THIS castle occupies the point of a steep and, in part, rocky knoll which intervenes between the confluence of the Derwent and the Cocker, two rivers of Cumberland, the one, on the north, flowing immediately at the foot of the rock, the other, on the south and west, separated from it by an irregular strip of land from 50 yards to 70 yards broad, of uneven surface, and covered by a part of the town which shares its name with the castle. It is not until 120 yards below the castle that the actual meeting of the waters takes place. Two of the sides of the position are thus fortified by nature; the other, the root of the promontory, has no such protection. It seems to have been covered by an artificial ditch, connecting the cliff of the Derwent with the sloping bank of the Cocker. This, however, has been filled up, and all that remains of it is a tradition, confirmed by slight depression in the soil.

The castle, following the outline of the rock, is triangular in plan. Its north and south sides face towards the Derwent and the Cocker, and are in length 110 yards and 120 yards. They crest the slope at about 36 feet above the level of the water, and are connected by a base line of 76 yards, in which is the entrance, facing towards the east. The castle commands much of the town, and is placed outside of it to the north and east. The parish church stands within the town upon a height opposite to, and south-west of, the castle, the Cocker in its narrow valley flowing between them.

The curtain within which the castle is contained, is about 30 feet high, and is capped at its western or acute angle by a half-round tower, and at the two angles of the base are two rectangular towers, that to the north-east being the gatehouse. Between them is a small buttress turret, solid, and 8 feet square. There are also two rather large buttresses, additions upon the south curtain near the east end, and three small flat ones upon the older front of the wall, at the west end. On the exterior of the north wall are seven buttresses of various dimensions and dates.

The triangular interior of the castle is subdivided by a cross line of buildings, about 60 yards from the base, into two wards, the lower or eastern, four sided, being the larger, and the upper or inner being a small triangle. Where the cross wall unites at its south end with the curtain is, upon the latter, a small square tower, called the “Bell Tower,” and at the north end a much larger tower, containing the kitchen. Between these, on the cross wall, is the inner gatehouse. The level of the upper ward is about 6 feet above that of the lower. This gatehouse is not central, being 34 yards from the north, and 19 yards from the south curtain. It is rectangular, or nearly so, and in plan a capital T, the outer portal being in the centre of the cross head, the inner one in the foot, and a large chamber in the stem between them. The head is 36 feet broad, with a projection of 18 feet, and the gatehouse is 60 feet deep. The cill of the outer entrance being 6 feet above the outer ward, must have been approached by some kind of bridge or inclined plane, of which all traces are now gone. The outer arch is lofty and segmental, of 9 feet opening. It supports a screen parapet, embattled, behind which is an opening or machecoule 9 feet broad and 4 feet deep. Behind this is an equilateral arch opening into a passage 10 feet deep, vaulted and ribbed from the four angles, the ribs meeting at the centre with two ridge ribs, the central point of the eight being without boss or circle. Beyond the passage is a second arch of 8 feet opening, and beyond it a sort of vaulted passage or vestibule splayed and 9 feet deep, opening into the interior of the gatehouse at the first-floor level. Beyond and right and left of this inner vestibule are two doors of 2 feet opening, one segmental and one shoulder headed. These open each into a small acutely vaulted prison, about 8 feet by 16 feet, lighted by a small loop. From each there opens, in the outer wall, a small door into a mural garderobe. In the centre of each prison is a small square trap, which is the only entrance into the lower prison or dungeon, which is of the size of and vaulted as the upper one, but without any other opening. Two holes in the upper vaults seem intended to carry a horizontal bar from which a prisoner or his food might be lowered through the trap. These prisons are placed on each side of, and parallel to, the gateway, in the thick cross head of the T.

The basement of the gatehouse-chamber, 21 feet broad by 29 feet deep, and about 10 feet high, is quite plain, and without loops. It is entered in the west wall, from the upper ward, by a flight of twelve steps, beneath a lancet doorway. The covering of this room was the timber floor of the gatehouse. The first floor, also 21 feet by 29 feet, has in its side walls two doorways, of 3 feet opening, and acutely pointed, which led into the lateral chambers. In its west wall, but near the north end, is the inner gateway, piercing a wall 9 feet thick, and opening into the upper ward. This passage is vaulted. It has no portcullis, and but one rebate for a door. In the north side of the passage a narrow, shoulder-headed door leads into a small vaulted lodge, looped towards the upper ward.

Entering this ward, on the left, is the door descending to the basement, and further on, right and left, are two doors, each lancet, and at the top of flights of twelve steps, which descended into the basements of the lateral chambers. The gatehouse had an upper floor, now mostly gone.

There were two lateral chambers on each side of the gatehouse, parted by an east-and-west cross-wall, now destroyed. The large spaces thus formed are not quite rectangular. That on the north averages about 26 feet east and west by about 35 feet north and south; and that on the south is a mean square of about 35 feet. Of the four chambers by which these spaces were occupied, the basements of the two next the gatehouse were covered with a pointed vault. Except these, the floors above were timber. The walls of the southern rooms are mostly destroyed, those of the northern are tolerably perfect, and show the windows and fireplaces of a first and second floor, with small mural chambers in the north-east angle. The southern chamber abutted upon the curtain, in which is seen a rude round-headed arch, now a postern, but which has a Norman aspect, and looks as though intended originally for the recess of a loop. The small square bell-turret, of about 18 feet by 10 feet, at the south-west angle of this chamber, stands upon and slightly projects from the exterior of the curtain. The basement looks of the age of the curtain; the superstructure, of that of the cross buildings and inner gatehouse.

At the other or north end of the cross buildings is the kitchen tower, a very remarkable structure. In plan it is nearly rectangular. It is composed of a basement and a first floor. The basement is reached from the upper ward by fifteen descending steps, down a vaulted passage in the wall, at the head of which is a round-headed door of Decorated date. The chamber is about 30 feet square, having a central octagonal pier without base or cap, whence spring eight ribs meeting eight other ribs which spring from corbels in the angles and form responds in the centre of each face. Each of the four bays thus formed is again spanned by ribs springing diagonally from the responds. There are no ridge-ribs, and the vaulting spaces are filled up with rubble. The arches are pointed, and the vault about 20 feet high. In the two eastern spaces are square-headed loops, opening on the lower ward and now concealed by a modern building. In the north wall is a small water-drain. This chamber was probably a cellar, introduced and vaulted to place the stone floor of the kitchen on the level of the hall. It is called a chapel, but bears no indication of having been intended or ever used as such.

Above the cellar is the kitchen, the floor of which is level with that of the hall, and about 10 feet above that of the upper ward. In plan it is rather rhomboidal than rectangular. The two eastern angles are right angles, that to the north-west acute, and that to the south-west obtuse. The north and east sides measure 35 feet and 37 feet, and the opposite sides 29 feet and 38 feet respectively. In the south wall are two fireplaces, 11 feet broad by 2 feet deep, with remains of stone hoods, and with square vertical funnels running up a common shaft at the inner end of each fireplace. The funnels also receive those from the fireplaces in the rooms to the south, the whole forming one stack. Over these fireplaces, high up in the south wall, is a large long loop, square headed, and about 2 feet wide. In the east wall are two other loops of the same width, and about 24 feet long, crossed by a transom, square headed, but placed within shoulder-headed recesses. These openings are clearly intended to carry off the vapour. North of these loops is a small door, whence a narrow mural stair ascends 10 feet to a second door that opened upon a gallery along the north wall.

In the centre of the north wall is a bold pier, 7 feet wide by 4 feet deep, from which spring laterally two pointed arches, thus forming two recesses. The soffits are ribbed, one with two and one with three ribs, plainly chamfered. In each recess is a loop, square headed, and opening on the curtain, and above, 10 feet from the floor, is a string which supported the floor of a timber gallery, which ran along this north side, and was carried out in front of the pier, and thus overlooked the culinary operations. It was entered at the east end from the door already mentioned. In its west end was another door, opening into a mural chamber, not now accessible, but which may have communicated with the hall. Above the gallery were two other loops. At the gallery level the pier is pierced by two narrow passages, with round-headed doors, which lead to a small chamber in the curtain, probably a garderobe. Below, the lateral faces of the pier are hollowed, as for cupboards.

The west wall of the kitchen is now chiefly occupied by a large lofty arch, of 15 feet span, and about 30 feet high, evidently a modern insertion together with the wall above, and opening into what was the hall. On the south side of it are traces of a part of the old buttery-hatch. To the north is the only door of the kitchen, 4 feet broad, and shoulder headed, and which opened from the lower end of the hall. It is curious that so large a kitchen should have had no other outlet. Grose gives a drawing taken in 1774, which shows this west wall of the kitchen before the great arch was inserted. The wall contains an immense hole or gap, above which, on the outside, is the weather moulding of the high-pitched roof of the hall. The kitchen was very lofty, and had an open timber roof the corbels of the hammer-beams of which remain. Above was the parapet, one side of which belonged to the outer curtain.

Abutting from the west wall of the kitchen, in the rebuilding of which the moulding showing the pitch of the hall roof has been removed, was the east, or lower end of the hall, a building 30 feet wide by about 50 feet long, of which the curtain formed the north side. The south wall is levelled nearly to the ground, but its foundations show its exterior buttresses, and the place of the door in the basement near the east end of the wall. The western wall, dividing it from the withdrawing-room, is gone. The basement below the hall seems to have been about 10 feet high. It was covered by the timber floor. The entrance was in the south wall, close to the east end, probably by an interior stair. One jamb of the doorway remains, richly moulded in the Decorated style, though much decayed. The hall had three large windows in the north wall, which is strengthened outside by three buttresses, evidently added to the older wall when the hall was built. The windows are of the fashion so common in the halls of Decorated castles. They are of two lights trefoiled, with a transom, and in the head a quatrefoil. That next the east end has a stone window-seat, and the others may have been so provided. Outside, the windows have a good drip-stone. Probably the fireplace was in the south wall. In the east wall, near the south end, is a large plain trefoil-headed recess, not even chamfered, resembling a large piscina, with a stone shelf. It was possibly intended to place the dishes upon when received from the adjacent buttery-hatch. South of this a small door leads into a well-stair, which led to the roof, and is lighted by a small and very neat foliated circle. The cant or filling up of the adjacent angle of the kitchen is produced by this staircase. The hall had an open timber roof, some of the corbels of which remain.

The rooms west of the hall extend to and include the western or angle tower. The room next the hall had two large Tudor windows in the curtain; they are flat topped, of three lights, with a transom, and within flat-arched recesses; they are evident insertions. The interior of the west tower is roughly four sided, and the gorge wall is gone. It had a basement with three loops, with large splayed and pointed recesses, and above were three floors, each with an excellent one-light trefoiled window of Decorated date; the two lower are towards the west; the upper, a marked feature in the view of the castle from the town, is towards the south. In the north wall a straight stair leads up to a mural garderobe, the opening of which is projected upon two corbels high up at the junction of the curtain with the tower. The lower part of this tower seems original; the upper part has been rebuilt, no doubt in the Decorated period. Twenty-two feet in the rear of the tower remains the base of a doorway which led into these chambers from the upper ward. The well was a yard or two from the entrance to the room below the hall. Its place is now marked by a pump.

The Lower Ward is much obscured by the erection against the north curtain of a dwelling-house, and against the south, of stables, both modern. A building has also been placed against the east wall, connected with the gatehouse. The south-eastern angle is formed by the Flag Tower, 32 feet square, and projecting outwards about 9 feet upon the two curtains. It has a basement and two upper floors, each entered from the court, and the two latter by external separate stone stairs. A third stair, also exterior, ascends from the east curtain to the battlements. The arrangement is altogether peculiar. Moreover, the roof of the tower is high pitched, having the south gable stepped in the Scottish fashion, flush with the outer wall, while the north gable is set in about 3 feet so as to allow of a rampart walk along three sides of the tower. The tower is occupied, and locked up.

The tower corresponding to this, and forming the north-east angle of the ward, is the gatehouse. It is rectangular, 50 feet broad by 22 feet deep, and pierced by the gateway passage, with spacious rooms on each side and above, all inhabited. The outer gateway is round headed, and rather less than half a circle. The passage is vaulted, and has rebates for a central and two outer doors, of which that next the entrance seems to have been inserted to replace a portcullis. Over the front, beneath a long flat label, are five shields of arms: 1. What seems to have been a cinquefoil within an orle of crosslets flory, Umfranville. 2. Barry of 6, Multon. 3. Three luces haurient, Lucy. 4. A lion rampant, Percy. 5. A saltire, Nevile. The gatehouse has two floors over the gateway in the Perpendicular style, and later than the lower part, which is Decorated. To this has been added an upper story, built into the battlements of that below, which appear in the face of the wall.

The portal is flanked by two flat pilasters, which have been partially concealed by the addition of a Barbican, composed of two lateral walls of 18 feet projection, and 7 feet 6 inches thickness, terminating in square piers, which supported a cross arch of entrance, over which was a parapet, now gone. These walls were about 12 feet high, parapeted, and the ramparts reached by two lateral straight stairs niched in the wall. There was no doubt originally a drawbridge to the main gate, which may have been moved forward when the barbican was added. Grose’s drawing shows a sort of ravelin of earth in front of this outer entrance, which probably was thrown up during the Parliamentary struggles. All this front, outside the walls, has been levelled and converted into a garden and approach. Outside the north and south curtains, between the wall and the top of the slope, is a walk of about 9 feet broad.

The accounts of this castle claim for it a very remote origin, and describe the knoll upon which it stands as artificial. This, however, is not the case. The knoll is evidently natural, and the point of a tract of high land which is bounded by two rivers. The position is not the less strong, and is such as either Britons, Romans, or Saxons might very well have availed themselves of. There is, however, no positive evidence that they did so, and nothing now seen is of necessity older, or as old, as the Conquest. The foundations of the western tower, and of the greater part of its contiguous curtains, so far as they contain the upper ward, are probably Norman, and may be the work of William de Meschines, in the reign of Henry I. As the works could scarcely have been confined to so small an area as the present upper ward, it is probable that the whole of the present area was included in the Norman castle, and that the cross ditch was then excavated. How the area was then occupied, where was the hall, where the kitchen, does not appear; probably not on the present site, seeing that the windows are evident insertions in, and the buttresses additions to, the north curtain. Moreover, no part of the line of buildings dividing the upper from the lower ward shows any trace of Norman work. Whatever or wherever were the Norman buildings, they probably stood until the Decorated period, or early in the fourteenth century, when the present cross buildings, the kitchen and the hall, seem to have been erected, and much of the curtain rebuilt or strengthened.

The outer gatehouse and the south-eastern tower are not unlikely to be of the same date, though there have been large additions to, and alterations in, the former building, in the Perpendicular period, when the barbican was added. The Tudor windows in the upper ward are the only traces of still later alterations. The effects of the Parliamentary strife upon the building, beyond the removal of the roofs, do not appear to have been serious; and, as the gatehouse seems always to have been inhabited, no doubt some sort of attention was paid to it, and to the flag tower. More recently, a dwelling-house has been built within the area, within one window of which hangs a curious relic of the past, in the shape of an escutcheon of Percy and Lucy quartered, in old stained glass.

The remodelling of the Norman castle in the Decorated period was probably the work of Anthony de Lucy, who held the lordship from 2 Edward II. to 17 Edward III., and was an active soldier, a great military chief in the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and likely enough to put into the best possible order a castle important both to his own estates and to the national frontier committed to his charge.

The Perpendicular additions, including the armorial shields over the gateway, must have been later than 22 Richard II., when Maud, the Lucy heiress, carried Cockermouth Castle to Henry Percy, who agreed to quarter her arms. The Umfranville shield commemorates Maud’s first husband, Gilbert, Earl of Angus. The Nevile shield is that of Henry Percy’s first wife, who was a daughter of Ralph Lord Nevile. As this Henry was a very considerable person, and survived till 1408, it is probable that he built or rebuilt the upper part of the gatehouse between 1388–9 and 1408.

Cockermouth Castle has but a scanty history, which perhaps accounts for the perfect condition of its outer walls. In 1221 Henry III. ordered it to be laid siege to, and, if taken, destroyed; but this fate it either escaped, or, if carried out, it was restored a century later with great completeness. It makes no figure in the Wars of the Roses, nor does it appear to what extent it shared in the vicissitudes of the house of Percy. The town seems to have been taken by surprise in 1387 by a band of Scottish marauders. Mary of Scotland rested here, no doubt on her way from Workington to Carlisle, after her landing in Cumberland. In August, 1648, the castle, held for the Parliament, was attacked by the Royalists of the neighbourhood, and held out a month, till relieved by the Parliamentary General Ashton. It seems to have been spared the usual fate of English castles of that period at the hands of one or the other party. In 1688, the only habitable parts were the gateway and the courthouse, probably the adjacent building.

DESCENT.

Cockermouth was the “caput” of the barony of Allerdale, usually called in the Inquisitions the Honour of Cockermouth. There is no collected list of the lands held of the Honour, but they seem to have been extensive, and are specified in divers inquisitions from time to time, with the names of their holders. The original grantee seems to have been William, brother of the well-known Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester. He received, either from the Conqueror or from Henry I., the territory of Copland, between the Dudden and the Derwent, and was probably the founder of the castle of Cockermouth, as he was of the Monastery of St. Bees. His son Ranulph died childless, and his heir was Cicely, who married Robert de Romilly, Lord of Skipton. Cockermouth came to Alice, their third daughter and co-heir, who married William FitzDuncan, Earl of Moray, in Scotland, nephew to King Malcolm. Amabel, their second daughter and co-heir, had Egremont, and married Reginald de Lucy, living 20 Henry II.; while Cicely, the elder daughter, married William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, who died 1179. Their second daughter, Hawise le Gros, married, first, William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, and secondly, William de Fortibus, in her right Earl of Albemarle, and who (1215) had restored to him by King John the manor of Cockermouth, and (1216) certain confiscated lands held of the Honour. In February, 1221, King Henry ordered the Sheriff of Westmoreland to summon his forces to lay siege to, take, and utterly destroy the Castle of Cockermouth; but later in the year the manor was granted again to the Earl. It is said that this Earl held half the castle, which escheated to the Crown, and was granted in 1323 by Edward II. to Anthony, Lord Lucy, who held the other moiety. The descent, however, is exceedingly obscure. It appears that Richard de Lucy, Amabel’s son, had Egremont, and died about 15 John, leaving Amabel and Alice. His wife, Ada de Morville, married secondly, Thomas de Multon, and left issue, while Multon’s two sons by a former wife married—1. Lambert de Multon to Amabel; and 2. Alan de Multon to Alice, the co-heirs.

Lambert’s great-granddaughter, the heiress of Egremont, married Thomas de Lucy, and Alan’s son, Thomas de Multon, took the name of Lucy, and died 33 Edward I., and probably held the Castle of Cockermouth. He was followed by his sons, Thomas, who died childless, 2 Edward II., and Anthony de Lucy, a great baron and military leader in the Western marches. He died 17 Edward III., leaving Thomas de Lucy, who died seized of Cockermouth Castle and Honour 39 Edward III., having married his remote cousin, Margaret de Multon, the heiress of Egremont, and thus reunited the whole inheritance, the second moiety of Cockermouth having been acquired by his father.

Thomas and Margaret had Anthony de Lucy, aged twenty-four, 39 Edward III., and Maud. Anthony had Joan, who died young, 43 Edward III., seized of the castle and Honour, when Maud became the heiress. She married Gilbert de Umfranville, Earl of Angus, who died 4 Richard II. They had but one son, Sir Robert, who predeceased his father, childless. The earl died 4 Richard II., seized of the castle and Honour, and Maud then, 8 Richard II., married Henry de Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The inheritance, failing the heirs of her body, was settled upon the heirs male of her husband, who were to bear the arms of Percy and Lucy quarterly. This remainder took effect, and Cockermouth passed to the descendant of Percy by his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Ralph Lord Neville, whose arms appear over the gateway of Cockermouth, as do those of the Earl of Angus.

Earl Henry was slain at Braham Moor, 1408. Hotspur, his valiant son, fell at Shrewsbury. Henry, the next earl, and lord of Cockermouth, fell at St. Alban’s, 1455, as did his son Henry, at Towton, in 1461. Henry, the next earl, met a violent death in the Tower in 1489, being the fifth lord of Cockermouth of that brave, brilliant, and unfortunate race. Henry, the next earl, died a natural death in 1527, as did his son Henry, childless, in 1537. The next inheritors were his nephews, sons of his brother, Sir Thomas; the earl Thomas, who was beheaded, leaving an only daughter, 1572, and Earl Henry, who died 1585. Henry, the next earl, died 1632, and was followed by Earl Algernon, who died 1668, whose son, Earl Jocelyn, was the last male of the ancient race, his son Henry having died young. Elizabeth, Baroness Percy, the daughter and sole heir, married Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Algernon, their son, created Earl of Egremont and Baron Cockermouth, died 1750, and was father of Elizabeth, the Seymour-Percy heiress; but Duke Algernon had also a sister, Katherine, upon whose son, Sir Charles Wyndham, the earldom and barony, and the castle of Cockermouth, were settled, and so descended to George, the last earl, who died without a successor in 1845, bequeathing Cockermouth to his natural son. Cockermouth Castle, therefore, having descended through the houses of De Meschines, De Fortibus, Multon, Lucy, and Percy, can boast a connexion with some of the most celebrated of the northern barons. It has, however, another, and certainly not less brilliant, association. In the adjacent town was born William Wordsworth, and the green court, flower-crowned walls, and gloomy dungeons of the castle are commemorated in one of the sweetest of his sonnets:—