Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 26/52)

396.—Tower of Oxford Castle

There are more pictures of Oxford by Lang and also Haslehust. [more...]

397.—Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle, as it appeared in the Fifteenth Century.

398.—Norwich Castle

Vol I, p.398, figs 308 and 389: Norwich Castle

399.—Norwich Castle

“[...] Hugh Bigod, who had sworn that Henry had appointed Stephen his successor, was the first to hold out against the king in the Castle of Norwich, which his ancestor had built. Norwich was a regular fortress, with a wall and ditch, an outer, a middle, and an inner court, and a keep. The bridge over one of the ditches and the keep still remain. The keep had long since gone through the customary process of being turned into a jail, and the jail being removed it is now gutted and roofless. This keep is a parallelogram, a hundred and ten feet in length by about ninety-three in breadth. The walls are in some places thirteen feet thick, and the tower is seventy feet in height. It was not sufficient for the people in authority in the last century to tear this fine historical monument to pieces, by their fittings up [more...] [$]

400.—Winchester

“The successor of Henry Beauclerk was also an usurper. The rival pretensions of Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda filled the land with bloodshed and terror for nineteeen years. From the north to the south, from the Barbecans of York (Fig. 386) to the palaces of Winchester (Fig. 400), the country was [...] [more...]

415.—Entrance to Warwick Castle.

[Piers] Gaveston endeavoured to defend himself in Scarborough Castle (of which the crumbling ruins now only remain, Fig. 919), while the king went to York to seek an army for his relief. But before any force could be collected for such a purpose, Piers Gaveston, on the 19th of May, [...] who pledged their faith, it is said, that he should be kept unharmed in the castle of Wallingford. At Dedington, a village between Oxford and Warwick, the Earl of Pembroke, who escorted him, left him for a night under the pretext of visiting the Countess of Pembroke, who was in the neighbourhood. Gaveston seems to remained full of confidence, as usual, until he was roused from his sleep by the startling order to “dress speedily.” He obeyed, descended to the courtyard, and found himself in the presence of the “black dog of Ardenne.” He must have repented then his wretched wit, for he knew the stern Warwick had sworn a terrible vow that he would make the minion fee; “the black dog’s teeth.” A deeper darkness than that of the night must then have overshadowed the wretched Gaveston. No help was at hand. Amid the triumphant shouts of the large armed force that attended Warwick, he was set on a mule, and hurried thirty miles through the night to Warwick Castle (Figs. 415, 416, 417, and 917), where his entrance was announced by a crash of martial music. (p. 235) [more...]

Interior of the Temple Church.

The Temple Church was built by (or for) the Knights Templar in London in the 12th Century. Some time after the Knights Templar were destroyed (in 1307) the temple was given by Edward II to the Knights Hospitaller, who in turn rented it out to the Inner Temple and Middle Temple, [...] [more...]

416.—Warwick Castle, Guy’s Tower

“It is a rare consolation for the lover of his country’s monuments, to turn from castles made into prisons, and abbeys into stables, to such a glorious relic of ‘Old England’ as Warwick Castle. Who can forget the first sight of that beautiful pile, little touched by time, not vulgarized by ignorance? (Fig. 417). As he enters the portal through which [...] [more...]