Chapter XXVII: Part 27

Besides these works, there was discovered, in 1795, a curious subterranean passage, which passed from the north-west quarter of the outer ward, outwards, towards the eastern ditch. It was cut in the chalk 7 feet broad and from 7 feet to 10 feet high, bearing marks of the tool. The entrance had columns and door-jambs, evidently Norman; and the roof was round-headed, probably artificial, as it is described as being only about 2 feet below the surface. There were steps cut in the chalk, and but little worn. It was followed 114 feet, and there found to be choked up with rubbish. It was closed by the farmer whose land was trespassed upon, and is probably still intact. No doubt this was a private postern, opening on the glacis or in the ditch, such as exist at Windsor and in other fortresses on the chalk, and of a more complicated character at Dover and Arques. They are all probably of Norman date.

It may be observed, with respect to the outer defences which have been attributed to Alfred, that they have the peculiarity of a high bank outside the ditch, very unusual in Celtic camps. Probably all Alfred did was to deepen this ditch, and throw up the outer bank; and probably also all the ditches were again scarped and deepened when the Norman city wall was built.

During the long drought of 1834 a very interesting discovery was here made. The outer ward was at that time laid down in turf, and upon this was seen in brown outline the plan of the old cathedral. It was placed in the north-west quarter between the secret passage and the west gate. The plan was a plain cross, 270 feet long by 150 feet broad, with a flat east end; and the chapter-house was formed by an additional bay at the north end of the north transept. There were double aisles to nave, choir, and transepts. On removing the soil the foundations were seen, and in them a cavity, probably the grave of Bishop Osmund, the founder. On the north side of the choir was a square of 140 feet, the site of the cloisters. Here were found also burial-grounds for clergy and laity.

It is certain that the greater part of these earthworks are of pre-Roman origin, and that Sorbiodunum is the Latinised form of the British name,—“dun,” or “dunum,” denoting an eminence; the figure, which, like Badbury, has been called a regular circle, scarcely deserves that name, the regularity, such as it is, being evidently caused by the natural outline of the hill; nor are the banks and ditches in either work laid down according to any rules of castrametation. The district is crowded with works, many of which are certainly pre-Roman, and of the places around a few, such as Wilton, Durrington, Verwood, Amesbury, and the Avon, retain a British element in their names. Most of these being constructed upon hills of irregular outline are themselves very irregular, so that, by comparison, Old Sarum and Badbury appear as regular circles. The fact is, that all follow the contour of the ground.

That the fortress on this spot was held by the Romans, and is the Sorbiodunum of Antoninus, is very probable indeed. It has been described as the centre of six Roman roads, radiating towards Dorchester, Ilchester, Silchester, Winchester, Cunetio by Marlborough, and Aquæ Solis or Bath. Of these the two from Winchester and Silchester have been traced up to the east gate of the fortress; and as much may perhaps be said for that from Cunetio. Dr. Guest, however, lays down but four roads—to Winchester, to Silchester, a western road to the Severn traversing the great ridge wood, and that called Achling Ditch, which leads direct to Badbury rings near Wimborne. Even this restricted view shows Sorbiodunum to have been an important Roman station, and there are not wanting in its neighbourhood earthworks, such as Rollestone and Bury Hill, of a rectangular plan, although, being on low ground and but slight, they are not all shown in the Ordnance Survey of 1817 as they would be in a map of the present day. The Romans trusted rather to discipline and palisades than to heavy earthworks: hence their traces are but slight, and are often overlooked, and disappear before the plough. It is, however, very curious that, notwithstanding all these indications of Roman sway, there should be so very few remains of Roman habitation. Nothing whatever has been found within the fortress, and but very little in its suburbs.

What the Belgæ did with Sorbiodunum, during the century and a half of their occupation, is unknown. This period of the history of our island is obscure, and yet to it has been attributed by Mr. Fergusson the adjacent monument of Stonehenge; the work, at least in its present form, of a people accustomed to the use of tools of metal, and with some notion of construction and of architectural effect.

Sorbiodunum, recorded as Seoresbyrig, or Searbyrig, which Sir R. Hoare rather happily suggests may mean “the dry,” or “waterless city,” played a part in the Belgic and Saxon struggles. In 552 Cynric, King of Wessex, no inconsiderable leader of the “aspera gens Saxo,” here conquered the Britons and probably established himself on their territory. Ine A.D. 688–725, gave certain lands to the church of St. James in Salisbury, as did Æthelburh, his queen, to that of St. Mary. According to a statement in “Ancient Wilts,” Alfred directed Leofric, Earl of Wilts, to add to the fortress a ditch to be defended with palisades, at which all who lived within the castle, and those outside, were to give aid. In 960 Ædgar held a Council here to devise means for keeping off the Danes: a not uncalled-for step, since in 1003 Swein, after burning and plundering Wilton, committed like ravages at Seoresbyrig in his way thence to his ships. Finally, the place seems to have become a royal demesne of the Confessor, being so recorded in Domesday. Sir R. Hoare also cites a coin of that king, claiming to have been struck by Godred at Sarum.

The Norman history of Old Sarum is an occupation of the older fortress, and the foundation of the early city. The invaders disturbed as little as possible the existing tenures and boundaries; they placed themselves in the English seats of property, and from them administered the old estates. The defences alone were changed. To walls of wattle or rude masonry and stockades of timber succeeded works in substantial masonry, and all the newly-invented appliances of a Norman fortress. At the time of Domesday the Conqueror held some rents here; but the manor, a large one, was in the bishop, a very important person. To the five sees created in the West Saxon kingdom, A.D. 905–9, a sixth, that of Wilton or Wiltshire, was shortly afterwards added, the episcopal seat of which was at Ramsbury. After an ineffectual attempt in 1055 to remove this to Malmsbury, Bishop Herman, the Lotharingian, in 1075–8, with the consent of the king, combined Ramsbury with Sherborne, and translated the seat to Sarum. Here, in the outer ward, Herman in 1078 laid the foundation of the cathedral, which was completed or nearly so by his successor, Osmund de Seez, Earl of Dorset and Lord Chancellor, who being a wealthy baron in England and Normandy, endowed it richly by charter in 1091, the year before its consecration. Part of the land is described as “ante portam castelli seriberiensis terram ex utraque parte viæ in ortorum domorumque canonicorum necessitate.” The gate referred to is of the inner ward, the canons’ houses having been on the outer. There was thus a castle twenty-five years after the Conquest; but whether it was a Norman structure or that left by the English is uncertain, probably something of both. Here also Bishop Osmund arranged the celebrated ordinary for “the use” of Sarum. Roger, his successor, Justiciary of England and Treasurer, is said to have walled in the outer enclosure between 1102 and 1139.

Concurrently with the cathedral, and probably by the Bishop, was constructed the Norman castle. William was here in 1086 in person, and at Lammastide met his Witan in the celebrated gemote which has been described in glowing terms by the great master of topographical history. Here in the vast open plain about the fortress assembled a host reputed at 60,000 men, composed of “all the landowners who were of account over all England, be they the men of what man they might, and they all submitted to him, and were his men, and swore to him oaths of fealty, that they would be faithful to him against all other men”; an oath by which the great king broke down the intermediate power of the nobles, and with that sagacity which in him was intuitive avoided the rock on which the two great monarchies of the Continent were destined to make shipwreck.

We may suppose that during this meeting William dwelt on the central mound, where no doubt the walls of the castle within rose at an equal rate with those of the cathedral without. But whether he was harboured in the unaltered English residence or in the rising Norman fortress, whether the host was Edward de Sarisburie, the Sheriff of Wilts and a great man in that county, and ancestor of the Earls of Salisbury, or whether Bishop Osmund acted as the castellan, here William was present, and here he transacted his first and most important business, face to face with his new subjects.

William Rufus was here in 1096 to meet his Council, and decide upon the celebrated wager of battle in which William, Earl of Eu, was worsted and tortured to death. Henry I. was here in 1106 and 1116, when his nobles swore to recognise Prince William as his successor. The Pipe-roll of this reign, 1130–1, records a charge of 20s. “in ostio faciendo ad cellarium turris Sarum,” so that the place was then in the king’s hands.

Bishop Roger, who held the see from 1102 to 1139, and crowned the mighty mound of the Devizes and the strong knoll of Sherborne with their celebrated works in masonry, is likely enough to have completed the inner shell above as well as the city wall below. He is further said to have walled in the borough and extra-parochial district outside the city, covering, with it, above 72 acres. He at first supported Stephen, but had to surrender the castle, which was taken and retaken, and finally much injured. Maud created Patrick, son of Edward de Sarisburie, Earl of Salisbury, and probably invested him with the government of the castle. He died 1167. In 1154, when the castle was held by Henry II., it was in ruins. Henry, in the early years of his reign, authorised payment (as appears in the Pipe-roll) for the constable, porters, and watchmen of the castle, and for buildings at the prison; and in 23 Henry II. £61 was spent in repairs there. In 1164–5, when the Liber Niger of the Exchequer was compiled, the bishop was lord of the manor, and under him were thirty-three knights under the old feoffment, and three under the new. Earl Patrick held two knights’ fees, and a third by the tenure of guarding the castle.

So long as the bishops held the castle, either independently or for the Crown, the position of the cathedral was sufficiently secure, but when lay castellans took their place, and were men powerful enough to ill-treat their neighbours, the clergy began to suffer, and to make the most of the natural disadvantages of so high and exposed a situation. They suffered “ob insolentiam militis et ob penuriam aquæ.” Peter of Blois, himself a canon, says, “Est ibi defectus aquæ.” The wind was high, water was dear, and the soldiery held the gates even of the city ward, and went so far as to threaten the buildings from their ramparts above, and even to shut out the ecclesiastics when returning in procession to their homes. The church was “castro comitis vicina,” and the vicinity was unpleasant.

Under Bishop Herbert le Poer, who succeeded in 1194, these disputes reached their height, and he decided to remove the cathedral to a spot of ground near the confluence of the Wily and the Nadder with the Avon, rather above a mile distant. Merefield, a marshy spot but with an excellent foundation, was granted by Richard I. for the site of the new church. Bishop Herbert died in 1219, but his successor and natural (germanus) brother, Richard le Poer, obtained from Honorius III. the bull necessary for the translation, in which the causes for it are set forth. They are the dangerous position, as regarded the castle, of the houses of the clergy; the exposure, the wind being at times so high that the clergy could not hear one another’s voices in the choir, and which produced continual need for repairs; and finally the scarcity of water, only to be obtained at a great cost and with the castellan’s leave. This latter objection may have been exaggerated, for, besides the well in the castle, there were, says Leland, four wells in the outer ward, and at this time there are two not very deep wells in gardens not very much below the cathedral level. No doubt, however, the removal was called for:

Quid domini domus in castro, nisi fœderis arca
In templa Baalim? Carcer uterque locus.
Est ibi defectus aquæ, sed copia cretæ,
Sævit ibi ventus, sed philomela silet.

Early in 1219 the new cathedral was founded. It was forty years building, and was consecrated in 1258.

Rex largitur opes, fere præsul opem, lapicidæ
Dant operam; tribus hic est opus, at stet opus.

And finally Henry III. in 1227, confirmed the “translatio de castro nostro Saerisberiæ ad locum inferiorem,” and declared the city “quæ dicitur nova Sarisbiria, sit libera civitas.” The city had thus followed in the train of the cathedral. The taxation accounts of the reigns of Richard and John show it to have been but moderately populous, but it probably took some time to remove, for it was 44 Henry III., 1260, before the new city was granted by the king to the bishop “in capite,” as parcel of the temporalities of the see, the citizens being the demesne men of the bishop.

All parties gained greatly by the change. The new church was constructed at one period, and in a very pure style, and has ever since been regarded as the pride of the Western counties. The citizens exchanged an arid and stormy position for one sheltered and fertile, watered by the confluence of three streams, and shaded by forest trees of uncommon grandeur. The lords of the castle had no longer a cause for their perpetual disputes with the clergy and the burghers, and held their watch and ward undisturbed by chants and processions. Circumstances, however, rendered the castle, as a military post, of less importance than heretofore, and, though the powerful earls who bore its title were even more distinguished than their predecessors, their distinction was but little associated with their castle, which fell gradually into disuse. The Montacutes, indeed, continued to possess it, but the Nevills concentrated their power on the Midland and Northern counties, and Warwick, Raby, and Middleham were to them what Sarum had been to their precursors in the title. Finally, when arms yielded to the gown, and the great minister of the great Queen chose, under her successor, Salisbury for his title of honour, he had more regard to the thriving city, or to the greatness attached to the name, than to the ruined fortress, of which he was not even the possessor.

Considering the importance of the castle, and the power of those who bore its name, it is surprising that so little should be known of its history. Mr. Nichols, in an excellent paper printed in the volume of the Archæological Institute for Salisbury in 1851, enters upon the history of the earldom, and shows that, beginning with the Conqueror’s sheriff, who must have taken his name from the place, there was a second Edward de Salisbury, whose successor was Walter, a baron under King Stephen, the father of Patrick, the first earl, whose son, William, the second earl, was father of the celebrated Countess Ela. All these lords seem to have held the castle under the Crown, themselves appointing castellans.

Ela, the heiress of William of Salisbury, the second earl, laid the fifth stone of the new cathedral. She married William with the Long Sword, son of Henry II., who became earl in her right, and held the castle. He was much abroad, and the castellan, his deputy, resided. This officer, in King John’s time, was Robert de Vipont, and Irish prisoners were kept here. In 1208 the Sheriff of Wilts was to repair the bridge, the ditch, and the houses in the castle. In 1266 the king addressed the earl as his brother on matters relating to the castle; and in the reigns of Richard and John occasional payments were made for repairs, and for the sustenance of the soldiery there. The king’s houses in the castle are mentioned, and wine stored there is issued to Gloucester and Bristol, treasure was sent thence to Southampton, and plate to Westminster for the coronation. King John had a balistarius in pay there at 9d. a day, 100 hogs were supplied to Vipont, and in 3 John the earl gave thirty marcs to have the county, town, and custody of the castle; and Walter, the son of Albreda, gave 76s. 8d. for the charge of the prison. The earl (William) was then sheriff, and was allowed for £29. 6s. 8d. spent by the king’s order in work at the castle.

Earl William died in the castle in 1226, when Ela, his widow, had custody of it. Her son and grandson seem to have claimed, but never to have obtained, the earldom, though, when the latter died in 1256, his daughter Margaret, who married Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, was known as Countess of Salisbury, probably on the death of Countess Ela in 1261. In 39 Henry III., 1254, an Inquisition declares that no fiefs are held by castle guard of the castle; and, in 52 Henry III., the bridge within the castle was under repair, and that and the gate were reparable by the Abbess of Shaftesbury. In 3 Edward I., the castle and manor were in the Crown, and two years later mention is made of the mill near the castle, no doubt the same that is entered in Domesday, and still remains at Stratford.

In 5 Edward III., 1332, the king granted licence to the bishop, dean, and chapter of Sarum to remove the walls of the cathedral and canonical houses within his castle of Old Sarum, and to employ them in the repairs of the church and close of New Sarum. No doubt, under this licence the whole material was removed down to the ground level or even below it, and probably the licence was held to include the outer wall also. At the same time, the bishop, &c., had leave to rebuild a certain chantry on a part of the old cathedral, and to use it.

In 1337 Edward’s son-in-law, William Montacute, was created Earl of Salisbury, and 15 Edward III., 1341–2, an Inquisition was taken as to whether the earls were seized in demesne as in fee of the castle and vill of Old Sarum, and how they lost it. Probably this was connected with a suit brought by Bishop Wyvil against the earl on a writ of right as to his title to the castle. In this Inquisition we find the seizure of the castle, &c., by King Henry III. from Earl William, the son of the Countess Ela, thus described: “Et Juratores dicunt quod tempore ipsius Willielmi junioris, propter diversas discenciones motas inter Henricum Regem Anglie tercium proavum domini Regis nunc et predictum Willielmum juniorem, maxime pro eo quod idem Willielmus contra defensionem dicti Regis Henrici exivit regnum Anglie licencia Domini Regis non optenta, Dominus Rex Henricus seisire fecit in manum suam dicta castra villam et officium et ea in manum suam retinuit.” The matter was at first to have been tried by battle, and each party named a champion; but finally it was settled by a compromise, the bishop paying 2,500 marcs, and the earl quitting the castle to the see for ever. This probably severed the connection between the earls and the earldom in the feudal sense.

When the castle proper was dismantled has not been discovered. The views occasionally exhibited of it seem taken from the representation of Sherborne upon Bishop Wyvil’s brass in the cathedral. In Leland’s time the ruins were considerable; there was a lady chapel, part of the old cathedral, the parish church of Holy Rood, and the remains of a chapel over the east gate. Also in the east suburb, outside the gate, stood a chapel, the remains of the parish church of St. John, and dotted about were a sufficient number of wells of sweet water to throw a doubt upon the validity of a part of the alleged grievance of the ecclesiastics. Probably, as the new city expanded, the value of the old material rose, and the destruction went forward with accelerated speed. It seems probable that, with a very little labour, the foundations of the inner ward could be cleared, and the well opened. It is also much to be regretted that the outer ward should be under the plough. The loss upon laying it down in turf would be trifling, and it is not too late to preserve the remaining inequalities of the surface.

SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.

On the north-eastern shore of England, where the cliffs of Yorkshire rear a bold though broken front towards the German Ocean, there is seen, midway between the Tees and the Humber, or, more nearly, between Whitby and Flamborough Head, a tall and rugged and almost isolated headland of rock, which, from times beyond the records of history, has borne the appropriate name of Scarborough. The scaur or rugged cliff, the tall summit of which forms the natural burgh or strong place, rises precipitately about 300 feet from the sea beach, and has on its northern side the small bay of which Scalby-ness forms the opposite horn, and to its south the deeper and more spacious inlet, on the strand of which, under the protection of the scaur, is nestled the ancient seaport town of Scarborough.

At no period when life and limb were valued and endangered could the advantages of Scarborough as a place of dwelling or of refuge have been overlooked. What art has executed at Flamborough, Nature, with a bolder hand, has here provided. The bay gave facilities for fishing or for pursuits connected with the sea, and the half-isolated cliff afforded security from attack from any quarter. And yet there is no evidence that Scarborough was regularly inhabited by either the original Brigantes or their Roman invaders. The adjacent wolds are scarred with traces of early contests, but are of too cold and too barren a character to have supported any considerable population, or indeed any population save a few shepherds. The vale of the Derwent, now rich and fertile, was, in Roman times, a chain of impassable swamps and morasses, flanked with dense and equally impenetrable forests. Neither Holderness nor the south of Cleveland contain many Roman remains, nor does there appear to have been any regular settlement by that people between Delgovitia and Derventio (Millington and Stamford Bridge or New Malton) and the eastern coast.

The tract between the Humber and the Whitby Esk was invaded in the sixth century by a tribe of the Engles, who from invaders became settlers, and, as was the manner of the Teutonic tribes, finally consolidated themselves into a kingdom, the nucleus of the well-known Deira. That they inhabited the coasts of Holderness and Cleveland, the edges and valleys of the Wolds and of Pickering and the adjacent plain of York, is a matter of history, and is shown by the names of their settlements and the existing peculiarities of the speech of the people, their descendants, and by the very marked Burh of Skipsea, which has survived all its subsequent additions; but the rock of Scarborough, though as strong and almost as grand a natural feature as Bamborough, is not on record as a Deiran fortress, still less as a regal seat, nor does it exhibit, nor indeed did it need, any of those remarkable and well-defined earthworks which indicate the later Saxon residences. Its first appearance in history, though late, is creditable. When, early in 1066, Harold Hardrada and his traitor ally Tostig wasted and pillaged the earldom of Morkere, the men of Scarborough met the invaders in arms, and made a brave, though fruitless, resistance.

Scarborough is not named in Domesday, though the soke of Walesgriff, or Falsgrave, of which it seems to have formed a part, is therein recorded, and then belonged to William de Perci, the lord of eighty-six Yorkshire lordships, and the ancestor of that Agnes whose Louvaine descendants assumed her family name. Percy, however, did not long retain this manor, for Eudo of Champagne, kinsman, and by marriage nephew to the conqueror, on the departure of Drogo le Brevere, the reputed founder of the Norman works at Skipsea Castle, received from William the land of Holderness, and with it, probably, the adjacent manor of Falsgrave. Their son, Stephen, besides his paternal heritage of Holderness, held maternally the Norman territory of Aumarle, or Albemarle, from whence his mother Adeliza was styled “Comitissa de Albamarla,” and Stephen, who died in 1127, bore the same title.

His son, William, the second earl, lord of Holderness and founder of the Abbey of Meaux, took a very active part in English affairs, and was in his time the most powerful baron in the north. He commanded at the battle of the Standard in 1138, and received from King Stephen what Dugdale calls the earldom of Yorkshire. He died in 1179, having been a liberal benefactor to many Yorkshire religious houses, and according to William of Newburgh, who wrote in about 1190, the builder of Scarborough Castle. If this be so, it must have been when William came into the earldom, that is, soon after 1127, for on the accession of Henry II., in 1154, Scarborough was one of the castles selected for demolition, and upon the earl’s resistance, Henry himself, after a severe struggle, took possession of it, and, becoming acquainted with the value of its position, instead of destroying, attached it to the Crown. Taking all this into consideration, and having regard to the material evidence afforded by the remains of the keep and the older parts of the curtain, the most probable conclusion is that Earl William’s fortress was of a temporary character, and the keep (arx magna et præclara) and the older parts of the existing masonry are the work of King Henry at a later period.

In the Pipe-roll of 4 Henry II. the sheriff of Yorkshire is allowed £4 for works on the castle of Scardeburc, and subsequently Henry granted or confirmed a charter of incorporation to the town, for the farm of which, 30 Henry II., an account was rendered by the sheriff. The town continued to thrive, and from time to time contributed to the “dona ad auxilium,” to talliage and scutage. King John paid four visits to the castle in 1201, 1210, 1213, and 1216, remaining there altogether about nine days. In 1202 and 1204 John de Builly was the constable, and then and in 1213 military prisoners were kept there. In 1208 Builly was superseded by Robert de Vaux, and he again in 1215 by Geoffrey de Neville, the King’s Chamberlain, at which time sixty “servientes” and ten “balistarii” seem to have constituted the garrison. That John kept the castle in repair appears from frequent allowances for works. Wine also was sent there from Portsmouth, and lead for covering a tower. Payments occur for “servientes,” “balistarii” and others employed in the castle. During John’s reign it appears that at one time William de Duston was in charge, and had orders to receive William, Earl of Albemarle, and his companions into the castle. This was William de Fortibus, a Magna Charta baron, and Earl of Albemarle, in right of his mother, Hawise, the daughter and heiress of Earl William le Gros. Probably he took advantage of John’s difficulties to revive a claim to the castle, which, however, he does not seem to have been able to enforce. In 1215 Neville was again in office, and had an order for 100 marcs, “ad opus—ad castrum nostrum de Scardeburg’ muniendum.” John de Neville, son of Geoffrey, took charge of the castle under Henry III. in 1225, and the fortress seems to have been kept in repair all through that reign. In 1252 Henry granted to the town a permission for the construction of a new pier.

The strong, and, on the whole, just government of Edward I. led to the neglect of such of the castles of the kingdom as were not necessary for the defence of a menaced frontier, and among them of Scarborough, but under his son they became again of importance, and Scarborough reappears in the public records. Edward II. was here in 1312, and left the castle in charge of Gaveston while he proceeded to York. It was attacked and taken by the Earl of Pembroke, not by assault, but by starvation. In 1318 the town was burned by the Scots, but they do not appear to have been able to take the castle. Sixty years later the town was threatened by sea by a Scottish adventurer, who, however, failed to take it, and was subsequently made prisoner. For the next three centuries Scarborough Castle was left to fall into decay, or only so far repaired as to be employed occasionally as a prison. In 1536, the year of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Aske, who was a native of Aughton on the Derwent, led his ill-disciplined followers against it, but without success. A little later, in 1553, during Wyatt’s rebellion, it was taken, probably by surprise, by the Earl of Stafford, but held for three days only.

In the contest between Charles and the Parliament in the seventeenth century, Scarborough, with many other Yorkshire castles, more or less ruinous, was held for the king, and in July, 1645, the Parliamentary forces laid siege to it in form. A battery was posted upon the roof of the chancel of the ancient parish church, about 170 yards from the outer gate of the castle, and a second to the north of it, upon the edge of the cliff in front of the barbican. The castle was taken and held for a short time, and in 1648, being again held for the king, it was a second time attacked and taken, and shortly afterwards a mine was sprung in the ground floor of the keep, laying open its eastern side. Probably the forebuilding covering the entrance to the keep was destroyed at the same time.

The town of Scarborough was walled from an early period. Leland speaks of banks and ditches, and fragments of the walls, and mentions its two gates, Newburgh and Aldburgh, or Anborough, one of which remains. The town ditch extended from the castle barbican along the high ground southwards, and upon it, 550 yards from the barbican, was the Anborough gate. The town contained three friaries and one parish church, dedicated to the Virgin, and belonging to the Cistertians. It is a large building near the castle, of which the chancel, or lady chapel, has remained in ruins ever since the first Parliamentary siege. The platform occupied by the castle is extra parochial, usually an ecclesiastical, not a military privilege.

THE CASTLE.

The platform, to which the keep forms the key of the approach, is in plan a rhomboid, in length from north to south 600 yards, and from east to west 300 yards, covering about 19 acres, and its table summit ranges from 300 feet to 336 feet above the sea level. The two eastern or seaward faces, measuring together about 700 yards in length, rise abruptly from the sea beach, and are absolutely impregnable. The north-western face, 300 yards in length, and looking towards the north bay and sands, is lower, but still precipitous. The south-western face, also 300 yards in length, looks towards the town. Though not precipitous it is very steep, and at its base a broad ravine, known as the castle moat, intervenes between the castle and the town. A chapel and a burial-ground formerly occupied the seaward salient of the cliff, and behind these was Our Lady’s Well, the spring supplying which was reputed inexhaustible. The lowest and the only weak point in the platform was the landward or western angle, and here was posted the keep, from which northwards and southwards along the crest of the contiguous faces a curtain-wall was extended. Northwards, this wall was in length about 70 yards, ceasing as the cliff rose in height, and rendering artificial defence unnecessary. Southwards, the wall, from 20 feet to 25 feet in height, was carried all along the south-western front, and was strengthened, either originally or at an early period, by ten or twelve half-round turrets of various sizes. The six smaller were solid, like those of Coningsborough and Knaresborough; the larger, from 25 feet to 30 feet diameter, were hollow. These towers were parts of circles in plan, and have been much mutilated. They were probably cut down and filled with earth during the siege of 1640, when a swivel-gun seems to have been mounted _en barbette_ on each. At present they are open at the gorge, and no higher than the contiguous curtain. Three loops may still be traced at their basement level, and two or three others at what must have been the first floor. Outside the wall are a number of buttresses of various sizes, shapes, and dates, some of which seem original, and of the late Norman period. The largest of these bastion towers is known as “The Queen’s Tower.” Near the centre of this front, upon the curtain, was a building about 110 feet by 40 feet, called “Mossdale,” or “The King’s Hall.” No doubt here stood the hall, kitchen, and other offices for the accommodation of the garrison. The present building is a modern barrack, built with the usual disregard of taste that has long characterised such buildings.

Where the curtain of the south-eastern front terminates on the sea cliff there seems anciently to have been a tower, known as “Cockbill.” More recently a small battery has been constructed outside the wall, and upon the crest of the slope, raking the ditch, and commanding a part of the harbour. Probably this battery was thrown up in preparation for the Parliamentary siege, for the remains of the tower above it are known as “Charles’s Tower.” Although the southern curtain has been much mutilated and restored, and towers, bastions and buttresses incorporated with its substance, the greater part of it is old, and probably original.

For the protection of the keep, quite as much from the mercenaries who, in the twelfth century, often formed the garrison, as from the exterior foe, an oblong space 112 yards north and south by 573 yards east and west, was walled in as a base court or bailey. It is taken out of the platform, and includes the keep. Its outer or western wall is the outer wall of the place, its opposite or eastern wall shuts out the keep from the main platform, and at the exterior foot of this wall, and within the platform, is a deep ditch. If the keep be regarded as the centre of the fortress, this enclosure is the inner ward, but as regards the position of the main entrance the platform deserves that name. It will, on the whole, be convenient to reserve the name of platform for the large area, and refer to the other as the bailey. Probably the bailey originally contained the Lords’ Hall, or kitchen, chapel, and lodgings. All traces of these have, however, disappeared above the surface. The position of the well is marked by a depression in the sward. The entrance to the castle occupied a hollow way below, and to the west and north of the keep traversed the bailey close below the keep, and entered the platform at the point now occupied by the modern guard-room. The approach to the castle must always have been settled by the peculiar character of the ground. There is, in fact, but one practicable line, that along the ridge between the edge of the cliff overlooking the north bay and the head of the ditch between the castle and the town. This ridge has been fortified on one side, where the cliff is about 240 feet high, by a light parapet wall, and on the other by a much stronger wall, which branches off from the curtain of the bailey, and commands the head of the ditch. Where they commence the two walls are about 50 yards apart, but they rapidly converge, and at 70 yards from the keep are but 12 feet apart, and thus continue, forming a raised causeway, along which the approach is carried. This causeway traverses the depression of the ground at the head of the castle moat by a sort of viaduct, which at its deepest point is about 25 feet high, and is in length, from its entrance in front of the keep to its termination in the barbican, about 70 yards. It is of masonry with lateral parapets, and a roadway 10 feet 6 inches broad. Near its centre is a strong pier, or rather a tower, about 32 feet broad, angular below the roadway and rounded above. This tower is pierced by a passage, and is, in fact, a gate-house, having for its defence a battlemented floor above the gateway, which was reached by a narrow staircase contained in one of the piers. The corbels on which the battlements rested remain. From this tower there seem to have dropped two drawbridges, one each way. That falling outward covered a pit 15 feet broad, now vaulted over as a permanent bridge. Its place is marked by an arch in the causeway, there about 20 feet high. The spandrel walls and parapets seem original, and the bridge worked between them, as was not uncommon, and may be seen at Goderich, and at the constable’s gate at Dover Castle. The second bridge dropped inwards towards the keep. Here the pit seems to have been a break in the causeway, not an archway through it. This bridge also has been replaced in masonry. Each of these drawbridges fell upon cills between small turret buttresses, no doubt intended to strengthen the approach, and to shelter two cross-bow men, who could retire over the bridge as the enemy advanced.

The barbican, at the outer end or head of the causeway, is a mere shell of masonry of irregular shape. It occupies a knoll higher than the causeway, and has a rather steep approach from the town. The gateway opens between two half-round towers, beneath a pointed arch, recessed, but within an outer arch, above which is a projecting parapet, a sort of _brétasche_ in stone. There is no portcullis, and no trace of a drawbridge or outer ditch. The entrance to the causeway is 15 yards behind the great gate, through a hollow way, and the wall between them is looped with six openings looking towards the main ditch. In its rear the barbican rests upon the crest of the cliff, and has a mere parapet. It is prolonged 30 yards to the proper right of the gateway, which it thus flanks, and is strengthened in that direction by two small half-round turrets. In parts of the causeway are loops towards the main ditch, and a doorway, probably a postern, long walled up. The causeway and barbican are later than the keep and main curtain, and probably of the time of Henry III., or rather later. They have been much altered and repaired, and no doubt played a part as outworks in the siege of 1640.

Outside of the natural ravine which forms the main ditch or moat, along the crest of its counterscarp, has been thrown up a bank of earth, probably masking the line of a palisade, intended to keep off skirmishers, and to guard against any attempt at scaling the main wall.

The keep, though mutilated, is still the main feature of the castle. It is a rectangular tower about 56 feet square at the base and about 70 feet high above the inner ward, and about 90 feet from the outer side, where the ground is some 20 feet lower. The walls are 11 feet thick, and of the same thickness to the summit. The west front and a few feet of its adjacent sides are gone, but the foundations remain, completing the square. The material is a sandstone of a deep red colour. The stones are about 2 feet to 2 feet 6 inches long and a foot high, nearly square, and laid with rather open joints. The interior seem to have contained a basement and three upper floors, but the basement is partially filled with earth, and its existence only indicated by a broken loop, seen about 16 feet from the ground on the north front. On the west and north or lower faces the keep has a bold battering base from 15 feet high to 8 feet or 10 feet. This was unnecessary on the other faces where the level of the soil is so much higher.

The east, the most perfect face, has the usual flanking pilaster strips, 10 feet 6 inches broad and of a foot projection, which rise unbroken to the summit, and no doubt supported the usual angular turrets, now removed. The angle at which the adjacent faces of the building meet is hollow, and is occupied by a bold round bead, 12 inches diameter; in fact, a three-quarter shaft, but without base or capital. In the centre of the face is a third pilaster, 8 feet broad, and quite plain. On this side the basement floor has no openings. The ground, in fact, is above its level. The first and second floors are marked each by two round-headed recesses, 7 feet broad and a foot deep, the second contains a pair of narrow tall round-headed windows, having side columns, and in the centre a pair of coupled columns, common to both openings. The caps are fluted, and the window arches have a bold torus moulding, the only semblance of ornament throughout the building. The upper floor is marked by no recesses, but there are two pairs of small tall round-headed windows, with square jambs and architraves. The windows composing each pair stand about a foot apart. In the flanking pilasters are two pointed loops, corresponding to the second-floor level, and lighting mural chambers.

The north face probably corresponded with that to the east, with the addition of two loops from the basement, one of which is now closed, as are the two windows above it. One flanking pilaster of this front is gone with its west end.

Of the south face the west end is gone, but what remains is full of interest, as it shows how the entrance was arranged. The face is plain, without any regular pilasters or plinth. Towards its west end is the inner entrance, just beyond which the curtain-wall of the bailey sprang from the keep. This entrance is 7 feet broad, and the depth of the thickness of the wall. The passage is round-headed and ribbed. The inner doorway is round-headed, the outer face segmental. A flight of steps within the passage leads up to the floor of the first story. It is evident from a short pilaster, some springing stones, and certain other indications on the face of the wall, that the entrance was covered here by a small forebuilding. Against the face of the keep was built a rectangular block about 30 feet long and perhaps 20 feet broad, ending against and abutting upon the curtain. It contained a vaulted passage, and over its outer doorway, at its east end, was a large funnel-shaped machicolation for its defence. Within this the vault led on until on the right hand in the keep-wall was the inner entrance already mentioned. There was no portcullis, but above the doorway is an opening or _meurtrière_, by means of which the entrance could be defended against those who might have forced the outer gate. The ramparts of the forebuilding were on the level of the second floor of the keep, and were reached from it by a small narrow doorway opening from a mural chamber in the south wall. Close east of this is another small door, a little higher, the use of which is not very evident, unless it opened upon a hoard or _brétasche_ a little in advance of the stone parapet. A little west of and below these is a third and shorter doorway, which seems intended for the working of the _meurtrière_ over the inner door. It is connected with a small and very narrow mural staircase.

The interior of the keep is not only filled up so as to hide the basement floor, but its eastern part has been converted into a powder magazine, and is inaccessible. It is said that the magazine includes four rectangular mural chambers, one 14 feet by 5 feet in the south wall, two 6 feet and 7 feet square, in the east wall, and one 5 feet by 6 feet in the north wall, but these have not been examined. The first floor was about 32 feet square, but divided into two nearly equal parts by a bold arch running north and south, and springing from two wall piers. The arch is gone, but the broken wall shows it to have been 4 feet 6 inches thick, and to have carried a solid wall, which divided the second and ceased at the floor of the upper storey. In the east wall of the first floor is a central fireplace of 7 feet opening with a round head and of no projection, round-backed, and with a vertical mural vent. On each side of it is a deep recess of 6 feet 9 inches opening, round-headed, and containing a pair of coupled windows already described. There are two similar recesses in the north wall, one on each side of the cross arch, of which the eastern is at present walled up, but seems to have had besides its windows a small lateral door opening into a dark mural chamber, which occupied the north-east angle. The other recess, west of the cross wall, is open, and its two windows remain. In the south wall is a small doorway which leads into a mural chamber occupying the south-east angle, but now inaccessible. At the other end of this wall is the entrance door, and between it and the cross arch a steep narrow stair leading to the opening above the entrance doorway.

At the second floor the cross-wall was pierced by a small doorway near its south end, of which one jamb remains. This floor also has a fireplace in its east wall, resembling that below, but with a segmental arch, while above it, in the wall, is a semicircular arch of relief. On either side is a recess with coupled round-headed windows, the shutter rebates of which are pointed. In the north wall are two doorways leading into mural chambers, and at its western end a recess and double window, as before. In the south wall are two openings; one, a door leading into a mural chamber in the south-east angle, lighted by a loop already mentioned, and the other a large recess within which are the two doorways opening towards the forebuilding. On the other side of the cross-wall, over the main door, are traces of a large recess with coupled windows.

No fireplace remains in the upper floor, which seems to have been occupied by one large chamber, having in its east wall two pairs of coupled windows in deep round-headed recesses, and the same probably in its north and south walls. There may, indeed, have been a fireplace in the west wall.

The floors throughout seem to have been of timber. There are no traces of a mural staircase leading from one floor to another, but there may have been such in the north-west or south-west angles. Neither is there any mural gallery surrounding the building.

It is in all respects unfortunate that Scarborough Castle is still regarded as a military post. Here, as at Dover, no one is allowed to sketch or measure within the area, although the force employed to see to the observance of this order renders it practically powerless. But the empty powder magazine is locked up, and effectually prevents a thorough examination of the keep; if this were removed, and the basement excavated, an absolutely correct plan of the keep might be obtained, which now is impracticable.

A county that contains within its borders the castles of York and Richmond may yet be proud of the possession of Scarborough, which, though not superior to those, claims with them equal rank. No doubt the circumstances of each are different. The position of Richmond on the Swale, its ancient Norman keep, early and curious chapel, and the considerable remains of its hall and other domestic buildings, no less than the rank and warlike character of its earlier lords, have invested it with a peculiar and unrivalled interest. At York, the castle, spacious in area, and strong, if not striking in position, played no inconsiderable part in the Norman Conquest; and while surrounded with the works of the Romans and Romanized Britons, claims an origin from those of our Teutonic ancestors whose name is embodied in that of England. The claims of Scarborough to rank and fame are of a different though scarcely inferior character. Its position above the Northern Ocean is wild and grand in the extreme. Its area, defined and protected by Nature, is calculated to contain, not a garrison, but an army; and its keep, in itself equal to Richmond or most other Norman structures, is here not a citadel but the mere gateway and key to what is really the fortress, and which rises from the seashore above and behind it.

SKENFRITH CASTLE.

Among the numerous strong places in Monmouthshire, which, from their character and position, seem to have been thrown up during the occupation of that border territory by the Mercians and the English during the eighth and following centuries, Skenfrith holds a conspicuous place. Its fortune, moreover, was, to be adopted, like Caerleon and Grosmount, by the Norman invaders, who placed a keep upon its ancient, though inconsiderable, mound, and girdled its elevated platform with walls and towers of considerable strength, so that it became of even greater importance in the twelfth and thirteenth than in the preceding centuries. It stands in the deep valley, and upon the bank of the Munnow, five miles below the castle of Grosmount, and six above that of Monmouth on the same river, besides which it forms the south-eastern point of the celebrated Monmouthshire trilateral, Grosmount and Whitecastle being the two others, so celebrated in Border warfare, and especially in the contest between Henry III. and the Mareschals, earls of Pembroke. Churchyard writes of them as,—

Three castles fayre, are in a goodly ground,
Grosmont is one, on hill it builded was;
Skenfrith the next, in valley it is found,
The soyle about for pleasure there doth pepe.
Whit-Castle is the third, of worthie fame,
The country round doth bear Whit-Castle’s name;
A statelie seate, a lofty princely place,
Whose beauty gives the simple soyle some grace.

Unlike the elevated and rock-founded castles of Chepstow and Ludlow, the strength of Skenfrith was in the low and marshy character of its position. The Munnow flows within a few feet of its walls, and overflowed into its ample ditches, and a few yards below the castle is the bridge mentioned by Leland. Skenfrith marks the uniting point of several valleys, and even now, with the advantage of modern roads, is by no means easy of approach. Probably, in some measure on this account, it has suffered but little from additions or alterations, and as little from violence. Time, the greatest but least violent of revolutionists, has been the principal agent in the changes that have taken place, and the great obstacle to the study of the castle by the antiquary is the rich and redundant mantle of friendly ivy by which it is draped.

Skenfrith belongs to that family of castles of which Coningsborough and Launceston are the English types, and of which Brunlais, and, in some degree, Tretower, are local examples. Its keep is a cylindrical tower, with a widening or battering base, to which the elder antiquaries gave the name of a Juliet. This stands within an inclosure formed of curtains and bastion towers, in this instance forming a trapezium in plan, of which the northern and southern sides are 74 yards and 71 yards, and the eastern and western 31 yards and 59 yards. The diameters of the area, measured across the keep, are, northern and southern, 48 yards, and eastern and western, 57 yards.