Warwick Castle. The great Castle of Warwick, now the seat of the Earl and Countess of Warwick, who formed themselves into a Limited Liability Company some fifteen years ago, under the title of the “Warwick Estates Co., Ltd.,” has been the seat of the Grevilles since 1605. The origin of Warwick Castle goes back to Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great and wife of the then Earl of Mercia, a strenuous and warlike lady, to whom are attributed many ancient works. She is credited with building the first fortress in A.D. 915, on that knoll still known as “Ethelfleda’s Mount,” on which a Norman keep was subsequently erected, perhaps by that famous personage Turchil. In the family of Turchil the cognisance of the yet more famous Bear and Ragged Staff originated, which in all succeeding generations has descended from house to house of the distinguished families who have come into possession of Warwick Castle: the Houses of Beauchamp, Neville, Dudley, Rich, and Greville: not as their personal badge, but as that of the castellan for the time being of Warwick. A fantastic theory has been set afoot that, as Siward, son of Turchil, assumed the name “de Arden,” thus founding the numerous knightly family of Ardens, Shakespeare, as the son of a Mary Arden, was probably the rightful owner of Warwick Castle! We may safely say that this never occurred to Shakespeare himself, and may add him to one of that numerous class slyly alluded to The great Guy of Warwick, a giant in stature and doughty in deeds, is a myth, but that does not prevent his armour being shown in the Great Hall of the Castle. His period seems to be placed between that of Ethelfleda and Turchil, for the date of his death is put at A.D. 929. Mythical though he is, the later and very real flesh-and-blood Beauchamps, who came into possession of Warwick in the thirteenth century, were often named “Guy” in allusion to him. His armour, like his legendary self, is a weird accretion of time, and is no longer displayed with the touching belief of less exacting times. The Age of Belief is dead, they say. Of belief in some things incredible, no doubt. He wore, according to the articles seen here, not only armour of tremendous size and weight, but of periods ranging from three hundred, to six hundred and ninety years after his death. A bascinet of the time of Edward the Third covered his head, his breastplate, weighing fifty pounds, is of the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the backplate belongs to the Stuart period. His shield weighs thirty pounds; his great ponderous sword, five feet six inches long, is of the time of Henry the Eighth. “Guy’s breakfast cup, or porridge-pot” is equally wonderful, for it has a capacity of a hundred and twenty gallons. It is really an ancient iron cauldron, once used for cooking the rations of the garrison. The first historical Earl of Warwick was Henry de Newburgh, who died 1123; and by a succession of changes and failures of heirs the title and estates came to William de Beauchamp, husband of the daughter of William Mauduit. In the time of Guy, Earl of Warwick, son of this William, the Castle witnessed some stirring scenes. The favourite was by no means an acceptable person to the English barons, who although all directly descended from William the Conqueror’s Frenchmen, had already been assimilated by this wonderful country of ours, and were as English as—well, let us say as English as any German Jew Goldstein or Schlesinger of modern times who, coming to these happy shores, suffers a sea-change into something rich and rare, and becomes a new and strange “Gordon,” or “Sinclair.” They regarded this flippant Gascon from the south of France as an undesirable of the worst type, and could not and would not appreciate his jokes; a natural enough disability when you come to consider them, for they were all at their expense. If you study the monumental effigies of those mediÆval barons and knights which are so plentifully dispersed throughout our country churches, you will readily perceive that although they were frequently very magnificent personages, their countenances do not often show any trace of intellectual qualities. Edward the Second was as flippant a person as his favourite, and when these stupid and indignant barons saw them laughing together, they knew very well, or keenly suspected, that they themselves were being laughed at. Did not this Gaveston fellow call the Earl of Lancaster “the play-actor,” or “the fiddler,” and the Earl of Lincoln “burst belly.” Every one knew he called his father-in-law “fils À puteyne,” or “whoreson.” Guy, Earl of Warwick, was “the black hound of Arden.” Hence this seizure of the hateful person. The story of it is told by Adam Murimuth—
So the “Black Dog” did indeed bite him to some effect. This tragic spot is a place called Blacklow Hill, one mile north of the town. A monument to this misguided humorist, following his natural propensities in a land where humour is not appreciated, was erected on the spot by a Mr. Greathead, of Guy’s Cliff House, in 1821. The inscription itself has a complete lack of humour—
With this fierce “Black Dog of Arden,” whose teeth were so sharp, the architectural history of the Castle becomes clear. He repaired and strengthened it, after the rough handling it had received in the Barons’ War, in the reign of Henry the Third; but to Thomas de Beauchamp, his grandson, is due CÆsar’s Tower, about 1360, and it was his son Thomas, who built Guy’s Tower, named after the mythical giant, about 1394. It costs two shillings to see Warwick Castle. I believe if you happen to be a resident of Warwick or Leamington, there is a reduction of fifty per cent. The entrance is not so old as it looks, and was cut through the rock in 1800. It leads to the gloomy Barbican, whose overhanging walls give a truly mediÆval approach and form the completest contrast with the scene that opens beyond. The visitor enters a huge courtyard, now one vast lawn, nearly two acres in area; with the residential portion of the Castle and its state-rooms on the left. Ahead is Ethelfleda’s Mount, and on the right, guarding the curtain-wall at intervals, are Guy’s Tower; the incomplete Bear Tower, with its mysterious tunnel, the work of Richard the Third; and the companion Clarence Tower, built by George, Duke of Clarence, his ill-fated brother, murdered in the Tower of London. Beside Ethelfleda’s Mount is the Hill Tower. Immediately to the left of the entrance are the brew-house, laundry and then CÆsar’s Tower, with its gloomy dungeon, a most undesirable place of residence with vaulted stone roof and mouldy smells, meet for repentance and vain regrets. Here the “Black Dog”
Mr. William Sidiate (or possibly it is “Lidiate”) who thus, in the quaintest of lettering inscribed the sorrows of his friend the imprisoned gunner, appears to have been fully conscious of the eccentricity of his handiwork, but the inferiority of his “pen”—which was probably a rusty nail—can have had nothing to do with his weird admixture of “large caps,” “upper case,” “lower case” and italic type which I confidently expect will make the compositor of this page smile and sigh by turns. The Great Hall, with its armour and pictures and relics of Guy, is of course the chief feature of the long He would be a courtly, and perhaps also a tedious, writer who should essay to fully describe Warwick Castle, with its many suites of state-rooms, its gothic stone-vaulted servants’-hall, and its terraces, ponds, and gardens, together with the conservatories and that famous Roman antiquity, the so-called “Warwick Vase,” found at Hadrian’s Villa, near Rome in 1770, and purchased by the dilettante George, second Earl, from Sir William Hamilton. Great improvements have been Past the melancholy flymen who linger in the broad roadway opposite the entrance to the Castle, and wear jaundiced looks as though it were years ago since they had had a fare and expect it to be years yet before they will get another, you turn to the right into Mill Lane, narrow street of ancient houses, leading down to the river and to the site of that ancient mill where the feudal lords had their corn ground. The magnificence of state-rooms, the lengthy parade of family portraits, the beauty of the gardens, and the trimness of well-kept lawns do not serve the really cultivated visitor’s turn in Warwick Castle. He pays his two shillings and is herded through with many others, a little browbeaten by the stale declamation of the gorgeous lackeys and by a very indigestion of sightseeing. It is not a medieval fortress he has seen, but a private residence. In Mill Lane, however, you come into nearer touch with realities. Here, in this by far the most picturesque and unspoiled part of Warwick, where the bowed and time-worn brick or timber-framed houses are living out their life naturally, something of the ancient contrast between subservient town and feudal fortress may be gathered, softened down, it is true, by the hand of time. CÆsar’s Tower is viewed at its best from the lower end of the lane, and looks from this point of view the noblest and the sternest tower the forceful military architects of the Middle Ages have given us, and well worthy of the great name of CÆsar long ago conferred upon it by some unknown admirer of its dignity and massive beauty. It was somewhere about 1360 when CÆsar’s Tower first arose upon the rocky bluff in which its foundations go deeply down. It was then called the The tower rises 106 feet above its rocky basement. Those old military architects who designed and built it had not the least idea they were installing a picturesque feature. They had no knowledge at all of the picturesque; but they assured themselves, as well as they could, that the safety of the Castle should be provided for. And they did it so well that history will be studied in vain for a successful siege. The bridge, originally a narrow packhorse bridge of thirteen arches and of great antiquity, was widened in 1375 and the number of arches reduced to seven; and, thus remodelled, carried the traffic until 1790. This way came of necessity every traveller from London to Warwick, and in this manner Queen Elizabeth entered the town and Castle in 1572. Warwick Castle was in those times less secluded from the streets than it now is. The feudal owners of it were not at all concerned to hide themselves away, but when the age of sight-seeing dawned and amateurs of the picturesque began to tour the country, they began to consider how they could ensure a complete privacy. It was effected by diverting the public highway. This was done at the instigation of George, second of the Greville Earls of Warwick, in or about 1790, when the new road and bridge were made, crossing the Avon considerably to the eastward. From that modern bridge, which cost £4000, only in part contributed by the Earl, who benefited most by the diversion, is obtained that view of the Castle so extravagantly praised by Sir Walter Scott. It is the only possible view, and not a good one: one by no means to be compared with that formerly obtained from the old bridge. Sir Walter Scott therefore either did not know what he was talking about, or was too much of a courtier to reveal his own convictions. At this same time when the road was made to take its new course, the meadows on the other side of the The Grevilles, the present Earls of Warwick, have a motto to their coat of arms which is a complete change from the usual swashbuckling braggart sentiments. He was surely a singularly modest man who first adopted it. I wish I could identify him. He must have read well the history of Warwick Castle and have pondered on the successive families of cuckoos who have nested in the old home of the original owners. He selected a quotation from the Metamorphoses of that amorous dove, P. Ovidius Naso—O! quite a proper one, I assure you—Vix ea nostra voco, “I can scarce call these things our own.” Whether he meant the heirlooms, the mace that belonged to the great Richard Neville “the Kingmaker,” the Plantagenet and the Dudley relics, or if he were a contemplative philosopher ruminating on the Law of Entail, by which he was not owner, to do with as he would, but only tenant-for-life, who shall say? |