The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 357, February 21, 1829

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 357, February 21, 1829
Various

Various

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction / Volume 13, No. 357, February 21, 1829

WARWICK CASTLE.

WARWICK CASTLE

The history of a fabric, so intimately connected with some of the most important events recorded in the chronicles of our country, as that of Warwick Castle, cannot fail to be alike interesting to the antiquary, the historian, and the man of letters. This noble edifice is also rendered the more attractive, as being one of the very few that have escaped the ravages of war, or have defied the mouldering hand of time; it having been inhabited from its first foundation up to the present time, a period of nearly one thousand years. Before, however, noticing the castle, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the antiquity of the town of which it is the chief ornament.

The town of Warwick is delightfully situated on the banks of the river Avon, nearly in the centre of the county to which it has given its name, and of which it is the principal town. Much diversity of opinion exists among antiquaries, as to whether it be of Roman or Saxon origin; but it is the opinion of Rous, as well as that of the learned Dugdale,[1 - "Warwickshire," p. 298, edit. 1661.] that its foundation is as remote as the earliest period of the Christian era. These authors attribute its erection to Gutheline, or Kimbeline, a British king, who called it after his own name, Caer-Guthleon, a compound of the British word Caer, (civitas,) and Gutieon, or Gutheline, which afterwards, for the sake of brevity, was usually denominated Caerleon. We are also informed that Guiderius, the son and successor of Kimbeline, greatly extended it, granting thereto numerous privileges and immunities; but being afterwards almost totally destroyed by the incursions of the Picts and Scots, it lay in a ruinous condition until it was rebuilt by the renowned Caractacus. This town afterwards greatly suffered from the ravages of the Danish invaders; but was again repaired by the lady Ethelfleda, the daughter of King Alfred, to whom it had been given, together with the kingdom of Mercia, of which it was the capital, by her father. Camden,[2 - Vide Camden's "Britannia," by Bishop Gibson, vol. i. p. 603, edit. 1722.] with whose opinion several other antiquaries also concur, supposes that Warwick was the ancient Præsidium of the Romans, and the post where the præfect of the Dalmatian horse was stationed by the governor of Britain, as mentioned in the Notitia.

The appearance of this town in the time of Leland is thus described by that celebrated writer:—"The town of Warwick hath been right strongly defended and waullid, having a compace of a good mile within the waul. The dike is most manifestly perceived from the castelle to the west gate, and there is a great crest of yearth that the waul stood on. Within the precincts of the toune is but one paroche chirche, dedicated to St. Mary, standing in the middle of the toune, faire and large. The toune standeth on a main rokki hill, rising from est to west. The beauty and glory of it is yn two streetes, whereof the hye street goes from est to west, having a righte goodely crosse in the middle of it, making a quadrivium, and goeth from north to south." Its present name is derived, according to Matthew Paris, from Warmund, the father of Offa, king of the Mercians, who rebuilt it, and called it after his own name, Warwick.[3 - "Inter Occidentalium Anglorum Reges illustrissimos, præcipua commendationis laude celebratur, rex Warmundus, ab his qui Historias Anglorum non solum relatu proferre, sed etiam scriptis inserere, consueverant. Is fundator cujusdam urbis a seipso denominatæ; quæ lingua Anglicana Warwick, id est, Curia Warmundi nuncupatur."—Matthæi Paris "Historia Major," à Watts, edit. 1640.]

The castle, which is one of the most magnificent specimens of the ancient baronial splendour of our ancestors now remaining in this kingdom, rears its proud and lofty turrets, gray with age, in the immediate vicinity of the town. It stands on a rocky eminence, forty feet in perpendicular height, and overhanging the river, which laves its base. The first fortified building on this spot was erected by the before-mentioned lady Ethelfleda, who built the donjon upon an artificial mound of earth. No part of that edifice, however, is now supposed to remain, except the mound, which is still to be traced in the western part of the grounds surrounding the castle. The present structure is evidently the work of different ages, the most ancient part being erected, as appears from the "Domesday Book," in the reign of Edward the Confessor; which document also informs us, that it was "a special strong hold for the midland part of the kingdom." In the reign of William the Norman it received considerable additions and improvements; when Turchill, the then vicomes of Warwick, was ordered by that monarch to enlarge and repair it. The Conqueror, however, being distrustful of Turchill, committed the custody of it to one of his own followers, Henry de Newburgh, whom he created Earl of Warwick, the first of that title of the Norman line. The stately building at the north-east angle, called Guy's Tower, was erected in the year 1394, by Thomas Beauchamp, the son and successor of the first earl of that family, and was so called in honour of the ancient hero of that name, and also one of the earls of Warwick. It is 128 feet in height, and the walls, which are of solid masonry, measure 10 feet in thickness. Cæsar's Tower, which is supposed to be the most ancient part of the fabric, is 147 feet in height; but appears to be less lofty than that of Guy's, from its being situated on a less elevated part of the rock.

In the reign of Henry III., Warwick Castle was of such importance, that security was required from Margery, the sister and heiress of Thomas de Newburgh, the sixth earl of the Norman line, that she would not marry with any person in whom the king could not place the greatest confidence. During the same reign, in the year 1265, William Manduit, who had garrisoned the castle on the side of the king against the rebellious barons, was surprised by John Gifford, the governor of Kenilworth Castle, who, having destroyed a great part of the walls, took him, together with the countess, his wife, prisoners; and a ransom of nineteen hundred marks were paid, before their release could be obtained. The last attack which it sustained was during the civil wars in the seventeenth century, when it was besieged for a fortnight, but did not surrender.

Few persons have made a greater figure in history than the earls of Warwick, from the renowned

—– Sir Guy of Warwicke, as was weten
In palmer wyse, as Colman hath it wryten;
The battaill toke on hym for Englandis right,
With the Colbrond in armes for to fight.[4 - Hardynge's "Chronicle," p, 211, edit. 1812.]

up to the accomplished Sir Fulk Greville, to whom the castle, with all its dependencies, was granted by James I., after having passed through the successive lines of Beauchamp, Neville, Plantagenet, and Dudley.

L.L.

ODE TO THE LONDON STONE

(For the Mirror.)

Mound of antiquity's dark hidden ways,
Though long thou'st slumber'd in thy holy niche,
Now, the first time, a modern bard essays
To crave thy primal use, the what and which!
Speak! break my sorry ignorance asunder!
City stone-henge, of aldermanic wonder.

Wert them a fragment of a Druid pile,
Some glorious throne of early British art?
Some trophy worthy of our rising isle,
Soon from its dull obscurity to start.
Wert thou an altar for a world's respect?
Now the sole remnant of thy fame and sect.

Wert thou a churchyard ornament, to braid
The charnel of putridity, and part
The spot where what was mortal had been laid,
With all thy native coldness in his heart?
Thou sure wert not the stone—let critics cavil!—
Of quack M.D. who lectur'd on the gravel.

Did e'er fat Falstaff, wreathing 'neath his cup
Of glorious sack, unable to reel home,
Sit on thy breast, and give his fancy up,
The all that wine had given pow'r to roam,
And left the mind in gay, but dreamy talk,
Wakeful in wit when legs denied to walk?

Did e'er wise Shakspeare brood upon thy mass,
And whimsey thee to any wondrous use
Of sage forefathers, in his verse to class
That which a worse bard had despis'd to choose,
Unconscious how the meanest objects grow,
Giants of notice in the poet's show?

Canst thou not tell a tale of varied life,
That gave Time's annals their recording name?
No notes of Cade, marching with mischief rife,
By Britain's misery to raise his fame?
Wert thou the hone that "City's Lord" essay'd[5 - "Now is Mortimer lord of the city."—Vide Shakspeare.]
To make the whetstone of his rebel blade?

Wert thou—'tis pleasant to imagine it,
Howe'er absurd such notions may be thought—
When the wide heavens, wild with thunder fit,
Huge hailstones to distress the nation wrought,
A mass congeal'd of heaven's artill'ry wain,[6 - In the reign of Mary, hailstones, which measured fifteen inches in circumference, fell upon and destroyed two small towns near Nottingham.—Cooper's Hist. England.]
A "hailstone chorus" of a Mary's reign?

Or, wert thou part of monumental shrine
Rais'd to a genius, who, for daily bread,
While living, the base world had left to pine,
Only to find his value out when dead?
Say, wert thou any such memento lone,
Of bard who wrote for bread, and got a stone?

How many nations slumber on their deeds.
The all that's left them of their mighty race?
How may heroes' bosoms, wars, and creeds
Have sought in stilly death a resting place,
Since thou first gave thy presence to the air,
Thou, who art looking scarce the worse for wear!

Oft may each wave have travell'd to the shore,