Calder and the Wharfe; here for nearly one hundred years they defied the arms of the invaders, but were finally conquered about the year 616 by Edwin of Northumbria, after which, the victors gradually spread themselves over the conquered land; the rivers and streams were the highways over which they travelled, and as these settlers fought their way up the Calder, the Britons, though contesting the soil inch by inch, were slowly but steadily driven from the lands which they and their forefathers had held so long. The invaders came in bands, bringing their wives, their children and even their cattle, so that permanent settlements were quickly formed; those who settled in Elmet became known as the Elmedsetna, and as they came creeping up the river, now known as Calder, in their flat-bottomed boats, their attention must have been attracted by the two natural hills, one on either side the water, and only a short mile apart, which hills, if fortified, would command the further passage up the river, which must always have been an open and dangerous highway to the wooded valley beyond. Doubtless settlements on both the heights which we now know as Sandal hill and Lowe hill took place, and the early history of the one is that of the other.

The new inhabitants of the district found it incumbent upon them to form a strong fortress, serviceable in the feuds of tribe against tribe, or family against family, and one in which their women and children, their flocks and herds, could be safely placed in time of war. For this reason the head of the family that settled at Sandal began in the eighth century to fortify his home; choosing the highest point of the sloping ground, he raised an artificial hillock on its summit by digging a wide and deep moat around, and throwing the soil so obtained into the centre, and thus a double fortification-a mound 46 feet high, 1710 feet in area at its summit, and a moat from 13 to 18 feet deep and 70 feet in width—was formed at the same time. Lying on the east of the moated mound is a level platform-the base-court-somewhat semilunar in shape, its concavity being applied to the east side of the mound; this base-court is itself entirely surrounded by a deep moat, and contains an area of about 22,680 square feet. Around the summit of the mound ran a close palisading; around the base of the mound and the court, along the inner edge of the moat, was another stockade or quick

set hedge, and on the outer great bank or counterscarp of the ditch was erected a strong palisade. On the summit of the mound stood the English thegn's home, the walls of which were constructed of trunks of trees sawn in half lengthwise, and set upright against each other, then securely fixed by cross-pieces; the thatched roof had a hole in the centre for the smoke to escape, similar in this respect to the crofter huts still to be seen in the isle of Skye; the hearthstone was in the centre of the mud floor of the hall, from which the chambers for the women and the household opened. Within the base-court rose the wattled or wooden huts of the serfs, the sheds for the horses and cattle, the barn and the brew-house, for our English forefathers loved their ale. Thus Sandal was a true type of an English burh or fortified house.

And what manner of men were those who lived here in the eighth and ninth centuries? The hall was the common living-place of all the dwellers within the homestead; here they met at mealtimes, the lord above the salt, the serf at the lower end of the board, and in the long winter evenings "the gleeman sang his song, and the harp was passed from hand to hand; here too, when night came and the fire died down, was the common sleeping place, and the men lay down to rest on the bundles of straw which they had strewn about its floor." Their dress was partly that of the ploughboy of the present day-a smock-frock, or coarse linen overcoat that fell to the knees, and whose tight sleeves and breast were worked with embroidery. Feet and legs were wrapped in linen bands, cross-gaitered and parti-coloured, as high as the knees; a hood sheltered the head in wintertide; the wealthy man threw over his frock a short cloak of blue cloth, embroidered, and fastened at the shoulder with a costly buckle.

Around the burh lay the home pastures, with the flocks under the watchful guardianship of the shepherds and their great dogs, to protect them from attacks of bears and wolves; patches of cornfield and plots of flax broke the forest of oak, elm and beech, where swineherds tended the hogs in their search for mast. Down by the river, which has altered its course, and was then nearer the castle hill than at the present

1 Green, The Making of England, 185.

day (the old river-bed having within the last two years been filled up with manufacturing refuse), was marshy ground, the home of the beaver, otter and wild fowl; the river was full of fish, the forest of game and fuel, and thus the necessaries of life were plentiful and near at hand.

From Domesday Book we learn that the manor of Sandal, together with that of Wakefield, belonged to Edward the Confessor, at whose death it passed to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. The fateful battle at Senlac, on October 14, 1066, however, placed Sandal in the hands of the Norman Conqueror; but the nobles who accompanied Duke William over the sea must share the spoils and prize of war, and thus it came about that among other large grants of land in Yorkshire and elsewhere, Sandal was given to the new king's son-in-law, William, Earl of Warren and Surrey, who had married Gundrada, the eldest daughter of the Conqueror and his queen Matilda.2 In the English "Aula" at Sandal the earl seated himself, as he also did in the neighbouring one of Coningsburgh.

Finding a strongly fortified burh at Sandal, with its English lord dispossessed, the Norman earl made it the caput or head of his manor of Wakefield, and probably improved the residence, and added to the strength of the fortress, partly to overawe the hostile English population who lived upon the manor, and partly to protect his estate and tenantry against an attack from outside. These buildings would be only of timber, and it is very doubtful whether any stone buildings were erected at Sandal for nearly two hundred years after it came into the first Earl Warren's possession. In 1240, William, the sixth Earl Warren, died, and was succeeded by his son John, whose famous answer to the "Quo warranto" of Edward the First is well known; he retained the earldom and estates sixty-four years, dying in 1304, and it was probably during this long tenancy that Sandal castle assumed prouder proportions. At any rate in 1300, the castle was of some pretensions, for a survey made on Christmas day in that year, mentions the castle and its appointments, a deer park of thirty acres, a garden, a small fishpond of no value, because the fishes die in it (was this because the castle sewage was poured into it?), and states

2 For an instructive paper, by Sir George Duckett, Bart., on this vexed

question, see Yorks. Archæol. Journal, IX. 421.

3

that sixty shillings must be allowed for supporting the fortresses and houses, and £9 2s. 6d. for the Constable, porter, and watchman of the castle. A copy of a grant by John, the last Earl de Warren, to John de Gargrave, given at Sandal castle, and dated September 24, 1313, is printed in "The Rectory Manor of Wakefield," App. I. xliv.

At this period the castle must have been of some importance and comfort, for the Countess of Warren occasionally resided here, and it was from Sandal castle that the last Earl Warren addressed his letter, dated June 10, 1314, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, touching the matter of his divorce from Joan de Barr. John de Warren, the last of that proud and noble name, of whose unhappy domestic life we know so much, and whose influence was felt at Sandal far more than that of any of his predecessors, was such a notable character, that it may be well to give a short sketch of his ill-fated career.

John de Warren, the eighth earl, was the only son of William de Warren (who predeceased his father John, the seventh earl, being killed in a tournament at Croydon, Dec. 15, 1286), by Joan, daughter of Robert Vere, Earl of Oxford; he was born June 30, 1286, and succeeded his grandfather in 1304. Being a minor, he became a ward of Edward the First, who offered to him in marriage his granddaughter, Joan de Barr, daughter of Henry, Earl of Barr, by his wife Eleanor Plantagenet. The offer was accepted, and the nuptials celebrated in the king's chapel at Westminster on March 15, 1305; the earl being not yet nineteen years of age, and his bride much younger. Their wedded life soon became clouded; John de Warren left his wife, and took to his home Maude de Nerford, the daughter of a Norfolk knight, who supplanted Joan in the affections of the earl. As early as 1313, the church took notice of the earl's openly scandalous life, and the clergy of Norfolk, the county from whence came Maude de Nerford, with those of Kent, wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject, who sent a solemn monition to the earl; "but this not having produced any effect, the succeeding archbishop, Walter Reynolds, with eleven of his suffragan bishops, again,

3 Taylor, Rectory Manor of Wakefield, App. I. p. xlv.

May 23, 1314, admonished him to amend without delay." A motion of divorce was then sued for by the earl against Joan de Barr, the allegation being that she was too nearly related to him by blood, and a bull of divorce was actually procured from the Pope, which, however, was not accepted by the English prelates; the suit dragged on until Feb. 20, 1316, when it was decided that there should be a legal separation, a mensa et thoro, that Joan de Barr should retain her title and rank as Countess of Warren and Surrey, and should have 740 marks a year for her life, secured on the Lincolnshire estates of the earl.5 By Maude de Nerford, John de Warren had two sons, John and Thomas, and three daughters. The earl was anxious that his lands north of the Trent should be settled on Maude de Nerford and her issue; and with this intention made a conveyance of all his manors north of the Trent to the king, June 29, 1316, and whilst in the king's hands Richard de Mosele was appointed receiver of the rents, and was directed to pay them to Earl Warren; on August 4 of the same year the king, by charter, reconveyed the whole to the earl for life, remainder to Maude de Nerford for life and to her male issue.

This lady and her two sons predeceased the earl, and he then appears to have lived with Isabel de Houland, ma compaigne' as she is styled in his will, but he was never married to her, although an indenture was drawn up at Chartreuse on June 2, 1346, wherein it was agreed by the king that if the earl should have a child by her, it should assume the name and arms of Warren, and be joined in marriage to one of the blood royal; but there does not appear to have been any issue of this connection. The earl died June 30, 1347, aged exactly sixty-one years, and was buried under a raised tombstone in the abbey church of Lewes. A copy of his will is given in p. 41, Vol. 36, of the Surtees Society's Publications. His widow, Joan de Barr, was throughout his life acknowledged as Countess of Warren, as the following extracts show she is mentioned as being present after the deposition of king Edward II. when the Great Seal was delivered to the bishop of Norwich by the Queen and Prince on Nov. 30, 1326; in the earl's charter confirmatory to the grants of Lewes Priory, dated from his castle at Lewes, on

Sussex Archæolo ical Collections, Vol. VI.

5 Rot. Pat. p. 2, m. 32.