Chapter XVIII: Part 18

Middleham was a part of the broad territory granted by the Conqueror to Alan Fergaunt, the founder of Richmond Castle, and lord of that extensive Honour, stepping thus into the seat of the English Earl Edwin, which he shifted from the adjacent Gilling. His younger son, Ribald, had Middleham for his especial lordship, by the gift of the second Alan, his brother. Ribald was followed by Ralph, his son, and he by Robert FitzRalph, or Ranulph, who married Berta, niece of Ranulph de Glanvill, and is the reputed builder of Middleham Keep in 1191, 2 and 3 Richard I.

Ranulph FitzRobert was the founder of Coverham Abbey, “Near his manor-house of Middleham,” and was there buried in 1251 (31 Henry III.), leaving Ralph Fitz Ranulph, his son, who appears to have been lord of Middleham Manor in an inquisition for the partition of his lands (55 Henry III.), the year of his death. He left three daughters, co-heiresses, of whom Mary, the eldest, married Robert de Nevile, and had Middleham. Ralph died (55 Henry III.) 1271. It appears, by an inquisition under the name of Peter of Savoy, that Middleham was a fee owing suit of court to the Honour of Richmond. 18 Edward I., Maria de Nevile is styled Domina de Middleham, and 13 Edward II. she had the manor. She lived till 14 Edward II. (1320), having held Middleham for life.

Their son was Ralph Nevile, who died 5 Edward III., (1331), and who appears in an inquisition (1 Edward III.) as holding Middleham Manor and Castle. His son, Robert Nevile, the Peacock of the North, had from his grandmother the castle and manor of Middleham. He died, without issue, before his father, leaving Ralph his brother and heir, who died 41 Edward III. This Ralph, Lord Nevile of Raby, took a very active part in all the public transactions of his time, both in war and peace. He died seized of the castle and manor of Middleham, and was the first layman buried in the Cathedral of Durham.

The next lord was John, his son, also a great soldier and diplomatist. He died 12 Richard II., 1388, leaving Ralph, his son and heir, who added to the wealth and power of the family, and also held the castle, manor, and lordship of Middleham at his death in 4 Henry VI., 1425. John, son of Ralph, died before his father, 1423, who was succeeded by his grandson, Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, who died 2 Richard III. Middleham, however, had passed to Richard Nevile, Earl of Salisbury, son of Earl Ralph, who died 4 Henry VI., by his second wife, a daughter of John of Gaunt. The Earl of Salisbury, by an inquisition of 12 Richard II., had then Middleham. This is the earl who, in 37 Henry VI., marched with 4,000 men from Middleham into Lancashire on his way to London, to obtain redress from the king and queen for injuries done to his son. On this earl’s forfeiture, before 38 Henry VI., his Lancastrian kinsman, Sir John Nevile, was made constable of Middleham Castle, then in the Crown. Sir John fell at Towton, 1 Edward IV., and his son Ralph became Earl of Westmoreland. But Middleham remained in the Crown.

At Middleham, then in charge of Nevile, Archbishop of York, Edward IV. was confined by Richard, Earl of Warwick, the prelate’s brother. Edward escaped when hunting in the park. After Barnet the castle was granted to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to the exclusion of the male heirs of the Marquis Montagu, Warwick’s brother. Richard was much here; raised the rectory to a deanery, with a view to the foundation of a college; and here his son Edward, Prince of Wales, was born. After Richard’s death, Middleham fell to the Crown, and was leased to various persons. Finally it was sold to Mr. Wood, of Littleton, ancestor of the present owner. Recently the keep has been partially cleared of rubbish, and some of the most dangerous portions have been under-pinned; but a little more assistance of the same character is much needed to save some of the most prominent features of the ruin from destruction.

MITFORD CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.

This is one of the most remarkable of the Northumbrian castles. It is situated about two miles above and west of Morpeth, on the right bank of the Wansbeck, which here makes two very sharp bends, the larger and higher of which includes the castle, the church of St. Andrew, the new Hall, and the ruins of the old one. The church, the nave of which was long roofless, has been repaired, and is now in good order. It is the burial-place of the ancient barons and modern lords of Mitford. The chancel is early English; the nave rude but good Norman, with a pointed south door in the same style. The old Hall, of which a tower is standing, was a Tudor building, constructed by the Mitfords, in part from the materials of the castle. The present Hall, the Mitford residence, is modern.

What remains of the castle occupies the summit of a knoll of sandstone rock, rising about 70 feet, on the north side abruptly, and elsewhere more or less steeply, from a marshy meadow, which on the north, east, and west is encircled by the folds of the Wansbeck, and on the south by a sweep of a tributary stream, which joins the river just below the castle. Each watercourse flows beneath a steep and high concave bank, thickly wooded, and the result is a sylvan amphitheatre of great seclusion and much beauty.

The castle knoll, at its summit, is about eighty yards across, irregularly circular. Along its brow runs the _enceinte_ wall of the place, much broken down, but which seems to have been about 20 feet high and 7 feet thick. It may be traced all round, save at one point on the south face, where it is encroached upon by a quarry opened for the materials of the new Hall in 1810. Towards the north the wall is tolerably perfect, though more or less riven, and without its battlements. The inclosure is now an orchard.

The northern portion of the area is somewhat higher than the rest, and has been parted off by a cross wall, creating an inner ward, of small dimension, semi-circular plan, and considerable strength. In this ward stands the Norman keep, a square of about 36 feet, but having its north side in two oblique faces, forming a salient. It has, therefore, five sides, a rare and certainly original departure from the usual Norman plan. The walls are about 7 feet thick, and the interior area 22 feet 6 inches square. This space is divided by a cross wall, north and south, into two equal parts, each barrel-vaulted, with a plain, round-headed arch springing from a plain chamfered abacus. The north face of each chamber is oblique, to match the exterior salient. Of these chambers, one has a loop in the north gable, and the other, in the corresponding place, two small stone spouts, about 3 feet from the floor, as though for the admission of water. Both chambers are ruined at the south end.

All the keep above the ground-floor walls is destroyed, and the rubbish conceals the exterior wall face, but the whole is clearly of excellent ashlar. From and within the west wall a small mural stair descends, turning the south-west angle to a door in the south wall, opening into the west vault. This door has a flat segmental arch. The outer entrance seems to have been in the west wall in the floor above the basement. It is said that an exterior stone stair is concealed by the rubbish. This keep stands upon the rock, here, perhaps, 20 feet above the rest of the area. It blocks up the triangular, or rather segmental inner ward, standing about 50 feet from one angle and 30 feet from the other. Its salient extends to within 10 feet of the northern, or corresponding salient of the ward, and its southern face is about 6 feet within the cross wall. In the curved outer wall of this ward, towards the north-west, is a very remarkable window recess, 8 feet broad and of the same height, to the plain Norman abacus, whence springs its round-headed arch, over which is a hood-moulding of the same pattern, the only attempt at ornament. The wall here is 8 feet thick, but as the outer 2 feet are not original, the window-case is gone. It was probably of two lights, and opened upon the cliff.

Close south of this window, in the inner face of the same wall, are a number of curious holes, irregularly placed, more or less rounded, as though half a soda-water bottle had been thrust into the green mortar. They occur at the joints, and the best marked are where three joints meet. They are certainly not putlog holes, being too irregular and too shallow.

The inner ward was entered from the outer by a small strong doorway in the cross wall, now much ruined, a few feet west of the keep.

The outer ward had probably a chapel on its south side; many graves, some covered with slabs, and one containing a stone coffin, having been laid open when baring for the quarry. In the west wall is a good plain Caernarvon-headed postern door of 5 feet opening, below a pointed relieving arch. The main entrance to this ward was on the east side, near the inner ward wall, and commanded by the keep. The gateway, said to have been 15 feet deep, is now a ruin, but it opened upon a small platform, a little lower than the ward, and defended by a wall, under cover of which the road wound up from below. Some broken ground on this side is said to indicate an ancient quarry, probably that employed when the castle was built.

On the north-west quarter was also a spur from the hill, but lower and narrower than the former one. This has been converted into a thin falciform bank, concave to the castle, by the cutting of a deep ditch in its rear, probably to provide a covered way to the postern, up which cattle could be driven with safety.

The castle hill seems to have been girt, a few yards from its base, by a wet ditch, in part artificial, which covered its north-west and south sides, and communicated at each end with the Wansbeck, which completed the circle on the east side. Whether there was a wall within the ditch is uncertain, probably not, but it was guarded towards the north-east by a gatehouse and enclosed space, in front of which, below the present bridge, was the old fosse-bridge, by the tenure of guarding which Walter de Swinhowe, in the reign of Edward III., held forty acres of land.

A knoll so defined as Mitford, so secluded, and so protected by a river and by marshy ground, was likely to have been a British camp as well as a Saxon or English dwelling-place, and there is high probability of the truth of the tradition that asserts the Barony of Mitford to have been held in the reign of the Confessor by John of Mitford, whose daughter Sybil is said to have carried it in marriage to Richard Bertram, a follower of the Conqueror, and of the stock of Baliol. The first recorded lord is, however, Roger Bertram, who held the Barony in 1155, and certified to its having been held by his father and grandfather. At that time the Barony extended over five parishes, and received payment of castle-guard from nine manors, itself paying scutage to the castle of Newcastle.

The Bertrams who, like the Baliols, bore an orle for their arms, retained Mitford for eight generations, when Agnes, their heiress, sold the estate, in 1275, to Alexander de Baliol, from whom it passed by various changes to de Valence, and thence with part of his estate to the Earl of Athol, one of his heirs general. There remained, however, in the district a family who bore the surname of Mitford, and claimed descent from a brother of John, whose daughter married the Bertram. Their representative, William, in the tenth generation, held lands in, and his son was actually of Mitford, and seems to have recovered the castle, and to be the direct ancestor in the male line of the present Mr. Mitford, of Mitford, and of his distant kinsman, Lord Redesdale.

The castle, though of no great magnitude, played, from its position and strength, rather an important part in Border warfare. William the Lion, who reigned from 1165 to 1214, dated a charter from hence, 28th December, 1215. King John is said to have burned the vill, though whether he took the castle is unknown. The public records, however, make him visit Mitford from Berwick in 1216, and stay there the 24th, 25th, and 26th of January, going on the latter day to Newcastle. Alexander, King of Scotland, failed to take the place in May, 1217, when he lay in leaguer before it for seven days. Local history is silent concerning it during the active reign of Edward I., but in the wild times consequent upon Bannockburn, a notorious Border freebooter, Sir Gilbert Middleton, made Mitford his stronghold, and here imprisoned Henry, Lord Beaumont, while his brother Lewis, Bishop of Durham, was shut up in Morpeth Castle.

The castle, by its present condition, affords evidence of the vicissitudes it has undergone. Still, ruined as it is, careful observation finds much from which its original plan, and even part of its details, may be ascertained. Its general plan, the keep, and the most part of the _enceinte_ wall, are evidently original, and late Norman, probably the work of Richard Bertram early in the reign of Henry II. The postern is, of course, later, either early Edwardian or of the reign of Henry III. It is unusual to find so small a keep divided by a cross-wall, or to find any Norman keep with an original vaulted basement, though of this there is apparently an example in the late Norman Keep of Norham. The salient on one side is unknown elsewhere.

A good ground-plan and photographs on a large scale of the masonry are much needed, and a very moderate amount of excavation in the inner ward would probably throw light on the original structure of the keep. In point of recorded history the very complete account of Mitford, given in Hodgson’s “Northumberland,” leaves nothing to be desired; it is only to be regretted that a corresponding industry and critical acumen have not been brought to bear upon its architectural remains.

MONTGOMERY CASTLE.

It is by a singular chance that a rude and artificial mound of earth, in an obscure part of a foreign province, should have given its name to a British county and to the town that forms its capital. The proper names of places in Britain are usually either British or English. Once given in the latter tongue, they have but seldom been changed. New creations, as Battle and Jervaulx, and some other ecclesiastical houses, bear, indeed, new names; but these do not appear to have displaced any already existing. Pontefract is a name probably derived from an accidental circumstance; but Richmond and Montgomery are solitary instances of a shire or a capital town deriving its name from the inheritance of a Norman lord.

The castle of Montgomery is registered by that name in the Domesday survey, and placed in the hundred of Wintentrue, in the county of Salop. “Ad castellum de Montgomeri habet comes iiii carucas et vi libras denariorum. habet de uno fine de Walis pertinente ad ipsam castellariam. Rogerius [Corbet] habet ibi ij carucas, et de Walis, cum fratre suo habet xl. solidos.” And further on, “Ipse comes construxit castrum, Muntgumeri vocatum. Ad quod adjacent lii. hidæ et dimidia quas tenuere Seuuar, Oslac, Azor, de rege Edwardo, quietas ab omni geldo; ad venandum eas habuere.” Here, then, we have the name of the castle, its inclusion in an English county, its castelry, its chief lord, Earl Roger, and the fact that in the time of the Confessor, three Englishmen held 52½ hides about it as a hunting-ground. The Englishmen are entered, a few lines on, as Thanes. Seuuar was, no doubt, like Siward, a very great, as was Azor a considerable, landowner in the same county. “De fine de Walis” shows that Earl Roger’s territory included Welshmen with his English tenants, just as the names of places, and especially of parishes, in the district, show a great and early establishment of English there. The castelry included twenty-two members, at no great distance from the castle rock, and the castle was one of about fourteen strong places mentioned in Domesday as then existing in Hereford, Monmouth, and Salop. It only differed from most others, and especially from such as Clun, Ludlow, Caus, Oswestry, or Whittington, in being held by the earl himself, and not by one of his secondary barons.

Earl Roger, the “comes” of the above entry, upon the fall of Morkere, added Shropshire to his Sussex earldom, and to him, with powers equal in many respects to those of royalty, was committed the safety of the middle march, with its extensive but imperilled English settlement there. On the site of the British Pengwern and of the Saxon Shrobsbury, folded securely within a remarkable convolution of the Severn, he established his chief seat upon, and at the base of, the English mound, which still looks down upon the deep and wide river; and with its connected fragment of the ancient city wall forms a striking contrast to the bustle and action carried out upon the railway and within its ephemeral buildings at the foot of the slope. There is a tradition, founded, however, upon error, that the earl’s lieutenant in the more advanced frontier of his dangerous territory, was a certain Baldwin, whose name is preserved in the Welsh appellation of Tre-Faldwin for the town and castle, and of Frydd-Faldwin for a remarkable encampment on the summit of an adjacent hill. But Baldwin, though not an uncommon name with the Normans, does not occur in Shropshire among either the tenants-in-chief or the under-tenants, in Domesday. There was indeed a William Fitz-Baldwin, Lord of Rhydcors, in the reign of Rufus, but he was a South Wales man, and unconnected with Earl Roger. But whether as Tre-Faldwin or Montgomery, whether named from the hand or the head, it is clear that the castle stood in a position most offensive to the pride and patriotic feelings of the Welsh. The vale of the Severn from Welsh Pool to a little short of Llanidloes, had for centuries been a field of bitter contest. The Roman, the Dane, and the Englishman had done violence to the “virgin daughter of Locrine,” and stained her molten crystal with blood. Its broad band of flat and fertile meadow made Powys-land a prize of great value, and the steep and lofty hills between which it was contained, were highly favourable to both the sudden attack and safe retreat of the Welsh. The plain and its lower eminences, traversed by the dyke of Offa, are thickly studded with moated mounds and earthworks, thrown up in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, and which show how far-reaching was, even in that remote period, the Mercian and English power. The mound thrown up by Æthelflaed in 916, at Chirbury, is destroyed; but those of Moat Lane, of Newtown, of Hên-domen, of Kerry, and Nant-cribba, remain, and are as large and as well-defined as that of Shrewsbury itself, and of the very type of those more famous royal residences in Elmete and at Laughton-en-le-Morthen, or of the works near Livarot, whence Earl Roger derived his name, and which have survived all subsequent additions in stone and lime.

That Earl Roger, between his acquisition of the earldom and the year of the Domesday survey had built a castle, is on record, but what sort of a castle may be a question. Norman towers were plain, solid, of durable design, and excellent workmanship, too stout and too useful to be intentionally pulled down, and usually, as at Wattlesborough, outlasting all later additions; but assuredly there is now no trace of any work of Earl Roger on the castle rock, nor anywhere near it; for it has been supposed, without shadow of probability, that his castle was placed, not upon the rock, but somewhere in its neighbourhood. It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that Earl Roger’s castle was of a less durable character than is usually supposed, and that this will account for its quick destruction in 1095, two years after his death, by the Welsh, accompanied by the slaughter of his successor’s (Earl Hugh) garrison. This was the event that brought Rufus into the district, to the earl’s aid, in 1096, when, though he did but little, he seems to have recovered the site of the castle, and to have given the earl an opportunity of rebuilding or restoring it. Earl Hugh is said to have done so, but however this may have been, Montgomery is not mentioned among the castles held by his elder brother, but successor, Robert de Belesme, the wicked earl, on his ruin and banishment in 1102. Here, again, the probability is that any castle then standing was of a light and not very durable character, not worthy of being mentioned with Shrewsbury or Bridgenorth.

With the fall of the house of Montgomery, the earldom escheated to the Crown, and with it its castle and castelry. Henry I. upon this remodelled the hundreds of Salop, and raised Montgomery into an Honour or barony, throwing into it the greater part of the adjacent seignory of Chirbury, and several other manors. The valuable, and, on the whole, compact territory thus constituted was at once granted by Henry to a certain Baldwin de Bollers, who was the husband “Sibillæ nepotis regis,” whatever relationship, legitimate or illegitimate, that word may indicate. This lady is also designated, possibly from her mother, as “Sibil de Faleise.” All that is known of Baldwin is that he already held five knight’s-fees of the honour of Warden. He held the new Honour, _in capite_, of the king, per baroniam; his under-tenants holding of him, most of them, as set forth in the Hundred Rolls, by castle guard. Baldwin began his reign by the very necessary act of building a castle, though what he actually constructed is uncertain, for there is no existing masonry that can be attributed to him or his immediate successors. Still, he is reported to have built a castle, and that he did so is probably just as certain that it is his name, and not that of any lieutenant of Earl Roger, that is identified with the rock by the Welsh. It is also reported that while Baldwin was preparing this castle, he occupied the British camp above, known, in consequence, as Ffrydd-Faldwin. This is most improbable. The camp, a very large and very fine specimen of a British work, would hold five or six thousand men, and could not well be defended by less than a third of that number, for its front is extensive, and its slopes, though steep, are by no means so steep as to stop, or materially to check the onset of a tribe of light-armed mountaineers. Baldwin’s force was more likely to be 500 than 5,000 men, and no doubt depended for its power far more upon its arms and discipline than upon its numerical strength. The castle rock would have held such a force with great security while the operations of a castle were in progress, and probably did so.

The descendants of De Bollers, incorrectly given by Dugdale, have been disentangled by Mr. Eyton, the real historian of Montgomery, with his usual patience and skill, and seem to be as follows:—

Baldwin de Bollers, Lord of Montgomery, 1121, married, (1) Sibil de Faleise, and had also a second wife. By Sibil he had Stephen de Bollers, 1160, Lord of Montgomery, who married Maria, and had Robert, who died young. Matilda, Sibil’s daughter, married Richard Fitz-Urse, 1130–58, and had Reginald Fitz-Urse, one of Becket’s murderers, and Margery.

On Stephen’s death the Honour seems to have passed to Almeric de Bollers, probably a son or descendant of Baldwin, by his second wife, and who had it in 1162. He was succeeded by Robert de Bollers, 1176–1203, who died childless, but left a widow, Hilaria Trusbut, who had dower till 1241. The heir was Robert’s brother, Baldwin, 1203–7, who also died childless, and whose widow, Wenllian Tet, had dower till 1243. This ended the male line.

The next heirs were the Fitz-Urses. Reginald, Becket’s murderer, had a daughter and heiress, who married Robert, and had William de Courtenay, Lord of Montgomery, who died 1214, childless, leaving Ada a widow with dower, who died 1217. The next heir was the descendant of Margery, sister of Reginald Fitz-Urse, who married Richard Engaine, 1177–85, and had Richard, 1185, father of Vitalis Engaine, 1217, who claimed the Honour on the death of William de Courtenay, but only obtained a portion of it. Thomas de Erdington was a rival and more successful claimant. He held the castle, 1215–18, but much of the Honour was granted, in 1216, to William de Cantilupe, with certain reservations. In 1225 the king, who had all along treated the castle as a royal fortress, claimed the Honour as an escheat, and the whole was taken by the Crown, the dowers being allowed. Erdington, who had been the custos of the king’s castles of Shrewsbury, Whitchurch, Shawardine, Morton, Clun, Montgomery, Moreton, and other Shropshire strongholds, was repaid the outlay he had made upon them. Some sort of castle undoubtedly occupied the rock of Montgomery between 1102 and 1225, and it is said to have been twice taken and destroyed by Llewelyn, who, on the death of John, gained some advantages in Wales, and was allowed the custody of all the land that had belonged to Gwenonwhyn in “Wales and Mungumer,” of which he had been disseized during the war between John and the Barons. This he was to hold till Gwenonwhyn came of age. Probably the result was that when Henry entered he found the rock laid bare, for, from that time the Sheriff’s accounts show annual and very considerable payments for military works there for many years, and we read of the king’s new castle of Montgomery. As early as 1225, when the Welsh war made the place of great importance, nearly £1,000 is paid out; £1,100 in 1224; and above £500 in 1225. Master carpenters are sent to construct defences of timber, _brétasches_, to strengthen the castle, and miners or quarrymen from the Forest of Dean, no doubt to prepare stone, and to hew out the cross ditches. A fit chaplain is to be appointed to serve in the castle chapel, under the parson of Montgomery, and the king is to decide about the emoluments or “obventions” of the chantry. These were afterwards allotted to the mother Church, that is to the parish church of Montgomery, which was the mother church of the chapel; of the whole district Chirbury was the mother church. To the parson was also given the corn tythe of the land newly cultivated, of which he already had the small tythe. Sums of money are also allowed for assisting in clearing the lands of underwood and harbours for robbers; and on one occasion the king alludes to the time “when we took in hand our castle of Montgomery.” Henry himself was there in 1224, and all the masonry now standing is pretty evidently his work, and of this period.

1223 was the year of Llewelyn’s submission, and Godescal de Maghelines was castellan, and received drafts of miners and carpenters, and quarrels from St. Briavel’s forges. Henry, the king’s brother, and other knights, formed the garrison; and the chapel was in use.

In 1224 the king granted an annual fair in “our manor of Montgomery,” and Hubert de Huse was coupled with Godescal as custodes of the castle, honour, and vale of Montgomery, and soon after Baldwin de Hodnet was seneschal, and William de Cantelupe had seizin of the fees of the knights and free tenants annexed to the Honour. A fair was also proclaimed to be held under the castle, and protections were granted to those attending.

In 1227 Henry changed his policy, and granted the castle to Hubert de Burgh, with 200 marcs yearly for its custody for life, and an augmentation in war time, which speedily occurred; for in 1230, Llewelyn, having hanged William de Braose, marched towards Montgomery, the garrison of which suffered from an ambuscade near Kerry, whither they had gone to cut down a large wood. The Welsh followed them to the castle, and besieged it. Henry came to their relief. In 1233 de Burgh lost Henry’s favour, and with it Montgomery, and a constable was appointed by the king. A windmill was erected near the castle, to grind for its use. In 1235, a tower beyond the castle wall had been repaired, as had the town walls, for which nine wooden turrets were provided. Wine and various stores were sent to the castle, which, in 1245, was attacked by the Welsh under David, and, notwithstanding all the money so recently spent upon it, was found not to be in good repair, as appears from an inquisition held upon it in 1249, which specifies particularly the donjon or keep; the chamber and chapel; the wooden turret or _brétasche_, and the bridge near the chapel; the balister’s house; the wooden turret next the town; the stable; the wooden turret beyond the outer gate; the grange and wall round it; the pentiscie, pent-houses, or lean-to’s, carrying the woodwork belonging to five wooden turrets; the small tower or garrit, outside the gate; the “barrier” (jurullum) near the chapel; and the porter’s lodge. For the repairs of these is wanted £59. 3s. 8d. At this time there is also a water-mill connected with the castle, “Stanlawes Mill,” which only worked in winter.

In 1254 Henry granted Montgomery to Prince Edward, who, with the consent of the king and council, appointed a custos. In 1264, after Lewes, Henry, then in durance, ordered Adam Fitz-Philip to surrender the castle. Adam, however, refused, unless the order was backed by Prince Edward. In 1267, 29th September, Henry was here, and received Llewelyn’s homage, and recognised his principality, for which he was to pay 30,000 marcs.

Edward I. let the castle in farm to Bogo de Knovill, for £40 per annum, which rent was mostly expended upon the town defences, the town being a royal borough, under a charter from Henry III., in 1227, strengthened by one from Hubert de Burgh, by which leave was given to enclose it within a wall and ditch, of which the four gates remained in Leland’s days. In 1274 Prince Llewelyn was summoned to meet Edward’s Commissioners at the ford of Montgomery, a favourite trysting-place in that reign: but the Welsh prince did not attend.

The reduction of the principality by Edward I. necessarily destroyed the value of the castles along the march, as bulwarks against the Welsh, and the strong domestic government of that sovereign put an end to the continued rebellions of the Marcher Barons. Under these circumstances the border castles were either allowed to fall into decay, or were employed only as county prisons. In any case they had little or no military value; nor, with the exception of a few passages in the reign of Edward II., and for a while, during the Glendower rebellion, were they regarded as defensible or so employed. Long afterwards, indeed, during the wars of Charles and his Parliament, such of these castles as remained tolerably perfect were garrisoned, defended, usually taken and retaken, and finally slighted or blown up by the prevailing party. Montgomery seems to have had its share of these misfortunes, and no doubt its walls and towers suffered; but in all probability, here, as elsewhere, far more damage has been done by the use of the ruins as a quarry in modern times of peace and prosperity than by the violence attendant upon war. Here, as in most other border castles, the military history of the building closes with the reign of Edward I., up to which point, or nearly so, all that can be said of the castelry, honour, and descent of the castle, has been collected from the original records, combined, digested, and recorded by Mr. Eyton, in his admirable “History of Salop.” For the later history of the castle, may be read with advantage a paper by the Rev. George Sanford, recently printed in the Montgomery Transactions.

The position of Montgomery Castle is formed by nature, and needed only to be seen to be recognised as very suitable for a border fortress. A narrow and lofty ridge of rock, lying nearly north and south, rises abruptly between two valleys; that to the east very suitable for the town which has sprung up within it; that to the west, narrower and equally steep, but rising on its further side to far loftier elevations, one of which is crowned by the encampment of Frydd-Faldwin, and the other, rather lower and more to the south, is occupied by a much smaller work of very different, and, probably, English type. The ridge is in length about 500 yards, and that part of its summit occupied by the castle and its works about 330 yards. Its greatest breadth is about 60 yards, of which the castle may occupy about 40 yards. The ridge is reached from the south-east, or town quarter, by a steep road, but towards the north it terminates in a sharp point, whence a very steep slope falls to the top of a cliff of rock, the whole height being perhaps 250 feet. The contiguous sides are also very steep, so much so that a stone set rolling from the top does not stop till it reaches the gardens and orchards 150 feet or more below. The parish church stands within the town upon an eminence opposite to, but lower than the castle. The view from the ridge extends over the plain of the Severn to the Welsh mountains in one direction, and to the Shropshire hills in the other. Below, in the direction of Chirbury, Offa’s Dyke may be discerned about a mile distant, the castle being upon its outer or Welsh side. The ridge is traversed by three ditches quarried in the rock, and dividing it into four platforms, which formed the four wards of the castle, each of which appears to have been enclosed by walls or palisades, and connected with the others by bridges of timber. The northern and strongest ward is also by some feet the highest ward, and formed the donjon, or citadel; keep there was certainly none. This ward was about 52 yards north and south, by 32 yards east and west. It is nearly rectangular, and its four faces are scarped and revetted, that portion of the wall being about 15 feet high. Upon this stood the curtain and the outer walls of the contained buildings. A considerable building stood on the west face, along the southern half of which a wall remains about 9 thick, which supported a basement and two upper floors, of which holes for the joists are seen. In the first floor is a recess with a window and two garderobes, with shafts in the wall. The window was pointed, and that is all that can be ascertained. In the upper floor is also a garderobe. Connected with this fragment of wall is half a horseshoe tower, 30 feet in diameter, projected 25 feet from the wall. This also had a basement, and two upper floors, but little of it now remains. In the outer side of its wall, to the north, are the remains of another garderobe shaft, and, high up, part of a straight mural staircase. From hence, northwards, is a mere curtain. On the three other faces only the revetment, or traces of it, remain. A heap of rubbish at the south end may be the foundation of the gatehouse. There is no trace of a well, hall, or chapel. The only ashlar remaining is a sort of quoin in the substance of the great wall, and in a window jamb in the horseshoe tower. The masonry is rude but coursed rubble.

Between this and the third ward was a ditch about 20 yards broad, dammed up at its lower or west end to form a pond, probably for the benefit of the castle cattle. There is no trace of a bridge of masonry here. The third ward is a regular oblong, carefully scarped, and probably revetted all round. Only the eastern face is visible, and there the wall is about 20 feet high, with the remains of three half-round solid buttresses, 6 feet in diameter, and something like traces of two more. There is no masonry above the surface of the platform, which is about 40 yards north and south by 35 yards east and west. A ditch of about 8 yards broad divided it from the second ward.

The second ward is roughly oval, about 50 yards long by 30 yards broad, and its southern end is occupied by a rocky mound. There is no trace of masonry connected with this ward, which may have been defended with timber. The ditch dividing this from the first ward is not above 4 yards or 5 yards broad, and very irregular, the depression being apparently in part natural.

The first ward is smaller than the rest, irregular and rocky. It bears traces of dry walling, and upon its platform are the foundations of a rectangular building, and at the south end of a sort of tower, indicated only by a heap of earth. It may have been about 25 yards by 15 yards. It may be that the first and second wards were merely natural platforms palisaded with timber _brétasches_, as they are called in the close roll, but the third and fourth wards were certainly walled and must have been strong. To the north, 20 feet to 30 feet beyond, below the north ward, is a level triangular platform of turf about 60 yards in the side, and protected by a light bank on which may have been a fence. This platform, by nature so strong, was probably intended for a pasture for cattle. At the other or south end is also a platform, 20 feet or 10 feet below the level of the first ward, and now occupied by a cottage. Here was the entrance, which probably was covered by some sort of tower, protected in advance by a palisade.

Scanty as are the remains of this castle, it may safely be concluded that they present no masonry of Norman date, whether early or late. The plan of the works is, of course, dictated by the natural outline of the rock, and it therein resembles Bere, though that is a little earlier than Henry III., and Dolforwyn, probably a work of that king’s reign. Henry III.’s border castles had no keep. They were mostly mere enclosures, the curtains being set rather thick with towers.

Altogether this castle, as it now stands, seems to be the new castle referred to by Henry III., and built early in his reign, nor is there any trace of any earlier work, although there is every reason to believe that such there was, and that it or they stood on this site. Moreover, as to these earlier works, tempting as is the position, there is nothing in the way of earthwork upon it which can be safely attributed either to the Welsh or the English. That Earl Roger constructed a castle of some kind at or near the present site is certain, and it is very improbable indeed that with a position so convenient, and made so strong by nature, he should have selected any other, nor is there in the immediate neighbourhood any trace of any other work likely to have been constructed later than the Conquest.

It has been mentioned that the borough of Montgomery had licence, in the reign of Henry III., to enclose the town within a wall and ditch, and although gates and ditches do not necessarily imply the more costly addition of a wall of masonry, it is certain that the town was fortified, and Mr. Sandford’s view of 1610 shows a wall including an area somewhat wider than the present town, and, what is very unusual, this wall includes the castle, instead of the castle forming a part of the circuit. No traces of any wall of masonry are known to exist, but outside it, to the west, and at the foot of the slopes of the castle, is a bank with a ditch, looking very much like a local dyke of the age of that of Offa, but which is reputed to be what remains of the town wall. The curious thing is that this dyke, which, while opposite to the castle is commanded and therefore strengthened by the castle rock, passes southwards along the steep slope of an opposite hill, and is there commanded from the outside, and would be utterly untenable. This is often the case with Offa’s dyke, which, though laid out with a bank and outer ditch, was really rather a boundary than intended at every point for defence. Its defence was obviously the general fear of the Mercian power, rather than the apprehension of an armed force at every point along its line. It may be that the town wall was placed upon this bank, but the bank itself seems older and part of an earlier boundary.

For the plan and section of the castle and castle rock which accompany this paper, and add materially to any little value that it may possess, the author and his readers are indebted to the skill and kindness of Mr. Mikleburgh, of Montgomery.

MORLAIS CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.

Upon the northern limits of the county of Glamorgan, and above the eastern and lesser of the two sources of the Taff, stand the ruins of the castle of Morlais, so called from a small brook which rises a little to its north-east, and which, after receiving the Dowlais, flows into the Taff, within the adjacent town of Merthyr.

The castle is placed upon the edge of a considerable platform of mountain limestone rock, quarried extensively during the present century for the neighbouring ironworks, and about 470 feet above the Taff Vechan, which, descending through a steep and narrow gorge of considerable beauty, the boundary of the ancient districts of Brecheinioc and Morganwg, as of the modern counties of Brecknock and Glamorgan, escapes below the castle, through the defile and over the fall of Pont Sarn, to join the Taff a little above Merthyr.

The position, strong upon the north and west, is open upon the east and south; thus, in its want of complete natural defences, resembling in position the Norman castles rather than the Celtic or Saxon camps. It commands an extensive view over much of the upper Taff, and of the Merthyr basin, and was, on the whole, well placed to guard this frontier of Glamorgan against the inland tribes, to give notice of their approach to the garrisons of the plain, and to cut off any spoilers who, having invaded the vale, might be returning by this route to their native fastnesses.

The ancient trackway of Heol Adda, still a parish road, the shortest, and within memory the ordinary, way from Gelligaer and Merthyr to Brecon, passes about half a mile north-east of the castle, and was completely commanded by it.

The ground-plan of Morlais is very simple. A court, of an irregular oval shape, 140 yards north and south, by 60 yards east and west, is enclosed within an embattled wall capped by five or six circular towers, and encompassed on the north, east, and south sides by a moat, discontinued on the west side, which was always steep, though recently quarried into a cliff. The only remaining entrance to the court is on the east side, through a narrow archway in the curtain, which could only have admitted infantry, and which is approached by a steep path and a causeway across the moat. A broader causeway across the moat at its south end seems to have led to a larger gateway, probably commanded by a tower, connected by a curtain with the main wall; but this gateway, if it ever existed, is completely buried beneath the ruins.

_J.T. Clark. delt_. _J H Le Keux Sc._]

The court seems to have been divided by a wall into a northern and southern portion, in the latter of which is the well.

Proceeding to details, A is the southern or keep tower, of two stories. The lower, a polygon of twelve sides, 28 feet in diameter, has a central column, with corresponding facets, branching into twelve fan-ribs, which, forming pointed arches, support the roof, and terminate on the containing wall in as many pilasters. The ribs are of limestone, but the upfilling of the vault is of a calcareous tufa, light, and very strong, and found _in situ_ below a calcareous spring on the Heol Adda road, towards Pont-Sticcill. The whole chamber, though extremely elegant, is quite plain, the mouldings being a mere chamfer with no other decoration. There are neither windows nor loops, and the entrance is by an acute lancet-headed doorway, 5 feet wide by 13 feet high, which occupies the northern facet, and is approached from the court by a descending flight of steps. The upper chamber was probably not vaulted. Like Castell Coch, it seems to have contained several large fireplaces, as well as a garderobe chamber. It was approached by a winding stair, which appears to have terminated below upon a sort of drawbridge across the stairs leading to the crypt, and thus to have communicated with the eastern walls by another stair, exterior to the tower, and also leading to its battlements. In the curtain wall, close north-east of the keep, is a singular cavity, the use of which, if one it had, has not been discovered.

The opposite or northern tower, B, was of much less elaborate construction. It appears to have been a mere shell, 37 feet in internal diameter, of two stories, divided by a timber floor, entered below from the court on the level, and above probably by a winding stair on its north-east side, communicating also with the ramparts of the eastern curtain.

The east entrance, I, 5 feet broad, which was provided with a portcullis, and had a sharply-pointed arch, destroyed about twenty years ago, is placed between two smaller drum-towers, C and D, about 16 feet in diameter, each with its subsidiary well-stair. The northern tower, close to the door, completely commanded its exterior, and the southern, at some distance from the door, but nearly opposite to the causeway, K, commanded that passage, and the steep way up to the gate.

The western wall, probably 6 feet thick, was altogether weaker than the eastern, which was about 12 feet, and instead of two, it seems to have contained but one tower, a chamber of, or perhaps a drain from which, still remains. South-west of the keep are two heaps of rubbish which evidently indicate the position of two towers, one upon the curtain, and the other some way in advance, which latter seems to have terminated a sort of spur wall, projecting 60 feet from the curtain, and intended to cover the principal entrance by the southern causeway.

The well, N, is a singular excavation, rough and unlined, 27 feet square, and now about 44 feet deep. A few years ago it was partially filled up, and it is said before that to have been 70 feet deep. However this may be, it is certain that no water would be reached here at less than 400 feet, a depth which was not likely to have been attained. Close to the well, at O, is an oblong chamber, 44 feet by 24 feet, with broad steps, which appears to have been a tank, probably for rain-water. Near this tank is an oval oven, 11 feet by 15 feet, very perfect, and, singularly enough, formed of limestone. Near to this are the foundations of the kitchen. The wall dividing the court crossed just north of the well, opposite to which are traces of a large bow, and east of this of a doorway. In the southern court, against the east wall, were ranges, probably of barracks, roofed with shingle or tile-stone, with leaden trimmings, the stones and lead having been turned up in the ruins. Near the well is a large heap of mixed iron slag, coal, charcoal, and clinker, probably from a smith’s forge, near to which fragments of iron have been found. The heap is evidently old, inasmuch as it contains crystals of selenite. It also contains chlorine and sodium in various combinations, proving, or thought to prove, that common salt has been used in the operations of the forge, or perhaps in smelting the ore here.

The moat, which ranges from 14 yards to 40 yards from the walls, is about 40 feet broad and 14 feet deep, and its total length is about 370 yards. It has been quarried out of the rock, and its contents no doubt were used in building the castle, which is almost wholly of limestone.

In the moat, at Q, is a driftway, now much broken down, but which it is just possible may have been a private passage into the court. The area covered by the castle, measuring from the exterior edge of the moat, is about four acres.

Exterior to the moat, at its south side, is a sort of semi-circular space inclosed within a mound, and probably intended for the protection of cattle. East of the moat are various holes and ruined inclosures, the former probably old places for burning lime, and the latter shepherds’ huts and folds.

This castle, in 1833, was partially excavated by Lady C. E. Guest, when a metal seal was discovered in an adjacent field. The legend is, S . INON . FILI . HOWEL . GOR .; but the names of Einon and Howell are exceedingly common in Glamorgan pedigrees, and the concluding abbreviation, no doubt a distinguishing cognomen, has not been explained, unless it may be read “Goch” or “the Red.” Coins have also been occasionally picked up. Very recently there were found together several silver pennies of Edward I., and one of Alexander I. of Scotland.

The castle at this time is a ruin, only the mere outline of the walls, and the _débris_ of the towers remaining. The keep alone is above ground. The foundations are, however, tolerably perfect, and have been excavated and traced very recently with a view to the annexed plan. There is reason, from the disposition of the rubbish, to infer that the walls and towers were regularly pulled down from the top, and not, as usual in later days, blown up; so that the castle was probably deserted and dismantled at an early period. Mr. Stephens, whose general authority is in this instance strengthened by accurate local knowledge, was of opinion that this castle was never completed; and this may certainly have been the case.

In the course of the recent excavations a few discoveries were made. The oven was before unknown, as were the staircases of the two eastern towers, and the chambers in the wall of the upper story of the keep, and in the western wall. Very many cut stones, parts of door and window-cases, brackets, &c., were dug up, but all were perfectly plain, having only the chamfer moulding.

The brothers Buck engraved a view of Morlais from the north-west in the last century, which shows the keep, and a small part of the curtain, in a much more perfect state than at present.

The details of Morlais, though good, are, as became an obscure castle, so bare of ornament that it is difficult to refer the building to any precise date. Still the general proportions of the openings, the character of the crypt, and, perhaps, the general plan of the building, point with tolerable certainty to the latter period of the early English style, or the close of the thirteenth century, as about the time of its construction.

The history of Morlais is scanty, but it corroborates the internal evidence supplied by its architecture, and connects it with one of the most remarkable legal struggles between the Crown and the lords of the Welsh marches.

It appears from the public records that, towards the middle of the reign of Edward I., a quarrel arose between Gilbert de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, Lord of Glamorgan, and Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, Constable of England and Lord of Brecknock. Both were powerful peers, and De Clare, during the quarrel, had married, 29th April, 18 Edward I., 1290, Joan, the king’s daughter, while De Bohun’s wife, Maud de Fienles, was of kin to the queen. De Clare was the elder, and had the wardship of De Bohun.