Kenilworth Castle
The site of Kenilworth castle was under the
control of Geoffrey Clinton (d.1131/33) before 1122 when the fortress
was mentioned in Geoffrey's foundation charter of Kenilworth
priory. This is traditionally dated to 1122 and must have been
made around then. This leaves the question as to when the castle
was founded and what can be said of Geoffrey Clinton and his
family? Firstly, Geoffrey is relatively well known amongst
medievalists, but that said he doesn't seem to have been studied for
himself, but has merely been used as a dim light to help illuminate the
political edifice of Henry I (1100-35).
Initially, it is worth repeating that Geoffrey was one of those said by one contemporary to be of ignoble blood (de ignobili stirpe), who had been ‘raised from the dust' (de pulvere) by King Henry I
(1100-35). Another early chronicler claimed that Geoffrey
proffered £2,000 to Henry I if he would make Geoffrey's nephew,
Roger Clinton (d.1148), a bishop. Regardless of the alleged
bribe, Roger was duly consecrated bishop of Coventry on 22 December
1129. Certainly no such payment appears on the pipe roll of that
year which, alone from Henry's reign, has happened to survive.
Once again this shows the dangers of accepting the petty jealousies and
downright propaganda that appear in various works, both modern and
ancient (as well as their successors on TV), at face value.
Despite this, and the possibility that the money was never placed
‘on the books', it is still possible to discover a lot more of
Geoffrey's antecedents than is generally acknowledged.
King Henry I's own confirmation
charter to Geoffrey's foundation of Kenilworth priory of October 1125,
stated that he had permitted Geoffrey Clinton, his treasurer and
chamberlain, to found the church of St Mary in Kenilworth on land which
he had given to Geoffrey in fee and inheritance and that the king
confirmed to the church the lands that the monks had acquired or may
acquire. Currently these included the land of Kenilworth given by
Geoffrey to Prior Bernard, as well as land in Salford Priors, Idlicote,
Tysoe, Newham
Regis and Lillington. These were all vills held by
Geoffrey. To this the king added the church of Wootton Leek with
land in Wootton, Lillington, the churches of Kington, Stoneleigh and
Bidford, as well as the churches of Brailes and Wellesbourne which had
been given by Earl Roger of Warwick (d.1153). Additional to these
were the churches of Kington and Barton Segrave given by others.
Amongst the witnesses to this royal document was Geoffrey himself.
It is useful that a copy of Geoffrey's original grant survives.
This states that Geoffrey had founded the church of Kenilworth (Chenilleuurda) in honour of St Mary and had conceded to the canons there:
all the land in the plain of
Kenilworth itself and the wood and all the rest of the aforesaid vill
with the exception of the parts which I retain at the castle and to
make my park...
In a later charter Geoffrey conceded:
...the full tithe of all
things whatsoever and from wherever they came to my castle, whether to
the cellar, or to the kitchen, or to the larder, or to the granary, or
to the ‘halgard'...
King Henry I (1100-35) confirmed the grant or grants to Kenilworth priory. These included:
all the land of Kenilworth in
the forest and the plain, which the same Geoffrey gave to Prior Bernard
for the work of the same church, except only for that land in which his
castle is situated, and which he retained in his possession to make his
town, and for his fishery, and for his park...
King Henry II (1154-89) also made a confirmation grant to Kenilworth. Interestingly this was for all the things that his grandfather, King Henry I
(1100-35), gave to Kenilworth priory in alms and as his charter
confirmed. There is then a list of lands given some half way
through which is the statement:
...and of Glympton from the
fee and gift of Geoffrey Clinton, as contained in the charters of the
same, with all the appurtenances and liberties which the aforesaid
lands and churches he had better and more fully in the time of King
Henry my grandfather.... Also the manor of Packington (Pachinton)
with all its appurtenances and liberties, by the gift of Geoffrey
Clinton and the grant of Henry Arden and Hugh his brother, by the
service of half a knight...
There was then listed the land of Bretford given by the nuns Seburae
and Noemi and the concession of the same Geoffrey Clinton. It is
quite obvious from this charter that King Henry II
(1154-89) was expunging the actions of Geoffrey in founding Kenilworth
priory and consequently upgrading the monastery to a royal
foundation. No doubt this was due to King Henry II have reclaimed the royal land of Kenilworth with its castle back into the state it was during the reign of Henry I (1100-35). This was Henry's main policy on acquiring the English kingdom in 1154.
Geoffrey Clinton Junior (d.1169/75) also made a charter to Kenilworth
priory. In this he conceded all the lands, churches and other
things given by his father:
Firstly, namely all the land
of Kenilworth itself in the forest and the plain, and all the other
belongings of the aforesaid vill, with the exception of the particulars
which my same father retained therefrom to make his castle and
park... In addition, a full tithe of everything that has reached
Kenilworth castle, whether to the cellar or to the halgard, both from
purchases and donations, as well as from their own rents; that is to
say, in wheat and hay... and in all other things whatever and however
they reached Kenilworth castle, although all these were also tithed
elsewhere. Moreover, in any one week, the canons are to have one
day of fishing in the castle vivarium on any one day they choose...
Henry Clinton (d.1216/18), Geoffrey Junior's son, of course mentioned
nothing of Kenilworth castle, but obviously did still hold some rights
in the vill. One of his probably twelfth century charters to
Kenilworth priory, expanding an earlier grant by his father, Geoffrey
(d.1169/75), referred to his land:
on Dedecherleshull and all the moor from the bridge of Redfern (Wridefen) beside the road to Coleshill as far a the assart of Renald Halfcherl of Redfern.
The text of these charters suggest that Geoffrey Clinton (d.1131/33)
retained the south and west part of the land of Kenilworth for his
castle and park, while the eastern part went to the Augustinian priory
whose canons were given permission to fish in the mere and graze their
livestock in the park. The original charters mention the 6 lands
held by Geoffrey and granted to the priory. The most important of
these was undoubtedly Kenilworth. At Domesday in 1086 Kenilworth (Chinewrde)
had been unvalued, but consisted of 3 virgates of royal land held by
Richard the Forester. In this land were 10 villagers and 7
smallholders with 3 ploughs. It's forest was ½ league long
by 4 furlongs wide and it all lay in the royal manor of
Stoneleigh. Quite obviously at some point before 1125, King Henry I
had granted the land of Kenilworth to his chamberlain, Geoffrey
Clinton. Geoffrey then began the great castle here, rather than
in his main family estate. Geoffrey's origin is shown in one of
his grants to Kenilworth priory where he gave the church of Clintona,
the place his family takes its name from. This is now known as
Glympton in Oxfordshire and gives the lie to the idea that Geoffrey was
raised from the dust. It would seem likely that his father was
the William who held Glympton from Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances in
1086. William, assuming he is the same man, also held - amongst
the other 289 manors held by otherwise unidentified Williams - 2 other
places later held by the Clintons, namely, Baddesley Clinton and
Wormleighton in Warwickshire. This is probably the best
indication that this William's known descendants took the name Clinton
from the present day Glympton.
William would seem to have had at least 2 sons, possibly the elder,
Geoffrey (d.1131/33) and also William (d.1136+). Geoffrey began
witnessing documents for King Henry I
from at least 1108 and this he continued to do until his death in or a
little before 1133. The bulk of these documents occur after the
Welsh campaign of 1121 and taken together they tend to show that
Geoffrey was often in the court of Henry I both in England and not so
often in Normandy. It also shows that although his brother,
William Clinton, witnessed at least 4 documents for King Henry I,
he was by no means as popular as his brother. Despite this favour
shown to Geoffrey, it is probably only in the period 1121-23 that he
was made sheriff of Warwickshire as is evidenced by the precept of the
king to him made at Woodstock in that period.
The 1130 pipe roll allows some of the Clinton lands to be
unravelled. In Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Geoffrey was
pardoned Danegeld for £7 9d which William Pont de l'Arche ought
to have paid. Presumably this was the chamberlain, William Pont
de l'Arche (d.1152) of Portchester castle.
Why Geoffrey was holding any of his lands is unknown, although it is
possible that there was a marriage link here and Geoffrey's wife,
Lesceline, was in fact William's daughter. Elsewhere in
Nottinghamshire Geoffrey is pardoned a further Danegeld assessment of
57s 8d and a borough assessment of 28s 10d. He was also pardoned
8s Danegeld in Wiltshire; 2s 8d in Northumberland; 48s 8d in Hampshire;
10s in Cambridgeshire; 24s 9d in Sussex; 40s 3d, 7s 2d and £4 5s
in Leicestershire; £7 12s in Buckinghamshire; £16 15s 3d in
Warwickshire; £4 12d in Berkshire; £11 10s in Windsor and
5s in Rutland. It is noticeable that no Clinton holdings seem to
have survived in Wiltshire, Northumberland, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire,
Sussex, Berkshire, Windsor or Rutland. Perhaps most of these
lands were held at the king's pleasure rather than in fee.
Alternatively all these lands were seized back by Henry II (1154-89) early in his reign.
Perhaps Geoffrey's accounting skills were not too great for in
Hampshire it was noted that he owed £9 11s 8d ‘for a
deficit in treasure whilst he was with Robert Mauduit in
Normandy'. He also owed 80m (£53 6s 8d) in Northamptonshire
for having custody of the son of William Diva and his land, as well as
50m (£33 6s 8d) for Richard Martinvaus having half the land of
Norman his uncle. Geoffrey was also sheriff of Warwickshire at
this time. His accounts show him £32 9s 4d in arrears for
the old farm of the county as well as owing 310m (£206 13s 4d)
for having the office of treasurer of Winchester,
of which he paid 100m (£66 13s 4d) this year. Other debts
he had run up included grants of lands, pledges, farms, as well as for
a charter confirming what the earl of Warwick had given to Geoffrey's
church of Arden. Presumably this church was Kenilworth which lies
roughly centrally in the old district of Arden. That district ran
roughly from Stratford on Avon in the south to Tamworth
in the north. Geoffrey's brother William was also active in the
pipe roll, paying 20m (£13 6s 8d) in Buckinghamshire of a 145m
(£96 13s 4d) debt for the land which Ralph Fitz Turstin [possibly
otherwise known as Ralph Wigmore] took with his wife in Normandy.
Geoffrey Clinton was dead by August 1133 when King Henry I,
soon after July 1131, was at Beckenham when he issued a notification
informing Bishop Roger Clinton of Chester (1128-48) and Nicholas
Stafford (d.1138) and the men of Staffordshire that a final concord had
been made between the prior of Kenilworth and Hugh, the king's watchman
concerning the lands which were the inheritance of Hugh's wife.
By this agreement Kenilworth priory was to have Stone (Stanis) church and Brusard's land that went with it, with half the wood and the land of Alan the son in law of Anisanus in Colwalton (Waletone)
etc... Further all these lands were to be held directly from
Geoffrey, the son of Geoffrey Clinton, to whose fee they
belonged. Hugh was to have the rest of the [unnamed]
inheritance. Amongst the witnesses to this charter was William
Clinton, the brother of the elder Geoffrey. That William survived
his brother is confirmed by a precept of 1130-35 by which King Henry I notified William Clinton that the king's men of Stonleigh
were to have their pasture in the hay that the king had given to
Geoffrey Clinton as they had done in Geoffrey's time and as it was
agreed when the king gave the wood. That William Clinton was
uncle to the younger Geoffrey is confirmed by Geofrey's confirmation of
the grant of his uncle, William Clinton, of Cassington (Chersintona, some 6 miles south of Glympton), to Eynsham abbey before 1152.
The Clintons had also acquired estates in Normandy, for in October
1154, Geoffrey Clinton (d.1169/75) recognised that his land of Douvres
in Calvados had been mortgaged to Bishop Philip of Bayeux for £30
Tours and that Conion
would remain to the treasurer of Bayeux as had been quitclaimed in the
year that the duke of Normandy made a peace of 3 years with the kingdom
of France.
In 1166, it was recorded that Geoffrey Clinton held 17 fees of Earl
William of Warwick (d.1184). Some of these fees are those that
were granted to Kenilworth priory. One of them was probably
Coleshill which Geoffrey sold to his cousin, Osbert, who thereby
founded the Clinton of Coleshill line. Elsewhere Geoffrey had
held 5 fees of Earl William of Gloucester (d.1183), but these were now
merely marked in the earl's charter as the fee that was Geoffrey
Clinton's. For what reason Geoffrey was deprived of these fees
before 1166 is unknown, but possibly he was incapacitated or in
disfavour during the writing of the charter. His son and heir,
Henry Clinton (d.1216/18), certainly held at least 1 fee of the earldom
of Gloucester as late as 1210. Regardless of events in 1166,
Geoffrey the Chamberlain of Glympton (Glint') was elsewhere recorded as holding a fee of Robert Scrope (d.bef.1190) and 3 of the honour of Wallingford,
the old barony of Brain Fitz Count (d.1147/51). Finally, Geoffrey
the chamberlain held 2 fees of Earl William Ferrers (d.1190), one of
which was held by Robert Fitz Ralph and the other by Peter Goldington.
Oddly the Clintons do not appear much in the royal records of Henry II.
Osbert Clinton (d.1200) was paying his taxes in Coleshill during
1165. However, his probable uncle, Hugh Clinton (d.1169/75), was
forced in 1166 to make of fine of 20m (£13 6s 8d) in Shropshire
for the evil words he had said against the king. This possibly
reflected the general Clinton feeling about their monarch, for the
family certainly was not as powerful or influential as it had been
under Henry I (1100-35).
The younger Geoffrey Clinton seems to have died in or soon after
1169. That year is the earliest possible date for one of his
charters to Kenilworth priory. It was not until 1175/6 that his
son, Henry Clinton (d.1216/18), gained some of his father's lands back,
namely a fee held of the earl Ferrers and ‘his right' in
Warwickshire with half a fee in the same county. For these rights
he pledged the 3 sums of £5, 20m (£13 6s 8d) and
£5. These amounts obviously did not include a fine for the
castle of Kenilworth and the bulk of Geoffrey Clinton's old
barony. The usual inheritance fee for such a barony with a castle
on the scale of Kenilworth would more likely have been
£100. In any case, from 1173 onwards Kenilworth appeared as
a royal fortress. Further, Henry Clinton did not pay his £5
fine for half a fee that he had not yet had. No doubt at this
time, Kenilworth was held by the sheriff of Warwick for Henry II
(1154-89). In addition, Henry Clinton may have been under age
after the death of his father. What is certain is that for some
reason, probably after the younger Geoffrey Clinton's death soon after
1169, the king did not return the fortress to Geoffrey's heir.
King Henry certainly had a dislike for Henry's probable cousin, Jordan
Clinton (d.1187). He was fined the large amount, for such a lowly
person, of £100 for his misdeeds in the 1173-74 rebellion.
What has been missed in all this, is where is Geoffrey Clinton's carta
of 1166? All tenants in chief are mean to have made one and the
great majority of them did. The answer to this seems to be that
Geoffrey was already in disgrace or exile. His mention in other
barons' cartae shows that he was alive at this time, as does his making
a charter to Kenilworth priory soon after 1169 at the earliest.
The final piece to this historical jigsaw seems to be the fact that Henry II was treating Kenilworth hay as his own property in 1165. It therefore becomes obvious that Geoffrey had fallen foul of Henry II
in some fashion and had lost Kenilworth castle by that date. The
same year, 1165, the king received 10s from the sheriff of Warwickshire
for the chattels of ‘some fugitives from Kenilworth'.
Kenilworth castle was obviously both functional and in the king's hands
during 1173 as he spent £8 6s 8d in munitioning it with 100 loads
of grain, 20 loads of beer (brasii)
at 33s 4d, 100 bacons at £7 10s, 40 salted cows at £4, 120
cheeses at 40s and 25 loads of salt at 30s. Also £5 was
spent on Kenilworth (Kinildewurda)
jail. This was mostly likely within the castle. The
garrison of the fortress was at this time increased by a horse sergeant
and 64 foot sergeants at a cost of 66s for a 20 day stay. The
pipe roll also shows that the motte of Warwick castle
was munitioned at the same time. During the next year up to
October 1174, more money was spent on both castles. Kenilworth
gained 10 horse sergeants for 77 days at £11 3s 4d and certain
knights at a cost of £33 6s 8d. There was a further knight
with foot sergeants at the castle who received £11, before a
further £180 41s 8d was spent on another 20 knights and 140 foot
sergeants for 115 days. Quite possibly another force also briefly
resided at the castle as another 27s 6d was accounted for the cost of
‘the knight and sergeants of Kenilworth'. Finally, there
was recorded another payment for £132 19s 2d for ‘the
knights and sergeants of Kenilworth'. Quite clearly Kenilworth
was a large fortress to support such a garrison and it played an
important role in suppressing the rebellion of Earl Robert of Leicester
(d.1190).
The fate of Kenilworth castle before this time seems to be explained by a copy of a later charter. This shows that King Henry II
had simply exchanged Kenilworth castle for lands elsewhere.
Thereby appropriating the fortress for his own use in the 1170s.
In the early years of the reign of King John
(1199-1216), Henry Clinton (d.1216/18) made a charter to John
quitclaiming all his rights to Kenilworth castle and all its
appurtenances just as King Henry II
had held seisin of it on the day he died in 1189. Another survey
from 1242/43 states that the abbot of Woburn held 4½ hides in
Swanbourne Inferior of the king; lands which had been exchanged with
the king for Kenilworth castle. As late as 1274 Swanbourne,
Buckinghamshire, consisting of 13 hides held by Woburn, was reckoned to
be partially held of the honour of the Earl Marshall and partially of
the honour of Clinton. Indeed, as early as 1179, Henry Clinton
was litigating against Ralph Caisneto over half a fee in Swanbourne (Suinburna).
It is reasonably clear from this that the ‘exchange' had already
taken place by 1179. Similarly, Henry was paying a fine made in
Warwickshire to have his lands in 1176 and 1177. The fact that
Henry only appeared in the pipe rolls from 1175 when he was using legal
methods to obtain lands would suggest that he had only come of age
around the time of the 1173-74 war and that his estates had been held
by others during his minority, obviously with disastrous effect for the
Clinton barony.
From this it is quite clear that the order of the king's government on
17 March 1218, that the sheriff of Warwickshire was to return to Henry
Clinton full seisin of his rightful hereditary lands without delay and
that this included ‘the right and inheritance of Henry his
father, whose heir he is in Kenilworth, which you took into your
hand...', was never implemented. Certainly the castle remained
under royal control and in any case Henry died probably before 1231
when Lavendon castle, which
honour his father had been holding since at least 1193 and in 1201 was
accounted as one of his fees, appeared to be lordless. On Henry's
demise his remaining lands were divided amongst the heirs of his 3
sisters, what was left of the barony itself going into abeyance.
Quite clearly Kenilworth castle was from before 1173 maintained as a
royal fortress and at the king's expense. In 1181 the sheriff of
Warwickshire paid 27s (3 lots of 9s) into the royal coffers for his
farm of those dwelling within the enclosure of Kenilworth castle (de firma commorantium in clauso castelli de Kenillewurda).
This farm then became a regular payment into the Exchequer, the next
year the 9s being paid ‘from the land which is enclosed in
Kenilworth castle'. By 1200 the amount had risen to 10s per annum
and by 1206 it was dropped to 3s for the enclosure (de clauso)
of Kenilworth. In the meantime work had gone on at the
fortress. In September 1184 it was recorded that £26 9s 9d
had been spent in repairing the castle walls by the view of Geoffrey
Corbecun and Henry Ponte. Further works were carried out in
repairing the tower, castle and houses of Kenilworth for Richard I
(1189-99) in 1190 at a cost of £46 7s by the view of Robert and
Walter Stanley. The work continued into 1191 when a further
£12 10s was spent on the works and munitioning of the fortress by
the view of William Brown and William the Falcolner. During the
emergency after the capture of the king by the Germans in 1193, further
works cost 66s 11d at the view of Richard Malherb and [William]
Brown. A garrison of 5 knights was also placed within the
fortress for a period of 40 days.
During the early years of Richard I
(1189-99), Bishop Hugh of Coventry, as sheriff of Warwickshire,
accounted for £20 for keeping the 4 castles of Kenilworth, Mountsorrel, Newcastle under Lyme and Tamworth. Hugh Bardolf also received 26s 5d for his custody of Kenilworth and Mountsorrel
castles. Further, Hugh received another 27s 10d and 26s 5d in
1191, while 20 horse sergeants and 100 foot sergeants were stationed
within both fortresses at a cost of £32 11s. Under King John
(1199-1216) the castle was largely neglected with the constable, Hugh
Bardolf, being replaced by Hugh Chaucumb on 23 October 1203. Hugh
in turn was superceded by Robert Roppell on 13 July 1207.
During this time some work was done at Kenilworth and the king visited
on 5 known occasions, 11 August 1204, 17 March 1205, 18 July 1209, 22
November 1212 and 3 April 1215. In 1201 work on the castle
amounted to just £2. While in 1206, £17 was spent on
works on the castle and a further £5 on repairs. The real
refurbishment of the castle only began in 1211 when the king spent
£361 7s on castle work at Kenilworth. The same year he
spent £102 19s 3½d on the work of the chamber and
garderobe. Presuming, as is natural, that this chamber and
garderobe were within the fortress, this made a grand total of
£464 6s 3½d spent on castle work. The next year by
September 1212, £224 17s 8d, had been expended on the fortress by
the view of Geoffrey Jordan, clerk and Geoffrey Cropisalt. As the
king himself was at Kenilworth castle on 22 November 1212, it is to be
presumed that he had arrived to view what his £689 3s 11½d
had bought him for what had become one of his most favoured fortresses.
There are no surviving royal accounts for 1213 or 1216, but King John's
visit of 1212 may suggest that work was finished on Kenilworth
castle. Whatever the case, on 30 September 1213, William
Cantilupe (d.1239) was ordered to free William Pantulf and Geoffrey
Keteleby from custody in Kenilworth castle as they had made a fine for
their release. The next year on 22 April 1214, William Cantilupe
(d.1239) was ordered to set free a further 2 prisoners from
Kenilworth. It can therefore be seen that Kenilworth was at this
time one of the most secure castles in England and consequently, along
with Corfe and Windsor, used as a royal prison. Everything
changed with the barons' revolt of 1215. On 3 April of that year,
the king was found at Kenilworth, before moving on to Woodstock, 35
miles away, the next day. By May John was brought to terms at
Runneymede and on 15 June 1215, he made the constables of Northampton,
Kenilworth, Nottingham and Scarborough
castles swear to obey the council of 25 barons as security for the
execution of Magna Carta. By this action he apparently alienated
control of these fortresses. It is also evident that these 4
castles had earlier been appropriated by King Henry II
(1154-89). Henry had apparently seized Northampton from the
Senlis earls before 1173, Kenilworth from the Clintons around the same
time and Nottingham and Scarborough from the Peverels and Earl William
of York at the end of the Anarchy (1136-54).
Despite King John's show of good
faith by making this offer of the castles, the rebels were not
placated. By the end of August 1215 they had again defied the
king and on 5 September were excommunicated. The result was the
king's attack on Rochester castle that autumn. It is to be
presumed that royal control of Kenilworth castle was restored about the
same time as that September £402 2s was accounted in the pipe
roll for its repair. Henry Clinton's death around this time could
therefore quite possibly be associated with the return of Kenilworth
castle to royal control. Interestingly, one of the instruments of
Magna Carta was that the king would immediately restore all the lands,
castles, liberties and rights to anyone who had lost them (suorum, de terris, castellis, libertatibus vel jure suo, statim ea ei restituemus).
Quite obviously Kenilworth might be seen as high on such a list,
especially when the terms of Henry Clinton (d.1231) coming to the
king's peace in 1217 are considered. These are discussed below.
Rochester castle was besieged by King John
on 11 October 1215 and fell 7 weeks later on 30 November.
Presumably Kenilworth had changed hands earlier, or the accounting
period for the year ending 29 September 1215 fell far later than
normal. In any case, Kenilworth is next seen under royal control,
if it had ever truly been lost. The baronial attack on
Northampton castle - another pledge castle - in May 1215 failed.
Certainly the expenditure of over £400 on repairs recorded in the
Michaelmas 1215 accounts at Kenilworth suggests heavy damage to the
castle. Sadly the chroniclers of the age were all fixated on the
king's personal siege of Rochester castle and the changing of control
of many castles elsewhere were simply not thought worthy of much
comment, cf. Bedford castle. On 13 December 1215, prisoners from
the fall of Rochester castle were distributed to various castles, one
of which was Kenilworth. By 19 June 1216, Ralph Normanville was
constable of Kenilworth, when he was ordered to be intendant upon
William Cantilupe. The same day the king made provision for his
son [Henry] who would join Ralph in Kenilworth castle, his other son,
Richard going to Wallingford. This strongly shows the king's
appreciation of the castle's strength and security. By the time
of John's death Henry was in Devizes castle in the more secure South
West of England.
What then can be made of these events? Firstly, although it is often stated that King John
spent between £1,000 and £2,000 on ‘the fortification
of a castle whose defences were already formidable', it is clear that
this is simply not true. Similarly, there is no evidence that a
sum of money claimed to be £1,100 was used for
‘strengthening Kenilworth with curtain walls and towers, and
improving it with work on a dam and possibly the domestic
accommodation' under King John.
As has been seen above, the only things actually mentioned as being
built at Kenilworth are the chamber and garderobe and these are not
specifically mentioned as being at the castle and indeed are in a
separate account to the castle works. What we do know is that the
considerable sum of £689 3s 11½d had been spent on work at
the castle and a chamber and garderobe between 1211 and 1212 [more may
have been spent on the castle in 1213 as the accounts for this year are
missing], while a further £402 2s had been spent in repairing the
castle in 1215. Now it is possible that the scribe wrongly put
repair instead of work in the latter case, but that cannot be simply
assumed. Usually the scribes knew what money was spent on as that
was the whole point of keeping accounts. However, as the account
of Philip Marc in the 1214 pipe roll is thought to date from the
minority of Henry III, perhaps
as late as 1220, it is equally possible that the repairs accounted for
at Kenilworth date to a time some years after the traditional ending of
the Michaelmas accounting period on 29 September 1215.
The idea that the castle may have been attacked in 1215 is somewhat
strengthened by the fact that one of it's towers fell down over
Christmas 1218 and had to be rebuilt by Constable William Cantilupe at
a cost of £150 2s 3d. The order for this was sent out on 7
July 1220 and the costs appeared that Michaelmas. In 1221 an
expenditure of £5 was authorised on the castle for its amendment (emendatione).
Similar amounts were regularly allowed for the amendment of other royal
castles, particularly Carlisle on the Scottish border. This trend
continued in 1222 and onwards until 1224. This was obviously an
amount to be used yearly, for in 1223 a further £17 6s 8d was
used for work at and repair on the fortress, while the normal £5
was recorded beneath as being used for amendments to the hall.
Despite this, the £5 expenditure for 1224 does not seem to have
been recorded, though 42s was recorded for carrying 5 tuns of wine from
Southampton to Kenilworth. In 1226 it was accounted that 14s had
been spent on amendments to the gaol and castle of Kenilworth.
The next year, 1227, saw no pipe roll for Warwickshire, but in 1228,
£10 was spent on amending the houses in Kenilworth castle.
Presumably this included the £5 from both years. In 1229,
the standard £5 was recorded against the amending of houses
within the castles, while a further 5½m (£3 13s 4d) was
spent on the fishery. The year 1230 saw the standard £5
accounted for amending the castle houses, while 20m (£13 6s 8d)
was also spent in repairing a broken (brecke)
turret of the fortress. Once more £5 was accounted for
amending the houses of the castle in 1231, but this was the last
occasion on which such a sum was recorded against Kenilworth castle.
In 1232 the keep was repaired using lead, wood and stones at a cost of
£32 by the view and testimony of John Baiocis and Geoffrey Bosse,
while in 1233, amendments were made to the houses in Kenilworth castle
for 15s. Between these 2 events, the king had stayed at
Kenilworth on 24 November 1233. The year 1234, saw a new oriel
built before the entrance to the king's chamber for £6 16s 4d,
while repairs to the fishery cost £4 10s 6d and amendments to the
king's houses within the castle were accounted for at 46s 7d. The
fishery was repaired again in 1235 and in 1236 £4 was spent on
amending the castle houses. On 18 March 1238, the king ordered
the custodian of Kenilworth castle, Hugh le Poer, to deliver it without
dely to the archbishop of York for the use of the papal legate at
pleasure. Presumably the legate had had his pleasure by 14 to 16
September 1238, when the king himself stayed at Kenilworth.
Before this, while Simon Montfort (d.1265) was in Rome, his Countess
Eleanor (d.1275), the sister of King Henry III,
dwelt in Kenilworth castle, apparently from March until 14 October
1238. It seems likely that Simon and Eleanor remained at the
castle on his return, for their son, Henry (d.1265), was born there on
28 November 1238. Henry was to die beside his father at the
battle of Evesham 26 years later.
No doubt due to his September sojourn at Kenilworth, the king ordered
repairs to the fortress. These took the form of reroofing the
houses at a cost of £14 15s ½d. King Henry III appears to have had something in mind for Kenilworth for on 26 February 1241, he ordered the sheriff of Warwick to:
cause the chapel in the king's castle of Kenilworth to be wainscotted, whitened and painted (lambricscari, dealbari et depingi);
a striped wooden wall to be made to separate the chancel from the body
of the chapel; 2 seats to be made of wood, one for the king on the
south side and one for the queen on the north side, suitably painted; a
suitable painted seat to be made for the queen in the chapel in the
tower of the castle and the porch of the tower, which has fallen, to be
rebuilt; a roof to be placed on the great chamber which is unroofed;
the gaol with the brattishing in which the king's bells hang to be
repaired; all gutters to be repaired where necessary; as much as shall
be found necessary of the wall of the castle, which threatens to fall
into the fishery, to be pulled down and rebuilt; all costs to be
credited by the view and testimony of lawful men.
The king returned to stay at Kenilworth on 11 September 1241.
Apparently what he found was not satisfactory for the same day he
ordered the sheriff of Warwick to:
cause the queen's chamber in
Kenilworth castle to be wainscotted, whitened and painted and the
windows broken and made larger; to have the fireplaces (caminos) of the
king's and queen's chambers repaired; a privy chamber by the queen's
chamber and the castle wall repaired; the 2 gates of the castle to be
likewise repaired; a new wall to be built between the inner and outer
wall of the castle, a new porch with a finial (crappa)
to be made before the queen's chamber and a window to be made on the
north side of the castle chapel as well as a swing bridge, the cost to
be credited by view.
This all seems to have been rapidly put in hand if it was not finished, for, allegedly by Michaelmas 1241, the sheriff recorded:
that the chapel of Kenilworth
castle was to be plastered and painted, also the wooden wall in the
same was to be made as well as 2 (wooden) seats in the same for the
king and queen which were decently painted; also the chapel tower in
the castle which had been destroyed is to be rebuilt and the great
chamber in the same castle is to be reroofed; and the gaol there with
its brattishing on which they all depend is to be repaired, also the
guttering there; the outer wall to the south above the fishery is to be
thrown down and rebuilt where necessary; also the king's chamber is to
be plastered and limed, with the windows of the same chamber knocked
out and made larger; also the king's and queen's chambers were repaired
and a certain private chamber made next to the queen's chamber; also a
certain new chamber was made in the bailey towards the fishery; and to
support that with pillars of stone and to repair the walls of the
castle itself; and for repairing the 2 gates there; also to make the
wall between the inner and outer wall of the same castle; also a new
porch before the queen's chamber with a certain finial (trappa)
made; also a new window in the king's chapel on the north side and a
turning bridge were to be made for £113 8s ½d by the view
and testament of Hugh le Jounne and Alexander Wudecote.
The supporting of the castle walls ‘with pillars of stone',
strongly suggests that some buttressing was applied to the outer
curtain walls at this time. Previously these have been thought to
be fourteenth century as they are elaborate structures and have fine
plinths. However some of them are plain and it is quite possible
that they are a hundred years older and that the outer ward to the
west, traditionally built by Henry III, is in fact the work of King John in 1211-12 and needed buttressing in 1241.
During 1241 the sheriff also accounted for 4 Welsh hostages and 2
custodians living at the castle at 2d per day for 23 weeks and 4 days,
costing £8 5s. The next year it was recorded on 7 April
1242, that the king acknowledged that Gilbert Segrave had received the
royal castle of Kenilworth to keep during pleasure on condition that he
will surrender it to no one but the king himself during his lifetime
and to the queen for the use of their heir after the king's
death. Further, if she could not come personally to the castle,
Segrave was only to surrender it to one of the queen's uncles not in
the fealty of the king of France. To this Gilbert had sworn on
the holy gospels before the king. Similar ceremonies were enacted
for the constables of Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, Hertford and
Colchester castles. Less than 2 years later on 18 February 1244,
the king granted Earl Simon Montfort (d.1265) custody of Kenilworth
castle after having Gilbert Segrave surrender the fortress back to
him. Then on 9 January 1248, he appointed his sister, Simon's
wife, Countess Eleanor of Leicester (d.1275), to hold Odiham manor
during pleasure together with Kenilworth castle. Despite this,
the king was still sending orders to ‘the constable of the king's
castle of Kenilworth' to cut back the woods to clear robbers from the
district. Three years later the grant of Kenilworth to the
Leicesters was converted to one for both their lives in November
1253. In 1265 the earldom of Leicester, of which Kenilworth was
apparently now seen as a member, was said to be worth £400pa.
During the Mad Parliament of Oxford in the Spring of 1258, Earl Simon
Montfort freely returned his castles of Kenilworth and Odiham to the
king, in making amends for complaints raised against the king by the
barons of wasting his royal inheritance. Other barons, like
William Valance (d.1295), refused to surrender other royal castles left
to Henry by his father, King John,
and subsequently frittered away by him. Presumably the king
subsequently regranted Kenilworth back to Earl Simon. The king
soon found the opportunity to regret his generosity as just a few years
later Simon used this great castle in his war against his king.
During the opening stages of the civil war Simon certainly spent some
time at his great castle and moved from there against London in the
autumn of 1263. He later left Kenilworth for France in December
1263, but, after a fall from his horse broke his tibia, he retired on
Kenilworth and ran the war from there during the early part of
1264. That March the baronial army formed at Kenilworth and again
prepared to march on London. The same week that Simon left
Kenilworth:
John Giffard (of Brimpsfield,
d.1299)... was deputed with others to guard Kenilworth castle, a
wonderful structure which the earl of Leicester had strengthened by
repair and by various machines which we had not heard of until now and
wonderfully equipped it with men. They captured Warwick castle
with its earl, William Maudut, who, because of his recent conversion
had been suspected of being for the king and brought him with his wife
and family a prisoner, to Kenilworth castle. They overthrow
Warwick castle, lest the royalists should have a refuge there.
After the king's defeat at Lewes on 14 May 1264, Kenilworth also became the prison of the king himself, his son, Lord Edward
(d.1307) and his uncle, King Richard of the Romans (d.1272). The
latter 2 were brought there again in December 1264 after a failed
rescue attempt had nearly reached them at Wallingford castle.
After Edward escaped his captors, the war progressed with Kenilworth
becoming a main centre for the rallying of baronial forces. On 16
July 1265, the army of Simon Montfort Junior (d.1271) abandoned the
siege of Pevensey castle and marched via Winchester, Oxford and
Northampton to reach Kenilworth on the evening of 31 July. From
Kenilworth Simon proposed to go to the relief of his father and Henry III
in the Welsh Marches. This baronial force did not set up guards,
but unwisely bivouacked outside the castle. As a result, the Lord
Edward, operating from Worcester, fell upon Simon's forces after a
night ride, on the morning of 1 August and shattered them, capturing
many of the leaders in their beds in the priory. These were
experienced soldiers like Earl Robert Vere of Oxford (d.1296), William
Montchesney (d.1287), Baldwin Wake (d.1282), Richard Grey (d.1298),
Adam Neufmarche and Walter Coleville (Bytham, d.1277). At the
same time many lesser men were slaughtered. The young Simon
Montfort with only a few men fled into the castle as his army was
destroyed.
Due to the defeat of the young Simon, Prince Edward was allowed to
sweep down on his father, who was with Earl Simon and destroy the earl
and his army at the battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. In this
action Earl Simon refused to abandon his infantry and flee to the
safety of Kenilworth castle, bringing death upon himself and most of
his knights. In the aftermath of the battle, the Lord Edward wrote from Chester on 24 August 1265, explaining that:
since there are some of those
in Kenilworth castle whom we can and must rightly regard as our
enemies, it is deemed equally expedient to write to them on the part of
our aforesaid lord [Henry III], that if they do not want to be regarded
as public enemies and be disinherited and lose their lives, as they
have deserved, to let them commit and assign the said castle without
delay to any of our lords...
Those named as in the garrison under John Muscegros (d.1266) were 10
knights and 14 sergeants, 2 of whom were clerks. Consequently
such a note was to be written to them and carried by a messenger under
religious orders (ie. who was therefore supposed to be neutral in
worldly matters and a good idea when considering what happened to a
later messenger) explaining:
How lately at Evesham by
divine clemency the king obtained victory and triumph over his many
enemies opposing him in many ways... And although the king ought
to deal with them, generally and severally, judicially rather than
mercifully, yet, of his inborn benevolence he has thought fit to
counsel them, commanding them, as they would not be reputed public
enemies, or be disinherited or lose their lives, as lately their
accomplices deservedly did, that they should go out of the said castle
and deliver it to the king without delay.
The message is not known to have made any affect upon the
garrison. However, Simon Montfort (d.1271), who was within the
fortress around this time, did wish to make his peace.
Accordingly on 6 September, his Kenilworth prisoner, King Richard of
the Romans (d.1270), who also happened to be Simon's uncle, was with
Simon Junior in Kenilworth priory when Richard swore to do his best,
saving his fealty to King Henry III,
to be a loyal friend of his sister, Countess Eleanor of Leicester and
all her children. She was at the time in Dover castle with her
younger children. With this Richard was released and Simon
himself went to the Winchester parliament that September, where he
found the king's terms for his surrender too harsh. He therefore
returned to Kenilworth and prepared for further resistence.
In early December 1265, the government began planning for a great siege
of Kenilworth to begin on 13 December with the feudal host for this
forming at Northampton, 30 miles from their target. Around the
same time Simon Montfort left Kenilworth well garrisoned and set about
the country raising discontent and new forces to oppose Henry III
in the Fenlands. This attempt proved unsatisfactory for him and
around Christmas he surrendered to the king on the terms that he should
surrender the earldom of Leicester with Kenilworth and receive a yearly
pension of 500m (£333 6s 8d) in return. However, Simon
later fled from the Lord Edward's
company in the Tower of London to France around the second week of
January 1266. Despite this, the garrison of Kenilworth kept up
its opposition, stating to the king that they had been ordered to hold
the fortress and still did for Simon and his mother. And so:
They immediately raised the
standard of Simon the Younger, who was staying in France, proclaiming
him lord and heir of that castle.
The garrison occupied the passing months by riding out each day and
seizing what they needed from the surrounding districts, despite the
opposition of Prince Edmund (d.1296) who endeavoured, sometimes
successfully, to oppose their raids. Certainly on 1 February
1266, the king wrote that the rebels holding out in Kenilworth castle
were attacking Worcestershire causing homicides and other grievous
offences in throwing down, burning and devastating castles and houses
of the king's faithful subjects.
On 15 March 1266, the king ordered his sheriffs to form their levies at
Oxford at Easter (17 April) to attack the castle after one of his
messengers to the fortress had been deliberately mutilated. The
king arrived in person at Oxford on 20 April and moved into the castle
there, which lay 44 miles from Kenilworth. A week later
sufficient troops had arrived to march against Kenilworth castle and on
27 April the king left with his troops for Northampton, 38 miles away,
apparently intending to go from there to Kenilworth - another 30 mile
march. Yet after he left Oxford the city was attacked, presumably
by troops from Kenilworth. Consequently the march to Kenilworth
never took place. Instead the Lord Edward
took Lincoln, while his brother, Prince Edmund (d.1296) won the battle
of Chesterfield on 15 May 1266. This was at a time when it was
thought that Simon Montfort (d.1271) had formed a new army to invade
England. This army was apparently still loitering on the French
coast on 15 September 1266, when the pope ordered King Louis (d.1270)
not to give aid to ‘the relict of Simon Montfort or her son,
Simon, to attempt by means of his [French] subjects, to recover the
property which the said earl had most justly lost'. Regardless of
the actions of the Montforts, after the barons' defeat at the battle of
Chesterfield on 15 May, one of their leaders, Henry Hastings (d.1268),
fled the field and found sanctuary in Kenilworth castle.
Meanwhile, Simon himself allowed King Louis of France (d.1270) to
negotiate on his behalf with an obdurate King Henry III. In the end Simon left to campaign with Charles of Anjou (d.1285) in Italy.
With these victories a new royal muster was ordered against Kenilworth
and on 24 June the king and Lord Edward arrived before the castle with
an army which had marched from Warwick which lay less than 5 miles from
the fortress. However, some of the garrison counterattacked the
same day and drove a portion of the army all the way back to
Warwick. By this time the Kenilworth garrison seems to have
consisted of over 1,200 combatants. The Dunstable priory
chronicle stated that they consisted of 1,700 men bearing arms
[presumably mounted knights and serjeants] and 28 women, with an
unknown number of infantry, while Rishanger heard of a garrison of over
1,200 men with their wives and maidservants numbering 54. In
reply the royalist attackers split their forces into 4 camps, one under
the king, one under the Lord Edward,
one under Roger Mortimer of Wigmore (d.1282) and one under Prince
Edmund (d.1296). The attackers then set up 9 siege engines called
Blidis. This word seems
to originate from Byzantine Greek and had been used to mean catapult in
England since the early thirteenth century and could also describe
trebuchets. It seems likely that these weapons were only
catapults as, although they continuously launched stones at the castle
breaking down the wooden houses and towers, they were unable to smash
down the main castle defences made of stone. Possibly it was
difficult to get the weapons in good attacking sites for some of the
defenders held positions outside the castle gates and from there
advanced on their enemies many times, killing several of the king's men
with arrows, lances and swords, with the result that the king and the
Lord Edward and their men, remained permanently at arms through fear of
such attacks. Despite this, the attackers seem to have made no
attempt to break into the castle by assault. Instead they decided
to wait for starvation to deal with the fortress. The Oxford
chronicler noted that the attackers:
came from every direction, with many kinds of machinery, attacking the enclosed multitude in every way that could be devised.
While a contemporary recorder of the war found that:
Prince Edmund, the king's
son, prepared with great energy a wooden tower, very sumptuous,
surprising in height and width, which was fitted to the wall by
ingenuity, in which were placed in compartments 200 crossbowmen and
more, so that through the shootings of weapons and arrows, the garrison
would incur losses. But the defenders positioned a mangonel which
did not stop shooting until it had earned constant hits, the
reverberation, penetrating and collapsing it. There was also
another device exceedingly admirable on the part of the king, which was
called a bear on account of its great size; this contained several
divisions which contained archers and could be raised to fire down on
the besieged, against which some stone throwers (petraria)
were manfully deployed, which for a long time held back its power of
damage... Barges were also transported from Cheshire by costly
labours, in order to attack the castle by water, but without
success.... they did not attempt to bring down the walls by miners and
mining... From morning until evening the gate was left open....
but a general attack was never made by the king's army, instead the
besieged almost every day went sallying out.... One active
soldier of noble blood was severely wounded in such conflict and
captured by the besieged and taken into the castle where he succumbed
to his fate. He was honourable placed in a coffin with candles
around it and carried outside to his friends, coming from the king's
army, who carried him peacefully off to be buried according to his
wish... Always outside 11 catapults (petrariis) were shooting stones into the castle day and night.
From this it is quite clear that the royalist army was never strong
enough to actively launch a scaling assault upon the fortress and the
siege of Kenilworth castle was more of a battle with the castle being
used as a rebel camp which the attackers attempted to nullify with
artillery. About 2 July 1266, Legate Ottobon, attired in his
cardinal's red cape, stood outside the fortress and excommunicated the
garrison and all those who aided them to the detriment of the peace of
the kingdom. The rhyming chronicler, Robert of Gloucester,
recorded the occasion and the garrison's response.
Cope and other clothes they late made of white
And Master Philip Porpeis, that was a cunning man,
A clerk and hardy of his deeds and their surgeon,
They made a white legate in his cope of white
Against the other read, as him in despite
And he stood as a legate upon the castle wall
And excommunicated king and legate and their men all.
In the meantime both sides fired a prodigious amount of crossbow bolts
that resulted in much bloodshed on both sides. In regard to this,
on 9 August 1266, the sheriff of London was ordered to send 20,000
quarrels of one foot and 10,000 quarrels of two feet to the king
‘as he is in extreme need thereof for the present siege of the
castle'. Presumably the besieged were having to repair and reuse
the bolts fired into the castle.
Then at the end of October, the Dictum of Kenilworth was announced at
the Kenilworth parliament. This was to apply to all the rebels
except for Earl Robert Ferrers (d.1280) and the heirs of Earl Simon
Montfort - the fate of the latter being in the hands of King Louis of
France. The Dictum otherwise stated that the king would accept
back all those rebels who were willing to pay for the crimes they had
committed over the last 2 years. This was to be done by them
buying back their lands at various rates from 2 to 7 times the annual
value of their estates, depending upon their crimes during the time of
war. Kenilworth garrison, now chronically short of supplies and
becoming less able to mount an aggressive defence, said they would
abide by this if they were not relieved within 40 days and so sent
messengers under royal safe conduct to Simon Montfort (d.1271)
informing him of their decision. Within the castle things were
getting worse with their food almost gone. Consequently, they
feared that many of them would fall sick and die if the siege continued
much longer. Further:
the rest of the castle
buildings had been so broken by the artillery and owing to the scarcity
of wood for burning, they could no longer withstand the unseasonable
cold of the winter season.
Accordingly, they sent Richard Amundeville, 2 other knights and 5
others, to Simon Montfort (d.1271) to tell him of their plight and
their need to be relieved within 40 days. Some days after this on
9 November 1266, a safe conduct was given for Robert Overton to leave
Kenilworth castle to come to the king and return. Quite likely
this was to do with the potential surrender of the castle. When
the 40 days had passed the garrison surrendered and left the castle
with all their belongings as agreed, even though they had supposedly
heard nothing back from Simon Montfort (d.1271). Consequently on
14 December 1266, a safe conduct was issued to last until January for
Henry Hastings (d.1268), Richard Amundeville [who had supposedly gone
to Simon Montfort], John Clinton [probably John Clinton of Coleshill
and Maxstoke (d.1316), the third great grandnephew of Geoffrey Clinton
(d.1131/33)], John Easton and others who were ‘part of the
munition and detention of Kenilworth castle, to depart to their own
parts and wither they will on condition of their good behaviour'.
With the siege finally over the king left Kenilworth for Warwick on 16
December 1266. The next day, 17 December 1266, King Henry granted
to Ralph Blundel and Isabel his wife, ‘in compensation for their
losses caused by the occasion of the siege of Kenilworth, of all the
king's houses or buildings together with the lodges (logiis)
in the close from where the king made the said siege'. The king
had similarly, on 18 September 1266, granted the prior of Kenilworth
exemption from purveyances due to the grave losses he had suffered
during the siege of Kenilworth and the courtesies he has shown the king
during that time.
The great siege of 172 days left some odd legacies. Kenilworth
castle, although the lesser buildings were much deroofed seems to have
come through the storm largely intact, although excavations in the
1960s turned up some of the stone balls thrown by the siege
engines. These weighed up to 300 lbs or 20 stone. The siege
was also so long and the number of men needed to enforce it so numerous
that King Henry had to even pawn the jewels from the shrine of King
Edward the Confessor in Westminster abbey to keep his army
together. Other bills included £75 13s 9d allowed to the
sheriff of Warwick in 1269 for the 255 quarters of wheat, 52 oxen and
173 sheep sent to the king's army to help sustain them during the
siege. Finally, the collapse of Montfortian resistence and exile
of the Montforts left the king free to grant all the earl's old lands
and titles to his younger son, Edmund (d.1296). In 1268 he was
made earl of Lancaster and so Kenilworth became one of the great
castles of the future Lancastrian dynasty that would rule England from
1399 until 1461.
Despite the celebrated nature of the siege of Kenilworth, the fall of
the castle in 1266 really ended the story of the medieval
fortress. In 1279 it was the scene of the first Round Table
tournament in England. That summer:
Lord Roger Mortimer the
second held a round table at Kenilworth, of a kind which no one else
had ever held before; at which time King Edward made the sons of the
said Roger, that is Roger, William and Geoffrey, knights at London;
from which city the said Roger, emblazoned in his armour, moved with
100 knights and as many ladies to Kenilworth and there for three days
he held a tournament of a kind never before seen; on the fourth day he
led his lion to Warwick, and returned unharmed with his escort; there
he held a banquet for everyone with his own equipment, which is
difficult to describe in detail.
Already Kenilworth was becoming a pleasure palace rather than a
fortress, although it was still to see military use. Earl Edmund
died fighting in Gascony in 1296 and in 1303 his son, Earl Thomas
(d.1322), enclosed a vast hunting park south and west of the
mere. He also founded a chapel chantry or collegiate church in
1313. Some costs involved in the garrisoning of the fortress and
the construction of the chapel have survived in the receipt roll of
Earl Thomas of that year under Constable Ralph Schepeie of Kenilworth
castle. Amongst his accounts were listed £18 4s for the
wages of 6 chief tenants staying within the fortress as the castle
garrison for a year, each taking 2d per day. A salary of £6
was paid to the 2 castle chaplains and 4s 4d was spent on the lighting
the castle chapel for the year where services were said for Thomas'
parents. Other expenditure included 3s 8d for parchment to make
this expenditure roll and the court rolls, 3s ½d for canvas for
money purses etc. Other expenditure included a Welshman living in
the castle for 7 weeks, the wages of 2 fishermen fishing in the great
pond at 3s 8d for 12 days, the expenses of Hubert the swan keeper, who
had bought 2 barges for the ponds, 3 locks and nails for the earl's
chests, 29s 2d for the costs of imprisoning Nicholas Verdun [the
brother of Theobald Verdun (d.1316) of Ludlow, Longtown and Stokesay
castle] in the castle for 56 days and 5s 8¾d for a groom and
stallion coming to Kenilworth to mate the earl's mares. The total
cost of all this came to £42 12s 4¾d. Work on the
chapel was also well underway costing £141 2s 9d for the
quarrying, breaking, carrying, measuring and cutting the stone as well
as 100 oaks for timbers and refurbishing the masons' tools.
Also in 1313, William the chaplain, who was keeper of the castle stock
entered his expenses of £156 15s 1½d. From this he
had spent various sums on clearing and levelling a plot next to the
castle mill ‘hard up to the castle wall' and within the castle
itself to build a granary as well as clearing away the old, ruinous
granary and building the new one which contained 36 boards, 4,000
roofing shingles, 10,700 nails and various amounts of plaster, stone
and gutters. He also spent £5 4s 9½d in building a
new mill outside the castle and £6 6s ½d for another
within the fortress. Next he accounted for 32s 10d for paying
masons and carpenters to repair the earl's garderobe with 1,500
shingles, 1,000 laths and 3,100 nails and then 14s 7d for carpenters to
remove the doors and partitions on Robert Holland's chamber and then
repairing it with 1,000 tin nails. Of more import was the expense
of 24s 6½d for having a mason stop up and point the window panes
of the great tower and repairing the step at the keep's entrance and
the repair of its chimney, for which 500 tiles and 2 sesters of chalk
were bought. Further costs of 48s were incurred for carpenters
roofing and repairing the hall, pantry, buttery, kitchen, high chamber,
earl's chamber, Ayon's chamber, the constable's chamber, the gate
keeper's chamber and castle chapel together with 7,000 nails.
Then 12s had been spent on the wages of a plumber, a cartload of lead
and 12lbs of tin used to repair the chamber and other buildings and
gutters throughout the year. Finally, 24s 11d had been spent on
roofing and repairing the mill, grange and engine house.
In 1322 Earl Thomas rebelled against his cousin, King Edward II
(1307-29). This led the king to march on Kenilworth castle from
Gloucester on 18 February. Around the same time he ordered the
sheriff of Warwick to blockade the castle ‘which is held against
the king', using the entire power of the county if needs be on 28
February. On 6 March 1322, Peter Montfort of Beaudesert was
ordered to help the sheriff in this task and on 12 March John Somery
[Dudley] and Ralph Basset of Drayton were ordered to seize the castle
for the king's use. The castle probably fell 4 days later on 16
March when the household knight, Ralph Charroun, was given custody of
the castle. The king was certainly in possession of the fortress
by 10 April when he was sending his discomforted prisoners there as
well as arranging the munitioning of this fortress and many others
throughout the realm. Quite obviously the siege had been nothing
like that endured by Leeds castle in the same war.
By 2 August 1322 Constable Ralph Charroun of Kenilworth castle was
ordered to deliver to the mason, Richard Thweites, the goods he had
sequestrated in the castle which belonged to Richard who had made a
chapel in the castle for the earl. Around the same time, Mary
Shepeye, the possible wife of Ralph Schepeie, asked the king for the
return of her property which had been taken when ‘the sheriff of
Warwickshire came and seized the said castle [Kenilworth]... and took
Hugh Quilly and all the goods found in the said castle among which the
said Mary had there 2 hats, 3 hangings, 4 quilts, 4 linen cloths and 8
[....]'. Mary therefore petitioned for their return. Hugh
Quilly certainly died around this time, for simultaneously with Mary's
request, Hugh's widow, Joan asked for some of her husband's forfeited
land, on which she had a claim, to be returned to her as dower.
Most likely he was one of those executed by the vengeful Edward II
that March. Quilly's lord, Earl Thomas Lancaster, had been
executed in Pontefract castle on 22 March 1322. With this
Kenilworth castle reverted to the Crown and King Edward then spent
Christmas 1323 at his newly reclaimed fortress.
Meanwhile, Earl Thomas of Lancaster's brother, Henry (d.1345), had to
be content with the title of earl of Leicester which Edward granted to
him as heir to his brother in 1324. By 28 February 1326,
Leicester had been promoted to earl of Lancaster, but he did not
receive Kenilworth castle. Edward II
returned to Kenilworth again in February 1326 and then stayed from 18
March for the entire month of April when he ordered his chamber valets
to help the local workmen dig a ditch and enclose it with a palisade in
the castle park. Before his visit on 12 February 1326, he ordered
his constable of Kenilworth castle, Eudo Stoke, to select at his own
discretion men to garrison the fortress. The castle was still
being used as a royal prison on 20 May 1326.
With the invasion of England in late 1326, Kenilworth castle passed
back to Earl Thomas' brother, Earl Henry of Lancaster (d.1345), on 21
February 1327. Ironically, Earl Henry captured King Edward II
near Llantrisant on 11 November 1327 and brought him to Kenilworth
castle via Monmouth before 5 December. Even more ironic was the
fact that Edward's chancery kept functioning after his capture and
stated that all the instructions that Queen Isabella and her son,
Edward III, issued from Woodstock actually came from Kenilworth castle
where in reality the king was imprisoned and powerless.
A parliament was called in London and on 7 January 1327, 2 bishops were sent from the assembly to ask Edward II
to appear before them as king. This Edward, after the bishops
reached him at Kenilworth, is said to have haughtily refused,
‘cursing them contemptuously, declaring that he would not come
among his enemies'. On the bishops' arrival back at London with
the answer that the king would resist the counsel of his subjects it
was proposed to depose the king and set up his son in his place, his
audience allegedly responding to Bishop Orleton's oratory on ‘A
foolish king shall ruin his people' with the chant ‘We will no
longer have this man to reign over us'. The archbishop of
Canterbury then read a memorandum which charged Edward II
with weakness, incompetence, taking evil counsel, losing his rights and
possessions in Scotland, Ireland and France and finally for his having
abandoned his realm. The parliament then consented to the
deposition of Edward II and the coronation of his son as Edward III.
Consequently on 15 January, a deputation was dispatched to the unhappy
monarch in his prison within Kenilworth castle. Surprisingly it
took the earls of Leicester and Surrey with the bishops of Winchester
and Hereford, together with Hugh Courtney of Okehampton (d.1340) and
William Roos of Helmsley (d.1343) several days to reach Kenilworth on
20 or 21 January. Here a fraught meeting with Edward resulted in
it being reported that the king accepted their proposal that he should
be replaced by his son, Edward III,
the fact being announced in London on 24 January 1328. The ex
king then remained at Kenilworth under the supervision of his cousin,
the earl of Lancaster (d.1345).
On 3 April 1327, the ex king was moved to the rather odd and remote
location of Berkeley castle. This removal of Edward from
Kenilworth castle was done by force, according to a complaint made by
Lancaster in 1328 and after an unsuccessful attempt had been made to
free him during March. Early in 1328, Kenilworth became the earl
of Lancaster's base for a potential rebellion against the new King Edward III (1327-77), but relations were rapidly patched up in the Spring. The rapprochement was sufficient for Edward III
to stay at Kenilworth while Lancaster was in France and Queen Isabella
and Roger Mortimer (d.1330) were staying at the castle - from late 29
October 1329 to 2 January 1330. The only other time in his reign
that the king stayed there was 1-2 May 1348, which suggests that the
place did not hold happy memories for him.
Earl Henry of Lancaster's son, another Henry (d.1361), succeeded his
father in 1345. In 1346 he made a contract to reroof Kenilworth's
great hall at a cost of 250m (£166 13s 4d). The dimensions
of the hall were given as 89' by 45'. This is the same as the
current hall called John of Gaunt's hall. For his services in the
French wars, Henry was made first duke of Lancaster in 1351. On
his death in 1361, Kenilworth and his estates passed with his only
daughter into the hands of King Edward III's
son, John of Gaunt (d.1399). Gaunt massively refurbished the old
castle after 1371, continuing the process of converting it into the
great Tudor palace it became. Some of the masons working on this
project were also used by Edward III to similarly convert Windsor
castle. Later on 8 July 1391, King Richard II
(1377-99) sent a writ of aid to Duke John's constable of Kenilworth
castle, John Deyncourt (d.1406), and the mason, Robert Skillington, to
set to work 20 stone diggers, carpenters and labourers as well as to
provide materials at the duke's expense for the next 2 years.
There can be little doubt that this was done to aid the duke in his
building work at the castle.
When Gaunt's son seized the throne as King Henry IV
in 1399, Kenilworth became a royal castle once more. King Henry
VI (1422-71) was a frequent resident at his castle and fled here
in 1450 when he abused and then abandoned London to the rebel Jack
Cade. In August 1456, the royal court, taking 40 cartloads of
guns and other ordnance from the Tower of London, again moved to
Kenilworth castle. This was possibly as a consequence of the
Yorkist Constable Devereux of Wigmore castle suddenly descended on
Hereford and then marched on Carmarthen and Aberystwyth, storming both
places in the incipient civil war brewing between York and
Lancaster. Safe within Kenilworth the queen summoned an army from
the Lancastrian heartlands, although it was not used at this
time. Possibly this refortification involved the outer defences
being modified against artillery attack and a gun tower and bulwark
being constructed. Regardless of this, the castle capitulated
after the Lancastrian defeat at the battle of Northampton on 10 July
1460 and was munitioned for Edward IV (1461-83). Ten years later
in 1471, the castle was again Lancastrian when it withstood an 8 day
siege by Edward IV before capitulating.
Richard III (1483-84) also maintained the castle, having the tower next
to the gun tower (le gun towre), the great hall and the king's chamber
repaired over a 15 day period. This seems to have involved their
reroofing in lead as well as some reflooring. Other work included
repairs to the keep (King's Tower) and the tower next to the Watergate
which had timber used in its repair and cost 22s in wages. The
work to the King's Lodging seems to have involved 8 bays and took 4,500
tiles to complete. The work lasted at least 10 days and involved lead and
soldering. Finally various locks, hinges, staples, bars of iron
gutters and ridge tiles were purchased to finish the
refurbishment. The total cost of this work was £23 14s
6d. In 1484 a further £20 was paid to John Beaufitz for
various repairs made to the castle.
Henry VII (1485–1509), like his earlier namesake, was often
residing at Kenilworth and was found there in June 1487 when the
so-called Lambert Simnel invaded his kingdom. Henry also built a
tennis court in happier times. His son, Henry VIII
(1509–47) dismantled Henry V's Pleasance from the other side of
the lake and re-erected parts of it within the castle. He also
built a timber structure closing the inner ward to the east and at some
point in his reign spent £7 3s 11½d on refurbishments to
the straw and tiled roofs. Eventually in 1553 the castle was
granted to Duke John Dudley of Northumberland (d.1553). It was
later in 1563 given to his son, Earl Robert Dudley of Leicester
(d.1588), the favourite of Elizabeth I (1558-1603). Dudley made
significant structural improvements to the castle and entertained his
queen at this palace 3 or 4 times between 1563 and 1575. The
improvements included ‘the filling up of a great proportion of
the wide and deep double ditch wherein the water of the pool came' in
1563 and the building of Leicester's Gatehouse in 1571/2. This
gave access via a 600' long bridge he had built to the park north of
the mere. Around the same time he built a 4 storey tower
structure, Leicester's Building, especially for the queen's visit in
1572. He then had it improved for her next visit in 1575.
Leicester's works are rumoured at the time to have cost some
£60,000, while his entertainment of the queen was supposedly put
on at some £1,000 per day. James I (1603-24) on taking the
throne immediately seized the castle back into royal hands, when it was
found to consist of ‘such stately sellars all carried upon
pillars and architecture of free stone carved and wrought as the like
are not within this kingdom'.
In the Civil War King Charles withdrew his garrison after the battle of
Edgehill in the first month of the war (1642-46). The fortress
was then occupied by parliament although in 1643 its commander,
Hastings Ingram, was arrested for being a covert royalist. The
castle remained a parliamentarian stronghold until it was ordered
demolished in 1649. This partial demolishing resulted in the
destruction of both the north wall of the keep and the outer north
curtain wall to make the place indefensible. However, the living
accommodation was left intact. It was probably at this time that
the dam was breached and the mere drained. A Colonel Joseph
Hawkesworth then purchased the castle and estate and divided it up
amongst his men. Around this time a letter was written that
stated that Colonel Hawkesworth and his officers were the new
tyrannical lords of the manor and that they:
pull down and demolish the castle, cut down the
king's woods, destroy his parks and chase and divide the lands into
farms amongst themselves.... Hawkesworth seats himself in the gatehouse
of the castle and drains the famous pool consisting of several hundred
acres of ground.
Hawkesworth was eventually evicted from Leicester's Gatehouse by
Charles II in 1660. During this period, in 1656, William Dugdale
(d.1686) reported that the great tower and the castle battlements had
been destroyed.
Towards the end of the castle's active life in the early seventeenth
century, the castle masonry was valued and reckoned to weigh some
703,574 tons which had a scrap value of £9,196 15s. This
estimate was based upon the walls being 4' thick throughout, although
it was recognised that many were much thicker than this. Other
parts of the castle were valued too. The lead of the water
conduit which was ¾ of a mile long was worth £1,494 alone,
while the iron bars of the windows should fetch £163 10d and the
window glass £107 14s 3d, while Leicester's clock bell mounted in
the keep southeast tower was reckoned as being worth £30
alone. Such values suggest why castles were dismantled and also
say a lot about the profitability of the dissolution of the monasteries
a century earlier.
Description
Kenilworth castle is a large military site and is even larger if the
mere or great pool created for the castle's water defences is
included. The style and depth of the water defences make it a
somewhat weaker version of Leeds castle in Kent. Kenilworth
castle seems to have originated on a slight bluff of land overlooking a
depression to its west where the Inchford Brook flowed into the Finham
Brook. It would seem that Geoffrey Clinton (d.1131/33) dammed
this combined brook where the current dam cum tilting yard stands
southeast of the Mortimer's Tower gatehouse. This would have
created the mere which at its fullest extent was about half a mile east
to west by over 500' north to south at its maximum. In the
northeast corner of this mere stood the early stone castle.
Despite various claims as to when and by whom the current masonry
remains were constructed there is no solid evidence, merely educated
guesswork.
The mere was recorded in a survey taken for Earl Robert Dudley (d.1588)
as covering an area of 111 acres. On the east side of the tilting
yard was the rectangular Lower Pool. To the north this was fed
into by the moat which covered the northern side of the castle outer
ward. East again of the Lower Pool was another lake that ran all
the way to the parish church and St Mary's priory some 1,500' east from
Lunn's Tower. The dam which became the Tilt Yard was about 500'
long by some 50' wide. The first dam would seem to have consisted
of a wall with pilaster buttresses on the east side of the current
dam. Later a second wall was built to the west side to make the
long Tilt Yard and fortify the resultant enclosure. Whether this
expanded the size of the mere to the west is open to question, but as
the Lower Pool and moat to the north of the castle already existed,
this seems unlikely. Documentary records show that the height of
the northern end of the dam was increased in the mid sixteenth century
to level the ground for tilting, making one of only 2 known tilting
grounds in Britain, the other one being at Tattershall. It is
doubtful whether this had any effect on the lake, which leads to the
conclusion that the mere was the creation of Geoffrey Clinton in the
1120s, who also made the fishery which probably equates to the Lower
Pool on the east side of the Mortimer Tower dam. The Lower Pool,
380' north to south by 320' across, is divided from the east moat by an
earthen bank. Presumably this was constructed as the moat, fed
from the mere, was at a higher level than the waterworks east of the
main dam. There appears to be no evidence at all for the modern
claim that ‘in about 1210 King John substantially enlarged the
lake by damming local streams and this provided the water supply for
the moat and a pool to the north and east of the castle'.
It is often alleged that Kenilworth castle initially consisted of an
earthen motte and that this survives as a rather pathetic 10' high
mound that is supposed to be encased within the base of the great
keep. However, there is neither tangible evidence nor logic to
back this assertion. Indeed, the idea of building a great square
tower is that it defeated the need for a motte - viz. Bamburgh,
Lancaster, Pevensey, Portchester, Rochester and the Tower of London to
name just a few in England. This theory should therefore be put
down to the old wives' tale that all early Norman castles ‘must'
have had a motte. Finally, the implausibility of there having
been a motte here is much strengthened by the excavation that took
place in 1827. Early archaeologists dug 2 pits 17' deep and found
that under the floor of the tower was a bed of sand, lying on top of
gravel. Looking at the castle location, a more likely position
for any motte might be beyond the inner defences to the west, where the
ground rises somewhat and unusual earthworks lie against and possibly
under the later great hall and enceinte. Even so, this makes an
unlikely motte.
The Brays
It has been suggested that the Brays were added to the southern extent
of the dam in the late thirteenth century through the misbelief that
Earl Simon Montfort (d.1265) ‘massively refortified' the
castle. As has been shown in the history above, he did no such
thing, but ‘strengthened [it] by repair'. This is hardly
building an entire new ward. The name would appear to come from
the French braie, which meant a military outwork defended by palisades.
What there is of the Brays consists of an irregular D shaped ward, now
used as a car park. This is about 700' from southwest to
northeast by 320' at its maximum depth. The north side of this
was covered by the fortified dam, while the other 3 sides had an
earthen bank, some 20' high, protected by a moat up to 100' wide.
On the low sides this moat was contained by a counterscarp bank and was
fed via a series of sluices, some of which have been excavated in the
1960s. Further waterworks, probably concerned with keeping the
mere levels stable, lay further east, but have been encroached on by
the town.
Within this enclosure were 5 earthen mounds, the largest being 40' in
diameter. Three of these projected from the enceinte like the
sites of flanking towers. All of the mounds are claimed to have
been much levelled. On the southeastern side of the enclosure
stand the remnants of 2 small D shaped towers with a stretch of curtain
between them. This is supposed to be the site of the main King's
Gate built by Robert Dudley (d.1588) contemporaneously with the
Leicester Gatehouse in the 1570s. Where the current car park road
enters the Brays a well plinthed section of curtain wall has been cut
through. This revetted the bank behind and presumably such
defences stretch right the way around the enclosure. Only proper
excavation could sensibly suggest a date for the remains, but
presumably it was the work of King John and may be compared with the
odd, outer artillery defences built by him at Berkhamsted castle.
The outer ward is divided into 3 unequal areas. Entering via
Mortimer's Tower the visitor passed into the main ‘base court',
which was a flat stretch of land to the east of the inner ward and
taking up nearly a half of the entire outer ward. Within this are
the foundations of the collegiate chapel of Thomas Lancaster
(d.1322). The remaining 2 sections of the outer ward to the west
are divided off from the ‘base court' by 2 walls. One lay
south of Leicester's Building and consisted of a short section of
curtain running from that building to the outer south curtain.
The base of this appears to be original, large, well laid ashlar
blocks, although the upper parts and ‘doorway' are all
Elizabethan or later. The northern section of the wall underlying
Leicester's Building is thinner and merely a poor foundation.
Another short wall ran eastwards from John of Gaunt's Strong Tower and
divided the King's Gate from the Water Gate in the outer ward. It
also divided the remaining two thirds of the outer ward into a northern
and a southern section and consists of a much altered thin wall with a
large Elizabethan arch. Neither of these surviving walls appear
to be the wall ordered by Henry III in 1241, although the base of the
southern one might just be this old.
The large outer ward, some 480' north to south by 680' across, was
surrounded by the waterworks as described above. Unusually the
ward forms pretty much concentrically around the keep, an unusual
feature for a twelfth century castle. The shape of the ward
suggests at least 3 main phases of construction, although it all has
been much rebuilt, probably in the Elizabethan era. Indeed,
documentary evidence shows that several sections of the curtain were
rebuilt as early as the fourteenth century, while some at least of the
buttressing dates from the early 1240s. Much rebuilding can
clearly be seen in parts of the southern and western walls which in
places are considerably thicker. There are also changes in
masonry and style. Where it remains, the outer curtain mostly
stands to wallwalk height, although the battlements are universally
missing.
A building lay alongside the south curtain wall and contained 3
relatively narrow Romanesque windows set in large Romanesque
embrasures. The interior of these show that the internal ground
level of the ward here has been raised by at least 6' since the
building was in operation. The curtain around this point is also
of a rather poor rubble construction along this section, while a
Victorian photograph clearly shows that the embrasures behind the loops
were blocked in antiquity. It is noteworthy that the added
buttresses were not thought necessary where this hall lay, again
suggesting that the wall west of the hall is of a later date.
This in turn strengthens the idea that the western part of the outer
ward was built towards the end of the reign of King John
(1199-1216). Much further along the south curtain more buildings
lay along this curtain as well as along the western part of the
enceinte. All of these would appear to be Elizabethan in age.
Mortimer's Tower
The oldest part of the outer enceinte is probably Mortimer's Tower - a
standard twelfth century rectangular gatehouse about 60' across by 50'
deep. This contained an inner and outer gate, with the
northernmost one additionally defended by a portcullis of which some
traces of the grooves survive. The external defences of this
tower were probably swept away when it was later modified into a twin
towered gatehouse by adding 2 odd, elongated D shaped towers onto its
outer face. These contain another main gate with a portcullis
within. The whole structure has been cut down to first floor
level, but the remnants show that the D towers once had a moulded
external offset, while the original rectangular gatehouse had a first
floor garderobe exiting on its west face. This chute is now
partially blocked by the rear of the D shaped tower. A Victorian
photograph shows quite clearly a fracture through the west D shaped
tower to the plinth. This fracture has since been rebuilt and a
crossbow loop fabricated for the gap. A nearby fissure through
the plinth has also been repaired. In short this demonstrates
just how easy it can be to be fooled by Victorian renovations. An
examination of the loop in the tower shows quite clearly that it has
been cobbled together from what were probably pieces found on the
site. Indeed from this (the photograph and the better quality
masonry at the summit of the tower) it becomes relatively easy to see
how this section of the ruins have been ‘improved' in the period
immediately prior to 1872.
From Mortimer's Tower the long dam with later Tilt Yard south of it,
run for some 500' to a hole in the wall style gate that led to a small
irregular barbican, now called the gallery tower, after Leicester's
recorded modifications in the area. There is also a small D
shaped tower that lay at this enclosure's southwest corner. Only
the northern half of the tower's foundations remain, the rest
apparently having fallen down the scarp, possibly when the dam was
broken in the late 1640s. The modern English Heritage hut
obscures much of this area.
The South Curtain
From the gatehouse the southern enceinte does not run off from the
gatehouse at right angles, as would be more normal, but shears
backwards at some 45 degrees to the northwest before turning
west. The subsequent long front then bulges slightly to the south
as it makes its way around the edge of the drained mere. There is
also an apparently fourteenth century ‘postern' here, set in
large ashlar masonry which replaces the older rubble wall at this
point. The bulk of this wall is conspicuous by its small,
rectangular stoned, roughly coursed construction and later its powerful
projecting square buttresses. Where the wall has been breached to
the south, it has been rebuilt with better coursed, often larger blocks
of masonry and many more double plinthed buttresses. There is
also a plinth half way up the wall. Documentary evidence is said
to show that portions of this wall were rebuilt during the fourteenth
century. These rebuilds are quite obvious, without taking the
changing thickness of the wall into consideration. Some are
undoubtedly Elizabethan and others may be Victorian. Also towards
the eastern end of this front is the site of what may have been the
early hall as has been discussed above.
The west curtain contains 2 gateways, the Water Gate facing southwest
and the King's Gate facing northwest. The former is certainly
Elizabethan, while the King's Gate shows some interior signs of greater
age. The west outer curtain is generally plain and once contained
internal buildings as is evidenced by the odd window and
fireplace. These all appear to be Elizabethan. The bulk of
the wall is straight and again has been much rebuilt, varying from
large ashlar sections to earlier rubble lengths of wall. No doubt
the presence of the mere led to the constant undermining of the walls
by moisture. This section of wall ends in the Swan Tower.
Swan Tower
The slight remains of the ashlar Swan Tower cap the much earlier east
curtain at its north end. The base of the tower is rectangular
and has a fine sloping plinth of 4 courses only to all the external
sides except, for some reason, the north. Sadly the tower is much
destroyed above the plinth, but the start of what may have been a
magnificent oriel window can be made out at first floor level to the
west. This would have given wondrous views over the lake to Henry
V's Pleasance. The tower, although possibly as old as the
thirteenth century, could well be fifteenth century in origin and is
probably sixteenth century in its current form.
The interior is claimed to have been used as a sixteenth century
banqueting hall - if so it was incredibly small. It is entered
via a mostly destroyed doorway with a much modified interior wall to
the south. Within this is a small fireplace with a brick back
close to the doorway. Its odd positioning suggests that it is
another Elizabethan fake. Currently there is no means of access
into the basement which was blind. The ground floor interior has
set backs at various levels which suggests some rebuilding, possibly in
the nineteenth century. In the east wall, next to the entrance
doorway, is an odd rectangular recess whose purpose is obscure,
although it appears to be a later addition.
Internally the curtain wall to the south definitely buts against the
tower, suggesting it has been rebuilt after the tower. Externally
the south curtain adjoining the tower is of the small ‘Roman'
style sandstone blocks. Consequently this would appear to be an
early section of the enceinte, although it has subsequently been much
patched with what appears to be a blocked breach just 10' south of the
tower. Between this and the tower are traces of a poorly blocked
postern. No trace of the north curtain leaving the tower can
currently be seen, but at the top of the ruin of the east wall are some
springers which may mark the site of an overhanging garderobe.
The north curtain of the castle was destroyed during the Civil War
(1642-49), but Leicester's Gatehouse lies on its course to Lunn's Tower
as is evidenced by the scaring on the latter's west face. This
matches the stub of wall leaving Lunn's Tower. Excavation and an
early plan have shown that it originally contained 2 small towers, one
of which contained a postern gate.
Leicester's Gatehouse
Robert Dudley (d.1588) was responsible for altering the entrance
arrangements to the castle by erecting a gatehouse at the northern end
of the outer court. This was reached via his 600' long
bridge. The new arrangement may have been constructed due to the
Brays, the tiltyard and Mortimer's Tower being thought to have become
too inconvenient an entrance in the more peaceable Elizabethan
age. Leicester's Gatehouse consisted of a relatively thin
sandstone rectangle with 4 octagonal corner turrets. It was
undoubtedly built for show rather than defence and contained large,
mullioned and transomed windows. It was converted into a private
residence after the civil war by blocking the gateways and adding a
rectangular block to the east side and an entrance porch to the
west. The gatehouse overlooks Lunn's Tower which marks the
eastern angle of the destroyed north curtain.
Lunn's Tower
This is an odd octagonal tower with a fine sloping plinth dropping down
the scarp to the corner of the north moat. The structure is
ashlar built and has interesting pilaster buttresses at the many
angles. It also has a single sloping offset at each external
floor. The stonework is of the type that would be classified as
reused Roman work in the North. The ground floor has 2 powerful
recessed crossbow loops without oiletts, one to the north and one to
the east. Thankfully Victorian photographs and prints show that
they are both Victorian fakes - as too does a close examination of the
surrounding exterior stonework. At first floor level is another
such loop, with an odd, large fish tailed chute instead of an
oilett. This is set in the buttress - a distinctly non-medieval
style, but reminiscent of those recessed loops found in the keep.
Next to this is a small, rectangular window to the north. This
may have been inserted above the fake northern basement loop before the
Elizabethan era although it too may possibly date to Dudley's
renovations. The fake recessed loop in the basement to the east
may be in the site of an original embrasure, for a photograph shows
that this was blocked in the early Victorian era, before the current
monstrosity was inserted during the pre 1872 renovations.
The summit of the tower is also unmedieval in its current form.
The base of another loop is set in the remnants of the third floor in
the same east buttress, that has the inserted crossbow loop
below. This upper loop is flanked by 2 square recesses, which may
have been supports for timbers for a hoarding. As the loop has
the odd, large fish tailed base, it is almost certainly Elizabethan as
are the pilaster buttresses. This seems to be proved by the base
of the buttress being chamfered in a manner unique to Kenilworth.
The reasoning for the dating of these features as Elizabethan will be
examined further in the last section under The Keep.
Access to the upper floors of the tower was via a vice set in an
octagonal turret in the gorge of the tower. This has been
modified over the years as its blocked doorways and odd configuration
duly testifies. The spiral vice exited into the tower in its
upper levels as well as awkwardly onto the curtain wallwalk where a
small overhanging garderobe was added to the external junction of
curtain and tower. The door linking the wallwalk to the tower is
shoulder headed and therefore dates to between 1250 and 1350, while the
stairwell doorway is rectangular and possibly Elizabethan. Within
the tower the embrasures have different styles. In the basement
they are nearly Romanesque semi-circles, on the first floor more like
quarter round, while the second floor ones are lintelled over the
beginnings of a quarter round summit. Further, there are remains
of 2 further embrasures at ground floor level to the north and south,
one having been blocked when the stair turret was added and the other
when a passageway was added which possibly led to a garderobe within
the north curtain at first floor level. The blocked loop of this
embrasure mostly survives and possibly represents the original style of
fenestration. It is a narrow, recessed loop with chamfered edges
and apparently no sighting slits. Further it has no apparent
basal oillet, although this part of the loop may have been
destroyed. Sadly the central section of the loop has been heavily
damaged when the springer for an arch was inserted in it, presumably
for the latrine serviced by the inserted passageway above. The
masonry of this loop is otherwise in extraordinary good condition which
would suggest that it has either been covered up for most of its
existence or that it is modern. If original, it might suggest
that the passageway was inserted soon after the tower's building and
that the original tower might just date back to the twelfth century.
The brief description above suggests that the tower has altered in the
thirteenth century and then heavily modernised in both the Elizabethan
and Victorian eras. Further, it is obviously uncertain who
initially ordered the construction of this tower. Consequently it
should not be accepted as bone fide work of King John (1199-1216) as
has previously been the case.
Stables
South of Lunn's tower the curtain ran directly to the Water Tower,
although it has been much destroyed, with parts replaced as well as
having buttresses added. Taking up the bulk of this front between
the 2 towers was a long stable block, 160' in length by 20' wide.
This is thought to have been built by Earl Robert Dudley (d.1588), but
excavation has shown that it was built over an older building of the
same dimensions. This suggests the stables were probably always
here, possibly from the castle's inception. Two round headed
openings at the northern end of the building appear to be original,
although the brick built structure with wooden first floor, has been
much rebuilt over the years as have it's west entrances.
Water Tower
At the easternmost point of the enceinte stands the semi-octagonal
Water Tower. This has a rectangular base some 35' by 45', which
rises up into an octagonal, ashlar structure with fine spur
plinths. It also has fine double ogee windows on the first floor
and almost triangular pointed embrasures, making it somewhat resemble
the late thirteenth century Valence work at Goodrich or the keep at
Newport in Pembrokeshire. These true medieval works, however,
lack the summarily large windows in their defensive structures.
Such windows would not be found in defensive towers and there is no
evidence that they were not part of the original build to the Water
Tower. This tower seems originally to have been of 3 storeys, but
the uppermost one is now mostly gone. Once more the tower is a
varied mix of styles and totally unmilitary in makeup, despite the
smattering of crossbow loops found randomly in the design.
The square to octagonal ground floor is merely another bizarre feature
of its extreme makeup. The stubby spur buttresses are unique as
is the Romanesque ‘postern', set off centre in the east wall, not
to mention the weird garderobe in the northeast corner turret with its
overlarge window loop. This latter bizarre feature is backed by a
single pilaster buttress to the south which thickens the south wall to
allow for a ground floor fireplace. To the north is a window
embrasure equipped with a wonky single crossbow loop which shows some
signs of having been an insertion. Within the enceinte the tower
shows at this ground level a sharply pointed Early English entrance
doorway that appears to be a Victorian repair, although it is in a
similar condition in a photograph from the 1860s. Next to this is
another totally unique Romanesque window. Internally the
embrasure of this is a typical ‘thirteenth century' design which
bears most resemblance to those found at Goodrich castle. Set
within the tower entrance doorway is a short passage leading to a
spiral stair in the northwest corner of the tower where the entire
north wall of the structure is shockingly thin for a defensive tower at
ground floor level. The wall would have been even thinner at
third floor level if the tower still rose that high. As a final
joke, the southern drawbar slot is left ‘hanging in midair' by
being opposite the entrance to the stairway, ie it has no northern
return socket. Once more these ‘features' are unique in
medieval castle design.
The first floor of the tower is equally ‘unique' in style and
design. As the steps up reach the first floor there is set in the
curtain a totally fake crossbow loop, which, of course, would be
unusable from the stairs. However, this looks very pretty from
the outside. The loop is externally chamfered and has fine
oillets at the 4 points, with the lowest one, oddly, being the
smallest. It appears integral with the surrounding wall
facing. On a lower level to this, in the north wall of the tower,
is perhaps the most bizarre of all the odd loops in Kenilworth
castle. This narrow loop is shoulder headed and has a large, much
decayed oillet at its base! The 2 are obviously mismatched and an
1818 sketch of the Water Tower appears to show a blocked rectangular
window here. This suggests this abomination dates to the
1860s. The next face of the tower contains an off centre crossbow
loop, the match to the fake one in the stairwell. The east wall,
somewhat more central than the ‘postern' below, contains an
‘Early English' twin light window with trefoil designs. The
next wall face contains a central window of similar design.
Finally, the south face contains the unnatural pilaster buttress,
rather than providing flanking down the curtain as would be natural in
a real castle mural tower. However, in a chamber set in the
thickness of the curtain is the mutilated remnant of another fake
crossbow loop. Opposite this, internally, is a weird lancet
window which is externally chamfered and has a fish tail.
Internally there is another one of the ‘Early English' twin
windows, followed by a corbelled out chimney buttress, similar to those
found on either side of the outer gatehouse at Whittington castle in
Shropshire. Internally the fireplace is pure Elizabethan.
The top floor of the tower is mostly gone, but at the stair turret a
single battlement survives. Interestingly, the 1739 Buck's print
shows the tower roofed at first floor level. The peak of this
roof ended just before the 2 remaining battlements on the stair
turret. It should also be noted that the stair turret at this
level had an exit onto the curtain alongside the earl of Leicester's
stables which now stands considerably lower than its sixteenth century
form. On the south side of the tower a single obviously fake
crossbow loop survives along with 2 unusual ‘putlog' holes
flanking the chimney buttress. Ludicrously this chamfers out at
this level with the crossbow loop above it. This would have meant
that the flue below it simply ended here without an exit.
Obviously this makes the entire chimney pointless and such
‘features' are seen nowhere in any known medieval structure.
As the Water Tower currently stands, the whole thing is clearly a
sixteenth century Dudliean fantasy. Further there is no evidence
that an earlier tower stood in this position at all, although a tower
here to control the lower pool and moat junction would make good
military sense.
From the Water Tower the curtain returned to the side of the original
south gatehouse where the teething of its joint still remains.
Some third of the way to the Mortimer Tower stands the oddest remnant
of Leicester's fantasy castle - the so-called guard room. This
chamber is built into a large buttress that projects unevenly some 15'
east of the line of the main curtain wall in a series of bizarre
projections. The furthest of these culminates in a rather absurd
loop capped by an impressive - and pointless, but rather decorative -
chamfered plinth. Southwest of this the buttress recedes in 2
segments back to the line of the curtain and in its chamfered plinth
has the base of a fine thirteenth century chimney! It looks like
even Dudley wouldn't have gone this far and the chimney does not appear
in the Victorian photographs of the site. They would therefore
appear to have been part of the rebuilding of which the Reverend
Knowles complained of in 1872. Possibly this was used as a lodge
by a late Victorian custodian.
The Inner Ward
The inner bailey is located on a bluff of higher ground from which the
ground falls away sharply on all sides except to the east where it has
probably been landscaped. The original ward seems to have
been about 400' in diameter, although most of what is thought of as the
primary wall has now gone. Excavations have shown that this
bailey was originally surrounded by moat, making the whole thing a
ringwork. Only a portion of this uncovered ditch is still visible
to the east. In 1960 an excavation on the south side of the
enceinte uncovered 2 buried ditches, both 14' deep. The earlier
one was U shaped and therefore probably a moat and lay right alongside
the outer ward curtain wall at the base of the slope down from the
Great Chamber. This moat had been infilled with the cast of the
second ditch which was V shaped and dug within the first. The
second ditch was thought to date from the reign of King John and
therefore could be assigned to the works of 1211-12. Shards found
in the south outer curtain wall construction trench suggested that this
wall postdated King John's reign. If so, it must have been built
by the Crown without any record being kept of the work, which might
just have occurred in the period 1216-1222. Alternatively, the
section of wall excavated may have been even a fourteenth or fifteenth
century rebuild of the earlier enceinte.
Currently entrance into the main ward is via a causeway over the east
ditch. This led to a gateway tight against the south side of the
southeast corner of the keep. Here, on the side of the keep, can
be traced a short section of curtain wall with an added external ashlar
wall facing. Behind this is a portcullis groove, while above is
part of the gate arch. Whether this was the original entrance or
not is a moot point, as if the Mortimer Tower was the original entrance
to the outer ward, as every indication currently suggests, then the
main entrance to the inner ward should have been to the west.
This would have made any attacker have to fight all the way around the
castle to gain entrance to the main ward. Possibly then, this
current main entrance was originally a postern and the main inner
gateway lies underneath the Great Hall or Strong Tower.
Alternatively, if the western two thirds of the outer ward was yet to
be built and the inner ward was a moated bluff, as excavation seems to
suggest, then this may mark the original entrance to the ward.
Of the original enceinte, the most obvious remnant is a section of the
foundations partially under Leicester's Building in the southeast
corner of the ward. The core of the north and south walls are
claimed to be original work, but refaced during the later rebuildings
of the castle. The facing of parts of the north curtain to the
west of the keep consists of the small blocks which may be reused Roman
ashlar. As such this wall is possibly part of the original
enceinte.
Chapel
South of the current entrance to the inner ward lies the foundations of
the early chapel. This was probably the church which Henry III
had altered in 1241. If so, it lay with its east end, the altar
end, against the castle curtain wall. The chapel can be seen in
sixteenth century drawings of the site and was abutted to the north by
a partially timber framed range which was described as newly built
around 1545, but is believed to have been completed by 1532. This
range later became known as Henry VIII's Lodgings, but has since
totally disappeared. Directly south of the chapel stands
Leicester's Building.
Leicester's Building
Earl Robert Dudley of Leicester (d.1588), demolished a section of the
inner enceinte in order to build this 3 storey residential
complex. It projects southwards over the inner ditch and into the
outer ward, totally wrecking the defensive nature of the inner
court. The building was attached to the enceinte to the west and
was divided into 3, with beautiful bay windows in each section looking
east. Elizabeth I (1558-1603) is thought to have stayed here in
1572 and in 1575, which fits with the building stone dated 1571 which
was once found here. One of the rooms is thought to have been a
dancing chamber, a passion shared by both Dudley and his queen.
The block is supposed to have survived into the eighteenth century when
it was occupied by weavers from Coventry, although it appears well
ruined and overgrown by the time of Buck's print of 1739. West of
the building lies the privy kitchen and then the rectangular, boldly
projecting Gaunt's Tower
Gaunt's Tower
This is an octagonal structure on a square base with spur
buttresses. The tower seems mostly to have been intended for
accommodation although it has paired garderobes at ground and first
floor levels. The 2 upper floors had large, rectangular windows,
while the lower ones had recessed loops.
From here the enceinte continued as a long chamber now called the
wardrobe. This suite of apartments were on the first floor, but
have now been destroyed although their elegant entrance oriel
survives. On the west side of these lies the so-called Saintlowe
Tower.
Saintlowe Tower
The smaller, but taller Saintlowe Tower balances the Strong Tower at
the northern end of the Great Hall. It allowed access from there
to the wardrobe and state apartments to the east. The main first
floor chamber was double height and had windows almost as impressive as
those found in the attached Great Hall. Its name, Saintlowe,
apparently dates no earlier than Oakley's guidebook of 1874.
Great Hall
The current Great Hall is considered to have been one of the largest
and finest secular apartments of the late fourteenth century.
However, it is certainly a reworking of an earlier hall that had been
standing long enough to need reroofing in 1347. The reworking
consisted of adding a vaulted undercroft and inserting transomed 2
light traceried windows under a wide single span trussed roof.
Originally this great room had 6 fireplaces. There was also a
postern under the hall exiting next to the Strong Tower. This
might just possibly have been on the site of the original inner ward
entrance.
Strong Tower
This lay north of the Great Hall and allowed access to both levels of
the hall as well as to the kitchens to the east. This decorative
tower with its octagonal corner turrets and pointed spur central
buttress, was vaulted on all 3 floors and contained numerous large
rectangular windows. The outer walls had an impressive sloping
plinth, while the corner turrets were unnecessarily equipped with spur
buttresses.
The entire west front of the castle is partially covered by a 25' high
scarp which made it appear even more impressive from the lower level of
the outer ward. The winding path that leads up the scarp to the
postern possibly marks the route of the original main approach to the
inner ward. Alternatively, Dugdale (d.1686) thought that this
entire earthwork was the work of Robert Dudley for the benefit of Queen
Elizabeth in July 1575.
Keep Forebuilding
The final buildings to be examined in this survey of the castle are the
keep and forebuilding. Leaving them to last has been deliberate
as there are so many unanswered and possibly unanswerable questions
about these structures. These questions tie them directly into
the Elizabethan aspects of the Lunn and Water towers which have been
overlooked in all previous accounts of the castle.
Access into the keep is via what appears to have been a much mutilated
forebuilding. This has been constructed against the keep's
western side, protecting the current main entrance and providing 2
rooms on its first floor. What remains today seems mainly the
work of Dudley who remodelled it as an approach to the privy garden,
which was in the outer ward to the north, as well as the entrance to
the revamped keep. A former dating stone found at the site with
the numbers ..70 on it, would seem to have referred to a building or
rebuilding date of 1570.
The forebuilding consists of an arcaded Elizabethan gallery running
from the main entrance to the south, to the garden entrance to the
north. It still, rather incidently in its current form, gave
access to the keep to the east at a higher level, but still below its
first floor accommodation. A quick glance at the main
forebuilding entrance to the south clearly shows that this is a modern,
probably Victorian insertion. From here steps led up north to the
main platform in the centre of the gallery, which allowed access to a
destroyed set of steps, which ran eastwards up to the keep entrance,
the gallery then dropped slightly down to the north gate into the privy
garden. Within the structure the arches are Romanesque, but are
similar to no other military forebuilding of the twelfth century, viz.
Berkeley, Castle Rising, Dover, Ludlow, Newcastle on Tyne, Norwich and
Rochester. Perhaps the nearest fit to it in style are those to
the keeps at Corfe and to a lesser degree Portchester, but again these
are quite different.
The long west wall of the forebuilding is made of relatively small,
well laid stone blocks and has the remnants of a triple coursed sloping
plinth. This wall, in a style apparently unique to the site, must
be a rebuild. Further, it would have been an external wall before
the kitchen was built. The plinth at the southwest corner, beyond
the kitchen south wall, is perfect and consists of a some half a dozen
chamfered courses. The masonry here, making up the south front,
has also changed, being a reasonable ashlar continuing to the east to
its inserted central, ‘Norman' doorway in the south face.
This projects slightly from the line of the keep corner turret.
Nothing more needs to be said of the modern entrance doorway, other
than it would bear no similarity to the original entrance which was
probably here. The east corner of the forebuilding cuts into the
massive sloping plinth of the keep, so likely post dates it.
There is a projecting string course at first floor level and above this
the masonry becomes slightly smaller. Six feet above this there
is a larger course of masonry on top of which the wall begins to
chamfer in for some 3 courses, before rising vertically again to a
moulded string course of which only 2 pieces remain. Set above
this is one side of an Elizabethan rectangular window showing that one
or more apartments lay at this first floor level. The wall here butts
against the keep and originally rose up for at least another 6
feet. The teething of the inner wall of this first floor internal
room remains cut into the north side of the keep turret as do
rectangular holes to take the beams of the floor. Internally it
can be seen that all this south wall has been refaced, if not rebuilt
in its entirety.
It is really the north side of the forebuilding though, which is of
most interest. The ashlar on this face is integral with the keep
northwest turret. The central arch leading down to the gardens is
an obvious rebuild with all the wall above, at least the eastern half
of the arch which can be seen in a sketch of 1834, being a
rebuild. The current triple arch and the masonry above it have
every appearance of being a Victorian rebuild, as too does the
northwest portion of the forebuilding with its 2 single courses of
chamfered plinth to the north. This feature is lacking
elsewhere. It should also be noted that the unique, massive
plinthing around the keep is carried on naturally in front of this side
of the forebuilding, making these 2 structures integral. Within
the rebuilt forebuilding north archway is a Romanesque doorway, that
might perhaps be better called Elizabethan Normanesque!
Internally the bases that the springers rise from are rubble
built. The arches themselves and the wall above it are ashlar and
obviously later. As it stands today the doorway appears
Elizabethan or later. This deduction is confirmed by the
chamfered stepped plinth that encases this side of the forebuilding and
the keep in one continuous line. In 1872 the keep plinth was said
to have been badly repaired. Possibly then, this is all
Victorian. Alternatively it is the work of Robert Dudley.
Certainly a plinth extending some 20' up the side of a keep, as it does
here to north, south and east, is otherwise unknown in Britain.
This brings the tour of the castle to a close, with its heart, the
great keep. First impressions of the great rectangular keep are
its imposing majesty. It is massive in scale, some 80' east to
west by 60' deep externally, but originally only standing 2 storeys
high at some 50'. It was later raised by another storey of some
20'. The basement walls are 20' thick, 5' of which consists of
the batter which fades out by some 10' up the tower. Robert
Latham, writing in 1575 when Elizabeth I (1558-1603) visited, was
of the opinion that the keep:
was ancient, strong and
large... called Caesar Tower' as ‘it is square and hye formed,
after the manner of Caesar Fortz, than he ever built it.
This was at a time when Dudley was entertaining the queen lavishly at
Kenilworth and had allegedly spent £60,000 on revamping the
castle. The current remains suggest a fair portion of this money
went on remaking the keep.
The great tower is currently entered about 15' above the current inner
ward ground level from the west, within the forebuilding. This
entrance appears Victorian, rather than Elizabethan, although the
northern, lower section of the outer arch might just be original.
This is largely overlain by an Elizabethan wall of the
forebuilding. Within the new arch is a narrow passage that exits
through a Romanesque doorway with a drawbar, into the ground floor of
the keep. A quick glance at the inner wall of the doorway shows
that this Romanesque arch is another sham.
Indeed, when the main chamber is examined cold bloodedly, it shows that
much of this ‘Norman' keep is in fact Elizabethan. A look
at the walls show that the lower courses are laid ashlar. This
could well be Clinton work. Above that, all the big
‘Romanesque' arches of the embrasures are built of rubble -
probably Elizabethan rubble. The same is true of the ‘only
Norman' embrasure in the east wall. This is deeply splayed on
both internal and external sides and set in an arched recess. In
short, it is unique in both a Norman and any other context. It
also serves no logical purpose and the idea that the keep was studded
with these before Dudley got his hands on it, just does not ring
true. The hall block at Grosmont, or the keep at Middleham, has
real basement windows and loops and should be compared to this.
Next to the odd Kenilworth ‘window' is a peculiar, tall narrow
passageway that leads to the well. This has a lintel top, over
which is a blocked Romanesque arch. Other than parts of the arch,
the whole is crudely assembled and probably Renaissance in date.
A quick study of the keep ground plan should also ring alarm
bells. The 4 keep turrets were initially almost certainly solid
as is evidenced by the crazy access to them all, while the well's
position in the middle of the wall and not in a turret is equally
bizarre. Further, the entrance to the lower chamber in the
southwest turret is only accessible via the forebuilding and not the
keep. Note too the off centre nature of the chambers that have
been hacked into the turrets. This is by no means normal of any
other great rectangular keep, viz. Castle Rising, Newcastle on Tyne,
Dover, Hedingham, Rochester, or the Tower of London. As there is
even less visible of antiquity in the first floor this will be passed
over in silence, apart from some comment about the 70' deep well which
was found within the southernmost section of the interior east wall of
the keep. This was still wet when cleared out in 1819, but had by
1872 run dry due to infilling. The adjoining southeast turret was
solid, but the well shaft itself was continued up within the wall for a
further 20' to the floor above. This is somewhat reminiscent of
the design at Rochester keep. At ground floor level the well is
some 3' in diameter, but increases to 4' by the bottom. The last
10' of the shaft was rock cut and allegedly used to fill to this level
with water. However, once again, the doorways to this well on the
first floor are all fairly obviously modern, probably Victorian builds.
The top floor of the keep is alleged to be the work of King John in
1211-13. Certainly this has a more thirteenth century
‘feel' about it, but the odd crossbow loops with their massive
fish tails are again unique in Britain, other than in the nearby Lunn's
Tower. The chamber within, from which they would have been used,
is rather larger than the one below due to the great offset on which
the floor would have been laid - an even greater offset than the large
one to hold up the floor below. However, it is the embrasures
behind the loops that give the game away. They appear from a
distance to be utterly unusable, unless perhaps by pygmies armed with
blowpipes... In short they are not medieval and should again be
thought of as Dudley's embellishments. The point is strengthened
by the positioning of these loops on the inner ward side, but not the
outer ward side where they would have been of more use. The final
proof of the pudding comes in the west wall of the tower. Here
there are 2 ludicrous recessed ‘Norman' windows set roughly
centrally on the first floor level. Above them are 2 alleged
crossbow loops, which are claimed to be from King John's era. The
northern one of these has been deliberately shrunken so as not to
interfere with the Elizabethan window below. How could King John
have known that the Elizabethans would have needed such a large window
here and positioned his loop accordingly? Of course they did no
such thing as both ‘features' were installed simultaneously,
almost certainly for Robert Dudley (d.1588).
There really is little more point in examining the keep for early
medieval features as they all seem to have been swept away as
thoroughly as the clock that Leicester had installed in the
southeast turret. This had 2 faces, one facing east and one
south. These were always pointing to 2 o'clock while the queen
was there, for that was banqueting time.
Conclusion
What then may have been the original castle of Geoffrey Clinton?
Possibly he built a great hall where the keep now stands. As such
this may have been originally more like Chepstow hall-keep than
Rochester tower-keep. Much, much later, Robert Dudley (d.1588)
enlarged this hall into the keep of today by expanding the solid corner
turrets and hacking out their interiors to make off-centre rooms and
the staircase. He certainly seems to have refaced the whole tower
and its interior and added the unique, missive, decorative sloping
plinth, although the surviving part of the plinth at Middleham keep
does bear some comparison as too does the plinth at Newcastle upon Tyne keep. Possibly Clinton may have built a
moated inner ward in the twelfth century, but just as possibly he may
also have built the original outer ward from the hall west of the
Mortimer Tower and dam, all the way around to the east and then up
north to around the site of Leicester's gatehouse. This twelfth
century wall would have stood pretty much where the current wall
stands. Such suggests a scenario where the early castle was a
‘keep' standing upon the higher ground of the inner bailey which
was moated with an outer ward only to the east and a moat towards the
lakeside as well as a secondary one around the eastern outer
ward. This might explain the excavated early moat which once
surrounded the inner ward. Was this later filled in, possibly on
the orders of King John (1199-1216), when a new ditch was dug within
and this original moat infilled with the detritus. The western
and possibly also northern portions of the inner ward would therefore
only date from his recorded work at the castle in the early 1210s, or
possibly from unrecorded work early in the reign of Henry III (1216-72).
Regardless of the early form of the castle, the survey above begs the
question as to how much of the quirky Keep, Lunn and Water towers are
actually medieval and how much of it, like the ludicrous crossbow loops
and pointless other works, are actually Elizabethan or Victorian?
The answer would seem to be the bulk of both.
Copyright©2023
Paul Martin Remfry