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. 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 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.3 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,

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 the last day of May, 1331, he alleges one of the motives of his grant to be "for his own soul and that of the Countess Joanna de Baar, his consort." Among the seals of the witnesses are expressly recorded those of "the lady Joanna de Barr, Countesse de Warenne, William her chaplain, and of Richard Russell, who, by the direction of the lord the earl, wrote this charter, and saw all the above-placed seals affixed." 6 In 1337, she is mentioned in a grant along with John de Warren, Earl of Surrey, as "Joan his wife." After his death she was considered as his widow, and in the ing. p. m. he is stated to be seized of the manor of Bokeland in her right. In the same year, but after his death (1347), under the description of "Domina Joan de Barr, Comitissa Surrey," she presented a clerk to one of the Warren churches in the diocese of Salisbury. She held courts at her manor of Wakefield under the style of 'Countess of Warren' in 1350, and the name of Joan de Bar is inserted in the rolls of that manor for the same year, the style before this period being "The Court at Wakefield," and after this period "The Court of the Countess of Warren." 8 In 1355, Elizabeth de Clare leaves to dame Johanne de Bars, Countesse de Garenne, an image of gold of John the Baptist in the desert.9 The Yorkshire estates of the late earl were settled upon her as dower, but on her death were to revert to the king, and by deed dated June 30, 1359, Edward III. agreed to pay her £120 annually in lieu of these estates. 10 Joan de Barr died abroad on Aug. 29, 1361, and was not buried in England.

On Aug. 6, 1347, only thirty-seven days after the earl's death, a royal patent was signed at Reading, by which all the northern possessions of the deceased were settled on Edmund de Langley, the fifth son of the king, but as he was a minor, and Joan de Barr had possession for life of the Yorkshire estates, he did not actually receive the profits of them until he attained his majority in 1362, previously to which time the king had made arrangements with Joan de Barr as stated above. In this year also Edmund was created Earl of Cambridge.

Hardly had the last Earl Warren settled his matrimonial dispute, when he was embroiled in another suit, and this time against Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, grandson of Henry the Third, who had married Alesia de Laci, the heiress of the proud owners of Pontefract. The lady was staying at her husband's seat at Cawford in Dorsetshire, when she was carried off by violence, but probably as a consenting party, on the Monday before Ascension day, 1317, to Earl Warren's castle of Reigate in Surrey. This occasioned a divorce between Thomas of Lancaster and his countess, and the earl, in a spirit of revenge, laid siege to the castle of Sandal, and after taking it, set the building on fire, the traces of which can still be found in the existing ruins; but of this earlier castle we know nothing, either as to its size or architecture.

The castle cannot have been completely destroyed, as has so frequently been stated, because the following year Earl Warren, in virtue of a licence from the king, granted, for the natural life of the said earl, the manor of Wakefield with the castle of Sandal to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, as a repаration for the wrong done to him. Lancaster only enjoyed it about three years, for, having taken up arms and acting as leader of the barons against the king, he was taken prisoner at the battle of Boroughbridge, and brought to his own castle at Pontefract, where his old enemy, John de Warren, was one of those who sat in judgment upon him, and ordered his execution, which took place, March 22, 1322. On Earl Lancaster's attainder and death his possessions came into the king's hands, and with them Sandal castle, whose custody, on March 19, Edward the Second committed to William de la Beche, because of his known hostility to the late earl," but he only acted as custodian until April 4, when he was commanded to hand over the castle and its appurtenances to Thomas de Eyvill. The accounts of de la Beche for the time when he had the custody of the castle are preserved in the Ministers' Accounts General Series, 1145 b, and are most interesting, stating the goods and chattels in the castle, the number of horses (21 cart-horses and 46 colts), cattle (2 bulls, 25 cows, 40 oxen), pigs (14), ewes and lambs (30), the amount of corn, wheat, oats, peas, wine (5) tuns), contents of the larder, vessels and utensils, harness and armour. Under the heading "wages" come, William

11 Originalia Rolls, 15 Ed. II.

VOL. XIII.

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