warrior and Crusader. In 1174 on his return from the Holy Land, when apparently about 55 years of age, he joined in the attempt made by Prince Henry to seize his father's crown, and aided the Scottish king in his invasion of the North of England. Geoffrey Plantagenet, bishop-elect of Lincoln-an illegitimate son of Henry II-and Roger de Pont l'Evêque, archbishop of York, laid siege to and captured Mowbray's castle of Malzeard; but the attempt by the royal forces to take Thirsk Castle was unsuccessful. The siege, however, was a determined one, and Mowbray sent messengers to William the Lion asking him to come to his relief. The capture at Alnwick of the Scottish king by Ralph de Glanville, the justiciar, and by Bernard de Balliol, was a death-blow to the success of the revolt, and Mowbray made submission to Henry II at Northampton. His voluntary surrender of Thirsk Castle may have been the means of gaining him the pardon he received. On 10 August, 1175. King William the Lion did homage to Henry II at York, and placed his helmet, spear, and saddle upon the High Altar of the Minster in token of his submission to his over-lord, the King of England. In the following year the great timber castle of Thirsk, which had been Mowbray's favourite residence, was dismantled and destroyed by order of Henry II. Camden, writing in 1582, says Thirsk "had formerly a very strong castle," but adds that he "could see nothing of it besides the rampire." Description. Thirsk is a pleasant but sleepy old town left stranded high and dry, as it were, by the railway; and from the few trains which, during the day, deign to stop at the distant station, an incongruous-looking motor 'bus, or a prehistoric and tyreless fly, conveys the long-suffering traveller to the town. Nor does the high road condescend to more than a nodding acquaintance with the slumbering town, for one merely catches a distant glimpse of the tower of the beautiful Perpendicular church as one motors from the north towards York. Possibly not one in a thousand who actually pass through the town has seen the scanty remains of the home of the Lady Gundreda and of the famous Roger de Mowbray, of the once great castle of the historic house who give their name to the pleasant vale of Mowbray. The motte, which appears to have a small one-probably merely used as a citadel-has been lowered and partially levelled, and is now crowned by a modern house dignified by the name of "Castle Villa." The ditches and ramparts of the oblong bailey, still known as Castle Garth," may be traced in part, but are much mutilated.1 The fortress would never appear to have developed any works in masonry.2 TOPCLIFFE, MAIDEN BOWER (fig. 6.) History. The history of this, in the opinion of the writer, the most typical of the Norman earth-and-timber castles of the North Riding, is well authenticated. It was erected, very soon after 1071, by William de Percy, and is of great interest as the original English home of one of the most historic of our great feudal houses. It is a significant fact that at the time of the Survey the manor on which it stood was worth more than it had been in the time of the Confessor. By his wife, Emma de Port, William de Percy had issue four sons, Alan (obiit 1131), afterwards the second feudal baron, Walter, Richard, and William. Alan was succeeded by his son, William, third feudal baron, who was one of the principal commanders at the battle of the Standard, and is said to have borne the arms Azure, five fusils in fess or." As he left no male issue, his daughter and heiress, Agnes, carried the barony and estates 1 Thirsk Castle was probably a burgus fortress, as were Skelton and Whorlton. A local tradition exists that its defences extended from the outer ward of the fortress, still called Castle Yard, eastward towards Kirk Gate, including the present market place. The borough of Thirsk is mentioned in Yorkshire Inquisitions, iii, 78. 2 The Mowbrays continued to reside at Thirsk after the destruction of the castle. The site of their manor-house, Woodhill, formerly la Wodehall, is marked by a moated enclosure, now overgrown with trees, less than a mile north of the church (Kirkby's Inquest, p. 104) Archbishop Wickwane stayed here September 27, 1282, presumably as a guest of Roger Mowbray, who died about 1297 (Wickwane's Register, p. 347). 3 William de Percy, the founder of Topcliffe Castle, came from Perci, in the departement of La Manche, where he was a feudatory of the Paynels. He did not fight at Hastings, but accompanied his friend, Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester, to England in 1067 (Dugdale, i, 409), and became his chief Yorkshire feudatory. He was with the king in his expedition to Scotland in August, 1072, and, after his return, superintended the rebuilding of York Castle in conjunction with Hugh FitzBaldric, the sheriff. He was subsequently appointed Governor of the city of York. He joined the first Crusade under Robert, Duke of Normandy, in His 1096, and died at Monsgaudium, near 4 D.B., fo. 323a, col. 2. In Topeclive (Topcliffe) and Crecala (Crakehill), Deltune (Dalton), Estauesbi (Asenby), and Schripetune (Skipton-on-Swale), Bernulf had 26 carucates of land for geld, where 15 ploughs may be. Now William (de Percy) has three ploughs there, and 35 villanes and 14 bordars with 13 ploughs there. A church (is) there (at Topcliffe), and two priests having one plough, and a mill of 5s. (annual value). T.R.E. £; now (it is worth) 100s. 5 Alan, under whom the Percy estates were considerably augmented (see Kilton), married Emma, daughter of Gilbert de Gant, a son of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, by Maud, sister of William the Conqueror. Gilbert de Gant was descended from Alfred the Great through that monarch's daughter, Elfthryth, wife of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and her grand-daughter, Leutgarde, who married Wichman, Count of the castle of Gand," from whom Gilbert was the sixth in male descent (A. E. Ellis, Yorks. Arch. Journal, iv, 230). The Gants bore the arms, Barry of six or and azure, a bend gules." 66 to her husband, Joscelin of Loraine, who took the name of Percy, but retained his parental arms, "Or, a lion rampant azure," the famous blue lion of the Percies subsequently well known on many a stricken field. In 1174, during the Mowbray rebellion, the castle of "Toppecliva" was garrisoned for King Henry II by Geoffrey, bishop-elect of Lincoln, an illegitimate son of that king, who strengthened its timber defences.2 The payment for this work is entered in the Pipe Rolls, 21 Hen. II, where the use of the word "efforciamento" shows clearly enough that it was simply a question of strengthening and not of rebuilding a then existing fortress. Topcliffe was probably the principal residence of the Percies until the acquisition, by purchase, early in the fourteenth century, of the Vesci castle of Alnwick, yet it never developed any works in masonry, and is one of several examples of early Norman timber castles, being occupied by an important baronial family down to a comparatively late date.4 Description. This well-preserved and interesting motte and bailey castle occupies the nab end of a low, natural ridge rising above low-lying and somewhat swampy ground between the river Swale on the south and the Cod Beck on the north, which streams effect a junction a short distance to the east of the fortress. The site is locally known as "Maiden Bower." There can be no doubt whatever that in medieval times all the land between the two streams and around the ridge on which the fortress stood was a swamp, and that the castle 1 We are told (Sussex Arch. Soc., vi (1855)) that Joscelin de Alta Ripa, a nephew of Joscelin de Loraine, assumed the ancient arms of the Percies. The story about Joscelin of Loraine having been offered the choice of the name or the arms of Percy is doubtless merely a family tradition. The arms of Loraine differed materially from those of the Loraine Percies. See Round's Peerage and Family History, i, 42. From the notes by the Rev. C. V. Collier, F.S.A., on the heraldry which once decorated Wressle, a late Percy castle, it would appear that the ancient Percy arms were retained by the Loraine-Percies until the beginning of the fourteenth century. "In the roll of Henry III," says Mr. Collier, "the arms of Percy are given as azure, a fess engrailed or, for Henry de Percy." Benedict of Peterborough, Rolls Ser., i, 68. Geoffrey Plantagenet, an illegitimate son of Henry II, who appears to have been born about 1158, can have been little more than a boy at this time, but he was of a very determined and resolute character, as his after life shows clearly enough. He took an active part in the suppression of the Mowbray rebellion, and, with the aid of Roger de Pont l'Evêque, archbishop of York, captured the Mowbray castle of Malzeard (Roger of Houeden, Chron., Rolls Ser., ii, 58). In operatione et efforciamento castelli de Toppecliva, £7 10s. 2d. 4 The house of Loraine-Percy became extinct, so far as the direct male line is concerned, on the death of Joscelyn Percy, 11th and last Earl of Northumberland, who died without male issue in 1670. His daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, married Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, whose son, Algernon, 7th Duke, had a daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, who married Sir Hugh Smithson. The latter was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766, and is the ancestor of the present Duke. thus occupied a highly defensible position on what would then be practically an island. The motte, which lies at the eastern end of the earthwork, was originally the nab end of the ridge, but was cut off from the remainder of the ridge by a deep ditch, and the soil thus excavated was utilised in heightening the natural motte, the upper 10 to 12 feet of which is probably artificial. The motte now rises some 45 feet above the low-lying ground between the two streams, viewed from which it is very formidable in appearance. It is completely separated from the bailey by the beforementioned ditch; but there is no sign that the ditch was continued right round the base of the motte, indeed such a protection would be rendered unnecessary on the north, east, and south by the fact that these bases of the three-quarters detached motte would rise out of swamps. Unfortunately, the motte has been somewhat mutilated by three very narrow terraces or steps being cut in its sides, this doubtless being done when the earthworks were included as an ornament in the grounds of the later manor-house of the Percies to the immediate west of the Norman fortress.1 This mutilation has, no doubt, slightly reduced the diameter of the summit of the motte, which is now only 27 feet. But it is obvious that when perfect the motte would not be more than 40 feet in diameter at the summit, if so much, a space insufficient to allow of the erection of a detached tower within the stockaded enclosure. It seems probable that the stockade would bear one or more small timber turrets on its enceinte in order to provide a certain amount of accommodation in the citadel. The bailey, which is of horse-shoe shape, encloses about an acre of land, and the ditch, with its scarp and counterscarp banks, is still in very fair preservation. As at Nigel Fossard's contemporary castle at Langthwaite, near Doncaster, at the 1 There is no doubt that this manorhouse was of considerable size. It was roughly horse-shoe shaped, the curving side being towards the east, and measured some 580 feet from east to west, by 550 feet from north to south. It has been stated that the Earl of Northumberland was murdered here on April 28, 1489, by an infuriated mob, but it seems more probable that the murder was committed in or near Thirsk. That grasping and insatiable person, Henry VII, had ordered the Earl to levy an unpopular tax, which the Yorkshire people, by whom his predecessor, Richard III, had been greatly beloved, much resented. When the Earl was compelled to admit to the assembled people that the royal miser intended to enforce payment of the tax, they suddenly attacked and slew him. The Earl was interred with great pomp at Beverley, his funeral costing, so it is said (Archæologia Elina, N.S.. iv, 192), a sum equivalent to about £15,000 of modern money. The enormous procession travelled from Topcliffe to Beverley, spending a night at Wressle, and another at Leckonfield, two other Percy manorhouses. The Earl was interred in the Percy Chantry of the beautiful East Riding Minster, where his altar tomb still remains. Busli castle of Mexborough (West Riding), and at the motteand-bailey castle of Vieux Conches (Eure),1 there is no gap in the bailey ramparts, and the entrance can only have been by means of a light flying bridge of timber, which could be let down or drawn up as desired. Up this bridge horses would be trained to climb (see the Bayeux Tapestry). The timber great hall would certainly, from the first, be placed in the bailey, probably at the south side of the enclosure, with windows looking south across to the river Swale, and on this side the slopes of the natural ridge have been scarped away, and are so steep that the ditch is here discontinued as unnecessary. WHORLTON (fig. 9). History. At the time of the Survey Whorlton was part of the vast Yorkshire property of Robert, Earl of Mortain and of Cornwall, and was then retained by the Earl in his own hands. Although it did not form part of the Survey holding of Nigel Fossard of Foss Castle, it would appear to have been acquired by that energetic and insatiable baron soon after the Mortain rebellion of 1088, and would therefore be held by him in capite. It passed to his son and successor, Robert, the second of the Fossard barons, who, early in the reign of Henry I, gave it to his son in law, Robert de Meynell, to whom we may assign the foundation of the castle. Robert de Meynell, who gave the whole vill of Myton-on-Swale to St. Mary's, York, was succeeded by his son, Stephen. At the time of the accession of Henry II there is no doubt that Whorlton was an earth-and-timber castle of the usual Norman type; but it may have developed works in masonry during the lifetime of Robert de Meynell II, c. 1200, and is mentioned in 1216 as the castle of Potto.3 Description. This fortress, like the neighbouring castle of Skelton and that of Barnard Castle, was a "burgus" fortressthe seigneural stronghold in this case standing at the western 1 At Vieux Conches the probable position of the entrance gate is indicated by a very small hillock just outside the ditch, which De Caumont (Abécédaire, p. 407) mistook for a second motte. But it is improbable that this hillock formed part of the original castle; it may have been thrown up by the Conqueror, c. 1040, to facilitate the dismantling of the fortress after its capture by him. Mrs. Armitage, however, who, like the writer, has visited this castle, says, "I am disposed to think that it was thrown up by the besiegers in order to throw a bridge on to the embankment, as they did from the movable bretasches." 2 D.B., 305b, col. 2. At the time of the Survey Whorlton formed part of the manor of Hutton Rudby, and there were there 20 villanes with 3 ploughs. 3 Fœdera, i, 142. |