Warwick Castle

“ Warwick Castle is a structure which must grow more and more interesting from decade to decade. It is the only feudal palace left intact in England. It was ranked among the very best of them when they were all alive and strong over the land. It is associated with a name that stands among the first in the Norman aristocracy. Its location in itself is deeply interesting. Shakespeare breathed an inspiration upon the little Avon that laves its foundations, and gave to its name an immortality more vital and beautiful than the Tiber's. ”

“ WARWICK CASTLE holds foremost rank among the Stately Homes of England, both from its historical associations, and the important positions which, in every age, its lords have occupied in the annals of our country. Situated in one of the most romantic and beautiful districts of a fertile and productive shire, overlooking the “sweet-flowing Avon,” and retaining all its characteristics of former strength and grandeur, Warwick Castle is renowned among the most interesting remains of which the kingdom can boast. ”

“ As we crossed the bridge leading over the River Avon we had a splendid view of Warwick Castle, which had the reputation of being the finest example of a fortified castle in England, Sir Walter Scott describing it as "the fairest monument of ancient and chivalrous splendour which yet remain uninjured by time." It could boast of a continuous history from the time of Ethelfreda, the daughter of the Saxon King, Alfred the Great, and its towers rose to a considerable height, Cæsar's tower reaching an elevation of 174 feet. ”

“ The history of a fabric, so intimately connected with some of the most important events recorded in the chronicles of our country, as that of Warwick Castle, cannot fail to be alike interesting to the antiquary, the historian, and the man of letters. This noble edifice is also rendered the more attractive, as being one of the very few that have escaped the ravages of war, or have defied the mouldering hand of time ”

“ And again they came back when Will Shakespeare, a youth from Stratford, eight miles away, came here and waved his magic wand.
Warwick Castle is probably in better condition now than it was in the Sixteenth Century. But practically it is the same. It is the only castle in England where the portcullis is lowered at ten o'clock every night and raised in the morning (if the coast happens to be clear) to tap of drum.
It costs a shilling to visit the castle. A fine old soldier in spotless uniform, with waxed white moustache and dangling sword, conducts the visitors. ”

“ Warwick Castle! England and all who speak its language owe the successive inheritors of this great living pile of buildings more than they have ever acknowledged; for it is really the only baronial castle that has survived the destruction or decay of all the other monuments of the feudal ages of the same order. We should not know what they were in their day and generation were it not for this. It helps our fancy to fill up the vast breaks in the walls of Kenilworth, Dudley, and Chepstow ”

“ Warwick Castle, built of the very centuries, cannot be expected to alter with Time's "brief hours and weeks"—at least, with so few of them as fall to one poor mortal's lot. From visit to visit I find it as unchanged as the multiplication table. ”

“ Warwick Castle is a place entirely to my mind, a real representative of the English aristocracy in the day of its nobler life. The grandeur of the pile itself, and its beauty of position, introduce you fitly to the noble company with which the genius of Vandyke has peopled its walls. But a short time was allowed to look upon these nobles, warriors, statesmen, and ladies, who gaze upon us in turn with such a majesty of historic association, yet was I very well satisfied. It is not difficult to see men through the eyes of Vandyke. ”

“ Caius, about 1552, saw a bone of a bonassus (cow) at Warwick Castle kept with the arms of Guy. In 1636 the rib of the dun cow was exhibited at Warwick. Guy's armour is a medley: a bassinet of Edward III.; breast-plate, fifteenth and seventeenth century; sword, Henry VIII.; staff, an ancient tilting-lance, very curious; the horse-armour, and "Fair Phillis' slippers" (strap-irons) , are fifteenth century. In conclusion, "the renowned Guy" is considered to be a myth.
The first historical Earl of Warwick was so created by the Conqueror. The history of the castle has some strange episodes. ”

“ I should be ashamed to confess, indeed, that I was not pleased with the pictures, and more than pleased with the exquisite carvings and magnificent sculpture, viewed merely as works of art; but I was fatigued with the vast worldliness of such a house, and felt that it would better have suited a Hadrian, than it does a Christian nobleman of England. Such a residence as Warwick Castle comes to its possessor historically, and a nobleman may well keep it up; but Chatsworth seems built for display, and must be altogether too much for comfort. ”

“ A mile and a half out of the town is that famous place of popular legend, Guy’s Cliff, where the great mansion, standing beside the river and built in 1822, looks so ancient, and where, on the opposite shore of Avon, stands that mill whose highly picturesque features are a standing dish in railway carriage picture-galleries. The impossible armour of the mythical Guy of Warwick we have already seen in Warwick Castle, and the improbable legend of his hermit life in the riverside cave remains now to be told. ”

“ Guy's Tower was built in 1394. The next period in the architectural history of the [Pg 99] castle is two or three hundred years later. The castle was then used as a gaol. The next work was the erection of the entrance-hall. Mr. Salvia, the architect, has been called in by the Earl of Warwick, and has made habitable a portion of the castle which before had been unused. The extreme beauty of the two towers is considered as unequalled in the world.
In the valuable collection of pictures in Warwick Castle are a curious portrait of Queen Elizabeth, painted very early in her reign ”

“ The castle as it now stands is a splendid specimen of the fourteenth-century stronghold built in the transition period, when the mere fortress was being superseded by a building of more grace and comfort. St. Mary's Church in Warwick was rebuilt in the reign of Queen Anne, the former church, built by Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, having been destroyed by fire in 1694. Guy's Cliff, situated 1-1/4 miles from Warwick, is a most picturesque spot, and is celebrated, according to tradition, as the retreat of Guy of Warwick. ”

“ With human needs in general Warwick Castle may be in no great accord, but few places are more gratifying to the sentimental tourist. It is the only great residence he may have coveted as a home. The fire that we heard so much of last winter in America appears to have consumed but an inconsiderable and easily spared portion of the house, and the great towers rise over the great trees and the town with the same grand air as before. ”

“ All these aspects and associations are becoming more and more widely appreciated, and the footfall of visiters from distant countries crossing the threshold will grow more and more frequent as the readers of English history and romance increase in both hemispheres.
But Warwick is not all castle. Far from it. It is a goodly, venerable town with a public character and history distinct from the castle. One of its streets, full a third of a mile in length, can hardly be surpassed in the country for neatness, tidy elegance, and picturesque variety and vista of architecture. ”

“ One tapestry on this attractive subject which was in Warwick Castle, before the year 1398, was so distinguished and valued a piece of furniture, that a special grant was made of it by King Richard II. conveying “that suit of arras hangings in Warwick Castle, which contained the story of Guy Earl of Warwick,” together with the Castle of Warwick and other possessions, to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent. And in the restoration of forfeited property to this lord after his imprisonment, these hangings are particularly specified in the patent of King Henry IV., dated 1399. ”

“ Thus, Warwick represents to us in its living being and form [Pg 30] of to-day the hundreds of castles that were planted over the island in the first century after the Conquest. Schamyl in his native costume and dignity could not represent better at St. Petersburg the leaders of the Circassian race and country than does this grand home and fortress of the Warwicks the embattled citadels of the old English knights.
Warwick Castle, the fortress of one of the stoutest and grimmest of the old English fighting knights, did not put on the armor of nature to help out its own. ”

“ It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company—for he did all the talking. ”

“ WARWICK Warwick Castle should be visited in order to inspect one of the most perfectly preserved strongholds of the Middle Ages, the many features of interest which it contains and its picturesque situation on the river Avon, rather than for the small amount of domestic stained glass (of the grey and yellow stain type) to be found in the long corridor and large banquet-room. Although worth seeing if one is there, it is not of sufficient importance to cause a special visit. ”

“ Unfortunately, no portrait capable of conveying an adequate idea of Warwick's appearance exists for the instruction of our generation; but traditions and chronicles lead to the conclusion that, if a Vandyke or a Reynolds had existed in the fifteenth century to transmit to posterity the king-maker as, in form and feature, he appeared to his contemporaries in Westminster Hall, in Warwick Castle, or on Towton Field, such a portrait, by such an artist, would not belie our conceptions as to the personal grandeur of the warrior-statesman of mediæval England. ”

“ Fame was swifter than Guy. The king sent for him, gave him the honour of knighthood, and caused one of the ribs of the cow to be hung up in Warwick Castle, where it remains until this day.” Old Dr. Caius, of Cambridge, writes of having seen an enormous head at Warwick Castle in 1552, and also “a vertebra of the neck of the same animal, of such great size that its circumference is not less than three Roman feet seven inches and a half.” He thinks also that “the blade-bone, which is to be seen hung [p 240] up by chains form the north gate of Coventry, belongs to the same animal. ”

“ Tristan, kneeling down, unlaced his surcoat, stripped it off, and tumbled it over his own head. The white cross would serve him as well as his sword.
The road towards the castle teemed with steel, and torches flared through the thickets. The castle walls started pale and fitful out of the gloom, their battlements gleaming above the gardens dark under the stars. A hot burst of cheering came down into the town. The troops thronging the road shouted in answer, as they pressed on to share in the sacking of the place. ”

“ There's plenty of time for lip service when we have served the Lord by hard work in a good cause. When people have nothing better to do let them pray, but don't let them be too greedy and ask much for themselves.
Warwick Castle.
Our route lay through Warwick and Leamington. The view of the castle from the bridge is, I believe, the best of its kind in England. "From turret to foundation stone" it is all perfect. The very entrance tells of the good old days. As we pass beneath the archway, over the drawbridge, and under the portcullis, it all comes back to us. ”

“ Situated almost ideally, it possesses a wide prospect of fertile lands and wooded vales, over which in ancient times the Lord of Kenilworth held sway. It is, indeed, lamentable that this [143] fine castle should have aroused the destructive propensities of the Cromwellians, and should not have been preserved, as have happily so many other medieval buildings in the fair county of Warwick, much as it was when knights and ladies trod its halls in stately measure or revelry, and strolled on its terraces and through its pleasances. ”

“ To my farther benefit, as I grew older, I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses in England, in reverent and healthy delight of uncovetous admiration,—perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was probably much happier to live in a small house, and have Warwick castle to be astonished at, than to live in Warwick castle and have nothing to be astonished at ”

“ You, accomplished reader of history and memoirs, know better than I that the Earls of Warwick were once the mightiest vassals of England, and that the great Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, boasted of having deposed three kings, and placed as many on the vacant throne. This was his castle, standing ever since the ninth century, and in the possession of the same family since the reign of Elizabeth. A tower of the castle, said to have been built by Beauchamp himself, remains unaltered; and the whole stands colossal and mighty, like an embodied vision of former times. ”

“ It was a great stronghold in the subsequent wars, and an heiress brought the castle to Richard Neville, who assumed the title in right of his wife, and was the famous Warwick, "the King-maker." After many changes it came to the Grevilles, who are now the Earls of Warwick. This castle is one of the best specimens of the feudal stronghold remaining in England, and occupies a lovely position on the river-bank, being built on a rock about forty feet high; its modern apartments contain a rich museum filled with almost priceless relics of the olden time. ”