Shipton Castle

Shipton Castle. BY RICHARD W. YOUNG, JR.

Me thinks I hear the sound of time long passed Still murmuring o'er us, in the lofty void

Of these dark arches, like the lingering voices Of those who long within their graves have slept. Orra, A Tragedy.

The poet has expressed the sentiments of the lover of English history in the following lines:

I do love these ancient ruins, We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverent history.

I believe that every person, no matter how slightly convers- ant he may be with historical events and personages, has expe- rienced the quickening of the pulse and the fevered gallop of the imagination when he first treads upon some spot inseparably con- nected with ancient history. His soul and finer sensibilities must be calloused if such were not the case. There are many spots in England in connection with which history has been made, but I am inclined to an honest belief that there are but few which have had as conspicuous and glorious a connection as has Shipton Castle, situated in Yorkshire. But in

order to appreciate it to the highest degree, an acquaintance with the history surrounding it is a priori necessary. In the great Doomsday Book, a general survey and census of England, ordered by William the Conqueror, that he might have a knowledge of the country which he had subjugated, is a detailed mention of the country around Shipton, and entitled there Terra

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Regis, or King's Land. Subsequently the) Conqueror bestowed this particular part of his domain upon Robert de Romillie, one of his noblemen. The land thus given to Romillie was in utter waste and desolation, having been burned and scourged by the Danes. Romillie, on taking possession, began the work of rejuvenation by moving in tenants, and to protect them began the erection of Shipton castle. The castle was partially destroyed by the Scotch in 1138, but as Hobrished, the chronicler, us, was rebuilt in tells

1179.    Through intermarriage, it and the surrounding feudatory
      

holdings passed into the hands of the Earl of Albemarle and from his line, by marriage to the Plantagenet family, into the hands of the crown as Terra Regis. The royal family continued in possess- ion until Edward II bestowed it upon Robert de Clifford, the head of the noble Clifford family, and in whose possession it became one of the prominent knightly seats in England. The Clifford family was, from all we can learn from history, a most prominent and distinguished one. Robert, the first owner, was one of the four guardians of Edward the Second's son and heir, and was, during his later years, Admiral of England. He enlarged the old castle of Romillie, and strengthened it as a place of power. The de Cliffords remained in possession for some three hundred and thirty-two years, subjected to one or two of the vicissitudes of fortune which followed as the results of their monarchs' changeable and Through these long fickle natures.

years the family plays in the making of an unfortunate part English history. One of them followed the banner of St. George in France, and did his monarch invaluable service at Orecy and

Poictiers. Others of the family fulfilled important embassies abroad; one was the boon companion of Richard II, and still

another of Henry VIII. Around the castle were fought many of the battles of the Wars of the Roses, when England was turned into a scene of carnage and baptized in blood, that the ambitions of men might be gratified. The army of Parliament, under the command of General Lambert, camped before its walls for three years, while the finest artillery of the kingdom hurled its tons of lead against the solid masonry. But from 1643 to 1645 it withstood the assaults of Cromwell's Roundheads and were it not for the indom-

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itable perseverance of the Old Commoner and his army, the Lord of Shipton might have successfully cried:

Hang out the banners on the outward walls, The cry is still "They come;" our castle's strength Will laugh a seige to scorn: here let them lie, Till famine and ague eat them up.

But it finally succumbed, the last of the nobles' castles to bow in subjection to the humbler of England's nobility. The male line of the Cliffords died out in 1643, while the castle was under siege, and the family seat came into possession of Anne, Duchess of Pembroke. Under the management of this woman the damage done by Cromwell's army was repaired and the castle finished, as it stands today, in 1658. From 1658 to the present, it has degenerated from one of the important feudal seats of England, to the occasional retreat of its present owner, Lord Hotchfield. Now to the castle itself. A guide admitted us through a small man-door in the fourteen-foot oaken and iron-bound doors set between two bastions of massive build. Passing through a corridor opening into rooms on either side, where in olden days the gatekeeper and men at arms lodged, and through a second gateway, we entered the outside courtyard, now kept in grass and flowers, but in days of yore used as foresting grounds and for the assembling of the sortie party. We followed the guide through a grove of yew trees, past the outstanding buildings, where once the porter and under-servants lived, up a flight of stone steps which were hollowed and worn by the tread of many generations, and into the dark, narrow entrance leading into the interior courtyard. This is the old, original part of the castle which had been built during the time of the Conqueror. The walls were moss-covered and crumbling, and the flag-stones worn. Leading from this small entrance was a low, wide door set in a triple Norman arch. The solid oaken door, now in the stages of decay, has swung open to many an imposing pageant of Norman and English chivalry. It had withstood the assaults of Scottish marauders and had been battered by the sol- diers of Parliament. Through it the knights had passed in the

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splendor of new and shining armor to engage in the wars, and through them they had victoriously returned, their armor battered and stained, or probably they, themselves, stretched upon the shield which had not parried in time the fatal blow. We passed through the old arch and entered the interior courtyard, said to be one of the most perfect of its type extant. It was a masterpiece of architectural design, built in the Norman

style, with the dainty and exquisite windows of the later Elizabethan

architecture admitting light into the interior living apartments. In the center rose a hoary old yew tree, whose age went back five hundred years, and whose branches, forming a shelter to the other- wise open courtyard, made it into a perfect bower. Its massive trunk was moss-covered and gnarled, and it reared its majestic head in regal splendor above the walls of its prison — the silent sentinel of what now remains of bygone power and magnificence. Seven doors on the ground floor opened into the various apart- ments, while an eighth, approached by an artistic flight of steps, led us into the banqueting apartment on the second floor. The hall would seat probably seventy-five or a hundred ban- queters. Its pristine significance had been obliterated to a great

extent by the ruthless touch of the modern architect, who had transformed it into a room where the present tenants of Lord Hotchfield partake of his Yuletide bounty. To admit more light, a skylight had been cut in the roof, and the walls had been plas- tered recently, but notwithstanding the modern improvement, the ghosts of the old revelers still haunted the place, and the walls seemed to give back the bacchanalian shouts and rancorous laugh- ter of the earls and their men, as they carved the roasted ox, quaffed the Rhenish wines and retold the adventures of the late war. The kitchen lay immediately behind, and was a spacious room. From here issued the dishes that delighted the epicurean tastes of the lordly owners. An open fireplace, nine feet in length, flanked one end, and was used to roast the ox, served whole on state occasions. Opposite were the bake ovens, capacious openings in the wall. The process of baking was unique in those days. The stones of the oven were heated by burning fagots, the fagots then removed, and the dough placed in the oven was baked by the heat exhaled by the heated stones. The bread thus baked was

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delicious — browned to a nicety, and the crust as tender as the inside of the loaf. Leading into the kitchens were the larders, large and roomy, as they needs must have been in those days to hold supplies for the hundreds of retainers necessary to maintain the dignity of one of the first families of the realm. We retraced our steps through the banquet hall into the drawing room, whose walls were wont to be covered with rare tapes- tries from Brussels and Spain, and the oaken floors with the soft

carpets of the East. It was a low, dark room, with its only day- light coming through the small windows opening to the north and allowing vision of the heavy woods surrounding the river which flowed at the foot of the embattlements some hundred feet below. We entered the guard room, a semi-circular apartment in the top of the round tower. Modern architecture had robbed this

room of some of its original interest in transforming many of the opening, cross-shaped slits into windows to admit light. But there still remained one or two of the original openings, a yard in length and a few inches in width, through which the arch- er's shot their death bolts. A winding stairway led us to the ramparts, and a glorious view burst upon us as we emerged. To the south, and at the foot of the castle, lay the town of Shipton, huddling like a frightened hound at its master's feet. Beyond ran the silvery Aire, winding in and out, here reflecting the sunlight in dazzling splendor, and there losing itself in the heavy woods, from which in past times predatory bands of robbers, the Robin Hoods of the north, issued to terrorize the villagers and at times try a daring assault upon the castle itself. The first builder of the castle had selected its position with an engineering foresight which was admirable. Its base was solid rock. On the northern side was a drop of eighty feet to a river which* was utilized as a natural moat. No access by human means was possible from this side. To the east, south, and west, the ground sloped, in some places percipitately, in others gradually. There were no woods within a radius of several hundred yards to obstruct the view, and an opposing army could well nigh be annihilated before it reached the walls of the castle. It seemed to be im-

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pregnable, and was considered one of the strongholds of England. From the sunlight and freedom of the open air we descended winding turret stairs, passed through dark and foul smelling cor- ridors, emerged once again into the courtyard, only to enter again a doorway leading into a passage where no light was admit- ted but through the door itself. We passed through a second door- way, the walls of which were six feet in thickness, then descended a narrow, cramped stairway, whose low roof of jagged stone forced us to bend. We reached a small landing, turned and entered a room, or better a hole, in the pitchy blackness of which the small, flickering lamp of the guide was of but little use. This was the dungeon. measured nine by eighteen feet and the floor was It

the cold country rock. The atmosphere smelled earthy and damp. It was below the river, and the moisture seeped through the rock and stood in glistening beads on the walls. The light was extin- guished to give us an idea of the terrors of the place, and in spite of the presence of others, one shivered in appreciation of its

awfulness. The darkness felt heavy, as if it were closing around in suffocating folds. The over-wrought imagination heard the dull clanking of chains, the moans and prayers of some unfortunate wretch, or the imbecile ravings of a madman, driven mad by the terrors of the blackness preying upon him. The story goes that the intrigante, the fascinating and beauti- ful Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in this foul hole for three days and nights, but history fails to authenticate the tale. Again, it is said that the dungeon was no dungeon, but merely a wine cellar. But historical evidence and the opinions of author- ities point the other way. We are prone to cling to the romantic, and while the question may admit of a doubt, we still instinctively refuse to uproot the romantic sympathies which demand that every old castle shall have its "dungeon keeps and loophole grates where captives weep." Such, in brief, is the old castle of Shipton, as it stands today —a relic of past ages, and a center round which brewed some of the events which have made the English speaking race today the most enlightened and cultured and the finest governed people on the face of the' earth.

Nelson, England.