have made the tower

absolutely impregnable.

[Illustration: _FIRST FLOOR PLAN._

_A S Ellis

-Sept. 61._]

From the doorway a vaulted passage, expanding from a breadth of 5

feet 3 inches to 6 feet 3 inches, leads direct into the first-floor

chamber. Where this vault terminates in the inner wall it is worked in

a curve so as to coincide or be flush with the inner face. This was to

be expected, but this is the only arch so terminating. All the others,

whether of doorways or window recesses, end square, so that while the

central part coincides with the curved face of the inner wall, the

ends, or springings, are recessed from 3 to 4 inches, according to the

span of the arch, and the appearance is clumsy. This is not so where

the opening is square-headed, there the lintel is cut to a suitable

curve. It is remarkable that there is no rebate or provision for a door

where the entrance passages open into the first floor, and that floor,

though 22 feet diameter, and 16 feet 6 inches high, is entirely without

any air or light, save what it might receive when the outer door was

open. Possibly there was a central hole in the floor above, as in the

dome below. There is no drain or fireplace. This, therefore, also was a

store.

[Illustration: _SECOND FLOOR PLAN._]

In the right wall of the entrance passage, on entering the tower, is a

side doorway whence a staircase ascends, winding with the walls to the

second floor. The doorway of 4 feet 1 inch opening, has a rebate for a

door opening inwards into a small lobby 5 feet 11 inches deep by 4 feet

8 inches broad, whence rises the staircase of the same breadth. The

staircase, of twenty-five steps, winds with the wall, which is 4 feet

2 inches thick on its inner, and 6 feet 2 inches on its outer side.

In the latter is a loop. The vault is full-centred, broken by hanging

ribs, of a bold square section; it ends above in another lobby, 8 feet

deep by 4 feet 8 inches broad, whence a round-headed door-way opens

into the second floor. The lobby is lighted by a loop.

The second, or state floor, is 25 feet diameter, having a set-off of

about a foot all round to carry the floor-boards, which were further

supported by joists resting upon plain corbels a little below the

ledge. This chamber is 20 feet 4 inches high. It is lighted by one

large window of two lights, each 4 feet 4 inches high by 1 foot 10

inches broad, flat-headed, and having an intermediate mullion 2 feet 5

inches broad, in which is a sort of stone staple, containing boltholes

for the shutter fastenings. There are also lateral barholes in the

walls. The window is placed in a broad and lofty full-centred recess,

ascended by two steps from the floor, and having side seats. The lines

of the steps are concentric with the wall of the chamber. Outside,

the window lintel is composed of stones joggled together, forming and

filling up the pediment of a round-headed arch. This window is placed

over the entrance door.

[Illustration]

Nearly opposite to the window is a large and handsome fireplace. Its

flat lintel, 12 feet long, is partially composed of nine stones,

joggled together in a skilful manner, and still in place. These stones

are flanked by six others which rest upon the supports. The bar of

stone thus composed extends each way to the wall, and is supported

near each end by a cluster of three coupled columns with foliated

capitals of delicate design and execution. These form the jambs of the

fireplace, the back of which is flat, sloping backwards, and, like the

rest of the work, of ashlar. The vent is square, and ascends vertically

in the wall to the summit. The stone hood, resting on the lintel, is

plain. The whole style of this fireplace is late Norman.

On the left of the entrance door, between it and the window, is a

small square-headed doorway, 2 feet broad, and no doubt intended to be

concealed by tapestry, which opens into a lobby whence an ascent of

six steps leads by a passage 10 feet long into a triangular garderobe

chamber, in the substance of the wall. The vent discharges by a flush

opening in the face of the outer wall above the base. This chamber has

an exterior loop.

At the opposite side of the great chamber to the entrance door from

below, a door similar to it opens upon a lobby 3 feet 10 inches by 7

feet 6 inches, whence rises a second staircase of thirty-four steps,

leading to the third floor. The passage is vaulted like that below, but

is only 3 feet 6 inches broad. It also winds with the wall, crossing

over the great window, and terminates in a lobby 3 feet 11 inches

broad by 5 feet 5 inches deep, lighted by a loop. The outer wall of

the staircase is 5 feet 5 inches thick, the inner wall something less,

the whole thickness being 12 feet 6 inches. The lobby opens by a

full-centred doorway 3 feet 6 inches broad, into the third floor.

The third or oratory floor, has a set-off of 12 inches for the floor,

and is therefore 27 feet diameter. It is 16 feet 6 inches high. To

the south-west is a window closely resembling that below, also with

steps and side seats. There is also a fireplace above the last, rather

smaller and more delicate in its details, but of the same pattern

and construction. The lintel is composed of seven stones, joggled;

it does not extend from wall to wall, but stops, as is more usual,

just clear of the jambs. The vent runs in front of the lower one, and

joins it above. Above the lower water drain is a second, in a small

sort of piscina recess, round-headed and trefoiled with cusps, but not

chamfered.

[Illustration: _THIRD FLOOR PLAN._

_A·S·El_]

The oratory is a very remarkable feature in this floor. It occupies the

south-eastern buttress, opposite to the fireplace. A doorway of 2 feet

6 inches opening, the only flat-topped one on this floor, very plain,

and therefore meant to be concealed, opens into a short, straight

passage leading direct into the oratory. This is in plan a hexagon, 6

feet 4 inches broad at the west end or entrance, 6 feet at the east or

altar end, and having a length of 13 feet 6 inches contained between

four sides averaging 6 feet. Its centre or broadest part is 8 feet 8

inches. In each of its four main angles, flanking the entrances and the

altar, is a detached or nook-shaft 6 inches diameter, with a foliated

capital. The two central angles are each occupied by a half-shaft,

from which springs a triple cross rib, of which the laterals are

plain rolls, and the central worked in a chevron pattern. The area is

thus divided into a western and an eastern half, of which the latter

is rather the smaller, and may be taken to represent the chancel. Each

division is crossed diagonally by two ribs, in section plain bold

rolls, at the intersections of which are bosses of which the stones

are big enough to form not only the boss, but about six inches of each

of its four ribs, and in one case the division between the ribs is

carved with flowers, with good effect. The bosses are carved, that to

the west with a sort of cross moline, shown in the drawing, that next

the altar with flowers. At the main angles the ribs spring from the

shafts, but the triple cross ribs spring from a sort of prolongation

of the capital and abacus of the half-shafts. The shafts flanking the

altar have capitals more ornate than the rest. The east window is a

mere loop 6 inches broad and 2 feet 6 inches high, round-headed, and

placed in a splayed recess of which the angles are replaced by a bold

roll with foliated bases. This, again, stands within a second and

shallower recess, flanked with small nook-shafts of which the capitals,

delicately carved, range with those in the flanking angles. The head

is cut in chevron pattern. Right and left are two small lights,

quatrefoiled, but splayed inwards into circular recesses, 2 feet 8

inches diameter. Outside is a hollow moulding containing knobs or balls

scarcely seen from below. These windows have been called insertions,

but, though no doubt of a somewhat Decorated character, they have every

appearance of being original, and similar openings may be seen in the

west front, and near the summit of the very fine Early English tower

of Old Malton Church. Below each light is a trefoil-headed piscina of

1 foot 6 inches opening by 11 inches deep, of which that in the north

wall has a minute nailhead moulding. The height to the crown of the

vault is about 14 feet, gained by stilting the arch. The altar is gone.

[Illustration: CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.—INTERIOR OF THE KEEP.

(_From the Window Recess on Second Floor._)]

[Illustration: CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.—INTERIOR OF THE ORATORY OR CHAPEL.]

[Illustration: CAPITALS OF CENTRE ARCH, NORTH SIDE.]

On the left, on entering the oratory, a small flat-topped doorway

leads into a mural vestry of irregular form, about 9 feet long by 5

feet broad, with a splayed loop, and in the end wall a trefoil-headed

locker 2 feet broad by 1 foot 6 inches deep. The vestry is very plainly

vaulted, the arch being a lean-to against the wall of the oratory.

[Illustration: _PLAN AT RAMPART LEVEL._]

Between the oratory door and the fireplace, to the north, a doorway

of 3 feet 4 inches opening enters a lobby 3 feet 10 inches by 7 feet,

whence a staircase of twenty-four stairs ascends, winding with the

wall, to the battlements and the fourth story. The staircase is 4 feet

broad, and vaulted with hanging ribs. The two lower staircases ascend

from east to west by the north, this ascends from west to east, also by

the north, and passes over the vestry. In the lobby is a door 1 foot 9

inches opening, whence a bent passage 3 feet 4 inches broad, leads to

a garderobe, the seat of which rests upon an oblique or squint arch,

which springs across the hollow angle between the tower wall and one

of the buttresses, and is placed, inconveniently enough, over the loop

at the head of the first flight of stairs. Over the seat is a loop.

Garderobes so placed, over a hollow angle, are common in the Decorated

period, but there is one on the outer wall at Kenilworth, probably late

Norman.

The staircase from this stage ends under a sort of hood which stands in

and nearly blocks up the rampart walk, leaving a passage only 2 feet 3

inches wide between it and the wall of the battlement. The tower wall

at the level of the rampart walk is 12 feet 6 inches thick, of which

the battlement wall occupies 2 feet, the rampart walk 8 feet, and

an inner wall 2 feet 6 inches, within which was the upper or fourth

floor. The rampart walk was thus a gallery open above, having the

battlement wall outside, and the wall of the upper floor in its rear.

The vents of the two fireplaces were connected with this inner wall,

and reached its summit by an opening 7 inches by 12 inches, divided

by a tile-stone 6 inches thick. This aperture is contained within the

base of a chimney-shaft 3 feet 9 inches by 3 feet. This shaft, like the

stair-hood, somewhat reduced the breadth of the rampart walk. The upper

part is gone. The dividing stones end about 2 feet below the rampart

level, above which the vents were combined.

[Illustration]

The six buttresses rose as turrets above the crest of the parapet.

That to the north-west, near the chimney-shaft, and its neighbour

westward, contain half-round recesses, round the curve of which are

short staircases, opening from the rampart walk, and which probably

ascended to small parapeted platforms, now gone. The buttress to

the south contains, as at Orford, an oven, circular, 7 feet across,

with a segmental arched door 2 feet wide. The two buttresses to the

north and north-east are occupied by two cavities, probably cisterns,

half-hexagons in plan, and 2 feet 6 inches deep below the rampart wall

level. Each would contain about 650 gallons. The remaining buttress,

that above the oratory, contains a half-hexagonal recess or alcove, the

floor of which is 9 inches above the rampart wall. It is 9 feet broad

at the opening, 5 feet broad at the end, and 8 feet 8 inches deep. It

is covered in with a round-headed vault tapering to fit the plan. The

height at the entrance is 7 feet 6 inches, and at the inner end 5 feet

7 inches. There are no loops, but the walls of this chamber and the

adjacent parts of the parapet are pierced by a number of holes, about 6

inches high by 5 inches broad. These have been supposed to be intended

to carry the floor spars of a bretasche or wooden gallery, though they

are small for such a purpose, and there are no holes or corbels below

for struts. Moreover, these holes are confined to the buttress over

the oratory and the adjacent walls, and are not straight (_see_ plan).

They extend, it is true, over the main entrance, but had they been

intended for its defence they would probably have been placed with

the door beneath their centre instead of below one end of the line.

That is, they would have been placed in the two flanking buttresses

as well as in the bay between them. It has been suggested that these

are pigeon-holes, and no doubt, during a strict siege a good supply of

these birds might have been found useful. There are certain holes in

the keep at Rochester, that probably were so intended, and that are, or

recently were, so used.

[Illustration: SUGGESTED ORIGINAL APPEARANCE.]

The height of the parapet is 6 feet 6 inches, and the pattern of the

coping may be seen at the junction with the buttress turrets, and this

also shows that the roof was confined to the inner circle, and did

not project over the parapet. There are also traces showing that the

embrasures contained, as at Alnwick, a hanging shutter.

The inner circle, or chamber within the inner walls, was 27 feet

diameter, and its flooring rested upon a range of nineteen plain

corbels. Only the lower part of the wall of this chamber remains,

but the jambs of a doorway show that it was entered from the rampart

walk. The wall, and consequently the chamber, was about 7 feet high,

and upon it was a conical covering, the eaves of which must have

projected somewhat over, and discharged their water into the rampart

walk. This mode of finishing off the summit of a tower, by placing the

uppermost floor within the circuit of the rampart walk and leaving the

battlements free from the roof, is seen in its greatest completeness

at Coucy, and what is there seen illustrates what must have been the

arrangement here, at Pembroke, at Martens Tower, Chepstow, and in the

smaller and later flanking towers of Holyrood House. It is obvious that

unless the roof sprung here from a wall within the parapets, or unless

there was a timber gallery carried round outside the wall, such a

tower as this could not be defended. Its loops were intended for light

and air, not for defence; this could only have been directed from the

battlements. Hence the absurdity of covering in towers intended for

defence, or at any rate to have the appearance of being defensible,

with conical roofs springing from the outer wall.

Of course the accommodations of such a tower as this of Conisborough

were not such as to suit its lords, still less their ladies, save under

the pressure or in expectation of a siege, a remark which applies to

all, save the largest, keeps. The passive strength of Conisborough,

and its rocky base, secured it against attacks even if seconded by

engineering machinery. No catapult or battering-ram would be at all

likely to shake or break it. The peril to be guarded against was a

blockade, and with this view there was a well within the tower, and

the two lower floors, it is clear, were intended for the storage

of provisions. The first floor would be the ordinary room of the

constable, or lord, and of his family or guests; the men, probably,

also sleeping there. The room above would be the ladies’ room, with

the oratory close at hand. The kitchen was above all, and there, also,

at the battlement level, would be the lodging of the small garrison,

probably of not more than ten or a dozen picked men, with a ready

communication with the ramparts.

The fashion of round keep towers, quite different from the shell keeps,

came in towards the close of the Norman and during the Early English

period of architecture, when frequent communication with the East had

affected men’s military ideas. A few, such as Brunless, Tretower,

Launceston, and Orford, are found in England of that time, but in

France there are many, widely spread, and very grand examples. Philip

Augustus was a great builder of such towers. That of the Louvre, of

which the circular foundations, with the well and the sewer, were

uncovered a few years ago, was his work, and to the same period, though

late in it, 1223–30, belongs the Tower of Coucy, probably the finest

military structure ever built.

Taking a general view of the Castle of Conisborough, and giving

due weight to the value of the evidence afforded by its remains, it

is clear that the excavation of the ditch, both of the hill and the

outwork, and the scarping of the former, were the original and English

works, to which an early, though not the earliest, Norman lord added

the curtain wall of the _enceinte_, and much of the lower gatehouse.

He certainly also built a hall, kitchen, and lodgings within the inner

area. The next addition of importance, the keep, was certainly made a

century later. The curtain wall was taken down to make room for a part

of it, and not only was there no bond between the old wall and the new

tower, but the junction was carelessly and clumsily effected, as may be

seen from its present condition. Probably some later alterations were

made as regards the hall and lodgings. The wall near the entrance to

the inner ward seems to have been partially rebuilt, but subsequently

to this there does not seem to have been any addition of importance.

The castle was no doubt rendered untenable during the wars of Charles

I., and time and neglect have since completed the ruin.

It is singular that so strong and so remarkable a fortress should

be but little noticed in the earlier records. Invention, indeed, in

the absence of evidence, has attempted to fasten upon it an early

history. “Conyng” has, by British antiquaries, been converted into a

Breton Conan, and Caer-Conan, thus constructed, has been mixed up with

Aurelius Ambrosius and the Kentish Hengist, who is asserted to have

here fought, been slain and buried. There is, however, no evidence

whatever connecting this place with either the Britons or Bretons,

or the Romans, or Hengist. Everything bearing upon its origin is

Saxon, but Saxon of a much later date than Hengist. Two tombstones

carved in what is generally regarded as a præconquistal style were

long seen in the churchyard, and are now placed for security in the

church—so securely placed, indeed, as to be scarcely visible. The

earliest mention of the place is probably in the testament of Wulfric

Spot, the minister of King Ethelred, and the founder, in 1004, of the

Abbey of Burton-on-Trent. By this document, printed by Dugdale in his

_Monasticon_ [I. 266], Wulfric bequeaths to Ælfred certain lands and

fisheries of Cunuzesbury, so that about A.D. 1000 it belonged to that

great Saxon. Mr. Hunter, whose history of Conisborough leaves nothing

to be desired, points out that this devise was really a very ample

one, for the fisheries were not those of the Don but of a part of the

Soke of Hatfield, which were of great value. In Domesday, the lord of

“Coningesboro” had twenty fisheries at Tudworth, yielding each 1,000

eels, and long afterwards they were important enough to be specially

recorded. It seems therefore probable that, at least as early as the

year 1000, Conisborough was the head of a large estate or Soke. The

name of “Moothill field,” borne by an enclosure about three-quarters

of a mile south-east of the castle, indicates the place of the court

for the liberty or jurisdiction. The hill has been removed. There is a

Moot-hall near the church.

While the castle has retained something of its ancient name, that of

the ferry over the Don at its foot has undergone translation, and is

known as Kingsferry. Who the king was who gave name to both has long

been unknown; probably he was of Northumbria. The old Soke, the growth

of centuries, received its final consolidation at the Conquest, when it

was granted by William the King to William Earl Warren. At that time

the fee was probably one extensive parish, for Conisborough seems to

have been the mother church of Barthwell, Hatfield, and Sandal, three

churches named in Domesday. Conisborough as a parish church, therefore,

thinks Mr. Hunter, can scarcely be later than Ælfred, and may be older

than even Doncaster itself. Such is the antiquity of the memories and

speculations with which this very remarkable place is associated.

Immediately before the Conquest it belonged to Harold the Earl. Earl

Warren evidently took it as it stood, and seated himself in the English

“Aula” at Conisborough, having about him the twenty-eight vills which

either wholly or in part were appended to it, and which included much

of the Wapentakes of Strafordes and Siraches. These were the lands “quæ

pertinent ad Coningesberc,” and which formed the “Socæ pertinens.”

The possessions of Earl Warren in England were extensive, but were

especially valuable in Sussex, Norfolk, and Yorkshire; and what

Lewes was to the former Conisborough was to the latter, and as the

Soke became an Honour the castle was its “caput.” In Earl Warren’s

foundation charter to Lewes Priory in 1078, it is provided that the

monks should find him lodgings as he went and returned from Yorkshire,

so that when he crossed from Normandy he took Lewes on his way. The

connexion between his two lordships he cemented by giving to Lewes the

church of Conisborough. Earl William was created Earl of Surrey about

1088, and died in 1089, and among his possessions stand enumerated the

Lordship and Soke of Conisborough, with twenty-eight vills and hamlets.

II. William Earl of Surrey, son and heir, supported Robert Curthose

against Henry II., and with him retired to Normandy. On being pardoned,

and his earldom of Surrey restored, he changed sides and fought for

Henry at Tinchebrai. He gave to Roche Abbey the tythe of his Hatfield

fisheries. He died 1138.

III. William Earl of Surrey, his son and heir, the third earl, joined

in the mixed French, German, and English Crusade in 1145, during which,

in 1148, he fell, leaving a daughter and heiress.

IV. Isabel de Warren, who married, first, William de Blois, a natural

son of King Stephen; and, secondly, Hameline Plantagenet, natural son

of Geoffry Earl of Anjou, and half-brother to Henry II.

William was Earl of Boulogne and Mortaigne, and, by his wife, possibly

of Surrey. He died childless 1160.

King Henry seems to have taken and held the earldoms for a while in

his own hands, but, in 1163, Isabel married Hameline Plantagenet, who

enjoyed her honours and estates and, 12 Henry II., paid scutage on

sixty knights’ fees. Hameline bore the probably Norman title of Earl

Warren, and was an active soldier in his day, a faithful servant to

Richard I., and much employed in transactions both of peace and war.

Also, though engaged occasionally in Normandy, he appears to have

passed most of his time in England, and was by no means an unlikely man

to have added the keep to his castle of Conisborough. He died 3 John,

1201, Isabel having died in 1199. Their son succeeded. Earl Hameline

founded an endowment for a priest for the chapel of St. Philip and

James within the castle. This probably stood in the courtyard for the

use of the garrison, for, 11 Edward II., the Earl of Lancaster gave

timber from the wood of Conisborough to repair the roof of the chapel

within the castle, which therefore could not be the oratory in the

keep, which is vaulted. King John was here March 12, 1201, probably

taking advantage of the earl’s death to view the castle and possessions.

V. William Plantagenet, or de Warren, son and heir of Hameline and

Isabel, who succeeded as fourth Earl of Surrey, was probably then of

age, as he had livery at the least of some of his lands, 4 John, 1202.

He held the earldom for an unusually long time, and much added to its

wealth and consequence. As a Magna Charta Baron, he behaved with great

moderation, and upon John’s death he swore allegiance to Henry. He

married, first, Maud, a daughter of the Earl of Arundel; and, secondly,

Maud, widow of Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk and Earl Marshal, by a

daughter of the great William Marshal. He died 1240, 24–5 Henry III.,

leaving a son, John. Maud, the earl’s widow, had livery, 30 Henry III.,

of the rod and office of Earl Marshal, as elder co-heir of her brother.

She also held the custody of the castles of Conisborough and Chepstow

until her death in 1246, 32 Henry III.

Their son and successor, VI. John, fifth Earl of Surrey, who succeeded

at five years old, married in 1247, being then very young, Alice le

Brun, who died 1290, half-sister of Henry III. In 1254 he paid an aid

upon sixty knights’ fees. He lacked much of the prudence of his father,

and his general character was scarcely in accord with his famous answer

to the “Quo Warranto” of Edward I., to whom, however, he was a better

subject than to his sire. He died 32 Edward I., 1304, having held the

earldom sixty-four years. He was summoned to Parliament as Earl of

Surrey and Sussex.

William his son died 14 Edward I., 1286, and therefore before his

father. His son, and the successor to the earldom, was, VII. John de

Warren or Plantagenet, sixth Earl of Surrey, a posthumous child, born

1286. When nineteen years of age, he married Joan, daughter of the Earl

of Barr, but had by her no issue. 17 Edward II. Conisborough Castle was

in the king’s hands, and 18 Edward II. he appointed the Constable. 19

Edward II. the earl recovered his estates, but had surrendered them to

the king and his heirs, taking a re-grant for his own life. He was also

both Earl of Sussex and Earl of Strathern in Scotland. Joan Countess

of Surrey was at her castles at Sandal and Conisborough in 1314.

Earl John died 1347, and his will is dated from Conisburgh Castle,

and the title of Surrey seems to have gone to Edward Earl of Arundel,

son of Alice, Earl John’s sister. Besides natural daughters, he left

two sons by Maud de Nerford, John and Thomas de Warren, to whom and

their mother he left, with the king’s permission, a very considerable

property, including Conisborough. Thomas Earl of Lancaster seems

to have obtained from Earl John some sort of forced occupation of

Conisborough, which came to an end upon his attainder, so that Earl

John recovered and died seized of it.

About its descent there is some uncertainty, for Henry, the brother

and heir of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, did homage for the castle, 1

Edward III., to which John, Earl Warren, laid claim. Earl John held it

5 Edward III., and agreed to a grant of 65 acres of the waste lands of

the manor by the king to William de Skargill. Similar grants were made

in the five following years by the earl and confirmed by the king, with

a note that the earl’s tenure was for life only.

Probably the children of Maud de Nerford found it to their interest

to allow the Crown to possess the castle, for at Earl John’s death it

was held by Edward III., who granted the castle to Edmund of Langley,

his fifth son, afterwards Duke of York, who died 1402, from whom it

descended to his son Edward, also Duke of York. He fell at Agincourt,

childless, 1415, and was succeeded by Richard, son to his brother

Richard Earl of Cambridge. He became Duke of York, and was called also

Richard of Conisborough, from his birth in the castle. Richard, who

was great-grandson of Edward III. and father of Edward IV., was slain

at Wakefield, 1460. His second wife and widow, Maud Clifford, held the

castle in dower, and lived here. She died 1464. The decay of the castle

probably dates from her death, for Edward Duke of York, who succeeded,

became Edward IV., and nothing has generally proved more fatal to an

independent historic estate than its absorption by the Crown.