PLATE LXXXV. AND LXXXVI. CASTLE AT TANCARVILLE.

Previous
Castle at Tancarville.

Plate 85. Castle at Tancarville.

M. Nodier, who, in his Voyages Pittoresques, has devoted six plates to the illustration of the noble ruins of the castle at Tancarville, remarks with great justice, that, magnificent as the building must have been, “it is one that recals but few historical recollections.” At the same time he gives the following quotation from the old Norman Chronicle:—“During the reign of King Philip le Bel, after the knight of the green lion had conquered the King of Arragon, a great dissention arose between two powerful barons in Normandy, the Lord of Harecourt and the Chamberlain of Tancarville. The cause of their strife was a mill, of which the Dwarf of Harecourt, assisted by forty of his people in arms, had taken forcible possession, mistreating the vassals of the Chamberlain. The latter, incensed at the outrage, summoned his friends and attendants; and, having collected them to the number of two hundred, marched upon Lillebonne, where the Lord of Harecourt and the Dwarf, his brother, were at that time residing. Many and bitter were the reproaches uttered on either side; and severe was the contest that followed; for the Lord of Harecourt issued from the barriers with all his forces, and they defended themselves valiantly; and several lives were lost. The king, on receiving the tidings, was greatly discomforted, and bade the Sieur Enguerrand de Marigni summon the offending parties to appear before him. It chanced most untowardly, that they met as they were travelling towards the court; and the Lord of Harecourt attacked the Chamberlain, and with his gauntlet put out his left eye, and then returned to his own people. No sooner was he of Tancarville healed, than he repaired to the royal presence, and defied the Lord of Harecourt to single combat. The pledge was accepted by M. Charles de Valois, brother of the king, on behalf of his friend. On the other hand, M. Enguerrand de Marigny, privy counsellor of the monarch, maintained that Harecourt had been guilty of treason. This was denied by M. Charles, to whom Enguerrand in consequence gave the lie; and the former took the affront so cruelly to heart, that Enguerrand, brave man as he was, was afterwards hanged in consequence of it. When the conditions of battle were arranged, the Lord of Harecourt came into the field with his armor emblazoned with fleurs-de-lys; and the combatants fought with the utmost valor, till the Kings of England and of Navarre, who were present, besought the monarch of France to stay the fight; for that it would be great pity that two so valiant chiefs should fall by each other's hand. Upon this, the king cried ‘Ho!’ and both parties were satisfied; and peace was made between them by the foreign sovereigns, in the year 1300.”

The same circumstance is related, though with some trifling variations in the details, by Masseville, in his History of Normandy, a work of which almost every volume bears frequent testimony to the greatness of the house of Tancarville. This family enjoyed the hereditary dignity of chamberlain to the Norman dukes; but at what period it was conferred upon them, is lost in the obscurity of early history. Ralph de Tancarville, who founded the abbey of St. Georges de Bocherville, about the year 1050,[192] is styled in the Neustria Pia, under the account of that monastry, as “Tancardi-VillÆ Toparcha, prÆfectus hÆreditarius cubiculo Guillelmi secundi.” In 1066, the name of the Count of Tancarville[193] is enumerated among those who attended the Conqueror into England. The chamberlain of Tancarville is recorded both by Ordericus Vitalis and Masseville, in the list of Norman knights that distinguished themselves in the wars of Philip-Augustus. William of Tancarville, the same chieftain, probably, or his immediate predecessor, had previously suffered himself to be seduced by the arts of Eleanor, queen of Henry II. to join in the conspiracy of the sons of that monarch, against their father: he subsequently signalized his valor, when the banners of the lion-hearted Richard were unfurled upon the plains of Palestine. In 1197, Ralph of Tancarville was one of the witnesses to the treaty of exchange, already more than once mentioned in this work, made between the sovereign and the archbishop of Rouen, in consequence of the building of ChÂteau Gaillard; and when, eight years afterwards, Philip, having become undisputed master of Normandy, conciliated the favor of the clergy by important concessions, the signature and seal of the chamberlain of Tancarville were attached to the instrument.—The task were easy, by multiplying quotations from Masseville and the early chroniclers, to extend to a great length the instances in which the noblemen of the house of Tancarville acted a prominent part in Norman history. It will be sufficient, upon the present occasion, to adduce two circumstances, as indisputable proofs of their importance. The name of Tancarville is found among the seventy-two members of the nobility, who, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, were summoned to the Norman exchequer; and, in the same century, in the year 1320, after Philip VI. upon his accession to the throne of France, had received at Amiens the homage of Edward III. for the dukedom of Aquitaine and earldom of Ponthieu, the Count of Tancarville was selected for the important office of ambassador to England, in conjunction with the Duke of Bourbon and the Earl of Harcourt, to obtain from the monarch some explanations that were considered indispensable for the dignity of the crown of France. As late as the year 1451, the Lord of Tancarville appears as one of the generals of the French forces, which, under the command of the Count of Longueville, finally succeeded in expelling the English from Normandy. From that time forward, Masseville makes no mention of the family. Respecting the castle, he is altogether silent, except upon the occasion of its capture by the French in 1435, and its surrender to them again in 1449.

It may have been observed in the preceding brief enumeration of a few principal facts connected with the family of Tancarville, that the Lords of that house have, on more than one occasion, been designated as Counts: the author of the Description de la Haute Normandie, however, expressly states that this property was not raised into an earldom till the reign of King John of France, who ennobled it with that dignity in 1351; at which time it was composed of all the fiefs, castellanies, baronies, and other lands of every description, in the duchy of Normandy, occupied by John de Melun, and Jane Crepin his wife. From the house of Melun, this same earldom passed into that of Harcourt, by the union of Jane of Melun with William of Harcourt—their daughter, who inherited the property, afterwards carried it in dower to John, Count of Dunois and of Longueville. In the year 1505, when Louis XII. added to the earls of Longueville the higher honor of the dukedom, Tancarville was comprised among the dependencies of the new dignity; and when, shortly afterwards, the duchy of Longueville escheated to the crown, the earldom of Tancarville, remaining united to Longueville, shared the same fate. Mary of Orleans, duchess of Nemours and Estouteville, having become possessed of Tancarville, sold it in September, 1706, to Anthony Crozat, the king's secretary; and, at the same time, the monarch conferred all the rights and privileges attached to the domain, upon Louis de la Tour d'Auvergne, Count of Evreux. Twelve years subsequently, the king, by his letters patent, separated Tancarville from Longueville, and ordered that the Lords of Tancarville should thenceforth be summoned to the parliament at Rouen.

The title of Earl of Tankerville is at the present day to be found in the English peerage. It is borne by a descendant of Charles Bennet, second Lord of Ossulston, upon whom it was conferred by George I. in 1714, after he had married the daughter and heiress of Ford, Lord Grey of Wark, Earl of Tankerville. One of the family of this Lord Grey, Sir John Grey, Knight, Captain of Maunt, in Normandy, had originally been rewarded with the title by King Henry V. for his eminent services in the French wars. But his grandson, Richard, Earl of Tankerville, was attainted in the thirty-eighth year of the succeeding reign; and the title remained dormant till re-granted by King William III. to Ford, Lord Grey, just mentioned, who was lineally descended from the brother of the first earl.

Entrance to the Castle at Tancarville.

Plate 86. Entrance to the Castle at Tancarville.

Different opinions have prevailed with respect to the origin of the name of Tancarville. Ordericus Vitalis calls it Tanchardi Villa: M. de Valois, in his Notitia GalliÆ, is disposed to claim for it the more imposing appellation of Tancredi Villa. The point will in all probability never be settled: it is more to be regretted, that no account is to be found of the building of the castle, whose lofty towers still frown in the pride of old baronial grandeur, from the summit of a steep cliff upon the right bank of the Seine, which here, so near its mouth, rather assumes the character of an estuary than a river. The wide extent of the ruins sufficiently bespeaks the importance of its former possessors: at present, nothing can be more forlorn and desolate. Mr. Dibdin, who visited the remains in 1819, has traced the following animated sketch of their present appearance with his lively pencil; and Mr. Lewis, who accompanied him, has enriched his splendid Tour with a lovely view of the buildings and surrounding scenery:—

“We ascended to the castle: the day grew soft, and bright, and exhilarating.... but, alas; for the changes and chances of this transitory world. Where was the warder? He had ceased to blow his horn for many a long year. Where was the harp of the minstrel? It had perished two centuries ago, with the hand that had struck its chords. Where was the attendant guard?—or pursuivants?—or men at arms? They have been swept from human existence, like the leaves of the old limes and beech trees, by which the lower part of the building was surrounded. The moat was dry; the rampart was a ruin:—the rank grass grew within the area.... nor can I tell you how many vast relics of halls, banqueting rooms, and bed rooms, with all the magnificent appurtenances of old castellated architecture, struck the eager eye with mixed melancholy and surprise! The singular half-circular, and half-square, corner towers, hanging over the ever-restless wave, interested us exceedingly. The guide shewed us where the prisoners used to be kept—in a dungeon, apparently impervious to every glimmer of day-light, and every breath of air. I cannot pretend to say at what period even the oldest part of the castle of Montmorenci[194] was built: but I saw nothing that seemed to be more ancient than the latter end of the fifteenth century. Perhaps the greater portion may be of the beginning of the sixteenth; but, amidst unroofed rooms, I could not help admiring the painted borders, chiefly of a red color, which run along the upper part of the walls, or wainscots—giving indication not only of a good, but of a splendid, taste. Did I tell you that this sort of ornament was to be seen in some part of the eastern end of the abbey of Jumieges? Here, indeed, they afforded evidence—an evidence mingled with melancholy sensations on conviction—of the probable state of magnificence which once reigned throughout the castle. Between the corner towers, upon that part which runs immediately parallel with the Seine, there is a noble terrace, now converted into garden ground, which commands an immediate and extensive view of the embouchure of the river. It is the property of a speculator residing at Havre. Parallel with this terrace, runs the more modernised part of the castle, which the last residing owner inhabited. It may have been built about fifty years ago, and is—or rather the remains of it are—quite in the modern style of domestic architecture. The rooms are large, lofty, and commodious;—yet nothing but the shells of them remain. The revolutionary patriots completely gutted them of every useful and every valuable piece of furniture; and even the bare walls are beginning to grow damp, and threaten immediate decay. I made several memoranda upon the spot, which have been unluckily, and I fear irretrievably, misplaced; so that, of this once vast, and yet commanding and interesting edifice, I regret that I am compelled to send you so short and so meagre an account. Farewell—a long and perhaps perpetual farewell—to the Castle of Montmorenci!”

FOOTNOTES:

[192] According to Masseville, (Histoire de Normandie, II. p. 192,) this abbey was not founded till the year 1114; but such a statement is irreconcileable with the fact of the dead body of the Conqueror having been carried there in 1087; and, moreover, both the Gallia Christiana and Neustria Pia expressly state that it was in 1114 that William, fifth son of the founder, and himself also hereditary chamberlain of Normandy, removed from St. Georges the canons established there by his father, and replaced them with monks from St. Evroul.

[193] So called by Masseville, I. p. 205.

[194] Mr. Dibdin uniformly calls this castle, the Castle of Montmorenci; but on no occasion does he state his authority for so doing; the author of these remarks never heard it so styled in Normandy, nor can he find it mentioned under that name by Nodier, or any other author. If, as appears probable, the people of the neighborhood are in the habit of so designating it, the probability is, that the modern part (see plate eighty-five) was erected at a period when Tancarville belonged to some member of the noble family of Montmorenci.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page