ON the left bank of the Ouse, about 50 yards from the stream, within, but upon the eastern edge of, the town, is to be found all that remains of the once-celebrated and very strong castle of Bedford. These remains, though scanty and confined, or nearly so, to earthworks, are very marked and of a durable character, and, although the fame of the castle rests upon its adventures as a Norman fortress, there is reason to suppose that it had an earlier history, and that most of its present relics belong to that earlier and Saxon period.

The principal work is a motte or mound of earth, wholly artificial, placed upon the gravelly plain across which the Ouse winds its way down the broad band of the middle oolite. This mound is circular, now about 15 feet high and 150 feet in diameter at its summit, which is perfectly level, and has for above half a century been employed as a bowling-green. The slopes are uniform and moderately steep, and planted with trees and shrubs. On the north side, or that farthest from the river, an excavation has been made for an ice-house; but this is of modern date, and does not appear to have laid open any traces of masonry below the surface of the ground.

Towards the river, and westwards towards the town bridge about a furlong above the castle, the ground is perfectly flat, and under cultivation as a garden; but, on the north and north-east it is rather higher, and here are traces of a ditch at the foot of, and concentric with, the mound, and no doubt a part of its defence upon this its weaker side.

The only masonry that can possibly be old is a small rectangular mass on the south side of the mound, and which now carries a modern summer-house. The ragstone of the country, of which this fragment is comprised, weathers so rapidly that it is difficult to form an opinion upon its age; but, though possibly old, it may be of recent date.

Looking to the position of the mound as regards the river, and to the low and flat character of the ground about it, it is evident that the great strength of the place must have been derived from the Ouse, here deep and broad, and from banks of earth and ditches filled from and communicating with the river. The entire absence of masonry and the disappearance of all but a trace of the surrounding banks and ditches, commemorated in the Chronicles as once so high and deep, are fully accounted for by the circumstances recorded of the famous siege by Henry III.

Bedicanford, or Bedford, was well known to the Saxons, and a town probably of Saxon origin. Here, just outside the town, was buried in 796 the Saxon Offa, king of Mercia, in a chapel long since swept away by the flood waters of the Ouse. Early in the tenth century the town was attacked by a party of Danish settlers from the five burghs, who were beaten off by the townspeople, and shortly afterwards Edward the elder repaired the place, and erected what some call the suburb of Mikesgate, and some a strong place, on the southern side of the river, possibly a cover for the “ford,” which contributed towards the name of the town. Bedford was, without doubt, an important town under the Saxons, and, as at Tamworth, Leicester, Wareham, and Wallingford, had a citadel at one angle of the enclosure, upon the river.

The Barony, also called the Honour, of Bedford, was conferred by William Rufus upon Payn, second son, but eventual heir of Hugh Beauchamp, a companion of the Conqueror, and possibly allied to the greater family of that name, who afterwards held the earldom of Warwick. Hugh was the recipient of many manors in Buckingham, and about twenty in Bedfordshire. Payn is the reputed builder of the Norman castle, described as of great strength, with ditches and ramparts of earth, and which descended to his son Simon, steward to King Stephen. The family, however, afterwards took part against the king, who seems to have attempted to settle the fief upon the daughter of the eldest brother, married to Hugh, surnamed “Pauper,” brother to the Earl of Leicester. Milo de Beauchamp held the castle against King Stephen in 1137. The siege lasted five weeks, and was pressed with great energy. It was finally taken by starvation. The author of the “Gesta Stephani” describes the castle as having strong earthworks, “editissimo aggere vallatum.”

Simon de Beauchamp held the castle through the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I., until his death, about the 8th of John. It appears from the red book of the Exchequer that he held 36 and 5–10ths knight fees of the old feoffment, and 8 fees of the new, all in the barony of Bedford. In his time the castle seems to have been held against Henry II. since in the second year of that king, 1155–6, those burgesses of Bedford who were in the castle against the king were fined twenty marks, of which sum they rendered account in 1157–8. In 1190 Simon fined £100 for the governorship of the castle.

William, son and successor of Simon, is described as lord of the strong castle of Bedford, the “caput” of the Honour. He took part with the rebel barons towards the close of John’s reign, and in 1215 admitted their forces into his castle. In consequence it was attacked by the well-known Falk de BreautÉ, and, not being relieved, was surrendered in November, after a seven days’ siege. John was himself present at Bedford thrice in that year, in all for eight days. He granted the confiscated Honour to Falk.

Falk strengthened and held the castle into the reign of Henry III., and thence ravaged the country below the Chilterns. At first a supporter of the young king, he afterwards resisted his authority, and, at the instance of his oppressed neighbours, Henry de Braibroc was sent to Dunstable in 8th Henry III., 1224, to try their complaints, when thirty verdicts were found against the baron, and fines imposed of £100 under each of them. In revenge, Falk kidnapped the judge and lodged him a prisoner in Bedford Castle, treating him with much indignity. His wife complained to the Parliament then at Northampton, and the king ordered him to give up the judge, but in vain. Henry was probably glad of the opportunity of crushing a very turbulent subject, and appears to have lost no time in punishing the affront. In June, 1224, commenced a series of orders, issued by the king himself, and which show the greatness of his preparations for a siege, and the vigour with which he pushed them forward. On the 22nd of June, Henry was at Bedford in person, and there remained during the siege until the 19th of August, nearly two months. The preparations were both extensive and minute, and the mandates, always described as pressing, were issued to a vast number of sheriffs and other persons as far south and west as Corfe Castle and St. Briavels. They require men, money, arrears of scutage, cord, cable, iron, steel, hides, leather for slings, twine for strings, mangonels, petraries, balistÆ, quarrells, stone shot, quarrymen, masons, miners, carpenters, saddlers, wagons for conveying the royal pavilions, and almonds, spice, and ginger for the royal still-room. All the smiths in Northampton who can forge quarrell bolts, or feather them when forged, are to work day and night until 4,000 are ready and despatched. Large quantities of wine from the royal stores in London, at Northampton, and elsewhere, are to be forwarded with speed to Bedford. Knights performing castle guard at Lancaster are ordered up: greyhounds are sent for for sport. The sheriff of Bedfordshire is to supply quarrymen and masons with their levers, hammers, mauls, and wedges, and everything necessary for the preparation of stone shot for the mangonels and petraries. Miners come from St. Briavels, in the Forest of Dean. Windsor supplies its master-carpenter and his mates. Cambridge sends cord and cable. Charcoal comes with the iron and steel from Gloucester, and the adjacent abbey of Newenham spares a large quantity of raw stone to be converted into shot.

The details of the material supplied are recorded in the close rolls of the period. The particulars of the siege itself have been preserved by the neighbouring monks of Dunstable, from whose town, and probably from whose monastery, the judge had been taken, and whose fellow-townsmen played an important part in the siege. The king brought with him the Archbishop of Canterbury and divers bishops and abbots, by whose interest was granted to him two men from every hyde of their church lands to work the siege engines; an aid of “carucage” or a mark from each caruca or plough land of demesne, and 2s. from each held in tenancy, gifts which were guarded against being drawn into a precedent by special charter from the king.

Falk left his brother to abide the attack, and sought aid on the lands of the Earl of Chester, Ranulph Blundeville. The earl, however, was with the king, together with Peter de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, William de Cantelupe, Brian de l’Isle, and Peter de Maulay. All were suspected of disaffection, and in consequence the earl and the bishop left the camp, although the earl was afterwards brought by the Bishop of Chester to his duty. Falk remained at Northampton until he fled to Wales.

The siege operations included on the east front a petrary and two mangonels, which daily battered the opposite tower; on the west front, two mangonels bore upon the old tower; on the north and south fronts were two mangonels, one on each, and each breached its opposing wall. The operations of these seven pieces of ordnance were materially aided by two large wooden turrets, tall enough to command the whole castle, and supported by other smaller turrets, all charged with archers and crossbow-men. There was also the timber covered-way, known as a cat, by the aid of which miners were able to undermine the wall, while the bowmen cleared the battlements above. These works were thickly covered with hides, rendering them proof against fire; and the slingers, of whom there were many, probably kept up a general and incessant shower of pebbles upon all who dared to show themselves on the ramparts.

The works were stormed by four vigorous assaults. First the barbican was taken, with a loss of four or five of the assailants. Then entrance was effected into the outer ward. This was the work of the men of Dunstable, and was attended with severe loss. In this ward were stored most of the munitions of the place,—arms, horses and harness, cattle, bacon and live hogs. Much forage was here burned, with the houses and sheds in the ward.

The miners next underworked the wall next the old tower, which wall fell. The resistance here appears to have been obstinate, many lives were lost upon the breach, and ten of the most forward assailants were taken and carried into the interior of the place.

Finally, on the vigil of the Assumption, 14th August, about the hour of vespers, the miners having undermined the foundations of the old tower, fired the props. The walls split, the smoke rose, and, the place being no longer tenable, the garrison hoisted the royal banner, and surrendered, sending out De Braibroc with the wife of Falk, and the other women. Next morning the king took possession. William de BreautÉ and the garrison were put upon their trial, and he and about eighty of his men were hanged out of hand. Three were allowed to join the Templars in Palestine, and the castle chaplain was delivered over to the archbishop as the spiritual power. It appears from the records that the remainder of the garrison escaped with fines and confiscations. The spoil was considerable, in treasure, provisions, and munitions of war. Henry left for Kemeston (Kempston) on the 18th, but was again at Bedford on the 19th, and at Dunstable on the 26th of August. Even when flushed by success he seems not to have been severe upon those not actually implicated. Alice, widow of the executed William de BreautÉ, was allowed her dower-lands in Bedford and Cumberland. On the 19th and on the 22nd, Margaret, wife of Falk, was allowed for her subsistence the manors of Heyford and Sabridgeworth. Gilbert de BreautÉ also was allowed a manor; and Falk, the author of all the mischief, had twenty marks allowed for his personal expenses on his way to exile.

Immediately upon the surrender, Henry broke up the siege establishment. Nine hundred quarrels, the residue of the 4,000, were returned to Northampton, and the sheriff of Beds is debited with the remaining iron, charcoal, &c., collected for the siege operations. The mangonels and heavy artillery were to be taken to pieces and returned to Northampton Castle. Various payments were also made and rewards given, chiefly out of the confiscated De BreautÉ lands. John de Standon, the king’s miner from the Forest of Dean, had land granted him under St. Briavels.

The castle itself was far too strong and too dangerous to be spared, and the orders for its destruction are very sweeping and specific. By an order of the 20th of August, five days after the surrender, the sheriff is ordered to level the banks, fill up the ditches, and make plane the surface of the outer ward. He is to reduce the mote or mound, and the walls of the inner ward by one-half their height, and to level three-fourths of the old tower towards St. Paul’s, that is on the north-west. The stones are to be divided between William de Beauchamp for his proposed house, the church of St. Paul, Bedford, and the priories of Caldwell and Newenham; but the last is to have the larger share, because it supplied stones for shot for the siege.

Five days later came out another order enforcing the former, and directing Henry de Braibroc and William de Pateshull to see to its prompt and accurate execution. It was also specified that William de Beauchamp might, if he pleased, build a dwelling-house on the site, and use the reduced wall of the inner ward, but he was not to raise the mound or the wall above a certain height, or to embattle it. He might only erect it. Braibroc is to see the stone from both walls and mound distributed as directed. September 16th, the sheriffs of Herts, Cambridge, and Hunts were ordered to send men to aid Braibroc and Pateshull in the work of destruction, and they are to take tools with them, and stay until the mound is lowered and the ditches filled up as ordered. Beauchamp was further allowed half the timber from the barn and the old tower.

Thus passed away the strength and glory of the castle of Bedford, the great fortress of the Ouse. Whether William de Beauchamp built upon its site does not appear. He died 44 Hen. III., and within a very few years his name was extinct and his barony divided.

The castle, or its site, probably as the seat of a manor court, is named from time to time in the Inquisitiones post Mortem. Thus, 5 Ed. II., Roger L’Estrange, by Margaret his wife, was seized of “the Castle” and the “site of the Castle” of Bedford; 1 Ed. III., John de Mowbray was seized of the site of Bedford Castle and the fishery of the Ouse; and 40 Ed. III., another John had suit of court in the castle of Bedford; and 50 Ed. III., Elizabeth, wife of John Mowbray, holds of the same castle. Also, 6 Rich. II., another John Mowbray is seized of Bedford Castle and Bedford Barony; and, finally, 8 Hen. IV., Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshall, holds Bedford Castle in chief, by the service of almoner to the king at his coronation; so that the tenures and privileges attached to the castle remained in force long after the fortress itself had been razed. In Leland’s time, the castle mill,—that great evidence of feudal customs,—remained; and he also mentions the “great round hill” as a burrow for foxes. There were not then any buildings.

It is evident from present appearance that the mandate of Henry III. was strictly obeyed. No trace of a ditch is to be seen between the mound and the river, and the mound itself is so much lower than is usual with works of that diameter as to make it probable that at least one half has been removed and employed in filling up the ditches.

It is not easy to gather from the account of the siege a clear idea of the disposition of the parts of the castle. There were two wards, and the outer, judging from its contents, must have been of considerable area. It probably included the inner ward and the mound, and abutted upon the river. The barbican would scarcely be placed upon the river or outside the town, and probably was to the north-west, or near the church of St. Paul.

The inner-ward wall probably surrounded the mound, on the outside of its ditch, and was thus open to attack when the outer ward was taken.

The old tower, last taken, and the fall of a part of which reduced the garrison to surrender, was probably the donjon or shell crowning the mound. This would be of Norman date, and therefore might well be called the old tower, as distinguished from Falk’s additions, and the repairs after the siege by Stephen. Thus, if the explanation be accepted, Bedford Castle had a shell keep or donjon upon a mound, surrounded by a ditch and wall, and this again by another wall, at a greater distance, the principal storehouses and dwelling being, as was usual, in this larger or outer ward. The History of Bedford Castle and of its siege are the subject of an elaborate paper by the late Rev. C. H. Hartshorn, privately printed in 1861.