Part 15
It is not stated by Grose on what authority he places Raglan Castle among the strongholds erected in the time of Henry VII. His observations can apply only to those portions of it which are comparatively modern. The Citadel, or Yellow Tower of Gwent, is of unquestionable antiquity. In the family history we are told that Sir John Morley, a military knight, who lived in the time of Richard II., resided here as ‘lord of Raglan Castle.’ But postponing this question at present, as one that will be considered more fully when we come to examine the Castle in detail, we shall merely observe that although, as it now appears, the Castle does not indicate any more distant origin than the reign of Henry V., yet traces may be discovered in various portions of towers built, or reconstructed, during every subsequent reign, down to that of Charles I.--with whose fate it is so painfully associated. Owing to the circumstance named, the learned antiquary may discover ‘a disunion of styles;’ but taken as a whole, the Castle of Raglan presents a remarkable harmony of proportions that hides every minute discrepancy, heightens the general effect, and leaves the spectator under a pleasing conviction that, in design and execution, it is the work, not of many, but of one master mind. But to this subject we shall return; and, in the meantime, we proceed to give a brief sketch of
The Founders of Raglan. --By Mr. Jones the name of the founder is traced to that of Sir William ap Thomas.[198] This date, however, is too modern, and only a repetition of the conjecture thrown out by Grose. There is every reason to believe that the Clares, as early as the thirteenth century, had a castle at Raglan, the site, of which is now occupied by the Citadel, or Tower of Gwent, erected probably in the reign of Henry V. The above-named Sir William ap Thomas resided at Raglan Castle during the reign of Henry V., who knighted him for his valour in the wars of France. He married Gladys, daughter of Sir Richard Gam, and widow of Sir Roger Vaughan,[199] by whom he had three sons and a daughter. Of his eldest son, William, first Earl of Pembroke, we shall speak hereafter. But of the old military Lords of Raglan, little of historical interest has descended to modern times. From Richard Strongbow , of whom a notice has been given in the preceding sketches of Chepstow and Tinterne, Raglan descended to Walter Bloet, “in consideration of soldiers, money, and arms,” furnished by him for the expedition to Ireland, of which Strongbow was the leader. By the marriage of the daughter and heiress of Bloet with Sir James Berkeley, it passed into and remained in that ancient family until the reign of Henry V., when it became vested in Sir William ap Thomas, already mentioned; whose eldest son was created by Edward IV. Lord of Raglan, Chepstow, and Gower, and commanded to assume the surname of Herbert, in honour of his ancestor Hubert Fitz-Henry, chamberlain to King Henry I. To this nobleman was entrusted the care of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., who was for some time a prisoner in Raglan Castle. Sir Hubert was created, in 1469, Earl of Pembroke, in acknowledgment of his zeal to the house of York; but his career was brief and disastrous, for having the same year raised a corps of Welshmen, he marched against the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick, and being taken prisoner at Dane’s Moor, was beheaded at Banbury on the 27th of July.[200] Of these calamitous events, the following account, abridged from the old Chronicle , may not be unacceptable to the reader:--
“ King Edward hearing of these Northerne proceedings, and that his brother and Warwicke were preparing against him, sent for the Lord Herbert, whom he had created Earl of Pembroke, to be his general in the North; and therefore accompanied with Sir Richard Herbert his brother, and eighteen thousand well-furnished Welshmen, marched towards the enemy; and after him was sent Humfrey Lord Stafford, with sixe thousand archers, to second him in his warres. These lords meeting together had notice by espials that the Northerne made towards Northampton; to intercept whom, the Lord Stafford, lately made Earl of Devonshire, was employed; and Sir Richard Herbert, who with two thousand horse layd themselves covertly by the side of a wood, and suddenly set upon the rereward, the rest having passed; but the Northerne very nimbly turned about and bad the Welshmen such welcome, as few of them returned to tell of their entertainment. The king understanding of this hard beginning, mustered his subjects on every side, intending to cope with the Northerne himself. And Earle Warwicke , as forward to advance his fortunes, gathered his friends, with purpose to encounter with Pembroke and his Welsh. But before any supplies came to either of them, it chanced the armies to meete unawares upon a fair plaine called _Dane’s Moor_, neere to the towne of Hedgecot, three miles from Banbury, and presently fell to a bickering, wherein Sir Henry Nevill , knight, son of the Lord Latimer, upon a lusty courage venturing somewhat too farre, was taken prisoner; and notwithstanding he yielded himselfe to his takers, was cruelly slaine; which unmartiall act rested not long unrepaied, with the loss of most of the Welsh next day. For the field withdrawne, the Lord Stafford repaired to Banbury, and there took his lodging, where his affections were much enamoured vpon a faire damsell in the inne. But the Earl of Pembroke coming to the same towne, tooke into the same inne, and commanded the Lord Stafford to provide himself elsewhere, contrary to their agreements made before. Whereat Stafford was displeased, and departing thence with his whole band, left the Earl naked of men in the towne, and disabled the field of the archers, whereby the day was lost upon the king’s part, for which he shortly lost his owne head. The Northerne, inflamed for the death of young Nevill , the next morning most valiantly set upon the Welshmen, and by the force of archers drave them from their ground of advantage, which Pembroke wanting supplied with his own prowess; and Sir Richard , his brother, with his poll-axe twice made way through the battell of the Northerne without any mortal or deadly wound; so that by their valours it was verily supposed the field had been wonne, had not John Clapham, an esquire and servant to Warwicke, displayed his lorde’s colours with his white beare, and from an eminent place cried, ‘_A Warwicke! A Warwicke!_’ Whereat the Welsh were so terrified as they turned and fled, leaving their general and his brother alone in the field, who, valiantly fighting, were encompassed and taken, with the death of five thousand of their men. The Earl with his brother, Sir Richard Herbert , were brought to Banbury, where, with ten other gentlemen, they lost their heads, Conyers and Clapham being their judges.
“This second victory thus got, and the Northerne men now fleshed under the leadinge of Robbin of Riddesdale,[201] hasted to the king’s manor of Grafton, where the Earle Rivers , father to the queen, then lay, whom, with his sonne John, they suddenly surprised, and in Northampton strucke off their heads without any judgment. The death of these lords the king greatly lamented, and sought to revenge: first, therefore, writing his commissions for the apprehension of Humfrey , Lord Stafford of Southwicke, who, by diligent search, was found at Brentmarsh, and beheaded at Bridgewater, as he worthily deserved. Next hee prepared a mighty army, and with the same marched towards Warwicke, his company encreasing ever as he went.”[202] In another Chronicle the same disastrous events are thus related:--
“ The Welshmen got first the West hill, hoping to have recovered the East hill; which if they had obteyned the victorye had been theirs, as their unwise prophesyers promised them before. The Northern men encamped themselves on the South hill. The Erle of Pembroke and the Lord Stafforde of Southwike were lodged at Banbery yᵉ day before yᵉ field, which was St. James’s Day ; and there the Erie of Pembroke put the Lord Stafforde out of an inne wherein he delighted much to be, for the love of a damosel that dwelled in the house, contrarie to their mutuall agreement by them taken; which was, that whosoever obtained first a lodging, should not be deceyved nor removed. After many great wordes and crakes had betweyne these two captaynes, the Lord Stafforde in great despite departed with his whole companye and band of archers, leaving the Erle of Pembroke almost desolate in the towne, which with all diligence returned to his hoste lying in the field unpurvoyed of archers, abiding such fortune as God would sende and provyde.” In the mean time, “Sir Henry Nevil, son to the Lord Latimer, tooke with him certaine light horsemen, and skirmished with the Welshmen in the evening, even before their campe, where he did divers valyaunt feates of armes; but, a little too hardy, he went so farre forward that he was taken and yeelded, and cruell slaine; which unmerciful acte the Welshmen sore rued the next day or night. For the Northern men being inflamed, and not a little discontented with the death of thys nobleman, in the mornyng valyauntly set on the Welshmen, and by force of archers caused them quickly to descende the hill into the valey, where both the hostes fought.”
In this hot encounter, “the Erle of Pembroke behaved himselfe like a hardy knight, and an expert capitaine; but hys brother, Syr Richard Herbert, so valyauntly acquited himselfe, that with his poll-axe in his hand, as his enemies did afterwards report, he twice by fair force passed thorough the battaile of his adversaries, and without any mortal wound returned. If everye one of his felowes and companions in arms had done but halfe the actes which he that daye by his noble prowess achieved, the Northerne men had obteyned neither safetie nor victorie.”
The chronicler then relates the circumstance which threw the Welshmen into a panic, by which they lost five thousand men, and then records the result with touching simplicity:--
“The Erle of Pembroke, Sir Richard Herbert ,[203] his brother, and divers were taken, and brought to Banbery to be behedded. Much lamentacion and no lesse entreatie was made to save the lyfe of Syr Richard, both for hys goodlye personage, which excelled all men there, and also for the noble chivalrie that he had shewed in the fielde the day of the battaile; insomuch that his brother, the Erle, when he should lay downe his head on the blocke to suffer, says to Sir John Conyers and Clapham--‘_Maisters, let me die! for I am old; but save my brother, which is yung, lustie, and hardie, mete and fit to serve the greatest prince of Christendome._’
“But Coniers and Clapham remembering the death of the yung knight, Syr Henry Nevill , cosyn to the Erle of Warwicke, could not hear on that syde; but caused the Erle and his brother, with divers other gentlemen to the number often, to be there behedded.”[204]
William , eldest son of this unfortunate nobleman, succeeded to the earldom of Pembroke, and was retained by the king to serve him in his wars of France and Normandy for one whole year, with forty men-at-arms and two hundred archers. But the king, being desirous to dignify his son Prince Edward with the title of Earl of Pembroke, procured a resignation of the same from this William, and in lieu thereof created him Earl of Huntingdon , on the fourth of July, 1479. Four years later he was constituted, by Richard III., Justice of South Wales, and entered into covenants with the king to take Dame Catharine Plantagenet, his daughter, to wife, before the feast of St. Michael following; as also to make her a jointure in lands to the value of two hundred pounds per annum: the king undertaking to settle upon them and their heirs male, lands and lordships of a thousand marks per annum. But this lady dying in her tender years, it is likely that this marriage did not take effect. He afterwards wedded Mary, the fifth sister of Woodville , Earl Rivers, by whom he had an only daughter, at whose marriage with Sir Charles Somerset, the Castle of Raglan , and its dependencies, passed into the family of Worcester.
From the genealogical history of that house we collect the following particulars:--The Sir Charles here named was a natural son of Henry, third Duke of Beaumont, famous in his day for his desperate assault of the Castle of St. Anjou , in which he put three hundred Scots to the sword, and hanged all the Frenchmen therein. He was afterwards Governor of the Isle of Wight, and of Calais; was finally taken prisoner at the battle of Hexham, and there beheaded by Nevil for his adherence to the house of Lancaster. At his death his son Charles assumed the name of Somerset, and being a person of abilities attained to great wealth and honours under Henry VII.,[205] who entered him of his Privy Council, made him Constable of Helmsley Castle, Admiral of the Fleet, sent him as ambassador with the Order of the Garter to the Emperor Maximilian, made him a Banneret, Knight of the Garter, and Captain of the Royal Guard. On a second embassy to Maximilian, he concluded two treaties--gave a bond for the payment of £10,000 in aid of the Emperor against the Turks, and in support of the Christian religion. Living in high favour with his sovereign, his good fortune was established by his marriage with Elizabeth , heiress of William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, in whose right, in 1506, he bore the title of Lord Herbert of Raglan .
On the accession of Henry VIII. he continued in the same high offices; and having, with six thousand men, attended the king into France, in 1513, he was present at the taking of Therrouenne and Tournay. For his heroic conduct in this campaign, he received the office of Lord Chamberlain for life; and finally, on account of his descent from John of Gaunt , and alliance to the king by blood, he was advanced the following year[206] to the dignity of Earl of Worcester.
By his will, dated March 24, 1524, he ordered his body to be buried beside that of his first wife in the chapel of Our Lady , now called Beaufort Chapel, in the Castle of Windsor. He directed that, in case he departed this life at Raibo , in London, or near the river Thames, his body should be conveyed by water to the said church at Windsor, as privately as might be, without pomp or great charge of torches, or clothing, hearse, wax, or great dinner; but only that twenty men of his own servants should each have mourning and bear a torch; and that the bier, or herse, should be covered with black cloth, and have a white cross upon it.
Henry , the second Earl of Worcester, who, during his father’s lifetime, had distinguished himself in the king’s service, and been knighted by Charles Brandon , Duke of Suffolk, was appointed one of the commissioners for concluding a peace with the French. Departing this life in 1549, he was buried in the church of Chepstow, where a costly monument--already noticed--was erected to his memory.[207]
William , his eldest son, and third Earl of Worcester, accompanied the Marquis of Northampton into France, to present King Henry II. with the royal insignia of the Garter. And again, in 1573, he was sent by Queen Elizabeth as her representative at the christening of a daughter of Charles IX., on which occasion, in the name of his royal mistress, he presented a font in pure gold. He married Christian, daughter of Lord North of Earthlodge.
Edward , his only son and heir, was sent ambassador to the Court of Scotland, to offer the Queen’s congratulations to King James on his return from Denmark; and ten years later he was appointed Master of the Horse. At the accession of King James, he continued in the same office, and was also named one of the commissioners for executing the office of Earl-Marshall , the Duke of Norfolk being then under sentence in the Tower.[208] He was afterwards Lord Privy Seal; and dying on the third of March, 1628, ætatis 79, was buried in the family vault in Windsor Castle.[209]
In his youth, as recorded by his colleague Sir Robert Naunton, “this earl was a very fine gentleman, and the best horseman and tilter of his times, which were then the manlike and noble recreations of the Court, which took up the applause of men, as well as the praise and commendation of ladies. And when years had abated these exercises of honour, he grew then to be a faithful and profound counsellor. He was the last liver of all the servants of her favour, and had the honour to see his renowned Mistress, and all of them, laid in the places of their rest; and for himself, after a life of very noble and remarkable reputation, he died rich, and in a peaceful old age--a fate that befel not many of the rest; for they expired like lights blown out--not commendably extinguished--but with the snuff very offensive to the standers by.”[210] Sandford describes him as “a great favourer of learning and good literature.”
Henry , his son, the fourth earl, married Anne, daughter of John Lord Russell , heir apparent to the Earl of Bedford; and, in 1642, was created Marquess of Worcester. And this brings us down to the period, when the family fortunes--like the fortress they inhabited--were destined to undergo a lamentable change.
As the civil commotions increased, the Marquess fortified his castle of Raglan , and there entertained his Sovereign with unbounded magnificence. Such were his unlimited sacrifices to the royal cause, that the king, fearing lest the garrison stores should become exhausted by his numerous suite, offered to invest him with powers to exact supplies from the neighbouring country. But with great magnanimity Worcester replied--“I humbly thank your Majesty; but my castle would not long stand, if it leant upon the country. I had rather myself be brought to a morsel of bread, than see one morsel wrung from the poor to entertain your Majesty.” But of this more fully when we describe the royal visit and the Siege .
From these brief introductory notices of the lives and services of the primitive lords of Raglan, we proceed to give a few sketches of life, as it generally passed in the retirement of their own domains, in the midst of their friends and retainers at Raglan Castle.
Baronial Life. --Of the expenses of a nobleman’s family and household in the olden time, some idea may be formed by adverting to the facts adduced by writers of the day. In a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had the custody of Mary of Scotland, to the Marquis of Winchester, and Sir Walter Mildmay, it is said--“May it please you to understand, that whereas I have had a certain ordinary allowance of wine , amongst other noblemen, for expenses in my household, without impost: the charges daily that I do now sustain, and have done all this year past, well known by reason of the Queen of Scots, are so great therein, as I am compelled to be now a suitor unto you, that you will please to have a friendly consideration, unto the necessity of my large expenses. Truly _two tuns in a month_ have not hitherto sufficed ordinarily; besides that which is sacrificed at times for her bathings, and such like use; which seeing I cannot by any means conveniently diminish, my earnest trust and desire is, that you will now consider me with such _larger_ proportion in this case, as shall seem good unto your friendly wisdoms, even as I shall think myself much beholden for the same. And so I commit you unto God. From Tetbury Castle, this 15 of January, 1569. Your assured friend to my power.--G. SHREWSBURY.”[211]
“This passage,” Mr. Lodge observes, “will serve to correct a vulgar error, relating to the consumption of wine in those days, which, instead of being less, appears to have been--at least in the houses of the great--even more considerable than that of the present time. The good people who tell us that Queen Elizabeth’s maids of honour breakfasted on roast beef, generally add, that wine was then used in England as a medicine, for it was sold only by apothecaries. The latter assertion, though founded on a fact, seems to have led to a mistake in the former; for the word apothecary [from the Greek αποθήχη, _a repositorium_] is applicable to any shopkeeper, or warehouseman, and was probably once used in that general sense.”[212] In the retinues and domestic attendance[213] of the nobles of this period, everything proclaimed that the era of feudal authority and magnificence had departed. Accordingly, when the civil wars had commenced, no peer, however wealthy or high in rank, could drag after him a regiment, or even a company, of unwilling vassals to the field. On the contrary, the meanest hind was free to choose between king and parliament. Something, however, of the mere pomp of feudalism was still maintained in the domestic establishments of the nobility and wealthier gentry. “The father of John Evelyn, when he was sheriff of the counties of Surrey and Sussex,[214] had _a hundred and sixteen servants, in liveries of green satin doublets_, besides several gentlemen and persons of quality, who waited upon him, dressed in the same garb.”
One of the largest, if not the very largest, of English establishments ever maintained by a subject, was that of the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Dorset,[215] heir of the Lord Buckhurst, and well-known poet of the court. It consisted of _two hundred and twenty servants_, besides workmen attached to the house, and others that were hired occasionally.
The chief servants of the nobility--so they were called, but they were rather followers or clients--were still the younger sons of respectable, or even noble families, who attached themselves to the fortunes of a powerful patron, and served him either in court or military affairs, for which they were allowed separate retinues in men and horses, with gratuities in money, and promises of promotion.[216] The progress of improvement that had banished minstrels, jugglers, and tumblers, from princely establishments, had naturally introduced the drama in their room; and, accordingly, we sometimes find a company of actors classed among the servants of the chief noblemen, as well as a family physician, or even a whole band. A steward , distinguished by a velvet jacket, and a gold chain about his neck, presided as marshal of the household, and next to him was the clerk of the kitchen. But these cumbrous appendages were daily lessening, as domestic comfort came to be better understood. This improvement, however, had commenced still earlier among those of less rank and pretension. All who had their fortune still to seek in the court, or in the army, and all who repaired to the metropolis in quest of pleasure, found, so early as the time of Elizabeth, that the bustle and the scramble of new and stirring times, made a numerous train of attendants an uncomfortable appendage. The gallant, and the courtier, therefore, like Sir John Falstaff, studied “French thrift,” and contented himself with a single “skirted page,” who walked behind him carrying his cloak and rapier.[217]