Alnwick Castle

“ Tower attests. Roman remains have been found on the site, and it was also inhabited by the Saxons, the castle at the time of the Norman Conquest being held by Gilbert Tysen, a powerful Northumbrian chief. It was then a primitive timber fortress in a wild region, for the earliest masonry works are Norman, and are attributed to Tysen's descendants. Alnwick Castle is a cluster of semicircular and angular bastions, surrounded by lofty walls, defended at intervals by towers, and enclosing a space of about five acres. ”

“ Alnwick in these times is a place of a certain grim and lowering picturesqueness. Its grey stone houses are at one with the greyness of the Northumbrian skies, and a general air of barren stoniness impresses the traveller as its chief feature. It is an effect of prisons and jailers which reaches its height in the open space that fronts the barbican of the castle. You look, instinctively, for His Majesty’s prison regulations on the outer walls, and, approaching the gate, expect a warder’s figure at the wicket.
This is no uncongenial aspect of that old fortress. ”

“ We may fairly accept the tradition which carries him to the spot known as Malcolm’s Cross, where a commemorative rood once stood, and where the ruins of a Romanesque chapel may still be seen. The spot is on high ground overlooking the river Alne, while on the opposite side of the stream a lower height is crowned by the town of Alnwick castle. Alnwick, and by such remains of its famous castle as modern innovation has spared. The neighbourhood of Alnwick and the Percies. ”

“ On their knees, according to the constitutional custom, a dozen men, all in the act of genuflexion at the same moment, and headed, too, by one of the most powerful peers in the country, the Lord of Alnwick Castle himself, humbled themselves before a female Sovereign, who looked serene and imperturbable before a spectacle never seen before, and which, in all probability, will never be seen again. ”

“ The tone employed in the concluding portions of Alnwick Castle, is, we sincerely think, reprehensible, and unworthy of Halleck. No true poet can unite in any manner the low burlesque with the ideal, and not be conscious of incongruity and of a profanation. Such verses as
may lay claim to oddity—but no more. ”

“ The bell-tower, from which the alarm was sounded of old, though still standing, is deserted; the only bell heard within the precincts of the old castle being the railway porter’s bell announcing the arrival and departure of trains. You see the Scotch express pass along the bridge and speed southward on the wings of steam. But no alarm spreads along the border now. Northumbrian beeves are safe. Chevy-Chase and Otterburn are quiet sheep-pastures. The only men at arms on the battlements of Alnwick Castle are of stone. ”

“ At Alnwick the whole inner ward is a shell keep built upon a natural knoll. The main buildings, being the lord’s lodgings, are built against and form part of the wall, and the centre is an open court. The gatehouse is Norman, and part of the foundations of the wall, but most of the superstructure has been rebuilt twice over, though upon the old lines. There is a well in the wall, probably original, but encased in late Norman masonry. Alnwick being a sort of Castle Dangerous, and always open to sudden attack, the lord habitually lived within the keep, which was far more commodious than usual. ”

“ At the news of their arrival, William fell back toward the north, dividing up his army and sending detachments off in various directions to plunder the country. The English followed on, and at Alnwick castle surprised the king with only a few knights, his personal guard. Resistance was hopeless, but it was continued in the true fashion of chivalry until all the Scottish force was captured.
This victory brought the rebellion in England to an end. On hearing the news Henry marched against the castle of Huntingdon, which had been for some time besieged, and it at once surrendered. ”

“ Other towns, that arose under the same circumstances, have caught the impulse of modern commerce and manufacture, and have grown into huge, bustling, and noisy cities, in which the old fortified walls and the old castle have either vanished, or have been swallowed up, and stand, as if in superannuated wonder, amid a race and a wilderness of buildings, with which they have nothing in common. When, however, you enter Alnwick, you still feel that you are entering a feudal place. It is as the abode of the Percys has presented itself to your imagination. ”

“ The idea of the flanking towers (which were of a type very different from the slight projections of the shell-keep and rectangular tower) soon penetrated to Europe, and Alnwick Castle (1140–1150) shows the influence of the new system.
But the finest of all castles of the middle ages was Richard Cœur de Lion’s fortress of Château Gaillard (1197) on the Seine near Les Andelys. Here the innermost ward was protected by an elaborate system of strong appended defences, which included a strong tête-de-pont covering the Seine bridge (see Clark, i. 384, and Oman, p. 533) . ”

“ Alnwick Castle, Nov. 4.—Yesterday I left Muncaster at eight, and had two hours in the middle of the day to wait at Carlisle. Whilst I was sauntering round the cathedral, one of the Canons came up to me, introduced himself as a college acquaintance—son of Richmond the artist—and asked me to luncheon. He also showed me the cathedral, ‘restored’ out of much interest, with a miserable modern reredos and other rubbish, but with two fine old tombs, and the modern monuments of Paley and Law. Below the great east window Sir Walter Scott was married. ”

“ England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, are, each and all, rich in “the picturesque;” to the artist and art-lover they present attractions second to none they will find in any country of the Continent: that is the truest “patriotism,” which inculcates, as a first duty, a full appreciation of
“Our own, our native land!”
[78]
ALNWICK CASTLE. [18]
WITH the single exception of Royal Windsor, Alnwick Castle is second to none of the mediæval British strongholds which, in our own times, combine the characteristics of the early fortress and the modern palace. ”

“ They are totally out of keeping with the tone of the sweet poem into which they are thus clumsily introduced, and serve no other purpose than to deprive it of all unity of effect. If a poet must be farcical, let him be just that; he can be nothing better at the same moment. To be drolly sentimental, or even sentimentally droll, is intolerable to men and gods and columns.
"Alnwick Castle" is distinguished, in general, by that air of quiet grace, both in thought and expression, which is the prevailing feature of the muse of Halleck. ”

“ I called on the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, in my way. It is the most noble Gothick building imaginable. Its antique form is preserved on the outside. Within the apartments are also Gothick in their structure and ornaments, but convenient and noble; so that modern elegance arranges and conducts antique strength and grandeur, leaves its sublimity of character, but softens what was rude and unpolished.
“My next day’s journey carried me to Edinburgh, where I staid about ten days. ”

“ Raphael, Guido, and Titian are also within these swarthy outer walls, Titian's landscape contribution being specially notable, like Giovanni Bellini's "The Gods enjoying the Fruits of the Earth." One looks from it to the fair Northumberland country beyond the windows and then at the [Pg 56] splendour and taste of the castle, and fancies, inevitably, that the Percys themselves have in these later days obtained quite their share of the privileges of Bellini's gods. Nothing that makes for domestic pleasure is lacking at Alnwick Castle. ”

“ Perhaps, as one writer puts it, only a Percy could live quite at his ease as master of Alnwick Castle. One cannot imagine the average man making himself congenially at home here. But the inside comforts are an overflowing compensation for a somewhat forbidding exterior. We are told that even the towers at the angles of the encircling walls are museums of British and Egyptian antiquities, and game trophies, collected by members of the family. ”

“ Alnwick descended to William's son Eustace, who was visited by King John in 1209, and the king there received the homage of Alexander of Scotland. Eustace was one of the chief barons who wrested Magna Charta from John, and in the closing year of that reign met his death from an arrow before Barnard Castle. Henry III. visited Alnwick, and the great Edward I. was there several times as the guest of John de Vesci near the close of the thirteenth century. The Barons de Vesci soon afterwards became extinct, and then the warlike bishop of Durham, Antony Bek, came in and grabbed the castle. ”

“ She is, you know, niece to the Duke of Northumberland, and I regretted not seeing her.
“Thursday morning we rose early and prepared for our visit. I wore my ball gown, and Lady C. lent me a beautiful necklace of Scotch pebbles, very elegantly set, which had been presented to her by the Duchess of Athole, with brooches and ornaments to match. I kept my front hair in papers till I reached Alnwick.... I would not attempt a description of Alnwick Castle, my dear mamma, but I must tell you it is [102] by no means so very princely a residence as I had imagined. The entrance is extremely striking. ”

“ On 11 Feb. 1847 Lord Prudhoe succeeded his brother Hugh as fourth Duke of Northumberland, and thenceforward, after restoring the estates to order, his object was to administer his princely revenues in a manner worthy of his cultivated tastes and the dignity of his rank. Under his rule Alnwick Castle, which he restored at vast expense, and enriched with rare collections of pictures and antiquities, became the scene of an open hospitality, almost feudal in its stately profusion. At the duke's cost five churches were built on his estates, five more endowed, and six parsonages erected. ”

“ He built a new castle at Peckforton, in the strictest Plantagenet manner; and, as in the rebuilding of the great keep of Alnwick Castle, the question whether the accommodation of the middle ages was appropriate for a residence in the reign of Victoria was widely discussed ”

“ In 1753 he became a trustee of the British Museum. Alnwick Castle the duke thoroughly repaired and renovated in pseudo-Gothic style. Johnson visited it when on his way to Scotland, and, being treated with great civility by the duke (BOSWELL, ed. Hill, iii. 272) , remarked, ‘He is only fit to succeed himself’ (ib. ii. 132) . On 5 July 1764 the duke is said to have celebrated the king's birthday by entertaining fifteen hundred guests. Northumberland House, in London, was enlarged, and Sir Horace Mann [q. v.] ”

“ Northumberland is said to have contained sixty castles, but this must include many fortified houses and castles of the private gentry. Alnwick, better known as the seat of the earls of Northumberland than from its builder and early lords, is a very fine example of a baronial castle. The keep or central ward includes an open court, entered by a Norman gateway encrusted by a Decorated gatehouse, and round which, incorporated with the curtain, were the hall, kitchen, chapel, and the lord’s lodgings. ”

“ The strong tower, representing the survival of the keep, is found in another great northern castle of the fourteenth century, Raby, the castle of the Nevilles, where in other respects the domestic element is very prominent (311) .333 Raby, like Alnwick, is occupied to-day, but no such drastic changes as have converted the house on the mount at Alnwick into a comfortable modern residence were necessary here. There is an outer gatehouse slightly in advance of the north angle of the castle, which was surrounded by a moat and is nearly rectangular. ”

“ Its diamond-paned windows look into a wonderful courtyard, where you expect to see monks walking, or perhaps cavaliers; and on the hill above the garden, there are earthworks thrown up by Oliver Cromwell's army during the siege of Dunster Castle—the "Alnwick of the West." To-morrow, we are to be allowed, as a special favour, to see the inside of the Castle which towers up so grandly against the sky. It isn't open to the public; but Sir Lionel knows some relatives of the owners, so we are to be shown round. ”

“ Shakespeare was so far adherent to fact that Hotspur actually lived at Warkworth Castle. Edward III. had conferred it on the second Lord Percy, and until the middle of the fifteenth century the Percies preferred Warkworth to Alnwick. The Castle is one of the most beautiful and perfect ruins in England. It is not only finely situated, but is unique in design, suggesting less of strength than of taste in constructing a palace which must also be a stronghold. ”

“ Allan set off for Alnwick with a light heart. The day after his arrival at the castle, he was ushered into the presence of the Countess; and, after he had mustered some degree of courage, he began to play, and acquitted himself in so masterly a style, that he was instantly ranked as one of her musicians, and shortly after appointed her own piper. Allan continued at the castle upwards of two years, during which his conduct was irreproachable. ”

“ A right heroic princely man, he rises upon us through the mists of time, his successful defence of the castle against William the Lion, of Scotland, during many months' siege, being the grand deed about which his name and fame revolve. And this was no common deed, for the city during that time was invested with 8,000 Scotch soldiers, and the resolute garrison were at fearful extremities, and on the very brink of yielding, when an accident–the Scotch king being taken prisoner at Alnwick–at last delivered them from their peril. ”