HISTORY.
The Manor of Arundel, with others in this immediate neighbourhood, was given by Alfred, by will (885), to his brother’s son. It was held by Harold, and afterwards by William, who about or before 1070 granted to Roger de Montgomery the castle and honour of Arundel, with 84½ knights’ fees. Roger, who was of kin to the Conqueror, and commanded the Norman centre at Hastings, became Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury, and held the Castle about twenty-three years, till his death. Domesday describes the Castle of Harundel as having, in the time of King Edward, paid annually for the mill, 40s.; for three “convivia,” or entertainments, 20s.; and “pro uno pasticio,” or pasty, 20s. There was also the church of St. Nicholas, or the parish church, and St. Martin’s, probably the chapel of the castle. There was also another mill which paid ten bushels of corn. The burgh, port, and shipping paid £12 or more.
It is curious that Arundel, Chichester, Shrewsbury, and the Norman Manor whence Roger derived his territorial designation, each possessed a mound. On William’s death in 1088, Earl Roger gave his support to Robert Curthose, whom he invited to land at Arundel. The Prince’s sluggishness alienated his English followers, and the Earl tendered his aid to Rufus. At Earl Roger’s death, in 1094, he bequeathed his Sussex earldom, called also “of Chichester,” to his younger son Hugh, the Hugh Goch of the Welsh, who held both Arundel and Shrewsbury, stood in opposition to William Rufus, and was slain while repelling pirates from the north Welsh coast in 1098. His successor in the English earldom was his eldest brother, who already held the family lordships in Normandy. This was Robert, Earl of Belesme in la Perche, who received at Arundel William Rufus on his arrival from Normandy in 1097.
Earl Robert, the wicked son of a wicked mother, was a bold soldier, and an able, though a very cruel man. He built with great rapidity the strong castle of Brugge or Bridgenorth, and that of Montgomery, called by the Welsh Tre-faldwin, from Baldwin, its early seneschal. His career in England was violent and short. Bridgenorth was besieged and taken by Henry I., who brought the wooden turret known as a malvoisin to bear upon its walls. The Earl went into exile in 1102, and died in 1118.
King Henry held Arundel till his death, when it passed in settlement to his widow, Adeliza, daughter of Godfrey of Louvaine, Duke of Brabant. The Queen Dowager married William d’Albini, a Norfolk noble, known to chroniclers as “William with the strong hand,” the royal dapifer. They received the Empress Maud at Arundel on her landing in 1139, with her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, and in consequence had to stand an attack from Stephen, to whom, it is said, Adeliza pleaded with success the duties of hospitality, and Maud was allowed to retire to Bristol. D’Albini, however, was, on the whole, a supporter of Stephen, though with great judgment. He advised the accord between Stephen and Henry in 1153, and signed the compact as “Earl of Chichester.” Henry, on his accession, acknowledged the service by a grant of the earldom of Arundel in fee with the third penny of the county of Sussex. Earl William died in 1176. By Adeliza, who died in 1151, he left a son, also William, the first of four generations of D’Albinis, and of five persons who held the earldom of Arundel, or, as they called it, of Sussex. They were buried at Wymondham, their own foundation. Earl Hugh, the eighth from the Conquest, died childless in 1243. Isabel, his sister, carried on the succession, and married John Fitz-Alan, whose son, on his uncle’s death, succeeded.
This John, head of the great house of Fitz-Alan, Lords of Clun and Oswaldestre, became the ninth earl, and died 1240. He was the first of fourteen earls of the name who held the castle for twelve generations. Of these, the elder line died out in the person of Thomas, fifteenth earl, who died childless in 1415; but the succession was continued by his cousin, Henry Fitz-Alan Lord Maltravers, who died 1580, leaving an heiress, Mary, who married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The later Fitz-Alans lived much at Arundel, with which place they became closely identified.
Duchess Mary died 1557, and her husband in 1572. Their son, Philip, became twenty-second earl, since when there have been in all ten generations of Howards who have held the title of Arundel, the present Duke of Norfolk being the thirty-fifth Norman earl, and the thirty-second by descent from Queen Adeliza and William d’Albini.
The castle of Arundel has not played any very important part in English history. Its most famous event is the siege of 1643, when it was besieged by Sir William Waller, who first attacked and took the town, then defended by walls, and finally battered the castle from the tower of the church, where he posted his guns. The siege lasted from the 20th December, 1643, to the 6th of January following, when the place surrendered, and with it the celebrated Chillingworth, who died shortly after. The domestic buildings were then ruined, and seem so to have remained until the last century.
The town was walled round by Richard Fitz-Alan, who had a licence for that work in 1295. There were two gates, one below and on the river, the other called St. Mary’s, at the top of the town. The town wall seems to have abutted upon the castle, which thus formed a part of its defence.
The present duke has built just outside the castle, and not far from the parish church, a large church dedicated to San Filippo Neri, a very noble structure, and fitted up with great simplicity and excellent taste. Unfortunately, it is so placed as to detract materially from the general aspect of the castle from the plain below. Placed a little lower down, it would have left the castle as the predominant figure, permitted the fine old parish church to hold its due place, and have supported and elevated, instead of somewhat oppressing, the whole group.