ARUNDEL, in its position, magnitude, and history, is one of the foremost of the mediÆval military structures of England. English in its origin, Norman by adoption, it is not only among the rare castles recorded in Domesday, but is the only one therein specifically mentioned as in existence before the coming in of Duke William. It was held by Alfred and by Harold, and was granted with its surrounding and dependent lordships by William to the head of the great house of Montgomery as an acknowledgment of kinship, and a fitting reward for his distinguished services at Hastings. Three members and two generations of that family held the castle for about thirty-two years. They were followed by Henry I. and his Queen, who held it for half a century, and it has since descended in succession by the lines of D’Albini, Fitz-Alan, and Howard, through seven centuries of inheritance, to its present lord. Though less extensive in area, it is equal to Windsor in antiquity and position, and resembles it closely in type, having an upper and lower ward, and a lofty mound partially interposed between the two, girdled by a deep fosse and crowned by a circular keep. Within its precinct is the Chapel of St. George, and far beyond the walls, but in one direction only, extends its broad demesne. Just beyond the wall of the Norman castle, but probably within the earlier English outwork, stands the fine parish church, a Fitz-Alan gift, and attached to its east end is the chapel of the college founded by Richard, Earl of Arundel, in 1386, and now, by a grant or purchase in the reign of Edward VI., vested in the descendants of its founder, and the private property of the lord of the castle. The buildings of the college are mostly removed, and the chapel contains many tombs of great magnificence and considerable historic interest, beneath which rest the remains of many members of the great house of Fitz-Alan, who loved full well and gave full largely to that church to which their Howard descendant has shown himself a not less liberal benefactor.

The Arun, a principal river of the south, has its sources in Surrey. It traverses the whole breadth, here about twenty miles, of the county of Sussex, and in its passage to the sea cleaves the southern ridge of the chalk by a very striking ravine or dell, which, with the river, gives name to the castle and the town, as well as to the Rape of Arundel, within which they stand. The castle is placed upon a bold bluff of chalk, which rises on the right or western bank of the river, here flowing in easy curves across a broad tract of low and level land, which intervenes between the downs and the sea, from which the castle is distant about four miles. Upon and at the foot of the slope has sprung up the town, which for centuries paid allegiance to the castle and received from it protection and support. Six miles westward of the Arun is Bognor, rich in Roman remains, and as far to the east is the mouth of the Adur, where Shoreham contests with Portsmouth the representation of the ancient Portus Adurni. A few miles north of the castle, Staneway marks the line of the old Roman road between Chichester and London. Various villages, the names of which show their English origin, are thickly posted along the lower course of the Arun; but the name of the river may be British, as are no doubt the hill camps here and there scattered over the downs. The Rape is supposed to be a Jutish division. It includes five Hundreds, and was formerly nearly all forest. The courts were held beneath an oak-tree at Madehurst.

The bluff occupied by the castle is the end of a ridge of high ground, which is specially steep towards the east and south, and ascends to still higher land towards the north and west. In this direction lies the park, which covers about 1,100 acres, and includes, between two ridges of the chalk, a deep valley, in the lower part of which, just below the castle, is the lake called Swanbourne, the pool from a very remote period for the use of the mill.

The history of Arundel has been written by Dallaway in his Western Sussex, and by Tierney in a specific work. Whatever may be the value of either production for the history and descent of the lordship, neither gives a full plan of the earthworks of the castle, nor enters at all scientifically into its details from either the military or architectural point of view. Unfortunately, the proximity of the castle to Brighton and some lesser watering-places has caused the exclusion of visitors, save under restrictions so very narrow that it is impracticable to examine the works at all in detail. It appears from Tierney’s history that the castle is protected towards the north or open country by a double line of defence, composed of a bank and ditch, of which the outer includes the present as well as the older park, and is, in places, at least two miles from the castle. The inner line is of much smaller extent, but the two seem intended to protect the town and the port, as well as the site of the castle, and to be rather lines of defence than the remains of a camp, whether British or English. Within both of these, and probably of later date, are the earthworks upon a part of which the Norman castle was founded. These resemble the works common to England with Normandy, and may probably be attributed to the Northern invaders in the eighth or ninth centuries. The high ground is occupied by an oblong inclosure, of which more or less of the original earthbank remains, and outside of which to the south and east was the natural steep, and to the west a natural hollow, deepened and extended round the north front by art. The inclosure is in length 317 yards, and in breadth 83 yards, and includes about 5½ acres. Near the centre of the western side, and forming a part of the enceinte, is a large circular mound, almost wholly artificial, having its proper ditch, which on the outer face is also the ditch of the general enceinte. The mound is about 90 feet diameter at its table summit, and about 230 feet at its base. As the ground rises towards the north, the height is on that side about 50 feet, and on the opposite side about 70 feet from the bottom of the ditch. The Windsor mound is about the same height, but rather larger, being 125 feet across, at its summit. By its projection this work materially narrows the main area, and with the addition of a short cross-ditch, bank, and wall, now gone, divided it into an upper or northern and lower or southern ward, in the latter of which are the domestic buildings. These two wards were the parts of the earlier fortification taken possession of by the builder of the Norman castle, but there is also an inclosure opposite to the mound, and outside the ditch, which runs up to a narrow end towards the north-west. Whether this was fortified with masonry is uncertain, but it certainly was a part of the earlier fortress, and shows its extent and importance. The ditches everywhere being in the chalk, and at a high level, were no doubt always dry. Earl Roger, probably, found along the crest of these earthbanks the same sort of defences that he left behind him, on similar banks and mounds, at his paternal castle in Normandy; but whether these were of timber or of masonry is uncertain. They might very well have been of either. It is, however, certain that the earl, or his immediate successors, inclosed the main area within a curtain of masonry, which ran up the mound and placed half of it, as at Lincoln and Tonbridge, outside the inclosure. Upon this curtain, a little south of the mound, was placed the gatehouse, and along it at various points were mural towers, probably square, of which one, on the curtain north of the mound, and known as Bevis Tower, still remains, though more or less altered. The domestic buildings were then, as now, along the sides of the lower ward, and upon the mound was placed a shell keep.

As the public are only permitted to inspect the lower part of the gatehouse, the adjacent curtain, and the interior of the keep, it is impossible to form a correct opinion as to the extent of the original earthworks, or as to the age of the general curtain, or the basement of the domestic buildings, parts of which are said to be of Norman date. That the earthworks were extensive, and in part remain, may be seen from the summit of the keep, and from the upper gate of the park. Dallaway gives a large, but not quite correct, plan of the keep and its mound, the gatehouse and Bevis Tower, and the lower ward; but his plan does not include the higher ward nor the earthworks, nor is it accompanied by any sections. Dallaway and Tierney were not strong in architectural details.

The Gatehouse stands on the line of the curtain, projecting inwards from it, and upon the southern edge or counterscarp of the ditch of the mound. It opens into the lower ward. It is of the early Norman type, resembling that at Tickhill. It is a square of 32 feet, having in the outer and inner faces a large round-headed doorway, quite plain, without even a chamfer, and with a plain sloped abacus. The chamber is, of course, square, and but little broader than the doorways. That towards the ward seems to have been closed by a pair of doors only. The other or outer doorway has a broad portcullis groove, which may or may not be original; more probably not. The covering—the floor of the upper room—was no doubt of timber, and flat. The present vaulting is an insertion. There was always an upper floor, but this has been much altered, chiefly in the Decorated period. The old loops, now blocked, may be traced. Some of the inserted windows are very late. In the south part of the inner doorway was a door opening into a mural stair leading to the upper floor and to the rampart-walk of the curtain, which seems to have been continued through the gatehouse, over the outer portal. The present staircase is exterior, and modern. This is the whole of the original gatehouse, which, with the adjacent and very thick curtain, is probably the work of Earl Roger.

The gatehouse has been extended outwardly in the Decorated period. There is appended to it a crooked passage about 10 feet broad and 40 feet long, between thick lateral walls. In its sides are shoulder-headed doorways, which led into lodges and cells, and on the south side is a well-staircase, ascending to the roof. The passage is covered by a very flat-pointed vault. It ends in an outer doorway having a drop arch, and opening between a pair of flanking towers, 20 feet square, rising out of the ditch. These have sub-basement chambers in the ditch, basements at the ground level, and two upper floors. In the doorway is a very broad portcullis groove for a timber frame, and in front was a drawbridge, now replaced by an arch of masonry. This addition to the Norman gatehouse, making with it a very long covered entrance-passage, is attributed to Earl Richard Fitz-Alan, on his return from the wars of Edward I. In very modern times the floor of the passage has been lowered about 3 feet, and the walls underpinned by a plinth. The doors which are not in use have been left unaltered, and show the original level of the sill. Probably the approach to this entrance lay through an outer gate to the north-west, at the upper part of the town, and across the large outwork, now a garden and a carpenter’s yard.

The Keep is a rounded shell of masonry, about 67 feet by 59 feet in the internal cross diameter, and with walls, 8 feet to 10 feet thick, and 20 feet high to the rampart-walk. It is built of rubble masonry, the material chiefly Sussex stone and chalk, but faced outside with small ashlar blocks of Caen stone, close jointed, and with flat pilasters which die into the wall below the base of the parapet. The entrance was by a rather large full-centred doorway to the south-east, probably reached, as at Tickhill and Lincoln, by a flight of steps up the mound, with a timber bridge at their base, as at York. This doorway is not shown to visitors, but Tierney’s drawing represents it as having a bold chevron moulding alternating with rolls or rounds, common to the head and the jambs, and unbroken by imposts. Within, it opened into a recess, also full centred, and having its angle replaced by a bold roll. This, as at Lincoln, was the original entrance, and it seems, though walled up, not to have been otherwise altered. Near this doorway a well-stair has been formed in the wall, ascending from the ground to the ramparts. It is evidently a Decorated insertion, of the same date with a steep flight of steps and a vaulted subterraneous chamber near the centre of the area, probably a cellar belonging to the lodgings which, as at Windsor, were at one time built against the wall all round, leaving a small open court, as at Tamworth and Ledes, in the centre. That there were here such lodgings is evident from the roof corbels in the wall, and that they, as at York, had an upper floor, is shown by a late fireplace, which marks the upper level, and the back of which is formed of tiles set on edge. The parapet was about 8 feet high, and crenellated, and in each merlon was a loop, set in an arched recess. In one merlon is a small full-centred recess, evidently a garderobe. The present parapet seems a Decorated addition. The keep stands, as does the mound, on the line of the main curtain, which crosses the ditch from the gatehouse, and ascends the mound, and has a similar continuation northwards. Where the south curtain abuts upon the keep, there stands a broad irregular tower, of about 20 feet in projection by 50 feet in breadth. This contains the well and its chamber, the entrance from the curtain rampart, and an oratory. The entrance is by a vaulted passage, with a portcullis groove at the ground level of the keep. The curtain has a parapet on either face, forming a covered way, and is commanded by a sort of balcony connected with the keep. The well is of unusually large diameter, but not in use. The chamber was at the surface level of the keep, into which it opened by a full-centred doorway. There was also an upper chamber, now ruined. This position of the well, on the outside of the keep, is found elsewhere. At Wallingford it is on the slope, and at Cardiff nearly at the foot of it. The oratory, or chapel of St. Martin, is a small chamber of irregular plan at the first-floor level, and is placed over the entrance passage. It has a large east window, altered at two periods, and two smaller lateral windows, all now closed up. The roof was of timber, and is gone. This oratory had a special endowment, afterwards shifted and expanded in favour of the large chapel in the lower ward. The details of this appendage show that, as at York and Cardiff, it was an addition to the original shell, the ashlar face of which is seen within one of the lower chambers. At Cardiff the added tower was Perpendicular; at York, where it included a small chapel, Early English. Here the addition seems Early Decorated. The chapel is probably the St. Martin’s mentioned in Domesday, and in the Patent Rolls of 1275, and was, of course, dismantled when the endowment was shifted in 1375. The keep is mentioned at different periods as Beaumont, Hautmont, and Grosmont, all names preserving its chief characteristic.

As the English “Aula” was probably on this mound, while the ashlar exterior of its present wall is unquestionably later than the Conquest, it has been supposed that the heart of the wall is original, and that it was cased by the Norman architect. Of such casing there is, however, no appearance. The entrance from the curtain seems to have been cut through the wall, which has been thought there to show traces of early masonry. The wall, however, appears all of one date, and that probably late Norman, as is usual with shell keeps.

Bevis Tower stands upon the curtain and projects from its outer face only. It stands on the north counterscarp of the ditch of the mound, about 42 yards from the keep. It is square, and said to be, in substance, of the age of the gatehouse, but it is not allowed to be seen close. It is called a barbican, but its position scarcely justifies its having been so intended. It looks more like an ordinary mural tower. There is no communication from the keep with the curtain on this side. North of this tower the earthworks of the upper ward seem tolerably perfect, but a request to be allowed to visit them was evidently regarded as a sort of treason.

Besides the well attached to the keep was a second, now covered up, in the middle of the lower ward. The habitable part of the castle is mostly or entirely Howard work. Edward, the ninth duke, was a great builder. He rebuilt Worksop, which was burned soon afterwards, in 1761, and he founded Norfolk House in St. James’s Square. What he did here does not appear. The present domestic buildings which line the lower ward to the east, south, and west sides are, in substance, the work of Duke Charles towards the close of the last century, or 1791–1806, and have since been added to. They are what might be expected from the period, and better than the rather earlier work at Alnwick, lately removed. It is said that in the cellars, and built into the outer walls, are parts of the earlier structure, some of Norman date. The hall stood on the east curtain. It had a good Early English door, destroyed in the present century. The hall itself was ruined during the siege of 1643. The present grand entrance to the ward, to the south of the original one, is entirely modern, as are the approach to it and the outer gateway. So also is the Chapel of St. George, which stands along the west wall. The chapel which preceded it, and was taken down in 1796, was 40 feet long by 22 feet broad, and was endowed by Richard, Earl of Arundel, in 1375, with spoils derived from Crecy. The domestic buildings are said to have been augmented at the same time by wealth from the same source. The ecclesiastical endowment, shifted from the oratory of St. Martin to the Chapel of St. George in 1375, was, after about a century, again shifted to the Fitz-Alan Collegiate Church, without the walls.

Arundel is a castle where, if anywhere, traces of English masonry earlier than the Norman Conquest might be expected to be preserved, and no doubt it is just possible that such may be found about the foundations of the Norman walls. What is mainly remarkable about it is the resemblance to Windsor in its general plan; the oblong inclosure encroached upon from one side by the mound and its ditch, so as to divide it into two wards, in one of which are domestic buildings. The older part of the gatehouse, and parts of the curtain near it, may be regarded as Early Norman, the work probably of Earl Roger. The keep seems later, though also Norman. The additions to the gatehouse, the well-tower, and the oratory are probably Decorated. What is wanted is a correct ground-plan, which should include the outworks and the more distant earthworks. The older walls should be critically examined, and especially the basement of the domestic buildings.

HISTORY.

The Manor of Arundel, with others in this immediate neighbourhood, was given by Alfred, by will (885), to his brother’s son. It was held by Harold, and afterwards by William, who about or before 1070 granted to Roger de Montgomery the castle and honour of Arundel, with 84½ knights’ fees. Roger, who was of kin to the Conqueror, and commanded the Norman centre at Hastings, became Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury, and held the Castle about twenty-three years, till his death. Domesday describes the Castle of Harundel as having, in the time of King Edward, paid annually for the mill, 40s.; for three “convivia,” or entertainments, 20s.; and “pro uno pasticio,” or pasty, 20s. There was also the church of St. Nicholas, or the parish church, and St. Martin’s, probably the chapel of the castle. There was also another mill which paid ten bushels of corn. The burgh, port, and shipping paid £12 or more.

It is curious that Arundel, Chichester, Shrewsbury, and the Norman Manor whence Roger derived his territorial designation, each possessed a mound. On William’s death in 1088, Earl Roger gave his support to Robert Curthose, whom he invited to land at Arundel. The Prince’s sluggishness alienated his English followers, and the Earl tendered his aid to Rufus. At Earl Roger’s death, in 1094, he bequeathed his Sussex earldom, called also “of Chichester,” to his younger son Hugh, the Hugh Goch of the Welsh, who held both Arundel and Shrewsbury, stood in opposition to William Rufus, and was slain while repelling pirates from the north Welsh coast in 1098. His successor in the English earldom was his eldest brother, who already held the family lordships in Normandy. This was Robert, Earl of Belesme in la Perche, who received at Arundel William Rufus on his arrival from Normandy in 1097.

Earl Robert, the wicked son of a wicked mother, was a bold soldier, and an able, though a very cruel man. He built with great rapidity the strong castle of Brugge or Bridgenorth, and that of Montgomery, called by the Welsh Tre-faldwin, from Baldwin, its early seneschal. His career in England was violent and short. Bridgenorth was besieged and taken by Henry I., who brought the wooden turret known as a malvoisin to bear upon its walls. The Earl went into exile in 1102, and died in 1118.

King Henry held Arundel till his death, when it passed in settlement to his widow, Adeliza, daughter of Godfrey of Louvaine, Duke of Brabant. The Queen Dowager married William d’Albini, a Norfolk noble, known to chroniclers as “William with the strong hand,” the royal dapifer. They received the Empress Maud at Arundel on her landing in 1139, with her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, and in consequence had to stand an attack from Stephen, to whom, it is said, Adeliza pleaded with success the duties of hospitality, and Maud was allowed to retire to Bristol. D’Albini, however, was, on the whole, a supporter of Stephen, though with great judgment. He advised the accord between Stephen and Henry in 1153, and signed the compact as “Earl of Chichester.” Henry, on his accession, acknowledged the service by a grant of the earldom of Arundel in fee with the third penny of the county of Sussex. Earl William died in 1176. By Adeliza, who died in 1151, he left a son, also William, the first of four generations of D’Albinis, and of five persons who held the earldom of Arundel, or, as they called it, of Sussex. They were buried at Wymondham, their own foundation. Earl Hugh, the eighth from the Conquest, died childless in 1243. Isabel, his sister, carried on the succession, and married John Fitz-Alan, whose son, on his uncle’s death, succeeded.

This John, head of the great house of Fitz-Alan, Lords of Clun and Oswaldestre, became the ninth earl, and died 1240. He was the first of fourteen earls of the name who held the castle for twelve generations. Of these, the elder line died out in the person of Thomas, fifteenth earl, who died childless in 1415; but the succession was continued by his cousin, Henry Fitz-Alan Lord Maltravers, who died 1580, leaving an heiress, Mary, who married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The later Fitz-Alans lived much at Arundel, with which place they became closely identified.

Duchess Mary died 1557, and her husband in 1572. Their son, Philip, became twenty-second earl, since when there have been in all ten generations of Howards who have held the title of Arundel, the present Duke of Norfolk being the thirty-fifth Norman earl, and the thirty-second by descent from Queen Adeliza and William d’Albini.

The castle of Arundel has not played any very important part in English history. Its most famous event is the siege of 1643, when it was besieged by Sir William Waller, who first attacked and took the town, then defended by walls, and finally battered the castle from the tower of the church, where he posted his guns. The siege lasted from the 20th December, 1643, to the 6th of January following, when the place surrendered, and with it the celebrated Chillingworth, who died shortly after. The domestic buildings were then ruined, and seem so to have remained until the last century.

The town was walled round by Richard Fitz-Alan, who had a licence for that work in 1295. There were two gates, one below and on the river, the other called St. Mary’s, at the top of the town. The town wall seems to have abutted upon the castle, which thus formed a part of its defence.

The present duke has built just outside the castle, and not far from the parish church, a large church dedicated to San Filippo Neri, a very noble structure, and fitted up with great simplicity and excellent taste. Unfortunately, it is so placed as to detract materially from the general aspect of the castle from the plain below. Placed a little lower down, it would have left the castle as the predominant figure, permitted the fine old parish church to hold its due place, and have supported and elevated, instead of somewhat oppressing, the whole group.