line of the wall, on the usual rectangular plan, has been traced upon
the north, south, and east sides, the western defence being formed by
the river, and both city and suburb are fruitful in pavements and other
Roman remains. There is, however, some doubt as to whether the wall
actually reached the water at the south-west angle. If, as is supposed,
though upon very insufficient evidence, the fragment of Roman masonry
known as the Jewry wall was really a part of the town wall, it follows
that the wall was present on the west side, and there was a space
between that defence and the river, and that the castle, which occupies
the south-west angle, was outside the town.
Ratæ, under the name of Leicester, was also a town of great importance
among the Saxons, and was nearly central in the kingdom of Mercia.
It is mentioned in a Saxon charter of 819, and is said to have given
the title of earl to Leofric, A.D. 716, to Algar in 838, and to other
Algars and other Leofrics, and to Leofwin, the Saxon line ending
with Earl Edwin, who was slain in 1071. The town, during the Danish
interregnum, was one of the five burghs; and the castle, like those of
Tamworth and Tutbury, is said to have been either founded or restored
by Æthelflæd in 913–4, though for this solid evidence is wanting.
Nevertheless, that Saxon Leicester was the seat of a very important
earldom is very certain, and the residence of the lords was most
probably the castle.
The town and castle were placed by the Conqueror in charge of Hugh de
Grentmaisnil, lord of the neighbouring Honour and castle of Hinkley,
where also is a fine mound; and whose son Yvo was vice-comes of the
county under Henry I. The actual property of the Grentmaisnils, in
Leicester, was one-fourth of the town; but it does not appear how this
and much more of the other parts were acquired by Robert de Bellemont,
Earl of Mellent, who became Earl of Leicester, and died 1118, in
possession of the castle and Honour. “Juxta et infra castellum,” which
may conveniently be rendered, “outside, but just beneath the castle
wall,” was a collegiate church, of Saxon foundation, dedicated to St.
Mary. This Robert was probably the builder, between 1106 and 1118, of
the castle, including the hall, the chapel, and a tower upon the mound.
Robert Bossu, the second earl, took the part of Henry I. He
strengthened and enlarged the castle. He was the founder of St. Mary
de Pratis, outside the town; and, to endow this, he diminished the
ecclesiastical staff, and diverted some of the lands from his father’s
foundation by the castle. He died 1167.
Robert Blanchmains, his son, the third earl, married Petronilla,
the heiress of the Grentmaisnils, his predecessor at Leicester, and
with her obtained Hinkley, Groby (where also is a mound), and other
possessions. He is reputed to have enlarged and strengthened the
castle, and his constable, Anketel Mallory, held it against Henry
II. until he surrendered it by the earl’s command. Also Mallory
surrendered, on the same day, the castles of Groby and Mountsorrell.
Both castle and town were taken, the town wall was demolished, and
it is said that the part between the north and east gates was never
rebuilt.
Robert Fitzparnell, the fourth earl, died childless in 1204, when
Leicester Castle, and in 1206 the earldom, came to Simon de Montford,
who had married Amicia, his sister and co-heir. Upon the death at
Evesham of their son Simon in 1264, and his attainder, the earldom
and castle were granted to Edmond, second son of Henry III., Earl of
Leicester and Lancaster, and the castle has since descended with the
Lancaster property, and is still a part of the duchy of that name.
Henry, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, founded the Hospital of the
Newark contiguous to the castle in 1322, and the works were completed
by Henry, his son, Duke of Lancaster, in 1354. The hospital contained
four acres. It reached the river, and covered the castle on the south
side, and at this time one approach to the castle is across the Newark,
through its handsome gatehouse.
The earls and dukes of Lancaster must have restored the castle, as they
resided here very frequently, and with their usual display. When John
of Gaunt granted certain privileges to the city in 1376, he reserved
the castle and its mill, and the rents and services of the castle
court, and its office of porter. In the castle he entertained Richard
II. and his queen with great splendour in 1390.
In 1414, when Henry V. held a Parliament in the hall of the Grey
Friars, he resided at the castle, and it was in the great hall of the
castle that was held the Parliament of 1425–6, the Commons meeting
in an apartment below it, which, however, could scarcely be the case
literally, as the hall is on the ground level. It is just possible that
the modern brick vaults and cells constructed under the floors of the
hall for the purposes of police may replace an older substructure, into
which opened the existing cellar.
Henry VI. was here in 1426, and in 1444 the castle and Honour were
included in his marriage settlement. In 1450 a third Parliament was
held at Leicester, but whether in the castle hall is not recorded.
Edward IV. was here in 1463 and 1464, but from this period the castle
seems to have been neglected, and to have fallen into great decay.
Leland, who visited Leicester about 1512, says,—“The castelle stonding
nere the west bridge is at this tyme a thing of small estimation, and
there is no apparaunce other [either] of high waulles or dykes. So that
I think that the lodgings that now be there were made sins the tyme of
the Barons’ war in Henry III. tyme, and great likelyhood there is that
the castelle was much defaced in Henry II. tyme, when the waulles of
Liercester were defacid.” (Itin., i., p. 16.)
Speed gives a rough perspective view of the castle and town, which,
however, is very indistinct as regards the former. In 1633 Mr. Herrick,
of Beaumanor, was directed by the king to remove the ruinous parts
and sell their material; to repair the castle house, which contained
the records of the Honour of Lancaster, and to preserve the vaults
and stairs leading to it, for the use of the keep of the castle. Upon
this an inquisition was taken in 1633–4, and the value recorded of the
materials, “excepting the Sessions Hall and the vault under the old
castle, and the stairs leading to it.” This inquisition gives several
details, chiefly of parts now removed; and mentions as to be repaired
“John of Groat’s kitchen, divers outhouses belonging to the Great
Sessions Hall, and the ruinous pieces at the south end of the same
hall; also the south gate, and the wall from this gate to the Soar,
which divides the castle from the Newark; also a wall next the porch of
the church.” By “keep” is no doubt meant the hall. The south gate and
wall to the Soar remain, as does a wall next the (south) porch of the
church.
In the civil wars, the castle was held for the king. It then fell to
the Parliament; was retaken by the king in 1645, and finally yielded
to the Parliament after Naseby. In the struggles the south gate was
probably reduced to its present ruined condition.
In 1781, Mr. Rogers Ruding had a lease of the premises from the duchy,
which specifies the south gate evidently that remaining towards the
Newark, the castle house, several tenements, the mount, and the
appendages to the castle, and stipulates for the holding of sessions in
the great hall.
The castle stands at the south-western angle of the town, upon ground
close to, and about 20 feet above, the right bank of the Soar, the
three channels of which unite below the castle. The nearest of these
streams is the artificial leat which supplied the castle mill, and does
still supply its modern representative. From the line of the castle
wall the ground slopes rapidly, and terminates in a strip of level land
that forms the margin of the mill leat, therein closely resembling the
river front of Taunton Castle on the Tone.
The castle seems to have been composed of a mound on its south-west
quarter; a hall and other buildings on the west or river front; the
church of St. Mary de Castro opposite to the hall; and on the east side
a gatehouse between the church and the mound; another gatehouse close
north of the church, and a wall which runs east of the church, and
forms a part of the eastern boundary of its churchyard. There is also
the mill which, though modern, covers the ancient site.
The area within which these remains are included is known as “The
Castle View.” This evidently represents the precinct of the Norman, and
probably of the Saxon castle, and has been preserved as a distinct and,
in part, extra-parochial district, vested in the duchy of Lancaster.
The Castle View is nearly square, and may include four or possibly five
acres. In 1861 it was returned as “The Liberty of the Castle View,” and
contained 29 houses and 131 persons. The boundaries are the line of the
ancient circumscribing ditch, or nearly so. On the south they divide
the castle from the Newark, just including the mound. On the east they
take the line from the present south gatehouse, by the old wall, and
thence by the edge of the road down to the mill, including the house
and garden attached to the Sessions House. The ditch is everywhere
filled up, but in the garden north of the Hall the line of the wall is
marked by a step of from 8 to 10 feet.
This line includes St. Mary’s, which was once the collegiate church
or chapel of the castle. If it be that the castle was enlarged by
Robert Bossu, it is probable that the older defence just excluded the
church, and took the line of the present upper gatehouse, cutting off
the churchyard and church, and placing the latter “juxta et infra” the
castle wall. St. Mary’s was made parochial in 1400, the rest of the
View remaining extra parochial, and it is not impossible that this was
a restoration to the church of its ecclesiastical position before it
was included within the Norman military precinct.
The mound, though broad, is at present less lofty than is usual in the
more important Saxon castles, having been lowered 40 years ago by 12 or
15 feet. It is now about 30 feet high and 100 feet diameter upon its
circular top, which is quite flat, without a trace of old building upon
it. It has now no ditch, and is connected with no ancient wall; but,
though probably within the ancient _enceinte_, it may, as at Warwick
and Tamworth, have actually formed a part of it. The original well
still remains in the mound and is in use.
The present hall was a part of the castle proper. It is an oblong
structure, like Oakham and Winchester, composed of a nave and two
narrow aisles. The nave lies north and south, and is about 60 feet
by 25 feet, having gables at either end, and an open high-pitched
roof. Since 1633, and perhaps earlier, it has been used for judicial
purposes, and divided into three parts,—a civil and criminal court,
and between them an entrance lobby, and above it a grand-jury room. To
enlarge the courts, the old oaken posts or piers, with carved Norman
caps, have been removed, the east aisle rebuilt or cased, and the west
aisle walled off for retiring-room and passages. Its older parts also
are concealed by panelling and partition-walls. The original south
wall of the nave remains. In it are two round-headed windows, resting
upon a string-course, or set-off in the wall, with a plain chamfered
moulding. The windows are small and plain, and the recesses have but
little splay. These are flanked by two slender detached octagonal
shafts, possibly replacing cylindrical ones, with Norman capitals, and
the head of each recess is surrounded by a single bold band of chevron
moulding. There is a third and small window above, near the apex of the
gable, with a recess of about 2 feet opening, all quite plain. Below is
a small Norman door, but apparently a very recent insertion. It may,
however, represent a way into the kitchen, which was at this end.
The opposite or north end wall, forming the side of the civil court,
appears also to be old, but is so plastered and pointed as to be
inscrutable from the inside. It contains a large round-headed window,
probably a modern insertion. From the outside the base of the wall
seems original, and there is the jamb of a window in end of the east
aisle.
The wall of the west aisle, towards the river, is original, and is
flanked at each end by a buttress, probably of Decorated date. In
drawings of the last century this building is shown as an aisle, but
it has been raised, and now forms a judge’s retiring-room behind each
court, and a staircase between them. In the basement are offices. This
aisle contains one original window near the south end, flat pointed,
with plain jambs, and a head adorned by a single chevron band. The
jambs have been renewed in brick.
The hall-floor is on the ground level, but it has been largely
excavated, and now contains a number of cells and vaulted passages to
them beneath the court. These vaults show nothing ancient.
Until recently there were some small inferior buildings at the south
end of the court. These are now replaced by a barristers’ room. The
kitchen stood here till 1715, when it was removed. Beneath the site
of the kitchen is a very fine vault, perhaps 40 feet long by 15 feet
wide, the west wall of which is the original outer wall of the castle.
The vault is of excellent ashlar, slightly four-centred and evidently
Perpendicular work. At the north end is a door, now walled up, steps
beyond which led up to the hall. At the other end is also a door. This
was evidently a cellar and a fine one.
In the garden north of the hall, no doubt, stood the principal
apartments of the old castle. Here was the Castle House of the
seventeenth century. Norman rectangular keep there was certainly none.
The gatehouse towards the Newark opens from the castle, its front being
outwards. It is small, having a portal passage, a lodge, and a turnpike
stair, and on the upper floor, now a ruin, a portcullis chamber, and
two other rooms. Its arches are four-centred. It has the broad hollow
moulding of the Perpendicular period, and a square portcullis groove
behind the outer entrance. Within was a door, opening inwards. The
central part of the portal was boarded over. The structure is good,
very early Perpendicular, the work, no doubt, of an Earl of Lancaster.
The upper or north gatehouse is framed of timber, and probably of Tudor
date. It stands close north of the west end of the church, with which
it was, until recently, connected by certain timber houses, used by the
prebendaries. These have been pulled down.
Parts of the church are Norman, and the north aisle seems of the date
of the hall of the castle, and, therefore, a part of the work of Robert
de Bellomont. There is a small door in the west wall of the aisle, that
may very well have opened from the base court of the castle.
In this court, in front of the hall, is a small knoll, in which were
recently found two skeletons, headless, the head placed on the breast
of each. This was, therefore, the place of execution in front of the
hall of trial.
Should the Courts of the county of Leicester ever be lodged in a
more central or more convenient building, it is to be hoped that the
castle hall will be divested of its unseemly additions, and restored
to its original dimension and pattern, when, probably, some correct
information would be discovered as to the vaults and foundations of the
buildings of the eleventh century.
Leicester Castle, mutilated as it is, is yet a very fine specimen of
a Norman fortress on an earlier site. The latter represented by the
mound, the former by the hall and chapel, form together a good example
of the Norman practice of placing the castle proper on the level
ground, and treating the mound as a part of the external defences.
Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Mr. William Napier Reeve, the
deputy constable of the castle, for his care of the hall intrusted to
his charge. The bâton used on all solemn occasions by the Constable or
by himself is part of one of the original Norman posts that supported
the roof of the nave; and the post, from its great size, must certainly
have been an old tree when the castle was built, and therefore have
been in growth when the mound, the work of Æthelflæd, was thrown up.
LEYBOURNE CASTLE, KENT.
This castle, the lords of which played a considerable part in the
earlier troubles of the thirteenth century, when two of the name were
summoned as barons, stands by the road-side near its parish church of
the same name, between Snodland and West Malling, in Kent, and at no
great distance from the ancient Neville seat of Birling.
The building, judging from its present remains, is scarcely in keeping
with the wealth of its late lords, nor does it appear ever to have
been more extensive. Part of the walls may be of Norman date, but the
general aspect is of the date of Henry III., and the gateway may be of
Edward III.
The most perfect portion is the gateway, a pointed and ribbed arch,
which opens between two bold drum towers, placed unusually close
together. Above the portal is a slit or chase, about 3 feet wide and
6 inches deep, pointing downwards and outwards, and much resembling a
large post-office opening. The narrow dimensions of this opening, its
straight sides, and thickness of the wall, would prevent its being used
for the casting down of projectiles, and even as a horizontal loop its
range would be very limited. It may possibly have been intended for the
pouring down of water, supposing the outer gate to have been assailed
by fire.
A little in advance of this wall, on either side of the doorway, is a
portcullis groove, rectangular instead of a half round as usual; and
these grooves, instead of ascending as a chase or slit in the entrance
vault, placing the grate when lifted nearly out of sight, ascend in
front of the door to about double its height, so that the grating
would always be entirely visible, whether down or up. The chains by
which it hung, also visible, ascended through a machicolation at the
rampart level, formed by throwing a flat segmental arch from tower to
tower, parallel to and about 18 inches in advance of the gateway and
wall above it. This arrangement, seen at Neath and elsewhere, enabled
stones or heavy projectiles to be dropped with but little risk to those
employing them.
In advance of the portcullis grooves, two lateral holes at the level of
the door-cill show where the pivots of the drawbridge rested. Bridge
pit and moat are now filled up. The rear parts of the gatehouse and
entrance vault have been destroyed.
The irregular outline of the castle may be traced, and two detached
groups of ruins, with a couple of drum towers, remain; but there is
nothing of any special interest excepting the gateway and its defences.
LINCOLN CASTLE.
When “the devil looked over Lincoln” he is said to have smiled at
man’s costly devotion. But if the smile of the arch-enemy of mankind
was, as must be supposed, in derision of man’s attempts at progress,
the occasion of it was singularly ill-chosen, for in the whole of
Britain it would be difficult to find a tract for the well-being of
which man has exerted himself so much and so successfully. Two thousand
years ago, that broad but not unbroken plain which extends from the
Wash to the Humber, from the Trent and the uplands of Nottingham and
Derby to the German Ocean was composed of arid heath and moorish fen,
contributing little to the material support of man, and probably
nothing to his moral culture. Beasts of chase, fish, and water-fowl
shared the territory with savage hordes, but little removed from the
animals upon which they preyed. By slow degrees, by many generations of
men, labouring through many centuries, great things have been achieved.
The fen has been banked and drained, and the heath brought under
culture, so that the whole expanse is now covered by green pastures and
rich root crops, and year after year the autumnal sun is reflected from
broad fields waving with golden grain.
Nor has the moral been behind the material progress. From the castled
hill of Belvoir, to the rocks of Newark and Nottingham, and the crowned
promontory of Lincoln, the land bristles with the works of man. The
constructive taste and skill of many generations, and their deep
religious feeling, are represented by a rich variety of ecclesiastical
architecture, from the rude and primitive tower of Barton to the lordly
spires of Louth and Newark, and the glorious lanthorn of Boston;
churches and schools, mansion-houses and granges, “tower and village,
dome and farm,” are unmistakable evidences of peace, prosperity, and
civilisation. There, too, are to be seen, not sparingly scattered, the
sunken arch and ruined aisle, the ivy-covered remains and richly-carved
fragments of many religious houses, making pleasant the study of hoar
antiquity, and reminding us that there was a time when each was a
centre of gospel truth, and of an early and beneficial civilisation,
the abode of men who did good work in their day, and founded by those
who—
“Loved the Church so well, and gave so largely to it,
They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till Domesday.”
Something of all this is visible to mere mortal ken, and far more to
him who adds to the material prospect a knowledge of the past and the
distant. It is true that the vision thus beheld from the guarded mount
of Lincoln is not equal to that far wider and more noble outlook from
a more exalted pinnacle, upon the description of which Milton has
poured forth in one glittering roll the full stream of his learning,
illuminated by the fire of his genius, but it is nevertheless one in
which the student of the past may well take delight.
Lincoln itself is thickly strewed with the footsteps of the past.
The Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, the Englishman, and the
Norman, have successively been lords of the soil, and each has left his
mark, either in material traces or in a nomenclature still less liable
to decay. A great historian, our chief authority also in matters of
topography, has pronounced the earthworks to the north of the city to
be of British origin. If this be so, they must be the work of those
Romanised Britons who attempted, though in vain, to hold their country
against the Picts and Scots, and the Scandinavian hordes from beyond
the German Ocean, and who, while so striving, showed some considerable
acquaintance with the Roman rules of castrametation, though unequal,
it would seem, to the works in masonry for which that people were so
celebrated. The conclusion that these earthworks are, if not Roman,
early post-Roman British, rests upon the fact that their outline is
rectangular, and that the enclosure is bisected, nearly equally, by the
Roman way.
Of the earlier Britons, those dispossessed by the Romans, the traces
are slight indeed, and probably confined to a few nearly effaced
intrenchments, and to the roots of such proper names as “Durnomagus,”
“Segelocum,” “Banovallum,” on the Bane river, and “Lindum,” names
which probably, like “Eboracum” and “Londinum,” represent an earlier
appellation. The mound at Riseholme, if sepulchral, may, of course,
be of any age; but the district, possessing but few of those grand
features which are usually the earliest to receive their names and the
latest to lose them, has retained no very obvious traces of its primal
inhabitants.
Of their successors, the remains are of a very different character.
The imperial mistress of the world left everywhere traces of her
sway not easily to be obliterated. Her measures of war were also
calculated—“pacis imponere morem.” From the station at Lindum great
roads radiated in several directions, and preserved that facility of
communication which civilised conquerors usually seek to establish.