[Illustration: LOOKING FROM CARISBROOKE CASTLE.]
Following up the Medina River a few miles, almost to the centre of the
island, it leads to the metropolis, the little town of Newport, and
here, upon an outer precipice of the chalk-downs overlooking the
river-valley and the town, and elevated two hundred feet above the sea,
is Carisbrooke Castle. The oldest part of the present remains come down
from Fitzosborne, but additions were afterwards made, and Queen
Elizabeth, in anticipation of the descent of the Armada, had an outer
line of defence constructed, pentagonal in shape and enclosing
considerable space. The loyalty of the people in that time of trial was
shown by their subscribing money and laboring without pay on these
works. The ruins are not striking, but are finely situated on the
elevated ridge. They are much decayed, but the entrance-gateway is well
preserved, with its flanking round towers, portcullis, and ancient
doors. Here lived Charles I. and two of his children. A small stone
building within the enclosure covers the famous well of Carisbrooke,
sunk in Stephen's days, two hundred and forty feet deep, of which ninety
feet are filled with water. A solemn donkey in a big wooden wheel works
the treadmill that winds the bucket up. Formerly, every visitor dropped
a pebble into the well to hear the queer sounds it made in falling--"His
head as he fell went knicketty-knock, like a pebble in Carisbrooke
Well," used to be a proverb--but as this amusement threatened to fill up
the well, it has been prohibited. The keep is at the north-eastern angle
of the castle, polygonal in plan and of Norman architecture. Carisbrooke
was held for the empress Maud against Stephen, but the failure of the
old well in the keep, now filled up, caused its surrender. The new one,
which has never been known to give out, was then bored. In the reign of
Charles I. the castle was invested by militia on behalf of the
Parliament, and was surrendered to them by the wife of the governor, the
Countess of Portland. She obtained specially advantageous conditions
from the besiegers by appearing on the walls with a lighted match and
threatening to fire the first cannon unless the conditions were granted.
King Charles I. took refuge here in November, 1647, but soon found he
was practically a prisoner. He remained ten months, twice attempting to
escape. On the first occasion he tried to squeeze himself between the
bars of his window, but stuck fast; on the second his plan was divulged,
and on looking out the window he found a guard ready to entrap him
below. He was taken to Newport and surrendered himself to the
Parliamentary commissioners, but was ultimately returned to Carisbrooke.
Then some army officers removed him suddenly to Hurst Castle on the
mainland, and thence he was taken to Windsor and London for the trial
that ended on the block at Whitehall. Two of his children were
imprisoned in Carisbrooke with him--the young Duke of Gloucester,
afterwards sent to the Continent, and the princess Elizabeth, who died
here in childhood from a fever. She was found dead with her hands
clasped in the attitude of prayer and her face resting on an open Bible,
her father's last gift. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Newport
Church, but the coffin was discovered in 1793, and when the church was
rebuilt in 1856 Queen Victoria erected a handsome monument over the
little princess, the sculptor representing her lying on a mattrass with
her cheek resting on the open Bible, the attitude in which she had been
found. Newport has some ten thousand population.