York Castle

“ The presence of the double castle at York has been a great temptation to those who would identify the castle with the burh. The fortification of both banks of the river is, on the face of it, so like the system adopted by Edward the Elder, that the York castles have been often quoted as burhs of Edward the Elder’s date, and it has been concluded that similar earthworks must have existed at Nottingham, Stamford, and so on. ”

“ We should therefore be prepared to find this and most other keeps to be of later date than their architecture would suggest. Moreover, the expenditure entered to York Castle in the reigns of Henry II., Richard I., and John, is quite insufficient to cover the cost of a stone keep. The Pipe Rolls of Henry III.’s reign decide the matter, as they show the sums which he expended annually on this castle. It is true they never mention the turris, but always the castrum; we must also admit that the turris and castrum are often distinguished in the writs, even as late as Edward III.’s reign. ”

“ The Duke of York had with him, in Sandal Castle, his family, including the youthful Earl of Rutland. Boy-like, he must needs go and see the battle, and nothing could dissuade him. "I will go," said he, "and see my father kill the cruel Queen; and when I am a man I will go and fight, and kill his enemies too." "A battle is not a place, Lord Edmund," replied his tutor and chaplain, Sir Robert Aspall, "for boys. A stray arrow might kill you." "Think not, sir priest," replied the brave boy, "that a son of Richard of York is afraid of an arrow! ”

“ So farewell, grim Castle of York, old-time prison of such strangely assorted captives as religious pioneers, poor debtors, highwaymen, prisoners of war, and suspected witches; and modern gaol whose romance is concealed beneath contemporary common-places. Blood stains your stones, and persecution is writ large on the page of your story. ”

“ A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset, makes a wonderful picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York, Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. ”

“ At York, a prehistoric crouching skeleton was found by Messrs Benson and Platnauer when excavating the castle hill in 1903, 4 feet 6 inches below the level of the ground. The motte at York appears to have been raised after the destruction of the first castle, but whether the first hillock belonged to the ancient burial is not decided by the account, “Notes on Clifford’s Tower,” by the above authors. Trans. York. Philosoph. ”

“ The wide expanse of Yorkshire contained much worthy of defence, and was inhabited by a race of men not indisposed to provide it. The mounds of York, both of the first class in bulk and elevation, were posted on either bank of the Ouse, here a deep and broad stream. Of these mounds, one stands86 on the junction of the Foss with the Ouse, above a tract of marshy ground, between it and the wall of the Roman Eboracum. Here the Conqueror placed his first castle, and in the keep and within the spacious area below he posted William Malet and his 500 knights and their followers. ”

“ Twenty-two of the ancient churches exist.
We may well imagine that the Castle Keep, known as Clifford’s Tower, still keeps watch and ward over the city: opposite stands the mound of the other castle—the old Baile—which the Conqueror built in order to terrify the men of York. The triple-towered minster of St. Peter rises high above all else, and is best seen from the stretch of walls from Bootham to Monk Bar. The walk along the walls is one of the great attractions of York.
The old entrance to York from the south was Micklegate Bar. ”

“ It is rather in the Italian drawing-rooms, the picture-galleries, and the Renaissance luxuries of the interior of the castle that the jarring note is struck and all association with feudal times forgotten. Many a Border moss-trooper has unwillingly passed through this grim barbican, and so left the world for ever; and many more of higher estate have found this old stronghold of the Percies a place of lifelong durance, or have in its dungeons met a secret end. ”

“ As the autumn of 1460 was deepening into winter, a rumor reached London that Margaret of Anjou was raising troops on the borders of England. The Duke of York, though not seriously alarmed, was apprehensive of an insurrection in the north; and, marching from the metropolis, with an army of five thousand men, he, on Christmas-eve, arrived at Sandal Castle, which stood on an eminence that slopes down toward the town of Wakefield. ”

“ An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton.{129} If we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach a silent village standing near the imposing ruins. The great rectangular space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls, is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we approach by a footpath is most remarkable. ”

“ He states that "under the clock is the statue of Richard Duke of York, father of Edward IV, which was removed from the old Welsh Bridge at its demolition in 1791. This is flanked by an inscription recording this fact on the one side, and on the other by the three leopards' heads which are the arms of the town. On the other end of the building is a sun-dial, and also a sculptured angel holding a shield on which are the arms of England and France. This was removed from the gate of the town, which stood at the foot of the castle, on its demolition in 1825. ”

“ To give an idea of the speed with which these fortresses could be made, we find that in a brief campaign of less than two months, in 1068, the king founded eight of considerable importance, including those at Nottingham, Warwick, Lincoln, Huntingdon, and York; in the following year the erection of a second castle at York only occupied eight days, and Baile Hill, the mount of the defence in question, sufficiently testifies to the magnitude of the work. ”

“ The keep of York is clearly Early English in style, and of an early phase of the style. It is, however, evident to every one who has carefully compared our dated keeps, that castle architecture always lags behind church architecture in style-development, and must be judged by different standards. ”

“ But, in the other cases, although, at various dates during the middle ages, additions were made in stone, the nucleus of the plan is a collection of earthworks, which takes this form—a motte or mount with a bailey attached. At Lincoln there are two mounts. At York there are two castles, one on either side of the river, but each with its mount. On the mount of the castle north-east of the river is a later stone keep; the mount of the south-western castle has never carried stonework, and its bailey is now almost filled up with modern houses. ”

“ 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 ”

“ During this long period, the fabric was added to and improved until little of the Norman structure remained. All the new buildings seem to have been constructed with but one purpose, that of making an impregnable fortress. The widow of Sir Christopher sold the castle to Attorney-General Sir John Banks, ancestor of the Bankes of Kingston Lacy, in whose occupation, or rather in that of his wife, it was to have its invincibility put to the test. Sir John was with the king's forces at York in 1643 when the army of the Parliament gathered upon the Knowle and East hills. ”

“ The superstructure is Early English and Perpendicular. From the platform on the top of the central tower (216 feet) magnificent views are obtained on every side. The ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, near to the river, are very fine, and are carefully preserved. This was a mitred Benedictine house, and was one of the earliest monastic establishments founded in the North after the Conquest. The castle ruins, also seen from the river, occupy the site of a structure raised by the Conqueror. The walls of York, with the ancient gateways or bars, remain one of the features of the city. ”

“ Train from Liverpool Street, Great Eastern Railway.
The city of York is one of the most famous and interesting in the kingdom. It was originally the Eborac of the British and the Eboracum of the Romans, who made it an imperial colony, and the capital of Maxima Caesariensis. Later the place changed hands many times between Danes and Saxons until the time of William the Conqueror, who built the castle. The whole city was burnt in 1137, with the cathedral and forty churches, and in the Wars of the Roses it was continually the scene of sanguinary conflicts between the rival parties. ”

“ Here a thick curtain-wall traversed the court of the castle, and crossing the ditch of the mound was continued up its slope; just within the curtain was a drawbridge across the ditch, beyond which a direct flight of steps led up to the keep. Here, as at Wallingford, the well was on the slope of the mound, just within its ditch. Usually the actual entrance to the keep was by a mere door in the wall, as at Arundel, Lincoln, Tickhill, and Tamworth. At York is a regular gate-house, a part of the shell, which was reached by a very steep bridge, crossing a very formidable wet ditch. ”

“ Bolton of the Act of Attainder. The Prior had come over to the castle to advise with Lady Clifford. "You must take your departure at once," said he. "The agents of the usurper will be here anon and take possession in the name of the King, and it is not at all improbable that they will have instructions to remove your children from your care, and immure them in some place of captivity, if nothing worse befalls them, as the offspring of one of the most determined enemies of the House of York." ”

“ Except a few dwellings of the 16th century in Newcastle, and some mansions built after the Union of England and Scotland, the older houses are all castles. A survey of 1460 mentions thirty-seven castles and seventy-eight towers in Northumberland, not probably including all the bastle-houses or small peels of the yeomen. At the Conquest Bamburgh, the seat of the Saxon kings, was the only fortress north of York. Norham Castle was built in 1121. None of the baronial castles are older than the time of Henry I. A grass mound represents Wark Castle. ”

“ Entwickelung des Kriegswesen, iii., 352 and 428. No continental writers are entirely to be trusted about English castles; they generally get their information from Clark, and it is generally wrong.
[1137] This of course explains why the castle of London is always called The Tower; it was originally the only tower in the fortress.
[1138] The Close Rolls mention palicia or stockades at the castles of Norwich, York, Devizes, Oxford, Sarum, Fotheringay, Hereford, Mountsorel, and Dover. ”

“ The saying that "An Englishman's house is his castle" was at this time literally true. They were mostly moated, and contained but few rooms, one of which was much larger than the rest—the hall.
Of the military strongholds, or Castles, properly so called, many of the finest we possess were built during this period; among which may be mentioned Carnarvon, Chepstow, Ividwelly, Pembroke, "Windsor, Clifford's Tower, York, Warwick, &c. The masonry of those is of the most perfect description; the courses, as at Clifford's Tower, York, being laid regularly through the whole extent of the building ”

“ The other theories have absolutely no foundation but conjecture. If Malmesbury was quoting from some older source which is now lost, it is extremely probable that the word castrum which he copied, did not mean a castle in our sense of the word at all, but was a translation of the word burh, which almost certainly referred to a vallum or wall constructed round the Danish suburb outside the walls of York. ”

“ At Château sur Epte, in Normandy, there are two mounds, one within and one forming part of the enclosure. At York and Canterbury are mounds just within the city walls. In modern fortifications they are called Cavaliers. There is one in the citadel of Antwerp. ↑ The shell or remains of it are seen at Château-Gaillard, built by Richard I., Oxford, Cardiff, Durham, Clifford's tower at York, Lincoln, Clave, Tamworth, Carisbrook. ↑ Bernard's castle includes seven acres. ”

“ Its construction and defence were entrusted to William Malet, Robert Fitz Richard, and five hundred selected knights. Malet, who had dis545tinguished himself at Hastings, was sheriff of Yorkshire and a large landholder in the shire. At York William received acknowledgment of his supremacy from Malcolm of Scotland, Æthelwine Bishop of Durham, and Archill a great Northumbrian Thane. It appears from Domesday that of the seven shires one was laid waste in the construction of the castle, and the houses were reduced from 1,800 to about 1,036. ”

“ York became a royal duchy in 1385 when Richard II created his uncle, Edmund Langley, Duke of York. Shortly afterwards Henry of Lancaster (Henry IV) seized the throne, deposed Richard II, and imprisoned him in Pontefract Castle, where Richard was afterwards murdered. Plots were hatched against Henry, for example in 1403 the Percies rebelled but were defeated at Shrewsbury. ”