Carlisle Castle

“ The keep is very large and massive, and, no doubt, old in its inner substance. We ascended to the castle walls, and looked out over the river towards the Scottish hills, which are visible in the distance,—the Scottish border being not more than eight or nine miles off. Carlisle Castle has stood many sieges, and witnessed many battles under its walls. There are now, on its ramparts, only some half a dozen old-fashioned guns, which our soldier told us had gone quite out of use in these days. They were long iron twelve-pounders, with one or two carronades. ”

“ And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch
Is Keeper here on the Scottish side?
"And have they e'en ta'en him, Kinmont Willie,
Withouten either dread or fear,
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch
Can back a steed, or shake a spear?
"O were there war between the lands,
As well I wot that there is nane,
I would slight Carlisle castle high,
Though it were builded of marble stane.
"I would set that castle in a low,
And sloken it with English blood!
There's never a man in Cumberland
Should ken where Carlisle castle stood. ”

“ The Solway and its firth divide England from Scotland, and this borderland has been the scene of many deadly feuds, though happily only in the days long agone. The castle of Carlisle was a noted border stronghold, built of red sandstone by King William Rufus, who rebuilt Carlisle, which had then lain in ruins two hundred years because of the forays of the Danes. Richard III. enlarged the castle, and Henry VIII. built the citadel. Here Mary Queen of Scots was once lodged, but in Elizabeth's time the castle fell into decay. In the town is a fine cathedral, which has been thoroughly restored. ”

“ At this day Carlisle Castle is a somewhat shabby military depôt. The outer bailey is a parade-ground skirted with barracks, and the inner ward and keep are War Office storehouses. But it is in the unexpected modern surroundings of the public library that the most tragical memento of that time brings the hazards of rebellion with greatest vividness before you. This is a plaster cast of a monument erected to Dr. Archibald Campbell in the Savoy Chapel, London. The Chapel was largely destroyed by fire in 1864, and with it the marble monument. ”

“ The castle is far too confined and too much a part of the city for the purpose to which it is applied. The military should be removed, the modern buildings cleared away, the keep restored, and the area laid out for the pleasure of the people of Carlisle, and so as to show off the remains to the greatest advantage.
In the neighbourhood of Carlisle are other military works deserving notice. Such is, at Hayton, Castle Hill, a mound 12 feet high, and 100 feet diameter at the top. Linstock Castle was built before 1133, but is now little more than a farmhouse, into which it was converted in 1768. ”

“ I hear enough about thieving and reiving, and such-like business, without my very fool dinning it into my ears. Leave such matters for my Lord of Buccleuch and me to settle, Sirrah, and bethink thee of thy duty. 'Tis easier to crack jokes and sing songs in the safe shelter of Carlisle Castle than to ride out armed against these Scottish knaves. ”

“ The nearest stronghold in England was Carlisle Castle, which was not very far from the [Pg 247] frontier. The boundary between the two kingdoms is formed here by the Solway Frith, a broad arm of the sea. Dundrennan Abbey, to which Mary had retreated, was near the town of Kirkcudbright, which is, of course, on the northern side of the Frith; it is also near the sea. Carlisle is further up the Frith, near where the River Solway empties into it, and is twenty or thirty miles from the shore. ”

“ On the return of William Rufus from Alnwick, after concluding a peace with the turbulent Scotch, he passed over the remains of this once celebrated city, and observing that it must have been a place of great strength, and could be made so again, he resolved to rebuild it for the protection of the border. He did so: and Carlisle became of more importance than it had ever been before. Its castle was built and garrisoned; and every means taken to render it a stronghold both for offensive and defensive warfare. ”

“ Comparatively speaking, the windows were generally small, and the walls exceedingly thick. Those of the White Tower are 15 ft., and of Carlisle Castle 16 ft. thick. The connecting passages and staircases were constructed in the thickness of the masonry.
Norwich Castle, for its size, is a perfect type of the square Norman keep, and Castle Hedingham is another. Many magnificent stone keeps were built or rebuilt in the reign of Henry I., such as Rochester, Newark, Corfe, and Chepstow. ”

“ The same newspaper, while telling us of such grave things as Scottish nobles and gentlemen waiting in the Tower and in 416|1716.| Carlisle Castle for death or for life, as an incensed government might please to dictate, gives us other notices, reminding us of the affecting truism breathed from every sheet of the kind in our own day, that all the affairs of human life, the serious, the comic, the important, the trivial, are constantly going on shoulder to shoulder together. ”

“ The captive queen was allowed a semblance of freedom in Carlisle. She walked the terrace of the outer ward of the castle, went to service in the cathedral, and sometimes, with her ladies, strolled in the meadows beside the Eden, or watched her gentlemen play a game of football, or even hunted the hare, although her warders were in a fever of anxiety whenever she was on horseback lest she should take it into her wilful, beautiful head to gallop back to Scotland. ”

“ At Conisburgh and Orford castles there are ovens on the roofs, showing that the cooking was carried on there; these are keeps of Henry II.’s time.
[1144] De Caumont says these remains are on a motte, a strange statement, as they are only a foot or two above the surrounding level.
[1145] No stone castles in England are known to have been built by William Rufus; he built Carlisle Castle, but probably only in wood. As we have seen, several Welsh castles were built in his time, but all in earth and timber. ”

“ And it was nothing more. "
many of us in this old city of Carlisle are apt, we fear, to look upon our ancient castle simply as a castle, and nothing more; either forgetful or uninformed of all its strange brave histories, and its equally strange and striking perils and pageantries and long silenced sorrows. In these days we read so much history that its truth—its vivid living realities almost escape us: we do not hear the rush and push and struggle of the brave, or see the tears and terrors which in far off homes, or subsequently, in nearer dungeons, were often their tragic accompaniment. ”

“ Also I was much excited about the Giant's Grave, near Keswick, which has kept its secret since before history began.
All the way to Carlisle the country was very fair to see, scarcely flagging in charm to the end; and Carlisle itself was packed with interest, from its old cathedral to the castle where David I. of Scotland died and Mary Queen of Scots lodged. ”

“ The Duke followed hard after, and, in the interval of eleven days, Carlisle, with little loss, was once more in the hands of his majesty King George. During this interval the city had been besieged, the fire of the besiegers being directed "wholly against the Castle," which the Duke in scorn had called "a miserable hencoop," and which Lord Murray, of the Prince's army, would have blown up, if his own will had been done, ere the Prince's party left it. The castle was in fact the great scene of action during all this disastrous time. ”

“ ATHERTON TAKEN PRISONER.
Surrounded by walls built in the time of Henry the Eighth, Carlisle, at the period of our history, boasted a fortress that had successfully resisted many an attack made upon it by the Scots.
Situated on an eminence, and partly surrounded by a broad, deep moat, fed by the river Eden, the citadel, strongly garrisoned and well provided with guns and ammunition, would seem to be almost impregnable. At the foot of the western walls flowed the river Caldew, while the castle overlooked the beautiful river Eden. ”

“ There are several acres enclosed within the moat, intended for the cattle when driven in to escape the forays that came over the border. This venerable castle is now a picturesque ruin. Twelve miles north-east of Carlisle is Naworth Castle, near where the Roman Wall crossed England. This is one of the finest feudal remains in Cumberland, having been the stronghold of the Wardens of the Marches, who guarded the border from Scottish incursions. ”

“ At Tonbridge we see the mount-and-bailey fortress of early Norman times, built to meet needs which were purely military, and strengthened with a stone keep and walls and towers of stone as those needs became more pressing. At Carlisle we have the fortress with its compact inner ward and great tower, approached through the spacious base-court which served the needs of the garrison and might shelter flocks and herds in time of war. No castle of the most perfect type, planned in the golden age of military architecture, is represented. ”

“ The plan of the castle—a headland converted into a detached camp by a cross ditch—may be British or English, but the general outline of the masonry, which follows the line of the earthworks, is Norman. The Norman engineer evidently built the enceinte wall along the edge of the slope, and planned the inner and outer ward, and the keep. The castle is generally attributed to William Rufus, who was here in 1092, when Carlisle, from a Scottish, became an English frontier place. ”

“ Carlisle is commonly called the border town between England and Scotland; at any rate it was a vantage-ground in days gone by that was of a great value to one faction and a thorn in the side to the other. The conquering and unconquered Scots are the back-bone of Britain, there's no denying that; and Carlisle is near enough to the border to be intimately acquainted with their virtues.
We inspected Carlisle's cathedral, its ugly castle, and the County Hotel,—and preferred the two former. ”

“ Carisbrook Castle, Isle of Wight, 388
———————— mound at, 99, 259
————— Priory, Chartularies of, 391
Carlaverock, siege of, 324, 365
Carleton, Thomas de, 322
Carlisle Castle, Cumberland, 97, 98
Carnac, Brittany, 228 ”

“ In this year the King William with a large army went north to Carlisle, and restored the town, and reared the castle, and drove out Dolphin that before governed the land, and set his own men in the castle, and then returned hither southward. And a vast number of rustic people with wives and with cattle he sent thither, to dwell there in order to till the land. ”

“ The scots especially sympathized with Henry the Sixth, and made an ineffectual attempt to take Carlisle for him; and all through the reigns of Henry IV., V., and VI., the city was miserably harassed, the suburbs and adjacent parts, up to the very gates, being destroyed by fire. For all England this was a time of terror, and probably this old castle suffered greatly from the constant hostilities of the times, and doubtless many brave men and true passed these portals during all these years, for calamity also produces "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears;" ”

“ The south wall, with its flat buttresses, is partly Norman, and partly thirteenth-century work; and this description generally applies to the north and west walls.
About 50 yards from the south-west angle and on the city walls is King Richard's Tower, a building of two storeys, where Richard III. is said to have lived when at Carlisle. It is also called the Tile Tower because of the thin bricks with which it was built. A subterranean passage leading to the keep was discovered here early this century. Entrance to the castle is gained by a bridge crossing the moat ”

“ Probably William Rufus rebuilt this castle too, as that at Carlisle, and with the same purpose, as a guard against the pillaging Scots.
The manner of conveying the coals down to the river side from the pits, is very ingenious: a cart-way is made by a frame of timber, on which the wheels of the carts run without horses, with great celerity; so that they are forced to moderate their descent by a piece of wood like a lever applied to one of the wheels. The manner of rowing their great barges here is also very particular, and not unworthy of remark: four men manage the whole ”

“ The castle of Harbottell was allotted to the Warden of the Middle Marches; whilst for the West, Carlisle, where again Governor and Warden were often one, was the appointed place. Sometimes a Lord warden-general was appointed, sometimes a Lieutenant, but the Wardens were commonly independent. At the Warden courts Englishmen were punished for march treason, a branch of which was furnishing the Scots with articles of merchandise or war. And here I note that Carlisle throve [Pg 161] on this illegal traffic. At Carlisle Fair the Carlisle burgher never asked the nationality of man or beast. ”

“ I AM now nine miles from Carlisle, and four from Boulness, the termination of the Wall. The Castle stands upon a rising ground, at the extremity of the marsh; and was erected by the Dacres, two hundred years ago, with the materials of the old Castle, and upon the old foundation. Their arms are placed in the front. It is no more than a large, handsome farm-house. ”

“ It was in this undertaking that the Duke of Perth reaped the benefit of his scientific knowledge of the art of war, and that he showed a degree of skill as well as of military ardour, which would, had his life been spared, have rendered him an excellent general. The castle of Carlisle, built upon the east angle of the fortifications, was of course the object of his attack. On Tuesday, the thirteenth of October, after his return from Brampton, where the Prince remained with the Clans to cover the siege, the Duke began his operations. ”