Carlisle
After Boudica's revolt a timber fort was founded at Carlisle
by
the Ninth Legion (Legio IX Hispana) at a site recorded as Luguvalium
around 72AD. Excavation south of the castle site discovered
the
line of the western and southern defences of this Flavian structure,
together with a waterlogged and therefore well preserved timber
gateway. Preserved writing tables record the fort name from
about
80AD. The choice of site was possibly because it could be
supplied by sea from the River Eden and occupied a ridge end site on a
steep river bluff commanding the junction of the Rivers Caldew and
Eden. At the same time as the foundation excavation has shown
a
Flavian settlement under the present city. Multiple
rebuildings
are thought to have occurred and the fort was mentioned around 105AD in
a tablet from Vindolanda which attests to a civilian
settlement.
This new fort was a part of the new Tyne-Solway frontier along the
Stanegate.
After the Roman withdrawal from Britannia, Cair Ligualid
was listed among the 28 cities of Britain in Nennius. In 685,
when King Ecgfrith attacked the Picts, St Cuthbert (d.687) came to ‘Lugubalia,
which is corruptly called by the English Luelto
speak to the queen, who was there awaiting the result of the war in
her sister's monastery. The next day the citizens took him to
see
'the walls of the town and the remarkable fountain, anciently built by
the Romans'. It would appear from this that the
city defences and even some of the Roman waterworks were still
functional. The death of King Ecgfrith that year may have
made
the town's future more uncertain, but it would appear to have been
still functional in 876 when it is thought the Vikings laid waste the
town, or at least plundered it, when Halfdan divided up the land of
Northumbria and harried and pillaged it.
The early history of northern castles of Britain is even more obscure
than those of the south of the island. King Edmund (d.946)
seems
to have taken control of the Carlisle district in 945 when he wasted
all Cumberland before
giving it to King
Malcolm of Scotland (d.954) in return for him acknowledging that he was
Edmund's ally by both sea and land. Despite later claims to
the
contrary there is archaeological evidence that the town of Carlisle
continued as a functioning entity from the time of its founding by the
Romans. It would also seem possible that the Roman walls
remained
standing as late as this. In Wales Giraldus Cambrensis
describes walking through Caerleon:
Many
vestiges of its former
nobility might yet be seen, immense palaces, with gilded roofs formerly
the exalted pride of the Romans, built in prodigious size, with a
gigantic tower, distinguished thermal baths, the remnants of temples
and the sites of theatres, all enclosed within excellent walls, which
are yet partly standing. You will find on all sides, both
within
and without the circuit of the walls, subterraneous buildings, water
pipes, and underground passages. And, more remarkable than
that,
stoves contrived with wonderful art to transmit the heat through narrow
flues up the sides of the walls.
In other words, Roman ruins were probably in the condition that many
Norman castles are today. Coin finds in Carlisle include
pennies
of Aethelstan (924-939), Edgar (959-975) and Aethelred II
(978-1016). Excavation has also indicated that the area where
the
castle now stands was occupied throughout this period and served by
maintained Roman roads.
In 1070 fighting was occurring between Earl Gospatric of Northumberland
(d.1074) and King Malcolm
III of Scotland (d.1093), with them wasting one
another's properties along the border. During these troubles Malcolm
subjugated Cumberland
by violence and no
doubt took possession of Carlisle. In 1072 King William of
England (d.1087) deprived Gospatrick of his earldom and made King
Malcolm (d.1093) his man, probably leaving him in command of Cumberland
as part of the Scottish kingdom. The Carlisle Chronicle,
drawn up
using ancient chronicles in 1291 to help Edward I (1272-1307) determine
the right king of Scotland, stated clearly that in the time of Earl
Siward (d.1055) King Malcolm of Cumbria (d.1093) ruled to the River
Duddon (Dunde).
Thirteenth century sources state that the boundary between Scottish
Cumberland and
England lay at ‘the King's Cross on Stainmore'.
This lay
between the castles of Brough
and Bowes.
Quite clearly from this Carlisle was recognised as a part of Scotland
before the Norman Conquest, even if Northumbrian rule had formerly held
sway here at times. The district was only brought fully under
Norman
control when William
Rufus (1087-1100) took and fortified Carlisle in
1092 with a large army, expelling its previous lord, Dolfin, said to be
a younger son of Earl Gospatrick (d.1074), but possibly more likely his
son in law. According to the Peterborough Chronicle written
some
20 years later:
1092
King William travelled north to Carlisle (Cardeol)
with a very great army and restored the burgh and raised the castle and
drove out Dolfin, who earlier ruled the land there and set the castle
with his men and afterwards returned south and sent very many peasants
there with women and livestock to live there and to till that
land.
This would appear to have been copied by later chronicles, namely
Waverley and Henry Huntington. A separate source seems to
have
been shared by 2 contemporary chroniclers, Florence of Worcester and
Symeon of Durham. They recorded:
This
done, the king [Rufus] set out for Northumberland, the city which the
British call Carlisle and the Latins Lugubalis;
he restored and built a castle in it. For this city, with
some
others in those parts, was destroyed by the Danish pagans 200 years ago
and up to this time was left deserted.
As has been stated above, the city was not abandoned prior to the
Norman arrival and this source is most definitely wrong about the place
being a wilderness. The question is, what did Rufus actually
do
there other than found a castle? By the sounds of it he drove
away the original inhabitants and replaced them with people more likely
to be loyal to him. Similarly the texts give no clue as to
what
form this castle commenced by Rufus may have looked like.
After the conquest of 1092, either William II or more
likely Henry I
(1100-35), gave the lordship of Carlisle to Ranulf le Meschin (d.1129),
who in 1120 became earl of Chester.
Part of the grant may have taken place as early as 1098 when Ranulf
married Lucy Bolingbroke
(d.1138), the widow of Ivo Taillebois (d.1094/7) and Roger Fitz Gerold
(d.1097/98). This marriage also brought him Taillebois' land
of Appleby and possibly
also Kendal.
That Henry I
was holding Carlisle at his accession in August 1100 is likely as he
seems to have founded Carlisle priory, an event that would not have
happened if Henry was not lord of Carlisle. A few years later
Ranulf le Meschin decided to found his own priory at Wetheral, some 7
miles to the east of Carlisle priory, an event that would probably not
have happened if King Henry had not already of founded Carlisle priory
in what was later to become Ranulf's caput.
Ranulf, as nephew to Earl Hugh Lupus of Chester
(d.1101) and cousin to Earl Ranulf of Chester (d.1120), helped control
the family's north-western portion of the kingdom of England which
covered England from the Shropshire border to the Solway
Firth.
During his time as lord of Carlisle he was said, in 1212, to have
created 2 border sub-lordships or baronies at Burgh
by Sands and Liddel
(Lydale)
covering the land north of Carlisle. The first of these was
given
to Ranulf's brother in law, Robert Trevers and the latter to Turgis
Brandos. According to Camden writing some 5 centuries later,
Ranulf tried to give Gilsland to his brother, William (d.1130/5), but
he failed to dislodge its ruler. No evidence of this alleged
grant exists in the pipe rolls or the Testa de Neville of 1212 and as
such it can probably be dismissed. However, Ranulf certainly
gave
his brother, William, the lordship of Allerdale (which then seems to
have included Copeland) and stretched along the coast between the
rivers Duddon and Esk (and therefore including Millom,
Egremont, Cockermouth and Burgh by Sands).
Ranulf was a prominent supporter of Henry I
and led the first battle of the royal army at the battle of Tinchebrai
in 1106. It was probably around this date that Ranulf granted
Wetheral (Wetherhala)
to St Mary's abbey, York.
This led to the founding of Wetheral priory. Ranulf then
endowed
the priory with this churches of St Michael and St Lawrence in his
castellum of Appleby.
On the earl of Chester's death in 1120, it is thought that Henry I
resumed Carlisle lordship when he made Meschin earl of Chester in his
cousin's place, although there is no direct evidence as to when this
happened although it was certainly before 1122 when the king went to
Carlisle after Michaelmas and ‘sent money for the
fortification
of the place with a castle and towers'. By the time of the
September 1129 pipe roll, Carlisle lordship had been divided into 2, Chaerleolium and Westmarieland.
Hildret was holding Carlisle and accounted for £14 16s 6d
from
the old farm, ie last year, and the king's manors. The costs
of
making a wall around the city had cost £14 16s 6d cancelling
out
the income from last year. Presumably these works had been
going
on since 1122. It was also recorded that the canons
of St
Mary of Carlisle had received £10 towards the building work
of
their church as well as being pardoned 37s 4d, while a further
£6
2s had been spent on the city walls. The city and castle were
obviously well garrisoned for payments were made to the knights and
sergeants of Carlisle at a cost of £42 7s
7½d. As
£21 was paid for 1 knight, 10 serjeants, a watchman and a
porter
in Burton in Lonsdale, it
suggests that
Carlisle garrison was double that. At this time it would
appear
that Copeland was independent of these 2 fledgling shires.
Three
years later in 1133 King Henry made Prior Adulf of Nostlia bishop of
the newly created see of Karleol
giving to the diocese the churches of Cumberland
and Westmorland which were under the archdeaconry of York.
The death of Henry I
on 2
December 1135 was a sea change for Carlisle. Early in 1136, King
David of Scotland (d.1153), cynically remembering his oath to
King Henry I
(d.1135), invaded the kingdom of England swiftly taking various
garrisons in Cumberland
and Northumberland, and advancing on Durham,
while bypassing Bamburgh
(Babhanburch).
King Stephen,
when he was staying at Oxford
at the end of the festival of the Nativity, was told how:
"King David of the
Scots, on
pretence that he was coming with peaceful intent for the purpose of
visiting you, has come to Carlisle and Newcastle
and stealthily taken both". To this the king is said to have
replied, "What he has taken by stealth, I will recover by victory" and
without delay the king moved forward his army, which was so mighty and
valiant and so numerous that none in England could be remembered like
it. However King David met him at Durham
and made a treaty with him restoring Newcastle,
but retaining Carlisle with the king's consent. David did not
do
homage to King Stephen because he had previously, as the first of the
laity, promised on oath to the Empress...
to maintain her in possession of England after the death of King Henry I.
However, Henry,
the son of King David, did homage to King Stephen on
which he was presented with the borough of Huntingdon by way of gift.
Other sources state that King
Stephen came to Durham
on 5 February and after 15 days received David in Newcastle castle where they
made peace with David's son, Henry, paying homage to King Stephen at York for the honour of Huntingdon
without Doncaster (Dunecastra)
or Carlisle (Karleol).
According to the fifteenth century Bower's chronicle, after the peace
of Newcastle, King David
went immediately to Carlisle where he is said
to have made a very strong castle as well as raising the most powerful
walls for the city. This, of course, ignores the contemporary
chronicles that state that King
Henry I
did just this in 1122. As such this late claim should
probably be
ignored, despite the fact that the castle keep is claimed as his based
on this solitary story.
Although Rufus
and his brother, King
Henry I,
had built Carlisle castle it was now a property of the Scottish kings
and their adherents. In 1138 the papal legate arrived at
Carlisle
and returned the seat to Bishop Aldulf. Quite obviously he
had
been forced to flee the district with the coming of the
Scots.
The legate also freed all the captives from the war that he found in
the town. These captives well enough explain the bishop's
flight,
he fairly obviously not wanting to be counted amongst them.
Around this time King David
confirmed to Robert Bruce all Annandale (Estrahanent
which would now be Strath Annan) which stretched from the boundary of
the lands of Dougal Stranit to that of Ralph Meschin (the nephew of the
Ralph below, d.1138). Further the lands were to have the same
customs as Carlisle and Cumberland
were held in the days of Ralph Meschin (d.1129, but relinquished
Carlisle to King Henry
in 1120). The apparent mention of Ralph (d.1138) would
indicate
that this charter probably dated to the time from 1130, around when
William Meschin the father of Ralph died, until his own death in 1138.
In 1140 Earl Ranulf of Chester (d.1153) became King Stephen's
enemy
after he failed to have Carlisle taken from King David's son, Earl
Henry of Huntingdon (d.1152), and returned to himself as heir
of his
father, Earl Ranulf (d.1129) who had been lord of Carlisle before
1120. Although Earl Ranulf (d.1153) eventually plotted with
both
sides in the civil war, he failed to oust the Scots from Carlisle,
though this was from no lack of trying.
The story of what happened in Carlisle during the Anarchy of 1136-54
can be partially reconstructed from using chronicle evidence.
However, the trouble with relying on later chronicles is again
emphasised when the chronicler Hoveden's account of this era is
examined. According to him Henry Fitz Empress
(1133-89), the grandson of Henry I (d.1135) and claimant to the throne
against King Stephen, being 16:
and
having been brought up at
the court of King David
of the Scots, his mother's uncle, was dubbed
knight by David in the city of Carlisle, having first made an oath to
him that if he should become king of England he would restore Newcastle
and all Northumbria between the rivers Tweed and Tyne to him.
After this Henry, by the advice and assistance of King David, crossed
over into Normandy and being received by the nobles was made duke of
Normandy.
In reality Henry had been in Normandy for much of this youth and was
not brought up at the Scottish court, or had even been there before
1149. In that year Henry made his way to Carlisle where he
was
dubbed knight on Whit Sunday. To this ceremony came Earl
Ranulf
of Chester (d.1153) and there the earl made his peace with King David,
accepting the latter's control of Carlisle. In return David
granted Lancashire to Ranulf, which shows that William Fitz Duncan, the
previous lord of the district, had recently died. The allies
then
made an abortive attack upon York
before Henry
retired to Normandy. Hoveden reasonably well knew the facts
of
the story, but he obviously made some unlucky guesses in trying to fill
in some of the gaps.
King David seems to have found Carlisle convenient and was
perhaps the
most visited place in his kingdom. Finally, on 24 May 1153,
King
David died in his castle of Carlisle. His final hours were
recorded by Ailred of Rievaulx. He stated:
On
Wednesday 20 May 1153 (20
May was a Thursday!), though all his limbs were heavy with the weight
of illness, nevertheless he walked into the oratory as he was wont,
both for mass and the canonical hours, but when on Friday his malady
began to get worse and the violence of the disease had robbed him of
the power of standing as of walking he summoned the clerks and monks
and asked that the sacrament of the Lord's body should be given to him;
and on their making ready to bring him what he ordered, he forbade
them, saying that he would partake of those most holy mysteries before
the most holy altar. When, therefore, he had been carried
down
into the oratory by the hands of clerks and knights and the mass had
been celebrated he begged that a cross he reverenced, which they call
the black cross, should be brought forward to him to worship....
At last
he was brought back into his chamber... and when the priests came... he
rose up as best he could and threw himself off the pallet upon the
ground as he received the healing rite with so much devoutness....
It would seem likely that this oratory was the one still extant in
Carlisle castle keep. David's death was followed a year later
by
that of King Stephen.
His successor, Henry
Fitz Empress
(d.1189) wished to turn the clock back to 1135 when his grandfather
died. He therefore required back from the Scottish king,
David's
grandson, Malcolm IV
(d.1165), the northern counties of England.
Consequently in July 1157, King Malcolm surrendered Cumberland to the king when
the 2 met at Peak castle.
Henceforward Carlisle appeared in the pipe rolls as a royal
county. The next year, 1158, the king, with his army, met King
Malcolm at Carlisle by 24 June and, after arguing with him,
refused to
make him a knight although he did knight, William the son King Stephen and
lord of the eastern castles of Castle Acre
and Eye.
However this dispute did not lead to hostilities. With this
the
castle became a bit of a backwater with Anglo-Scottish relations
stable. In 1163 Henry visited his northern stronghold again
and
in 1165 the sheriff spent 10s 6d ‘on the work of the gates of
Carlisle'. Three years later in 1168 £2 was spent
on
removing (remouenda)
the gate of Carlisle (Cardel)
castle. Presumably this work included the building of the new
gatehouse and the closing of the old one to the east of the inner ward.
In 1173 King Henry II
was suddenly faced by a concerted attack by all his enemies.
One of these was King
William of Scots who sided with the young king, Henry III
(d.1184). Asking his barons for counsel concerning battle
they are said to have answered:
Sire, king of Scotland,
Of all your rights
Carlisle is the most difficult;
And since the
young king is willing to give you all,
Go and conquer the
capital, we advise you thus;
And if Robert Vaux
will not give the chief town,
From the old high
tower you must have him thrown.
Lay siege to it
and then make your great assembled host
to swear not to
stir from it till you have seen the city on fire,
The master wall
pulled down with your pickaxes of steel,
Himself fastened
to a high gallows.
Then you will see
Robert Vaux toeing the line...
But
Robert Vaux defended himself bravely;
the son of Odard
was not at all behindhand...
Royal records show that by September 1173 £20 had been
accounted
to Constable Robert Vaux of Carlisle (d.1194) for keeping a number of
knights in Carlisle castle. At this time a knight could be
paid
anything from 6d to 1s per day, although about 8d seemed to be normal,
while £20 was equal to 4,800d. That same September
the
sheriff accounted for the munitioning of the castle. As well
as
stocking provisions the castle ditch was worked upon at a cost of 45s
4d and 67s worth of work was carried out at the castle under
the
supervision of Adam Fitz Robert and his father Sheriff Robert Fitz
Troite (d.1174), Ralf the clerk and Wulfric. Wulfric the
engineer
was one of a small group of military advisors employed by Henry II,
so his involvement meant that the king was serious about the defence of
Carlisle. At some point a further 100 loads of wheat were
shipped
into the castle at a cost of £6. The damage done to
the
county was also estimated that September at £27 6s 6d allowed
for
the wasting of the county during the war, and 30s for the destruction
of the mill of Tanerez
wasted by war. However, this was not the end of the matter,
for the next year the Scots returned.
That they could see Carlisle full of beauty;
The sun
illuminates the walls and turrets....
When they arrived a message was sent to the
castle:
"Go to Robert [Vaux], say that I send him this message:
Surrender me the
castle this very momnet:
He will have no
succour from any living man,
And the king of
England will never more be his defender;
And if he will not
do so, swear well to him
He shall lose his
head for it and his children shall die.
I will not leave
him a single friend or relation
Whom I will not
exile, if he does not execute my command."
Now go the barons
demanding the truce,
And he answered
him: "Friend, what is it you want?
You might soon
leave there the little and the great."
And said the
messenger: "That is not courteous:
A messenger
carrying his message should not be
Insulted or ill
treated; he may say what he likes."
And said Robert
Vaux: "Now come nearer,
Say your pleasure;
be afraid of nothing."
Sir Robert Vaux,
you are valiant and wise...
Restore him the
castle which is his inheritance:
His ancestors had
it already long in peacefulness;
but the king of
England has disinherited him of it
Wrongly and
sinfully, thus he sends you a message by me....
Surrender him the
castle and all the fortress,
And he will give
you so much coined money
Never Hubert Vaux
had so much collected.
"Surrender him the
castle on such terms,
And become his man
on such conditions;
He will give you
so much property in fine gold and money,
And much more than
we tell you.
If you do
not consent to it to disinherit him,
You must not in
any place trust to his person:
He will besiege
the castle with his people,
You will not go
out of it any day without injury to you,
Nor all the gold
of his kingdom which he could collect,
To prevent you
from drawn on a hurdle and adjudge to a bad death."
Robert refused this command and told King
William to send to King
Henry
and if he allowed it, Robert would willingly surrender castle and
town. Otherwise he and his men were steady and would consider
themselves disgraced if they surrendered as long as they had victuals
sufficient to last them out. On hearing this reply King
William,
instead of attacking Carlisle, leaving a portion of his army behind,
marched on Appleby and Brough and rapidly took both
castles.
Now cut off from the outside world Vaux sent a message to Richard Lucy
(d.1179), the father in law of Reginald Lucy (d.1200) of Egremont and Odinel
Umfraville (d.1182) of Prudhoe.
Richard replied that Robert should hold fast as King Henry
himself would soon be in England to deal with the rebels.
Regardless of this advice, Robert agreed to surrender on 29 September
if he had not been relieved. To condense Fantosme, the Scots
crossed the Pennines from the siege of Wark
and came back to Carlisle with King
William threatening Robert Vaux
with being torn to pieces if he did not yield the castle and offering
him riches if he did. Vaux said he was not to be bribed and
was
not afraid as his castle was well provisioned and his men were firmly
behind him. Consequently the Scots, rather than risk a full
assault left half the army to besiege Carlisle and with the other half
set off to take Liddel, Brough and Appleby. William
again summoned Vaux to surrender and Richard Lucy, after hearing from
him, told Henry II
that ‘neither wine nor wheat can get to him any more nor will
help reach him from Richmond;
if he does not get aid quickly he will be starved out'.
However Richard had told Vaux that Henry II
would be back in England in a fortnight. On the strength of
this,
Robert agreed to surrender if no aid arrived because he knew that
relief would shortly be on its way.
A contemporary chronicler recorded his take of events.
Meanwhile
King William of
the
Scots besieged Carlisle, which Robert Vaux had in custody.
And,
leaving a portion of his army in besieging the castle, with the
remainder he marched through Northumberland, devastating the lands of
the king and his barons. And he took the castles of Liddel, Brough (Burgo), Appleby, Warkworth (Wercwrede) and Harbottle (Yrebotle)
which was held by Odonel Umfraville, after which he returned to the
siege of Carlisle. Here he continued the siege until Robert
Vaux,
in consequence of a deficiency of provisions, made a peace with him on
the following terms, that at the feast of St Michael next following [29
September 1174], he would surrender to him the castle and town of
Carlisle, unless in the meantime he should obtain succour from his
lord, the king of England. Truly, the king of Scots departing
thence, laid siege to Odonel Umfraville's castle of Prudhoe, but was unable to
take it, for Sheriff Robert Stuteville of York,
William Vescy, Ranulf Glanville, Constable Ralph Tilly of the household
of the archbishop of York, Bernard Balliol [Barnards
Castle] and Odonel Umfraville,
having assembled a large force, hastened to its relief. On
learning of their approach, the king of Scots retreated thence and laid
siege to William Vescy's Alnwick
castle
and then, dividing his army into 3 divisions, kept one with himself and
gave command of the other 2 to Earl Duncan and the earl of Angus and to
Richard Morville
[constable of Scotland], giving them orders to lay
waste the neighbouring provinces....
The result of William splitting his army proved disastrous.
On 13 July 1174 he was caught unprepared before Alnwick castle
and captured, thus bringing Carlisle's war to an end. Before
that
same September, Robert Fitz Truite, the sheriff of Cumberland since
1158, seems to have died, possibly as a result of disease from the
siege. Consequently his son, Adam Fitz Robert, who had been
undersheriff with his father, rendered his account for the year which
was nothing on account of the war; to which a sceptical clerk had
added, so he says!
After the war of 1173-74, Cumberland
and Westmorland were
reorganised
into counties with Reiner the dapifer of Ranulf Glanville accounting
in 1177 for the 3 years rent and being allowed £58 2s 8d for
the
custody of the castles of Westmorland. Presumably these were Appleby and Brough
castles which pertained to the sheriffdom. The same year it
was
recorded that Adam Fitz Robert Truite and Robert Vaux had no idea of
how much money they had spent during the war. Consequently
their
sergeants were to ‘access how much they received in past
years as
they do not know'. Despite this, Robert Vaux paid
£112 4d
into the treasure after rendering an account of £342 12d for
the
farm of Cumberland
for this year and the last 2.
With this the history of Carlisle castle fell back into obscurity until
1186 when:
King
Henry formed an army to
attack Roland Fitz Uchtryd of Galloway, but the prince came to Henry at
Carlisle to make peace, Henry then offering Paulinus of Leeds the
bishopric of Carlisle, enhanced by the churches of Bamburgh and Scarborough as well as the
chapelry of Tickhill
and the king's 2 manors near Carlisle, but he refused.
As a result of Henry's visit work was undertaken, probably to build a
chamber (camere)
at a cost of £26, while the work of the bridge cost a further
62s
7d. It is thought that this chamber was the hall that lay
between
the keep and Queen Mary's Tower along the south curtain.
Certainly in 1307 ‘the new stone tower for the king's
chamber'
was built and this was almost certainly Queen Mary's Tower, which
confirms the identification. Expenditure continued in 1187
with
the works of the king's chamber in Carlisle castle and a little tower (parve turris)
costing £41 14s 7d. A further charge of 10s for
felling
material for mending the timberwork of the great tower was made by the
same writ. This wood would appear to have been for the final
stage of the works in 1188 when £13 6s 8d in repairing the
king's
chamber and planking the tower (planchianda
turri).
A further 77s 6d was spent to complete the aforesaid chamber.
This was the last work carried out on the fortress during the reign of Henry II (1154-89).
In 1190 the new government of Richard
I
(1189-99) had work undertaken to the 3 gates of the city of Carlisle
and its granary at a cost of 119s 5d. A further £14
was
spent on unspecified works at the castle the next year, 1191.
The
government had obviously been worried about the security of the
northern forntier for in 1192 it was recorded that Sheriff William Fitz
Aldelin had received £60 for the custody of Carlisle castle
for
the past 3 years. In 1196 the castle jail was repaired for
40s
and work was undertaken on the castle gate for 100s, while in 1197 work
was carried out on the castle chapel as well as the bridge between the
castle and town at a cost of 112s 6d. Finally in 1198, works
were
carried out on the houses of the castle for 40s. However, it
was
noted nearly a century later that the sheriffs of Carlisle had
regularly been claiming £2 or £5 for the upkeep of
the
castle houses, but they had usually appropriated the money for other
uses.
The reign of King John
started in some trepidation in the spring of 1199. Fear of
disturbances on the death of King
Richard led to Sheriff Hugh Bardolf (d.1203) of Westmorland
taking over Cumberland
and spending £36 15s on knights and serjeants for the custody
of
the homeland, while William Stuteville (d.1203) demanded £7
9s 8d
for the time he spent in Carlisle castle. With the initial
panic
over Carlisle castle was stocked with provisions in September
1200. No doubt this store would have proved of use when King John
himself visited the castle in late February 1201. Possibly as
a
result of the visit the castle was strengthened before that September
with £27 14s being spent on making repairs and attachments to
the
ditches and palisades. Maintenance continued the next year
when
£47 was recorded as spent on castle works at September
1202. The next year, September 1203, £61 10s 9d was
spent
in the repair of the gates and king's houses and £12 on the
sustenance of knights in the castle. By September 1204 a
further
£116 4s 1d had been spent on repairs to the castle and 50m
(£33 6s 8d) in supplying the garrison with wheat, bacon and
other
necessities. This was followed on 28 Nov 1204, by the king
sending 60m (£40) to Constable Roger Lacy of Chester, the hero
of
the defence of Chateau
Gaillard,
to munition Carlisle castle. The official order for Roger
taking
over the constableship of the castle was issued to its previous
constable, Robert Courtney (d.1209) on 1 December. On 8 March
1205 Roger was reinforced by the sending of 8 royal crossbowmen to
him. Simultaneously supplies of wheat were ordered from the
lands
of Landa Seburweh and Richard Gernun (d.1234+) to be sown for the use
of the castle garrison. On 12 April 1205, the king further
ordered that Roger was to have wood from Carlisle forest in aid of
repairing the royal castle of Carlisle.
In February 1206, King
John again stayed at Carlisle. He was at Bowes
on 16 February and had arrived at Carlisle by the 18th. He
then
remained there until at least the 20th before going on to Lancaster
by the 21st. He returned again in 1208, staying at Hexham on
1
August, before being found at Carlisle on the 17th and then being at
Whinfell by the 19th. He was back again 4 years later,
staying at
Wigton on 21-22 June 1212, then Carlisle from the 23rd to the 26th,
before moving on to Hexham on 27th.
In 1212 John had an inquisition carried out. This recorded
that
in Carlisle one Albert Fitz Bernard held 1 carucate of land by the
sergeanty of making the city gates. Similarly the sergeanty
of
Nicholas Gerbad, Alice his wife as well as Richard Carpenter and
Matilda his wife, meant that they held a suburb of Carlisle for which
they had to have the gates of Carlisle shod in iron. Possibly
this sergeanty dated back to the time of Henry I's
refortification of
Carlisle in 1122.
On 13 April 1215, Robert Roos of Helmsley,
custodian of our castle of Karleol,
was allowed £60 for holding the castle for the past 3
years. He was also granted the vills of Sowerby, Karleton and
Wifrightebe on 10 April, until his lands in Normandy could be
recovered. On 24 July 1215, Roos was replaced by Robert
Vipont
(d.1228) of Appleby, Brough, Brougham and Pendragon
castles, as sheriff. He held this appointment, although Ralph
de
La Ferte had been briefly constable until 7 January 1216, until 11
February 1222, when he was replaced by William Rughedon and Walter
Mauclerc. During the time of Robert's sheriffdom he was
recorded
as alienating the castle garden.
With the collapse of Magna Carta and the civil war renewing, on 7
February 1216, the barons of the Exchequer were ordered to allocate to
Robert Vipont payments for the knights, sergeants and crossbowmen he
had with him in our castle of Carlisle which had been repaired and
garrisoned by him, by the view and testament of honest men.
This
was obviously a necessary measure as Norham
castle
had been besieged and taken by King William on 19 October
1216.
He had then taken the homage of the men of Northumberland on 22 October
at Felton. The attack continued through the winter with
William
burning the towns of Mitford
and Morpeth on 7 January, Alnwick
on 9 January and Wark on 11
January. In reply to this royalist forces took the town and
castle of Berwick on 15
January and Roxburgh
on the 16th before burning Dunbar
and its surrounding villages on the 18th. Finally, in
February
1216, King Alexander
burned his way into the province of Carlisle, his
troops reaching as far as Holme Cultram before being chased back by
English forces who came to Carlisle burning the rebels' lands as far as
that city.
In July King Alexander II
returned to besiege Carlisle with all his army
apart from any Scots from whom he received scutage instead.
The
implication of this is that Alexander did not want ‘wild'
Scotsmen destroying Carlisle and preferred their money to pay for more
reliable English troops to sooth the feelings of the citizens he wanted
to rule. On 8 August the city surrendered to him and was
occupied, although as yet Alexander did not attack the
castle.
Writing seventy years later, the religious of Carlisle remembered
events thus.
King Alexander of the
Scots moved angrily against the city of Carlisle and the citizens
handed it over to him because King
John had inflicted many injuries upon them and not long
afterwards he had obtained the city and fortress by force.
Two of the injuries John had inflicted upon the citizens of Carlisle
would seem to be a refusal to allow them to be freefarm in 1202 and a
massive tallage of 550m (£366 13s 4d) in 1210. Of
the
assault on the castle nothing was recorded other than the above
chronicle statement that the castle was taken by force, presumably in
the August of 1216. All that can be said with certainty from
later repairs is that the attackers seem to have smashed their way in
through both the outer gatehouse, otherwise known as Ireby's Tower, and
then the inner gatehouse, these and the otherwise unidentified
Maunsell's tower, had all been consequently wrecked.
Presumably
this all happened before King
John
died on 19 October 1216. As the outer gatehouse was known as
Ireby's tower and William Ireby was lord by marriage of Gamblesby and
Glassonby from John's reign well into
that of Henry III
(1216-72), it
is to be presumed that he gave his name to the outer gatehouse, though
whether this was through defending it, building it, living in it or
repairing it, is unknown. Further, William was a grandson of
the
Gospatric Fitz Orm (d.1185) who surrendered Appleby
castle to the Scots in 1174.
Nearly a year later on 23 September 1217, the regent, Earl William
Marshall (d.1219) instructed the archbishop of York and the bishop of
Durham, the earls of Chester, Derby and Aumale [William Fortibus,
d.1241, was also lord of Cockermouth],
Constable John of Chester (d.1240), Geoffrey Neville (d.1249), Brian
Insula (d.1234), Hugh Balliol (d.1229), Philip Ullecot (d.1221) and
Roger Bertram (Mitford,
d.1242), that as
King Alexander
had not returned Carlisle castle to Robert Vipont
(d.1228) with all the lands he had hostiley taken in the war between us
and the Lord Louis. Consequently they were ordered to recover
Carlisle and the lands and prisoners taken by force if
necessary.
Soon afterwards, after the retreat of Louis from England around 29
September, all the barons of England paid homage to King Henry III.
After this, King
Alexander, before he was acquitted of his
excommunication, voluntarily returned Carlisle to the English
kingdom. This was probably in December 1217 when the
archbishop
of Canterbury went to Carlisle and accepted seisin of the castle from
Alexander for the use of the king of England. The archbishop
then
handed the castle to the sheriff of Cumberland.
By 28 June 1221, Robert Vipont (d.1228) was building houses at
Carlisle. Presumably these were within the town, rather than
in
the castle, although just a year later on 29 June 1222, Sheriff Walter
Mauclerc (d.1248) was ordered to repair the houses of the castle by the
view of honest men. Mauclerc had been appointed sheriff on 5
April 1222 when all the royal castles in England were resumed by the
Crown in the aftermath of the civil war of 1215-17. Walter
also
received 100m (£66 13s 4d) pa for custody of the
castle. On
taking charge of the fortress Walter found the place devoid of supplies
and had to accept gifts of flour and a tripod mounted crossbow for the
garrison and oxen for the demesnes from Thomas Multon (d.1240), the
lord of Egremont.
The same winter on 9 October 1222, 3 royal crossbowmen and 4 sergeants
were sent to garrison the castle. The men were then regularly
paid, last receiving money on 27 July 1223. Presumably the
crossbowmen being paid off occurred at the same time as Sheriff Walter
Mauclerc was elected bishop of Carlisle about 22 August 1223.
Despite this, he remained sheriff until 1233, although he often had an
undersheriff. Sheriff Walter also received the pannage of
Cumberland forest on 15 October 1222, to sustain himself in the royal
service in Carlisle castle. That September 1222 the sheriff
was
credited with £10 for repairing the king's houses in Carlisle
castle. This was followed on 18 February 1223, with an order
to
mend (emendacionem)
the tower
of Carlisle castle by the view of honest men at a cost of up to 20m
(£13 6s 8d) and on 2 May to use timber from Cumberland forest
for
joists for both the keep and the castle houses. Again on 17
June
he was ordered to make further repairs to the keep.
Presumably
this accounts for the 20m (£13 6s 8d) allocated for works on
the
castle that September.
Works were still needed at the castle in 1226 when on 26 February, the
sheriff was allowed to spend up to 100m (£66 13s 4d) in
repairing
the leading and joists of the keep. This work had oviously
begun
by 24 March 1226, when the sheriff of Cumberland was authorised to have
timbers taken from the forest to repair the castle keep. This
work may have been finished by 20 July 1226, when the sheriff was
ordered to make a jail in the castle for a cost of up to 10m
(£6
13s 4d). The cost of this duly appeared in the September pipe
roll as did payments of £42 12s for 1226 and £40
for 1225
as well as £30 for 3/4 of 1224, allocated to Bishop Walter
for
having custody of the castle. By September 1227, the 100m
(£66 13s 4d) authorised in 1226 had been spent on the joists
and
lead for roofing the keep. Further, repairs had been carried
out
to the castle houses at a cost of 55s 9d. The bishop had also
been awarded an extra £4 6s 11d by king's writ to finish the
100m
(£66 13s 4d) work enjoined upon him for his custody of the
castle
and county. From 1228 to 1232 work was regularly recorded on
repairing or mending the castle houses, 100s in 1228, £8 6d
in
1229 which also included repairs to the city gate, £4 14s 9d
in
1230, 115s in 1231 and 100s in 1232. In 1232 the sheriff was
ordered to construct a circuit of palisading around the castle, while
the city received a grant of murage to assist in upkeep of
walls.
In the January of 1233 Bishop Mauclerc fell from favour with the
overthrow of Earl Hubert Burgh. On 6 February the king
instructed
his new sheriff, Thomas Multon of Egremont
(d.1240), to have Carlisle castle blockaded if it had not surrendered
to him in a fortnight, while the bishop's lay possessions were
seized. However, Walter duly surrendered his offices and
fined
£1,000 for having peace, surrendering his royal charters of
possession and retiring into temporary ‘exile overseas on
account
of the injuries he had done to the church and kingdom'.
Sheriff
Thomas Multon then spent 51s 7d on repairing a breach in a turret (turella)
and in repairs to the walls which the sappers had undermined when King
Alexander of the Scots had besieged the castle.
Finally, he spent
£8 8s 5d for costs in tin and lead used for covering the
castle
[roofs]. In 1235 the sheriff claimed another 20s for
repairing
the king's houses in the castle and an undefined amount in garrisoning
the fortress.
In the 1237 treaty
of York, the king of Scots resigned his claim to the border
counties of Cumberland,
Durham, Northumberland
and Westmorland,
acknowledging the current boundary between the 2
kingdoms. This led Henry
III to instruct his sheriff of Northumberland to spend as
little as possible on Newcastle
and Bamburgh
as ‘the king is not now in fear of his castles as
before'.
It would seem likely that the same attitude was held for Carlisle,
although again it was recorded that Thomas Multon had garrisoned the
castle as was customary. The same year William Dacre became
sheriff and received 1 tun of wine worth 40s at the castle.
For
the next 2 years, 1238-39, he received 100s for emending the king's
houses in the castle. In the latter year he also reroofed the
keep and the king's chamber with lead and repaired other minor defects
for a cost of £8 10s 6½d. Further work
continued in
1240 with repairs to the moat bridge, the stairs to the great chamber
and the larder for 48s 4d. A further 100s was allocated for
mending the king's houses within the fortress. As has been
noted
these 100s payments seem likely to have simply been pocketed.
With the threat of war with King
Alexander II (d.1249) in 1244, Gerard the
Engineer was allocated £10 for building the king's engines in
Carlisle castle, while a further 6s 4d was spent repairing the castle
houses. Simultaneously the king ordered the sheriff in March
1244
to have the tower at the castle gate repaired along with the part of
the wall which had lately fallen down and to have the castle chapel
wainscotted and glazed. Ten oaks were to be cut down in
Inglewood
in aid of this wainscotting. By 4 June the king was intending
to
come to Carlisle in person for he ordered 10 tuns of wine bought at
Boston to sent to Carlisle castle ‘so that the king may find
them
on his coming there'. The same September 1244 repairs had
been
carried out to a turret and the houses within the castle and also
amendments had been made to the houses at a cost of 27m (£18)
by
the view of Robert Clerk. One and a half tuns of wine were
sent
to stock the castle in 1246, but the condition of the fortress was said
2 years later to be dire.
On 1 May 1248, Richard and Ralph Levinton together with William
Feugers, were ordered to go to Carlisle castle and view in what state
John Balliol, to whom the king has committed the castle, received it
[from Sheriff William Dacre]. On 18 July 1248, Sheriff
Balliol
was ordered to repair the king's hall and other buildings in the
castle. The next year it was noted that Sheriff John Balliol
was
receiving 100m (£66 13s 4d) per annum for having the custody
of
the castle. In 1250 it was further noted that Sheriff Dacre
had
spent £10 in emending the king's houses in the castle during
his
last 2 years of office. It also becomes clear at this time
that
100s or £5 per year seems to be the going rate for
‘mending' the royal houses in Carlisle castle, this amount
being
allowed to the sheriff for that purpose on most years between 1249 and
1259, £5 spent on castle each year, however only 19s
5½d
was spent in 1252!
Some repairs were ordered
to Carlisle castle
on 16 May 1253, when oaks were ordered cut down for timbers for the
king's houses. On 26 May 1255, orders were given to make
necessary repairs to the king's houses, an order repeated on 20 May
1255. Soon afterwards on 22 August 1255, Robert Bruce
(d.1295)
was appointed to keep the castle of Carlisle with the county of Cumberland.
Soon after this Robert reported the castle so ‘greatly
dilapidated' that he recommended that the money collected for Crusade
should be stored elsewhere for its safety. Regardless, his
appointment to Carlisle did not last long and on 28 October 1255 the
king committed the county of Cumberland
and the castle of Carlisle during pleasure to Earl William Fortibus of
Aumale (d.1260), the lord of Cockermouth
castle.
Soon after Earl William took over the fortress a report was sent to the
king from Thomas Lascelles (the heir of William Ireby) and other
knights of the county of Cumberland.
At the royal command they had visited and inspected Carlisle castle and
its condition when it was delivered by Robert Bruce (d.1295) to Earl
William Fortibus of Aumale (d.1260). They
found it in a bad condition:
...all
the lead gutters of
the great tower were decayed and the doors and shutters
likewise.
The joists and planking were broken and rotten and the walls of the
tower were in a bad state for want of mending and covering.
The
queen's chamber, which was covered in lead, needed great repair and
covering and the chimney needed instant repair or it would speedily
fall on the chamber, which is a very great danger. Maunsell's
turret and the turret of William Ireby and the turret beyond/over the
inner gate, were levelled and deteriorated in the time of the
great war of King John
and were
never afterwards rebuilt or repaired. The chapel, great hall,
kitchens, granges, stables, bakeries, breweries and the houses beyond
the gate and the bridges within and without the castle needed repair
and covering beyond measure. There was a great crevice within
the
turret of William Ireby from the summit to the base, requiring repair
anew, which was shown to Sir Henry Bathon with the other defects named
above. Some bretasche which was within Maunsell's
turret was
newly blown down by the wind, and was now burned and so were the doors
and shutters of the great tower and of the stables and kitchens and the
bolts of the doors with their ironwork carried off. Great
part of
the paling within and without the castle was likewise burned and
destroyed...
Despite the poor state of the fortress the only order for its repair on
20 October 1261, amounted to cutting oaks for timbers to fix some
defects and work on the palisading. The same day the bailiffs
and
good men of Carlisle were granted murage for 5 years.
Obviously
this was for maintaining the walls which were over 150 years old and
not for building a new enceinte around the city. This should
be
borne in mind when other murage grants are used to date town walls.
In 1262 the new sheriff, Eustace Balliol (d.1272), accounted for nearly
£100 spent on building 2 great catapults which had been made
in
the city and moved into the castle where they could be placed under
cover. This was at a time of great tension in the kingdom as
the
Barons' War began. This caused Eustace much expenditure in
holding his northern fortress against the rebels.
Unfortunately
much of what occurred has not been recorded, but in the 1285 Cumberland
forest eyre it was recorded that in July 1265, John Deiville (d.1291)
and his men ‘in wartime occupied Carlisle castle by force
from
Eustace Balliol and released the prisoners in his custody in the same
castle...'. Certainly on 5 August 1264 there is a hint of
fighting in the north. On that day the king, a captive of the
reformers, wrote to the northern royalist barons, John Balliol (Barnards Castle, d.1268),
Peter Bruce (Kendal,
d.1272), Robert Neville (d.1271), Ralph Fitz Randolf (Middleham, d.1270), William
Greystoke (d.1289), Roger Lancaster (d.1291), Stephen Meynell (Whorlton,
d.1264+), Adam Gesemuth (d.bef.1274, the husband of Christiana, the
daughter of William Ireby (d.1257)), Gilbert Haunsard (d.1291), Eustace
Balliol (d.1272, the captain of Carlisle), Nicholas Boltby (d.1272) and
Robert Stuteville of Ayton (d.1265), to come to the king at London with
their horses and arms and give counsel with the baronage against the
invasion of the [royalist] aliens or face the king's
indignation.
He also noted that they had claimed that they could not come due to the
enmity of John Deiville (d.1291), John Vescy (Alnwick,
d.1289), Thomas Multon (of Gilsland, d.1271) and Gilbert Umfraville (Prudhoe,
d.1307) who were attempting to attack them. The king had
therefore written to them to desist in pushing their grievances and
therefore those commanded were to come to London at once. It
is
quite obvious from this that Cumberland
was in a state of civil war, just like the rest of the
country.
The war at this point went the rebels way as on 6 January 1265, Balliol
was ordered to hand Carlisle castle over to Thomas Muleton (d.1271) as
was asked by the council of barons.
With the victory of Prince Edward over the barons at the battle of Evesham
on 4 August 1265 the castle was soon reclaimed by the royalists in the
form of the younger Robert Bruce (d.1304), the father of King Robert I
of Scotland. On 4 October 1265 he was ordered to turn the
castle
and county over to Roger Leyburn, who held it until 10 January 1267,
when he was ordered to return it to Robert Bruce (d.1304). It
was
only now that work was undertaken on the castle with the tower and
other buildings been repaired in 1269 at a cost of some
£12. For this 12 oaks were cut down for work on the
hall
and other houses. In March 1271, another 20 oaks were
supplied
for repairs to the keep. In 1272 it was recorded that the
exchequer and sheriff's offices were in the outer gatehouse.
The
purposes the office was put too, however, seems to have been far from
just. Between 1272 and 1274, it was alleged, probably with
justification, that William Ribton, the sergeant to Sheriff Robert
Creppinge, with his approval forced an approver imprisoned in the
castle to accuse several innocent men of serious crimes so that they
could be blackmailed into paying for the withdrawal of the
charges. Further in 1279, it was found that every holder of
office of sheriff since 1261, with one exception, had not spent the
100s allowance regularly claimed for the maintenance of the king's
houses on the castle.
In 1280 King Edward
came to Carlisle and spent over £23 on food
for his household and horses as well as £7 3s spent on
building a
new bridge. Two years later in 1282, 9 prisoners escaped from
the
castle prison after killing the janitor and his son.
Presumably
this prison was in the castle outer gatehouse. In 1283
Sheriff
Gilbert Corewenne claimed that over the last 2½ years he had
spent £12 10s on castle repairs. More works
occurred in the
period 1286-88 when over £200 was spent on the
castle. In
1287 this work amounted to some £115 and included 30 oaks fit
for
timbers from Inglewood forest for castle works on 28 January and
another 30 oaks on 23 October.
The castle was lucky to survive the next conflagration that scourged
Carlisle. On 25 May 1292 a fire swept through Carlisle and
its
suburbs, consuming the cathedral church with fire and burning
everything right up to the castle, whose bridge was
destroyed. On
18 August the king ordered 16 oaks fit for timber to be taken to
Carlisle castle ‘to repair the bridge... which was lately
burned
accidentally'. The same year The Great Cause of who ruled
Scotland began. This was to plague the British Isles for
centuries.
In 1295 King Edward
ordered siege engines constructed and for minor
works to be made to the castle. These proved necessary for on
26
March 1296, Earl John Comyn of Buchan (d.1308) with the earls of
Menteith, Starthearn, Lennox, Ross, Athol, Mar, together with John
Comyn of Badenoch (d.1303), suddenly invaded England and for 2 days
violently besieged Carlisle city, but could not take it. That
day
was Easter Monday and rather parallelled another sneak attack made 14
years before at Flint
and Rhuddlan.
According to a local chronicle, a Scottish spy called Patrick escaped
from the castle prison and started a fire. However, the
townsmen
put out the fire while the women held the Scots from the wall with
stones and boiling water. Without artillery and the coup de
main
having failed the Scots withdrew back to Annandale, although they
burned everything in Cumberland
as far as Cockermouth.
Two years later, on 13 October 1298, Bishop John Halton replaced Robert
Bruce (d.1304) as constable of the castle. Soon afterwards
the
Multon of Egremont
holdings Burgh by
Sands, Rockcliffe, Irthing and Brampton in Gilsland were
attacked and
burned, their value being reduced from some £219 to
£53. Also attacked around the same time was Bewcastle.
Finally, on 11 November 1298, William Wallace (d.1305), after burning Liddel,
Levington and Gilsland, appeared under the town walls on 7 November and
tried to bluff the garrison to surrender. When they wouldn't
and
Wallace saw the firm condition of the castle and their defensive
military arsenal, the Scottish army retreated, having destroyed the
houses and gardens under the castle walls. After
this the
castle was reinforced by 14 crossbowmen and 95 foot, while new
brattices were erected around the walls, the 3 bridges were remade, the
ditches were cleaned out both within and without the fortress and the
stonework of the walls and gates repaired. Surprisingly only
£20 was sent to finance these works, while on 20 September,
20
oaks were sent from Inglewood forest to repair the castle houses,
bridges and battlements. Sixty young pike were also sent to
stock
the castle moat. From this time on the castle was used as a
supply depot for the Scottish war, although the mills were used to
grind corn for the armies, while wine was stockpiled in a warehouse
built within the castle with 174 cartloads of timber.
Wallace's
attack was followed in 1298 with repairs to the walls around the gates
and the houses over the castle gate as well as glass for the king's
chamber and chapel and works on the great hall. Oddly, the
same
year the sheriff stated that he could not produce 3 men charged with
homicide as they were imprisoned in the castle ‘the keeping
of
which the bishop of Carlisle has by the king's commission' even though
the prison remains in the sheriff's keeping.
Two years later in 1300, Carlisle was the base for the famed Caerlaverock
campaign. In 1301 the roofing of keep was again repaired and
prisoners from Turnberry
castle
were imprisoned within it by chains and fetters bought for the
purpose. As a final precaution iron bars were placed across
the
windows. The year also saw work on the great hall and siege
engines stored within the fortress. In 1302, the sheriff was
still complaining that he could not have ‘free entry or exit
at
the castle gate'. The same year repairs were made to the
great
gate and the roof of the queen's chamber. In 1303 further
repairs
were made to the lead of the great tower and 33 rods of wall in the
outer bailey were made as well as brattices for the main gate and a
postern ‘against the coming of the Scots in the
Marches'.
It was probably the next year, 1304, that Sheriff John Lucy complained
that the prison had collapsed and consequently he was having difficulty
gaining access to the castle, as neither he nor the gaoler had any
residence in it and that there was nowhere in Carlisle city or castle
to hold the county court. Possibly this complaint led the
castle
being handed back to the sheriff from the bishop in May 1304.
In 1305/6 the prison with the house above it was rebuilt at cost of
nearly £20. When King
Edward heard of the murder of John
Comyn at Dumfries on 10 February 1306, he sent a force of horse and
foot to Carlisle and Berwick
in order to
protect the border. In this action he proved correct for Robert
Bruce immediately invaded the parts of Galloway loyal to Edward I and
burned the land, besieging one of the chief men in a lake, possibly Loch Doon castle.
However, part of the Carlisle garrison sallied out into Galloway and
caused him to raise the siege and retreat after he had burned the
engines and ships he had made for the siege. The same year,
1306,
a wooden chapel and bath was built for the queen when Edward I
stayed at the priory and Queen Margaret in the castle. On 17
February 1307, Thomas Bruce's head was displayed on top of the keep
after he, his brother Alexander, and Reginald Crawford, had been
defeated in battle at Loch Ryan. At the same time a
parliament
lasting 2 months was held at Carlisle. After Edward left
Carlisle
to invade Scotland once more, he got as far as Burgh
by Sands where he
died on 7 July 1307, leaving the Scottish rebellion uncrushed.
Edward II
(1307-27) may then
have ordered further work at the castle for in 1308 repairs were made
to a breach in the wall near the castle postern and new chambers were
built by the little postern and at the outer gate. Two
bridges
were also repaired inside the castle. Monies to the value of
£208 5s 7d were expended on breaking freestone from Wetheral
quarry, as well as on the wages of masons and others assisting them in
making 2 stairs, one for 2 turrets on the high tower where springalds
were positioned and another in a new stone tower attached to the king's
chamber which had 2 portcullises and double vaulting. This
was St
Mary's Tower, set in the east corner of the inner bailey,
‘which
tower was 28' above the ground when Alexander (Bastenthwayt) was
removed from office. And beside that same tower were built 2
little stone chambers, a fireplace and 2 garderobes, so he
says'.
During this year, 1308, the sheriff claimed allowance for 4 men at arms
and 10 archers stationed within the fortress. Further, on 12
November 1312, that since 1310 £20 pa had been allocated for
keeping Carlisle castle and county safe.
These recent improvements made to Carlisle castle proved necessary as
the Scottish rebellion drew nearer to England. In August
1311,
after an attack had been launched on Gilsland, the castle garrison was
increased with 8 knights and 156 men at arms being hired during
October. That December 1311 there were an extra 10 men at
arms,
20 serjeants in haketons (leather jackets reinforced with chain mail)
in the castle, vill and Marches of Carlisle which were normally held by
15 knights, 31 squires, 7 men at arms, 6 hobelars and 100
archers. Then, in May and June 1313, up to 100m
(£66 13s 4d) was allocated to repair the castle houses, while
20
oaks were cut down for the king's works there. In late April
1314, before the battle of Bannockburn on 24 June 1314, Edward Bruce
harried Cumberland as
they had refused
to pay the agreed tribute they had given hostages for.
However he
refused to attack Carlisle due to the number of soldiers assembled
there.
After Bannockburn the earl of Hereford with a contingent that included
Anthony Lucy of Allerdale, a claimant to Cockermouth,
withdrew towards Carlisle, but were captured at Bothwell castle.
On 8 July 1314, Carlisle castle garrison was recorded as 4 knights, 50
men at arms, 30 hobelars and 80 archers supported by 3 companies
comprising a total of 3 knights and 34 men at arms. In
September
15 Irish hobelars and 40 foot soldiers together with 2 troops of
English foot, one of 160 which arrived on 30 Sept and another of 20 on
24 September arrived to increment the garrison. On 26 October
1314, a further 3 men at arms were sent from the king's court to help
garrison Carlisle vill. Presumably all these forces were
still
present when on 22 July 1315, King
Robert Bruce attacked Carlisle city
gates by speed and surprise. However, the garrison was ready
for
the attack, forcing the attackers to assault with ladders, a sow for
mining, fascines for filling ditches, portable wooden bridges on wheels
for crossing moats, a stone thrower and a belfry. On the
fifth
day of the siege the stone thrower attacked the Caldew gate and city
wall, but to little effect as to meet this the garrison deployed 7 or 8
stonethrowers and springalds. The wooden belfry was then
brought
up, but the garrison within had built a counter belfry and placed it
against the wall which the Scots had to attack. However, the
attacking machine stuck fast in the mud without reaching a position in
which to launch an assault. Possibly this and the failure of pontoon
bridges to cross the moat as they sank under their own weight, was due
to the inclement weather of the era. General assaults on the
town
on the last 2 days of the siege achieved little so on 1 August the
Scots withdrew, harried by the garrison. After the withdrawal
of
the Scots the king on 21 November ordered his sheriff to have the new
chamber within the castle covered in lead as well as to repair the
fortress houses and to have other houses made to store the king's
victuals there. Presumably this resulted in the September
1316
record that nearly £15 had been spent on the castle
palisades,
woodwork, the roofs of the great hall and its kitchen and the building
of a new chapel in the outer ward as well as on the windows of the
queen's chamber and various ‘engines'. Further, 6s
8d was
spent on roofing in lead part of the new tower in the inner
bailey. Finally, further work was ordered on 28 September
1316
with the sheriff being ordered to spend up to 10m (£6 13s 4d)
on
repairing the walls and houses of Carlisle castle.
In 1318 Anthony Lucy (d.1343) took over the castle as
sheriff. In
the subsequent survey the surveyors found that the great hall for the
king's household in the outer bailey of the castle with a great chamber
and garderobe at one end and a pantry and buttery at the other, had
defects which, together with carriage and wages of carpenters, could
not be repaired for less than £12 as they say that the great
timbers below the boards of the partitions were broken by the wind and
are largely rotten and that most of the hall, chamber, garderobe,
pantry and buttery which are roofed with shingles have been unroofed by
the storm and most of the shingles remaining on the roof are rotten and
that the timber below, boards and shingles, are broken and rotten and
cannot be usefully repaired. They found in the same [outer]
bailey 2 chambers for knights and clerks whose defects in heavy timber,
partitions and roofing cannot be repaired for less than
£4... They further found that the springald on the
new
tower needed repair as did the turrets on the keep and the brattices on
the walls [hoardings]. Elsewhere the bakery, brewery and
garderobe of the queen's chamber had been unroofed, while the forge in
the inner bailey had been ‘virtually knocked to the
ground'. Also the main gate needed to be renewed with the
re-vaulting of the gatehouse going to cost £20 and
more. On
the west side of the castle, facing the Caldew bridge near the church
of the Holy Trinity where the Scots had set up their stone thrower in
1315, the wall was ‘threatened with ruin' and needed to be
demolished and rebuilt from the foundations up at a cost of 1,000m
(£666 13s 4d), but as this was out of the question they
suggested
that a palisade should be built inside the segment at risk for 20m
(£13 6s 8d). The total of repairs suggested came to
just
under £70. In reply to this, on 21 September 1318,
the
sheriff was licensed to spend just £10. During
1319,
repairs were made to the great brattice by the great tower as well as
roofing the new tower with lead. Repairs were also made to
window
frames and the gutters of the castle houses.
On 25 May 1321, 100m (£66 13s 4d) was paid to Robert Barton,
‘appointed to supervise and repair the defects of Carlisle
castle'. These defects were listed in July 1321, when it was
found that a wall 40' long had collapsed and another 120' long was
about to collapse in the outer ward near the Caldew bridge.
The
conclusion was that demolition was needed and then the wall need to be
rebuilt on new foundations with supporting stakes. This wall
was
to have 4 small and 2 large buttresses and would cost an estimated
£240 not least because the stone from the old wall was too
small
to be reused except as a filling. Meantime, to cover the
fallen
and ruinous wall a palisade 220' long and 32' high should be made for
£50. It was again noted that the stone vault over
the main
gate was falling out and now had to be propped up on beams, while the
gate planks were so rotten that it needed remaking anew. Also
required was the replacement of 4 great joists and 20 great planks in
the upper room of the chamber in the great tower; the repair and
roofing of 4 wooden turrets; the roofing of the new tower in lead,
while various sections of timber and masonry were in need of repair and
the turrets on the roof were ‘begun when the new tower was
made
and not yet finished which need to be finished, the stone and woodwork
of which cannot be done for less than £4. Finally,
the
foundations of the queen's chamber needed attention. The
total
cost of the works was estimated to be £453. This
included a
wooden shelter 60' square ‘in the manner of a pentice' for
the
masons to work under and which was afterwards to be used as a
stable. That same year, 1321, repairs were carried out to the
gutter of the queen's chamber. Finally, after 21 June 1321
and
before 28 August 1322, nearly £220 was spent on the
castle.
These works included trees cut for boards and laths, workmen digging
stone and repairs to ‘the tower and the houses in the castle
and
the fences and walls both inside and out'. Consequently in
October 1321, Sheriff Andrew Harcla (d.1323) reported that many faults
had been ‘well and durably repaired' but there were still
‘many great and dangerous faults, namely in the walls, which,
without great provision, cannot be repaired'. It would seem
that
as the tower on the Caldew gate side of the outer bailey was later
called ‘Harkeleyes', this was probably part of his work.
In the spring of 1322, Earl Thomas of Lancaster was decisively defeated
by Andrew Harcla at the battle
of Boroughbridge on 16 March and, as a reward, Andrew was
made earl of Carlisle by Edward
II
on 25 March. Even with his new authority, Harcla was unable
to
protect his county and in July 1322, the Scottish army lay around
Carlisle for 5 days wasting the country, but made no attempt on the
city or castle. After the defeat of Edward II at the battle of Byland on
14 October 1322, Earl Andrew Harcla of Carlisle made a personal peace
treaty with King Robert
Bruce at Lochmaben
on 3 January 1323. He then returned to Carlisle and, calling
the
chief men of his earldom to him, he made them swear to uphold his
peace. When this became known to the king and his government
the
earl was proclaimed a traitor and the king sent word to Sir Anthony
Lucy to take Harcla and he would be rewarded. Consequently,
Anthony entered the undefended Carlisle castle on 25 February 1323 as
if to converse with the earl on business. With him came 3
powerful knights, Hugh Lowther, Richard Denton and Hugh Moriceby with 4
good men at arms and others with arms concealed under their
attire. As they entered the castle they detached armed men to
keep guard in both the inner and outer parts of the castle.
They
found the earl dictating letters in the great hall, and they being
armed and he unarmed, forced him to surrender. Someone in the
earl's household shouted, "Treason! Treason!" and the porter at the
inner gate tried to shut it against Lucy's men until Denton cut him
down. At this the remaining Harcla men in the castle
surrendered,
although one man rode off to announce to the earl's cousin what had
occurred. Lucy, meanwhile, sent word to the king of his
actions.
Six days after the earl's arrest the king's men at arms arrived at
Carlisle under Geoffrey Scrope (d.1340) who the next day, 3 March, sat
in judgement on the earl within his own castle. They found
him
guilty and in the name of the king ordered him stripped of his
dignities, hanged, beheaded, disembowelled and his entrails to be
burned. His head was to taken to London, his body quartered
with
the parts going to be suspended on the tower of Carlisle castle, Newcastle on Tyne, Bristol
and Dover.
For his actions Anthony Lucy was made lord of Cockermouth.
Despite the renovation works in 1321-22, it was found by 22 November
1323, ‘that the walls of the castle and city are in many
places
so out of repair and fallen down that it is necessary to make a wooden
peel about the places until the time when the defects can be repaired
with a wall of stone and lime'... so as many oaks and leafless trees as
are needed will be delivered to the sheriff for this work.
This
was duly done at a cost of £8 17s 9½d.
The next year
on 24 April 1324, £200 was ordered taken from rebel lands in
Yorkshire and Lancashire and given to Constable Anthony Lucy for castle
works in Carlisle. This was followed on 12 June 1324, by
Robert
Barton, the late keeper of the king's works at Carlisle, being ordered
to deliver to Constable Anthony Lucy all of his implements fit for the
work in repairing the walls, houses, towers and other things at the
castle and that the town walls should be repaired too. Four
days
later on 16 June 1324, the receiver of Lancashire was ordered to pay
Anthony Lucy a further £200 on top of the £100 he
had
already sent him to repair Carlisle castle's walls.
Simultaneously the sheriffs of Northumberland, Yorkshire and Lancashire
were ordered to send Lucy all the stone-cutters and masons they could
find ‘to do certain works of the king's there'.
The rebuilders seem to have done their job, for in April 1326 Carlisle
castle withstood being attacked by night, although the garrisons of the
city and castle were subsequently augmented by 20 sergeants and 60
foot. Two years later in 1328 the wars were ended with the
treaty
of Northampton and with this peace returned to the Scottish Marches for
a while. It proved a short while and in 1332 hostilities were
reopened and continued until 1357. The next year in 1333, the
sheriff was ordered in both March and June to spend up to £20
on
the castle's houses, walls, turrets and bridges as they were
‘so
ruinous and broken'. Despite any work that was done, 2 years
later in 1335, the enceinte of the castle was greatly in need of
repair, the walls of the new tower were decayed and the top had fallen
down, while in Andrew Harcla's time (1315-23), the high tower needed
attention and the prison with the houses above the gate and the gate
itself needed ‘substantial and swift repair as they are now
in
danger of ruin'. Once more, all the castle bridges needed
repair
as did various wooden buildings in the outer bailey as in the past
Sheriff Ralph Dacre (1330-35) had used timber from some of these which
had fallen to repair others that were still standing. The
total
cost of repairs was estimated at £1000, but the more pressing
ones could be done for only £400. Further minor
repairs
took place until the end of the war including repairing and releading
the keep roof in 1334, obtaining 3 locks for the castle, 2 for posterns
and one for the new tower whose key had been lost. Finally in
1356, a new outer bridge was built below the exchequer of the castle
and the outer gate beneath it repaired, while renewals and repairs were
carried out to the inner and outer gates including work on the masonry,
lead and ironwork.
Although the border wars officially ended in 1357 they left behind them
a legacy of lawlessness, raiding, murder and recrimination.
Consequently both kingdoms set up East, Middle and Western marches
along the border, Carlisle becoming headquarters of the Warden of the
English West March. Various repairs were carried on the
castle
during the 1360s, but no major work was undertaken.
This changed in 1378 with the appointment of John Lewyn, mason, to take
stonemasons and labours from Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland
and put them to work at Carlisle and Roxburgh
castles. At Carlisle John's work included making the outer
gatehouse (the stonework of a gate and of a tower above it in Carlisle
castle on the side towards Carlisle town). This tower was to
be
55' long, 32' wide and 34' high below the foot of the
battlement.
Its gate was to be 11' wide and have a barbican, 10' long on the right
of the gate, leading to a smaller tower which would be a
kitchen.
The barbican was to have double battlements in front of the gate arch
and the smaller tower on the south side of the entrance was to have a
cellar 28' long and 18' wide, vaulted, with a fireplace and garderobe
and on the other north side of the gate a prison which will be 14'
square with a fireplace and garderobe. The gate was to be
vaulted
and have 2 buttresses, 5' square at ground level, on its flanks and 34'
high under the battlements, all being crenellated. The main
tower
was to consist of 2 rooms vaulted under the joists (basseure) with
fireplaces and garderobes. Above the gate was to be
a hall
30' long and 20' broad with a wooden partition wall. The
kitchen
was to have 2 suitable stone fireplaces and in the room behind the dais
a fireplace and garderobe with window lights, shutters and entrances
suitable for all the rooms. All the walls of the towers were
to
be 6' thick externally from the ground to the arches and 5' thick above
this, with narrower internal walls. The king contracted to
supply
the stone and timber for scaffolds and centrings and would pay John
500m (£333 6s 8d) for his work and John would have the stone
broken up and would supply the lime and sand and have everything
relating to the stonework of the tower, gate and rooms made and
transported.... The work continued for some 4 years and
payments
are recorded for such things as 90 stone of lead for the roof of the
tower; iron and hooks for the outer gate in 1379 and timber for the new
tower of the outer gate in 1381 as well as a detailed set of accounts
in 1382. In 1383 locks were fitted on the outer and inner
posterns and outer gate as well as in other buildings. Some
furniture was also acquired.
In 1385, John Lewyn accounted for the 500m (£333 6s 8d) he
had
spent on making a gate, barbican and a tower over the gate with various
vaults and other works on Carlisle castle. Other accounts
this
year mentioned repairs to and putting in windows in the outer bailey
wall and repairs to the chamber over the inner gate. A wooden
granary was brought from Caldewe to the castle and set up as a
stable. Three carpenters made and repaired a new watchtower
in
the castle garden on the east side of the castle at a cost of
10s. Two great guns were placed over the great tower and a
smaller one placed on a tower in the corner of the outer bailey with
boards and planks and the casting of 3 bronze guns... A mason
trimmed 120 stones for the gun positions and repaired a watchtower by
the postern of the outer bailey towards the Caldew. Masons
made a
new stone postern by the castle mill, from the foundation to the top of
the work being 30' high. They also made a part of the castle
wall
which had completely fallen down in the outer bailey by Langoushill as
well as crenellations on that wall... as well as a part of the outer
wall in the castle garden and a part of the wall by the inner gate of
the castle and a part of the wall between the royal hall and the new
tower (Queen Mary's) of the inner bailey. They also accounted
for
the repair of part of the wall in the prison and for blocking the old
postern in the castle garden and repairing defects in the wall by the
conduit of the fishpond. They also repaired the bridges of
the
inner and outer wards of the castle, and replaced the ropes for raising
those bridges and cleaned other ropes. Finally they brought 4
fothers of lead from Wensleydale for roofing the castle houses...
After this the castle was generally left to slowly decay, although in
1425 repairs were carried out to the exchequer (Cheker
house).
The castle was made defensible again in the 1430s, but most of the
money
was spent on cannon artillery. During his short reign Richard
III
(1483-5) rebuilt the city wall tower by the castle as the Tile Tower -
an early rectangular gun bastion. His grand-nephew, Henry
VIII
(d.1547), fearing war with Scotland upgraded the defences of Carlisle
from 1540 onwards by making the castle an artillery fortress under the
directions of the military architect Stefan von Haschenperg.
He
had the keep
cut down and
topped it with gun embrasures, ramparted much of the inner ward to
carry big guns, built the half moon battery before the inner gate and
built earthworks to the north and east of the castle. A new
artillery fort called the citadel was also built at the southern
extreme of the city defences. The year 1543 saw the outer
gate
widened, but by 1557 there was already yet another break in the outer
curtain.
In 1568, after Mary, Queen of Scots (d.1587), had been taken at Cockermouth
she was brought to Carlisle as a more safe repose. Constable
Henry Scrope, the warden of the Western March, kept her initially as an
honoured guest, but after receiving instruction from Queen Elizabeth
(d.1603), kept her under stricter confinement as a threat to the
Protestant throne. Eventually she was moved south
to Bolton castle
where rescue from Scotland was more problematical. After this
brief flurry of activity the castle reverted to being mainly a store,
barracks and prison that slowly collapsed under its own weight and lack
of maintenance. In 1605 great rifts were recorded in the keep
and
the fortress continued to decay. With the coming of the Civil
War
(1642-51) the castle was found to be in a poor state with the great
keep all but ruined above the first floor due to deterioration in the
roof and upper floors. Some remedial work was undertaken and
gun
batteries emplaced in the outer ward. The castle saw action
in an
8 month siege which ended with the fortress surrendering to Parliament
on 25 June 1645.
Unlike many other fortresses this did not end the castle's
career. Instead, after being found in want of repairs in
1661, it
was brought up to scratch and in 1681 was recorded as being capable of
being defended still. In 1745 this happened when the castle
was
seized by the Catholics, but retaken the same year. The same
year
the castle was surveyed and its defects recorded. These
included
the fact that the outer ward wall east of the outer gate was very low
and might be scaled with ease, while the wall west of the entrance was
old and decayed. Surprisingly the other walls of the castle
were
described as very thin, cracked and in a condition where they could be
easily thrown down. After the battle of Culloden in 1746 the
castle became a prison and then reverted to being a store and barracks,
last seeing action in 1940 when an anti-aircraft gun was mounted on the
keep roof. The regimental depot in the castle was closed in
1959
and the military finally moved out during the 1960s.
Description
The unusual shape of the castle is due to its position occupying the
river bluff on a ridge end site between rivers. As the
southern
and part of the western line of the underlying Roman
fort
have been uncovered, it strongly suggests that the north-eastern
portion of the fort has been washed away by river action. It
would also appear that the riverside scarp made up the main earthwork
defences of the northern section of the fort and later
castle. To
the south a great ditch was dug, probably in the Norman period when the
castle was first fortified. This divided the castle from the
rest
of the ridge as well as the settlement.
The early stone castle is built from grey Kirklinton and red St Bees
sandstone, rather like the early parts of Carlisle cathedral.
Both were laid with a distinctive, coursed neatness and
regularity that is missing in the latter work which also tended to use
purely St Bees red sandstone. In the castle, later
work,
particularly the southern part of the west curtain of the outer ward,
tend to use longer slabs than the squarer early masonry. Also
the
coursing tends to be more variable in later work, viz the east face of
the inner bridge abutment of the outer ditch and much of the north
curtain wall.
The Inner Ward
The west curtain would appear to be early, although the tall batter at
the base would appear to be fifteenth century or later and was made in
the anti-cannon role. The casements behind this wall to the
north
must be of a similar date and allowed the curtain to be reinforced to
support cannon which could cover the entire outer ward. These
features were certainly present when Garforth sketched the fortress
around 1545.
The Dacre postern was towards the eastern end of the south curtain and
marked the start of the corner tower later known as Queen Mary's Tower,
presumably after the stay of Mary Queen of Scots, although possibly
associated with Queen Mary Tudor (d.1558). The postern has a
square headed lintel with the arms of Dacre above. As the Dacres
had been involved with the castle since at least 1236 when William
Dacre became sheriff and remained regularly in contact with the castle
until 1559, this does not really help with the postern's
dating.
Similar to the Dacre postern the one in the north curtain also has a
plain square head. Both posterns appear on Garforth's map of
c.1545. The north postern is probably one of the 2 mentioned
in
the 1529 survey. Dacre's postern might just possibly have
been
built for Ralph Dacre (d.1339) when he was sheriff (1330-35) and was
the one mentioned in the survey of 1383.
In 1308 Queen Mary's Tower was probably ‘the new tower'
referred
to, which would suggest that after the blocking of the gate in 1168,
this corner of the castle was converted from a gatetower into a mural
tower controlling that flank of the fortress. Other
gatetowers
converted into towers include Hay
on Wye, Ludlow
and Richmond
castles. Ludlow
is probably the nearest in style with the Carlisle ‘circular
arched gateway' being described in 1834 as having ‘plain
mouldings which sprung from capitals ornamented with zig-zag or chevron
ornaments; it likewise contained a groove for a portcullis.
To
the right of the gateway was a small postern with a circular
arch... At one end was the Norman gateway already mentioned
and
immediately opposite was another but of the pointed style; in this
gateway was also a place for a portcullis. Near to the latter
mentioned archway was a passage [Dacre's postern] leading to the lady's
walk, the door of which was walled up...' It was also noted
that
when the tower was demolished workmen found ‘several Roman
coins'
and that ‘foundations and old pavement have repeatedly been
found
in digging or excavating the castle'.
The external face of the north curtain contains much grey and red
sandstone which suggests that it is a part of the initial masonry
build. Internally the wall has been much thickened for
artillery.
Along the north east side of the inner bailey stood a
single range which included royal apartments, the great hall, and a
chapel. Today on their site stands 3 Victorian
buildings, the magazine, militia store, and the Regimental Museum.
Some traces of the original masonry survives within the
museum,
including fireplaces and traces of late windows. At the
south-east end of the block stands an octagonal stair turret which
originally provided access between the royal quarters and Queen Mary's
Tower.
Inner Gatehouse
The inner bailey was entered through the rectangular inner gatehouse,
now known as the Captain's Tower. This stands roughly
centrally
in the west curtain of the inner ward with both curtains sweeping back
from it at slight angles. It stands some 40' high and is some
33'
wide at its greatest extent. The tower is currently some 45'
deep, although the inner face could well have been extended into the
castle by as much as 15' when the adjoining curtains were thickened for
artillery in the sixteenth century. The original tower was
built
of grey Kirklinton sandstone, while red St Bees sandstone was used for
later works as can clearly be seen at the sides and rear of the
structure. Externally the tower seems of a similar build to
the
curtains on either side where these are visible. Presumably
it
was built in the 1160s.
The gatetower has 2 powerful multi phase projecting buttresses on
either side of the entrance which is recessed some 8' between
them. The original buttresses are plainly evident when viewed
from the north or south sides as too are their later westwards and more
heavily battered expansions. The buttresses were also nicked on their external
faces, an occurrence which is only seen at some 26 sites in England and
France.
The original gateway was large, being 16' high and 11' wide with a
slightly lopsided pointed arch. This was later partially
filled
and a newer, much smaller gate only 8' wide and 11' high
inserted. This
shows a rebate for a drawbridge, although all traces of holes for a
mechanism have gone. Possibly it was operated from a gallery
set
across the top of the earlier arch, of which the joist holes remain
clearly visible. The gallery was accessed via a rectangular
doorway to the north and has 3 large rectangular openings now blocked
with red sandstone. The doorway was reached from the constable's
chamber via a narrow passageway from the northern embrasure which
covered the base of the north-eastern curtain.
Within the gatetower the reduced gate opens into a 15' square chamber
made of large blocks of red ashlar sandstone. Other than the
entrance and exit gates the only other doorway is towards the east end
of the south wall and gives access to a small guard chamber.
This
small rectangular room contains a fireplace, several niches and a loop
to the east which was blocked when the gatehouse was extended
eastwards. The exit from the gate chamber was protected by 2
now
blocked murder holes in the later red sandstone vault before the
portcullis and a set of gates. The gate passageway exits into
the
ward via a fine probably fourteenth century gateway recessed behind a
shallow semi-circular arch with contains elaborate tracery on the
underside of one cusp there still being a figure holding a shield which
is believed to bear the arms of Neville of Raby.
Earl Ralph Neville of Westmorland (1364-1425), the eldest son of John
Neville of Raby
(d.1388) had a coat of arms of a saltire with a label of 3 points which
is what was claimed to have been seen in 1937. Ralph was
captain
of the West March and also an associate of John Lewyn at Durham. The Neville
tower at Raby castle
also contains tracery (restored) similar to that found above the rear
gate arch at Carlisle. It seems likely therefore that the
large
sandstone blocks used in the rebuilding of this section of the tower
were his work as recorded in 1385 when repairs were undertaken
‘over the inner gate'. The good red sandstone work
at the
outer gatehouse probably dates to the same period.
Access to the middle floor of the later gatehouse is gained via a
spiral stair in the north-east corner. This is reached via a
long
passage in the extended north-east wall and is all constructed in a
similar manner to the ashlar red sandstone gate chamber. The
vice
gave access to the chamber above which was probably originally the
constable's chamber. Possibly the stair once continued to the
floor above, but at some date, probably in the sixteenth century, this
was blocked and a passage made to the east which led to a mural chamber
from whose entrance a straight flight of steps led up to the floor
above. The insertion of the vice much altered the walls,
especially to the north and west.
The original first floor seems to have been about 4' higher than the
present one judging by what appears to be an original floor
offset. The Romanesque window overlooking the gate could well
have been reset judging by the rough nature of the wall on either side
of it. The room currently has further windows to north and
south,
covering the bases of the inner curtain and a large window to the
east. All are later than the original tower. The
portcullis
northern groove running up to the current ceiling on the vice bulge is
apparent and shows that it too is probably fourteenth
century.
The southern wall which contained the opposite groove has now gone,
though traces of it's end remain where a deep alcove has been carved in
the corner. A fourteenth century loop looks blindly from here
into the sixteenth century extension of the gatehouse.
The second floor would appear to be a fourteenth century addition, made
when the original gate passageway was lowered by some 4'.
This
room is similar in shape to the irregular room below, but there were no
windows here in the original tower. The steep pitch of the
original tower roof can be made out in the grey sandstone of the west
wall. Above this are some probably fourteenth century roof
corbels and above this again, set on some long red sandstone slabs, is
the current roof. The north wall too has much grey stone
suggesting remnants of the original wall amidst much
rebuilding.
To the south is a doorway that probably originally gave access to the
wallwalk, before this was blocked and a new dog-legged access cut a
little further west.
Protruding into the ditch immediately in front of the inner gatehouse
is a half moon battery built by Stefan von Haschenperg in 1542.
The Keep
The foundation date of the keep is open to question. The idea
that King David
(d.1153) built the tower is based on the flimsiest of chronicle
references from the fourteenth century and as such should not be relied
upon. The main
tower is currently some 70' high and nearly square
at 60'x65' with walls up to 15' thick. Much of the lower sections of the tower to the
south
and west are directly overlooked by the later artillery placements of
the expanded curtain wall. Originally the keep was plainly
free
standing as the blocked window embrasures in the basement on all sides
prove. This may be similar to the original layout in the few
early keeps with lit basements, namely at Appleby,
Bamburgh, Brougham, Dover, Portchester, Rochester and
Scarborough.
At Carlisle a forebuilding stood to the east, but this was demolished
during the middle ages.
Externally the keep has pilaster buttresses at the corners as well as a
central one to the east, which contains chimney flues from fireplaces
on the first, second and third floors. There is also an off
centre buttress to the
north which seems to have been built further east to enclose the 70'
deep well, awkwardly placed in its east corner. That there
are no
central buttresses to the south and west might suggest that these
structures were mainly decorative and consequently were not needed on
the view obstructed curtain wall sides of the tower.
Conversely
these might simply have been included to support their internal
features, viz the flues and the well. It seems likely that
the
well predates the tower as it is dug in such an awkward position for
the defence of the tower, a more normal place being deep within the
tower, rather than partially outside its main walling. An
early
date is also suggested by the well lining being made of grey and not
red sandstone.
The base of the tower has a pronounced low batter topped by a chamfered
offset. This plinth is not uniform around the
tower. To the
south the batter is multi-stepped, before a half dozen or so vertical
courses topped by the chamfered offset. The west face has no
batter, while the east is largely covered by the sixteenth ramp up to
the battlements. What can be seen appears at the off-centre
buttress with 2 chamfered courses of offsets, separated by a half
course of red sandstone. The very corner of the end buttress
has
been damaged by the insertion of a gate to the ramp, but the same style
of offsets continue around the south face of the keep where the
forebuilding once was. On this face a sloping batter begins
some
5 courses beneath the lower chamfered offset. However this
ends
with the south face of the central buttress where a single chamfered
offset lies above a sloping plinth at a different level from the 2 to
the north. There are further chamfered offsets and first and
second floor levels. Presumably these are original features
and
are found in other northern keeps, viz Bamburgh
(where they oddly are on the walls, but not the corner pilaster
buttresses), Brough, Kendal and Norham, although Appleby, Lancaster and Lincoln have only a single
chamfered offset at first floor level.
The keep and forebuilding are built with a mixture of smaller grey
Kirklinton and larger red St Bees sandstones, which differs from what
appears to be the early work which tends to be solidly grey
sandstone. That the stones are intermixed and have much more
grey
in the lower storey than elsewhere, would suggest that this part of the
keep might have been built from an earlier destroyed structure of the
first castle. The keep contains many small, square, cut stones built in an ashlar style that appears at several other castles in the North. Despite that, the original keep features are
uniformly Romanesque. This can largely be seen in the
surviving
doorways and the windows on the western side. The northern
and
southern Romanesque windows seem to be reconstructed, while other types
are late insertions. At some point a north-south spine was
added
within the tower dividing it into east and west halves. This
was
not an original feature like the spine wall at Rochester which
allowed both halves of the structure defensible if one side fell to
mining.
The keep is currently entered via a ground floor opening protected by a
projecting portcullis with chamber above. This has been built
at
the same time as the adjoining buttress was rebuilt and the twin
chamfered offsets placed around them. High above the doorway
was
a panel which is said to have once contained the arms of Montagu and
Monthermer quarterly impaled with those of Neville. This
should
date the new entrance and rebuilding of the buttress to the earlier
part of the fifteenth century. The keep at Bamburgh is also set
in a peculiar buttress like this as are several church entrances,
namely Bradford on Avon church, Rock and Warkworth in Northumberland, as well as Berkeswell, Bromyard and Ifley in the Midlands. An oddity is the similar entrance to Upton Cressett
church in Shropshire, built in a similar buttresses, but here having an
odd portal and 1683 in a dating stone above the relieving arch.
On the ground floor all the walls have traces of the original deeply splayed, round headed
windows. The interior is
divided by a spine wall which divides it into east and west
chambers. The spine is not bonded to the south wall and is
divided from the north wall by another crosswall which makes a
passageway along the north side of the keep, its floor being 3' below
the outside ground level. The room was lit by a light, traces
of
whose embrasure can still be seen. South of this passage were
2
equally sized rooms running the rest of the length of the
tower.
The western room has been further subdivided into 2. Both
these
western rooms had single lights to the west, of which traces of their
embrasures can be seen. The southernmost room also had an
embrasure and no doubt a light to the south. The southern
embrasure still exists to the south in the longer eastern chamber,
although its Romanesque light has been reset. A further
blocked
embrasure lies just north of the corner in the east wall. The
light of this would have been directly under the doorway into the keep
at the level above. How this would have worked is unknown.
These
3 rooms were used for storage purposes and later as prison
cells.
That they are all insertions is also clear by the way their barrel
vaulted roofs overlie the blocked window embrasures.
From the current entrance into the keep a passageway ran southwards
from the entrance lobby via a flight of steps to the original first
floor entrance lobby. Originally this passageway was 6' wide,
but
was subsequently reduced to a mere 3' in width. Two modern
windows pierce the east wall to light the stairway.
Presumably
they postdate the destruction of the forebuilding. Oddly at
the
end of the passageway along the north wall of the keep is a vice which
rises from the basement to the second floor, but not the roof.
The original plain Romanesque entrance to the tower was at first floor
level and has removed the northern section of the southernmost eastern
corner buttress to accommodate its doorway. This led to a
lobby
which allowed access to the original mural steps to the basement and
the later basement level entrance. Proceeding through the
lobby
allowed access to a large reception chamber with a thirteenth or
fourteenth century fireplace in the east wall and a main light to the
south. To the north a doorway led to a small chamber from
which
the well was accessed. This was equipped with lifting gear
and a
second small mural chamber hacked into the thickness of the wall to the
west. This latter chamber has obliterated an earlier window
embrasure for the western main chamber. In the north-east
corner
was a doorway to the portcullis chamber of the basement entrance.
An off centre doorway allowed access from the main eastern chamber to
the western one. This room had no fireplace, but windows to
west,
south and the blocked one to the north. There was also some
mural
steps leading to the corner vice. In the south-west corner a
doorway led into a passage which was probably once a
garderobe.
Before the spine was inserted this was probably just one large
chamber. Access to the second floor is solely by the spiral
stair
in the north-west corner. This exited into the western room
of
the keep via a rough, dog-legged passageway at the top of the stairs
which has plainly been cut through the core of the original
wall.
This suggests that the original route to this floor may have been by an
internal staircase or possibly by a flight of mural stairs in the east
wall now running up from the spiral stair to a blocked mural
chamber. Possibly this mimicked the mural stair above between
the
second and third floors.
The second floor is similar to the floor below, but there are many more
mural chambers in the east and west walls. The long mural
chamber in
the southern half of the east wall would appear to have been an oratory
and if it was where King David prayed before his death in 1153 shows
that the keep was
standing to this level at that date. The room to the north
was
apparently a prison, both chambers being entered from the intervening
window embrasure. In the north-west wall was a small kitchen
with
a garderobe to the south. Originally this garderobe was
entered
via the central doorway, but at some point the start of this was
converted into the mural steps up to the next floor, while a hole was
knocked through wall to allow access to the garderobe, whose original
entrance was blocked by the new stairs. Traces remain of a
bricked up fireplace in the centre of the east wall. These
facilities suggest that this level was high class living accommodation.
As has been noted a new flight of stairs was hacked into the wall to
allow access to the third floor. This might well suggest that
originally the second and third floors were originally one, before
being modified. Probably the spiral stair in the north-west
corner originally continued to the summit of the tower and the
battlements. These modifications could be as early as the
late thirteenth or more likely as late as the sixteenth
century.
Certainly there is currently no further access to the battlements other
than the modern wooden staircase. This is atypical for a
Norman
tower keep.
Not surprisingly the third floor has been heavily rebuilt and this
leaves
it relatively featureless, although it has the familar 2 chambers
divided by the spine wall. The lack of mural chambers again
suggests that this floor is an addition to the original plan.
The
fireplace in the east wall is an obvious addition, while the
embrasures of the twin windows to north and south all appear modern
rather than medieval. That 2 relieving arches from the floor
below penetrate the floor here increases the suspicion that this floor
is a late insertion. However, to the west are some vents for
the
kitchen fireplace at this level. Similar vents can be seen at
Tretower castle,
South Wales. A steep wooden staircase leads up
to the current roof level. This has been cut down for
cannon.
The Outer Ward
The castle is entered from the city via a bridge which leads to the
large, sub
rectangular outer ward. This was 425' east to west by 400'
north
to
south, chamfering towards the east end where it met the inner ward.
The bulk of the outer ward contains older material, but most,
if
not all the walls have been substantially repaired and rebuilt.
The enceint contains 2 postern gates and a rectangular
tower to the west. Probably early sixteenth century batteries
were added to the south-west and north-west
angles.
The north curtain has a battered base and consists of a number of
straight sections running in a roughly east to west line. The
first 150' continue in line with the north curtain of the inner ward,
then it angles more directly westward and has a corbelled out turret
towards the summit. Changes in masonry style along the wall
are
quite marked and would repay a thorough examination to suggest dates
for various sections. Several short sections of wall curve
the
enceinte around the north-west corner and the artillery battery.
The west wall is about 410' long and again shows much
evidence of
having been built in different eras. Indeed the southern end
of
the wall may well be that part which was continually collapsing and
rebuilt in the mid fourteenth century. Set centrally in this
wall
is a projecting rectangular tower with an odd central pilaster buttress to
the west set atop a chamfered sloping plinth.
The southern wall running to the outer gatehouse is of a totally
different design to the other 2 walls and bears more than a passing
resemblance to the south wall of the inner ward. It is about
250'
long and has 7 pilaster buttresses set on a sloping plinth.
The
easternmost buttress is set hard against the outer gatehouse, showing
that this wall predating that tower.
Outer Gatehouse
The outer ward seems always to have had its main entrance on the south
side, close to the inner ward, indeed only separated from it by a great
moat, which was later drained. Entrance to the castle is
currently over the south ditch by means of a much altered stone
bridge. Eighteenth century prints show that the early bridge
was
protected at its southern end by a wooden drawbridge, though how great
the antiquity of this was is open to question. The current
lower
sections of the walls may well be early medieval.
The bridge led to a much altered gatehouse, known as Ireby's Tower
before 1257. This is rectangular, some 52' east to west and
45'
north to south with an earlier 36' square tower attached to its eastern
side on a slightly different alignment. It would appear that
the
layout of the gatehouse was much altered in the rebuilding of
1378-83. After this it was used as the residential quarters
of
the constable as well as an administrative and judicial centre for the
county. In plan the gatehouse complex aligns with neither the
attached east tower, nor the south-eastern curtain wall to the inner
ward or the older south-western curtain. Sandwiched between
the
early tower and the western portion of the gatehouse is the main gate
passageway. This is fronted by a one storey, gateless square
barbican. Within the barbican are corbels that once held its
wooden first floor and beyond this is the main gateway containing a
central portcullis before a gate. This portcullis was
apparently
operated from the roof above what was probably the constable's chamber
window, overlooking the entrance. Although this chamber was
later
used as a hall, it is quite possible that it was originally a chapel as
was normal practise to place one over any castle portcullis.
The
portcullis window itself has been much altered and enlarged during
rebuildings.
North of this portcullis and gate is the main gate passageway which has
doors leading to east and west (an insertion, although 2 earlier
blocked pointed doorways can be seen to the south and north of their
replacement) to the adjoining towers of different dates.
Another
gate closed the entrance into the ward. To the west of the
barbican, projecting from the curtain wall and forming an awkward angle
with it to the west, is a rectangular tower with external walls to
south and west 6' thick, but only 5' thick to the barbican to the east
and 4' thick to the internal north. The northern wall of this
structure aligns with the portcullis and is backed to the north by 2
chambers which form the basement of another rectangular tower 35' east
to west by 38' north to south inclusive of the north wall of the south
rectangular tower. This whole irregular structure, apart from
the
later barbican, appears to be of one build, despite the fact that the
south tower floor level was about 2' higher than those of the 2
chambers in the rear building. The rear of the gatehouse is
buttressed by 2 large buttresses to east and west, with the east one
being the larger of the 2. As the eastern buttress stands
against
the early square tower its purpose is obscure as it certainly makes the
rear of the gatehouse appear lopsided.
To the rear the structure is obviously of at least 3 phases.
The
mid section is made of well cut blocks and contains most of the much
later windows. Below this from just below first floor level
the
masonry is made of less well squared, shorter blocks, all made from the
fine local red St Bees sandstone, with no greys present. The
battlements and upper sections of the walls are all obviously
relatively recent. The only original opening would appear to
be a
small rectangular window lighting the lower portion of the mural stairs
to the north and another in the gate passageway. Finally
there
are the remains of a chamfered offset which goes with the older masonry
at ground level.
The mural stairs from the north door into the probable guard's chamber
leads to the floor above which is currently a single, large chamber
occupying the entire northern portion of this block. To the
south
are the projecting tower and cojoined barbican. The upper
floor
of this south tower was certainly later in use as a kitchen to serve
the hall to the north. However a kitchen in such an exposed
position in a fighting castle would be most unusual.
Presumably
then this conversion took place in the late 1370s. In
the central north window of the hall further mural stairs lead up to
the battlements.
The south front of the gatehouse runs coeval with the later barbican
and has several features of interest. At ground floor level
is a
single small, rectangular loop set roughly centrally in the tower and
just above the chamfered offset which matches that on the north side of
the gatehouse. This would appear to be original and offered
some
poor light into the barrel vaulted tower cellar or prison
below.
An inserted garderobe loop is also visible in the south end of the west
wall. The 2 blocked chimneys serving fireplaces in this wall
would appear to be post defensive, as such weakenings of the walls
should be on fronts not facing the enemy line of attack.
There
appears to be a garderobe passage in the northern part of the west
wall, while a chute exit suggests there was also once one forward of
the curtain wall in the curious chamfer between the rear and forward
rectangular towers of the structure. The ground floor chamber
was
originally entered from the gate passageway via a door and now
destroyed diagonal passage through the corner of the rear
chamber. The fact that entrance was originally denied from
the
rear chamber and was only available through the gate passageway would
suggest that lower chamber was indeed a dungeon separated from the rest
of the castle.
At first floor level are the remnants of what appears to be a
projecting turret which would have commanded the front of the gatehouse
and the entrance gate in the barbican. Only 2 corbels and the
base stone they supported remain. Above is an obviously
inserted
rectangular window, while blocked smaller windows existed above and to
the west of this. Presumably the inserted window occupies the
site of the original entrance into the turret. Alternatively
this
could be the remnants of a hanging garderobe which has a new base in
place of the original chute.
East Gatetower
The eastern square tower is more solidly built than the gatehouse
proper, with walls 7' thick and apparently originally of 3
storeys. Its positioning may well be relevant to the early
castle, standing as it does exactly half way between the eastern and
western extremes of the south curtain walls (inner and outer
wards). As such the tower may possibly be part of the
original
defences before the great tower and inner ward were built. It
also appears possible that the keep and east tower are on similar
alignments, although their southern faces are on different
latitudes. It is also apparent that the ground floor of the
tower
is under current ground level and therefore may date to a period before
the rampart was built and the interior level of the wards raised.
As such the 30' square tower with 6' thick walls may have
been an
early keep
similar to that at Clun
or Manorbier.
In the north wall was a mural stair running upwards from the ground
floor. The internal doorway into this has been modified to
make
allowance for the insertion of the current doorway to the gate
passageway which cut through the north-west corner of the
tower.
The only surviving original feature of the tower, other than the mural
stairway, would appear to be a blocked, small Romanesque window to the
east at probably second floor level. This has a single, large
monolithic lintel with the window arch cut into it.
Internally
its embrasure has been utilised as a later fireplace. In
style
the window looks more Saxon than Norman. Another window has
been
partially blocked and is cut into by the recent doorway into the tower
from the north.
The original tower would seem to have been built of larger, well
coursed red sandstone blocks, although the lower part of the east wall
has smaller blocks, well worn and less evenly coursed. The
south
front of the tower has quite clearly been refaced where the south-east
curtain has been cut into it, although the original facing survives
behind the wall at what was possibly originally second floor
level. Internally at this level there are more modern windows
to
north, south and west (partially blocked), while a spiral stair has
been added from the first floor in the north-east corner. The
doorway for this contained a reused third century Roman
altar.
This stair was accessed externally by a now blocked doorway some 9'
above current ground level, set in the corner of the east
wall.
Inside the chamber a later doorway to the west leads to the main
gatehouse and a doorway off this to the south leads to the battlements
of the barbican. The south window embrasure also leads to a
mural
garderobe passage that also exits onto the south-east curtain
wallwalk. At the west end of the south wall of the chamber at
this level is a blocked, apparently early fireplace. A
passageway
off the northern embrasure once led to the hall in an awkwardly aligned
passageway. Obviously this is a later feature cut through the
wall of the early tower. It is thought that this upper room
was
the fourteenth century exchequer. The floor levels of the
tower
have been altered with the various refashionings, maybe more than once.
In Bitts Park to the north of the castle there is a low earthwork at
the foot of the bluff on which the castle stands. Here were
located massive outworks built by Haschenperg in 1542.
Copyright©2021
Paul Martin Remfry