THE DEFENCES OF YORK.

Diruta prospexit mœnia sæpe sua.—Neckham.

How oft hath Time these walls beheld destroyed!

NO man of English race, at all acquainted with the history of his country, can enter the city of York without feeling something of that respect for a glorious past of which all men are more or less conscious, and which in the higher and nobler sort acts as an incentive to greatness both in thought and deed. It may, indeed, be that those who dwell within the city, or have been familiar with it from childhood, are less conscious of this feeling than those who visit it as strangers, and to whom the noble river, ancient walls, and venerable minster, stand out unassociated with the concerns of every-day life; but, on the other hand, the men of York cannot but feel for their birthplace something of the love of children for a parent, something of the pride of citizens of no mean city, something of that secret charm by which every man, worthy of the name, is attracted to his native land. Not London itself, the capital of the empire; not Canterbury, the seat of that other Metropolitan of our National Church, call up more varied or more brilliant recollections than are inseparably associated with the name and title of York; associated with the fortunes of that great branch of the House of Plantagenet, which, though without success, yet with so steady a persistence, contested the Crown of England.

Spells of such force no wizard grave

E’er framed in dark Thessalian cave;

for the name of the city evokes a long train of the best and noblest of the land, who, during the Wars of the Roses, staked life and fortune upon the House of York; nor, within the four seas of Britain, is there found a city which combines with so flourishing a present so many memorials of the past, so much still visible to the eye, so intimately connected with those centuries during which the English name and nation was being built up. No man can unfold a map of the Northumbrian territory, nor penetrate into its recesses, without observing how copious are the traces of our Scandinavian ancestors. Those names

That have their haunt in dale or piny mountain,

Or forest, or swift stream, or rocky cleft,

are still vocal in our ears, and intelligible to our understandings. They speak to us with no uncertain sound of those hardy mariners who crossed the German Ocean in search of prey, and whose long ships were known and dreaded in every creek and upon every river along the seaboard of Britain. Saxons and Danes, Jutes and Angles, each and all have left their traces over the broad plain of York, traces of those long and bloody struggles during which these not remote kinsmen were becoming fused and welded into the Englishman. No Englishman, and most of all no Yorkshireman, can forget that it is neither from the native Briton nor from the Roman colonist, but from these Teuton and Scandinavian sea-kings, fierce and lawless as they were, that we derive all those qualities that have made England a great nation. The history of York, indeed, and of the material defences by which it is still surrounded, is older by some centuries than the history of England and the English people; and long before we arrive at the times of the Scandinavian invaders, we have to deal with the remains of these masters of the world, under whom this city rose to be what its own historian has pronounced it, “a second Rome;” the mart and “emporium of the common produce both of sea and land.”

The history of the metropolis of northern England begins with the Roman occupation. When, however, the Romans called this station Eboracum, they evidently did not, as in Colonia or Confluentes, employ a new and altogether Latin name, but as in Mediolanum Isca, or Durolipons, they Latinised one already in use and of native origin. Until recently, strange as it may appear, this was the only positive argument, and it was a strong one, in favour of the pre-Roman existence of the city. Recently, however, researches into the sepulchres around the city have discovered undoubted British burials below those of the English and the Romans; and thus, in the opinion of Mr. Raine, have established the existence of an early British settlement. This discovery, probably, stands alone. No earthwork of distinctly British origin is found within or near the city, nor, indeed, save the ancient river, is there near at hand any physical feature of the country bearing a decidedly British name. No part of the great earthworks by which the city is girt can be attributed to the Brigantes. Though not all of one date, they all evidently belong to ages more advanced, and to a class of works very different from those found scattered along the crests of hills, and usually retaining, even now, their Celtic appellations. Cæsar tells us, when writing of Verulam, that the British towns were strong earthworks in a wood, and such we may suppose to have been the Caer-Evrawc found and taken possession of by the Romans, and out of the name of which they constructed Eboracum. Much, and mainly of an unsatisfactory character, has been written upon the etymology of this, the earliest name of the city. It seems generally to be thought to be connected with the name Eure, now confined to the great river of Yorkshire, above Boroughbridge, but which formerly, it is suggested, may have been borne by the whole stream upon which Caer-Evrawc was situated. But, however this may be, and whether the Roman settlement was by foundation or by adoption, the actual site of York is worthy of a people who proposed to take and hold the country, and to maintain it under law and in order. Central in position, it stands upon a river navigable to the sea, and while the country around was open and admitted of being intersected by roads in every direction, the city itself was protected on one part by a broad and deep river, and on another by a stream which, though of less volume, traversed and saturated a track of marshy and impracticable country. It was evidently to the confluence and character of these two streams, now known as the Ouse and the Foss, that York owes its origin. The Roman station occupied a tolerably level platform, from 25 feet to 30 feet above the Ouse, and about 100 yards from its left or eastern bank. Sometimes, as at Leicester, these stations, when near a river, were extended to its actual edge, and the water became the defence on that side, but here, the river being navigable, that plan would have been unsafe, and a space was left between the fortified area or camp and the river. The precise date of the Roman settlement on the Ouse is unknown. Of the early generals Cæsar probably penetrated but little beyond the Thames, or at most to the crest of the Chilterns. Aulus Plautius, Claudian, Vespasian, and Ostorius Scapula, were engaged chiefly in subduing the north and west, the last extending into the midland territory and probably reaching the Humber, where, and in the country of the Brigantes, Suetonius Paulinus probably made a settlement. Agricola, who landed in A.D. 78, and retired finally A.D. 85, completed the conquest of North Britain, and probably established a permanent camp at York. Of course, such a post would be, at first, a mere slight earthwork, set out in the Roman fashion, and protected with palisades and by the discipline of the garrison. Of this first camp nothing is to be distinguished; but it is probable that when it was superseded by a walled station the new defences were built upon the old lines, where they are still to be seen or traced. By whom the Roman walls were originally built is unknown, probably during the second campaign of Agricola, A.D. 79, after the complete subjugation of the Brigantes, and in connexion with the great military roads, of which four radiated from the city, and communicated afterwards with a whole network of subordinate or cross ways, many of which are still in use. Between the times of Hadrian, who landed A.D. 120, and built the Northumbrian wall from sea to sea; of Lollius Urbicus, who twenty years later connected in a similar manner the Firth of Forth and the Clyde, and Severus, who, A.D. 207, re-asserted the Roman power, and reinforced the wall of Hadrian, the country became populous and rich, many walled stations and connected cities had been founded, and the remains of Roman houses scattered far and wide over the country attest its prosperity and internal peace. Ptolemy, writing in the second century, mentions Eboracum as the head-quarters of the 6th Legion, as also is shown by many local inscriptions. It became rapidly a large city, “Altera Roma,” the capital of the North; and from the time of Severus to that of Constantine, both of whom died at York, it was the seat of the Government of Britain, and the head-quarters of the great military power maintained there. It was the chief of the twenty-eight Romano-British cities, and of the two which alone bore the title of Municipium.

The fortress, or military part of the Roman city, was confined to the left bank of the river. The suburbs crossed the Ouse, and were widely extended to the south-west and north. The walled enclosure measured 469 yards north-west and south-east, or up and down the stream, and 550 yards in the direction at right angles. There were four principal gates; those to the north-east and south-west in the centre of their respective sides, those to the north-west and south-east somewhat to the south of, or nearer to, the river than the centre. But it is to be remarked that as the former gates, being in the centre, were 234 yards from each angle, so the latter was also 234 yards from the angles to the south. This looks as though the original walled area had been a square of 468 yards, and that afterwards, when the buildings became of a permanent character, and the lines of the great roads leading up to the gates were fixed by habitations along them, it was found necessary to enlarge the area, and that this was done by adding a breadth of 82 yards on the northern side, which would of course throw the north-west and south-east entrances by that much out of centre. If, moreover, we suppose the whole area wall to have been rebuilt when this supposed alteration was made, we shall have an explanation of the modern character of the extant masonry, which is held by those conversant with Roman work to be of a late period. If this be so, it is exceedingly probable that the whole enceinte was then rebuilt, for so important a city would scarcely have been left unwalled during the earlier centuries of its prosperity. Considering the magnitude, population, and wealth of Roman York, and the number of public buildings which must necessarily have accumulated during the four hundred years which elapsed from the conquest by Claudian to the end of the Roman rule, and the presence of some of which is attested by inscriptions and foundations, it is remarked how very few monuments of the period remain above ground, or rather how completely the whole, with one or two exceptions, have disappeared. No doubt, under the 15 feet or 16 feet of débris which are supposed to cover up the Roman city, and the equal depth of later soil which seems to have accumulated since the commencement of the Saxon or English period, must rest covered up many curious remains of the Roman, as well as of the later periods. Some of these are, from time to time, laid bare in the formation of sewers, but the unburied remains of Roman work seem to be confined to one tower and the adjacent wall, and fragments of the wall in another part of the city. The Multangular Tower, forming one corner of the Roman area, is a shell of masonry, 42 feet in exterior diameter, and 20 feet at the gorge, which is open. It is not placed, as in Norman works, so as merely to cap the junction of two walls which would have met at a right angle, but the whole angle is superseded, as in Roman works, by a curve of 50 feet radius, and the tower stands in the centre of this rounding, three-quarters of it, presenting nine facets, being disengaged. The tower and the contiguous walls are 5 feet thick. The Roman part of the work is about 15 feet high. It is of rubble, faced with ashlar, the blocks being about 4 inches by 5 inches or 6 inches, very seldom more. There is one band of five courses of brick that may be traced along the adjacent wall, though the whole has been much injured and patched. Upon the Roman work has been placed an ashlar upper story about 3 feet thick and 12 feet high, pierced by nine cruciform loops, one in each face, and set in a pointed recess, an addition of early English or early Decorated date. The wall, extending south-east from the tower for 53 yards, is of the same date, style, and material. Both formed a part of the defences of the mediæval city. The opposite wall, running eastward, has been partially destroyed, and is now only 4 feet high, and at a short distance becomes buried in the east bank. This part of the wall was evidently destroyed before the earthwork was thrown up, for not only is it buried within the bank, but the later wall of the city is built 4 feet in front of it. It is to be observed that the Roman tower and wall, where perfect, are entirely unconnected with any bank of earth, and the ashlar facing, both inside and out, shows this always to have been the case. The wall stands on the natural surface of the ground, and is seen of equal height inside and outside. This feature in the Roman defences is not peculiar to York, but is seen at Porchester, Silchester, and elsewhere. It is evident that the earthworks, which form so important a feature in the defences of York, are all of post-Roman date. Another fragment of the Roman wall is seen in a private [Mr. Gray’s] garden, where it has been covered up by about 12 feet of débris, and has recently been laid open at a point not far from the old northern gate. Here, also, the wall underlies the earth-bank on which the latest wall is built. A third fragment of this Roman wall is exposed in a court close east of Monk Bar. It is about 6 feet high, and is ashlar faced, and until lately was covered up in the earth-bank. Probably there is still much of this wall still covered up, as it is thought that the level of the Roman city is here at least 20 feet lower down. Although so little of the Roman wall is seen above ground, it has been traced at various points, so that it may be considered as established that it included the whole area; that there were four angle towers, and four main gates, of which Bootham Bar represents one, though no trace of Roman work appears in the mediæval structure, which, indeed, probably stands at a much higher level than its Roman predecessor. The line of road from this bar is Roman, and led to Isurium or Aldborough. Of the other three gates, the position has been ascertained by excavation. That between Monk Bar and Mr. Gray’s garden was on the road leading to Derventio or Stamford Bridge. Another was in Low Petergate, close to Christ’s Church, on the road leading to Prætorium or Brough on the Humber. This road crosses the later way at Walmgate Bar. A fourth gate was at the bottom of Stonegate, in front of the Mansion-house, upon a way which traversed the site of the present Guildhall, crossed the Ouse at that point by a bridge, and, passing through the site of the later Micklegate Bar, proceeded in a direct line towards Calcaria or Tadcaster. Besides the fragments of the wall, various other Roman remains have been discovered below the present surface, all of which are shown in the admirable antiquarian map of the city by Mr. Skaif. Beyond the river, and outside the military post, other remains of Roman buildings have also been found, and more especially may be mentioned a pavement laid open just within Micklegate Bar, in the lane leading towards the station. This is particularly important, because it lay under the earth-bank of the city wall, and proves that here also this bank is post-Roman. Besides these remains, situate either within the Roman fortification or within the area of the later city, there have been found other remains scattered over a wider area. Of these the most important are the cemeteries which are found at Clementhorpe, all along the Tadcaster road, and upon the ground between that road and the Ouse, now being excavated for the proposed railway station. Also, on the north side of the river, in front of St. Mary’s and the Almery Garth, are traces of burials, the excavations over all which area have been carefully watched by Mr. Raine and others; these discoveries have created and enriched the very valuable Museum of the Yorkshire Society. What is incontestably shown by all these discoveries is that the Roman Eboracum far exceeded the bounds of the military post, and had thrown out suburbs in every available direction far beyond any military defences, showing that the inhabitants were numerous and rich, and lived entirely free from any apprehensions of danger. Although the Foss is most certainly a natural river, and not, as was once supposed, a Roman cut, it seems probable, from its name, that the Romans either altered its course or converted it into a large basin below the city, just above its junction with the Ouse. It is more than probable that the Romans here received and stored their supplies of corn, and that much of the commerce of the city in its palmy and very flourishing period was here carried on. It seems not improbable that much of the low land on the left bank of the river was then a part of the basin, though now, since the construction of the castle weir, silted up and reclaimed.

The Roman armies were officially withdrawn from Britain in A.D. 426–430, and Eboracum, falling into the hands of its but very imperfectly Romanised British inhabitants, became once more Caer-Evrawc. Doubtless, up to that period the Roman buildings, public and private, churches, basilicæ, and domestic dwellings were perfect, nor is it probable that the Britons, tinctured with Roman blood and used to Roman customs, would have injured them; but that they were destroyed, and buried deep in their own ruins before the existing earthworks were thrown up, is certain. By whom, then, and at what period, and as a defence against whom, were these earthworks formed? To answer this question it will be convenient, in the first place, to describe them. These earthworks are, probably, of at least two periods; those upon the right and left bank of the Ouse, and those beyond or upon the Foss, and it is with the former that we have first to do. A ridge or bank of earth from 15 to 40 feet high and of breadth proportionate, was carried round most of the area to be defended, and at its exterior foot was excavated a deep and broad ditch, the contents of which formed the bank; and this ditch, where not at too high a level, was supplied with water from the Ouse. This new earthwork included a space of about three times the area of the Roman station and probably as large as the latest extension of the Roman city. The new area, though not, like the Roman enclosure, rigidly rectangular, was more or less so, and for the most part contained within straight lines, meeting at right angles or nearly so. As the wall and tower at the south-west angle were standing, and more or less perfect, they were accepted as part of the new defence; but, from the wall to the Ouse, a bank and ditch were carried straight to what is now know as Lendal Tower. In the opposite direction, as the Roman wall was broken down, the bank was heaped up over it, and so continued, and probably still contains it, along the edge of the Dean’s garden as far as the north-west angle. From thence, the bank, still covering up the remains of the wall, is continued about 600 yards in the direction of and beyond Monk Bar. At two points, namely, in Mr. Gray’s garden, and in a court opening from the bar, the skirt of the bank has been cut away, and the wall is seen below it. Further on, near the site of St. Helen’s Church, the wall turned at right angles, and no doubt had an angle tower. This, however, is gone. Here, therefore, the earthwork leaves the line of the Roman wall, and is continued alone for 144 yards, when it turns outwards nearly at a right angle, and ceases at Layerthorpe, on the banks of the Foss. The earthwork stopped here because it was no longer necessary. The Foss, then, and long afterwards, was not only a broad and deep, though sluggish, stream, but it was connected with a broad tract of marsh, neither land nor water, and in itself an excellent defence. Hence, therefore, the Foss seems to have been the boundary and defence of the new area for about 900 yards, when it flows towards the Ouse, including a long tongue of land, now St. George’s Field, and then a marsh, which was of course left outside the area. Probably the bank recommenced at the bend of the Foss, and was carried across the site of the later castle direct to the Ouse, where about 70 yards of it are still seen, and thus, partly by the Roman wall, partly by an earth-bank, and partly by the river Foss, were completed the defences of the city north of the Ouse. South of that river, the bank again commences near Skeldergate, and reaches to the Bishopsgate angle, about 244 yards, much of which, however, is occupied by the later Bayle Hill. From the angle it is continued for about 750 yards in a nearly straight line, and then, turning at rather above a right angle, it is continued in two straight portions of 227 yards and 340 yards, to the river opposite to Lendal Tower. Such are the earthworks north and south of the Ouse, of which there remain nearly 3,000 yards in length. What is their age, and by whom were they constructed? Not by the Romans, for they rest upon Roman buildings which had been destroyed and more or less buried before the earthworks were commenced. Scarcely by the Picts and Scots, invaders from the north, who came down, from time to time, in force, to burn and destroy, but never to settle or to construct. Scarcely by the Saxons or early English, for these seldom, if ever, employed straight lines in their works of defence, and certainly never on so large a scale. On the whole, it seems to me most probable that, after the withdrawal of the Roman legions, and the occurrence of a few destructive invasions from beyond the northern border, the Romanised Britons, having still much to defend, made a great effort to enclose their overgrown city, and, though not equal to so great a work in masonry, constructed an earthwork which presents, as was to be expected, many indications of Roman castramentation. Should this supposition be sound it will account not only for these works, but for those at Wallingford, Wareham, and Tamworth, which are laid out in rectangular forms, but which are not upon any great Roman roads, present no traces of Roman occupation, and the banks and ditches of which are on a larger scale than was usual with the Romans, whose temporary works were but slight, and who employed masonry for those of a more permanent character. The same admixture of British with Roman blood and customs which produced in Ambrosius Aurelianus a chieftain of mixed descent, might well have manifested itself in such works as those of York. Of the interval between the departure of the legions and the first establishment of Deira as a Saxon kingdom, a period of about sixty years, but little has been recorded. It was the period during which the failing energy of the Britons once, and once only, blazed up, and, under the leading of the Gaulish St. Germain, gained over the Picts and Saxons the celebrated Hallelujah victory. Probably it was about this time, during the first quarter of the fifth century, that these earthworks were executed. How the British rule was carried on, and what degree of civilisation was retained by the Romanised natives, is a matter rather of conjecture than of proof. The metropolitan supremacy of the city was, however, maintained, for it comes to light about the middle of the sixth century, no longer, indeed, as a Christian centre, but as the Pagan capital of Deira, under the sway of the Saxon Elle.

In the seventh century York was still a flourishing city, and once more was penetrated by the leaven of Christianity. Here Paulinus in 626 baptised the founder of Edinburgh, who here testified his faith by the construction of a chapel of wood, the humble predecessor of the great Minster of the North. The earlier churches with the Roman temples and basilicæ had no doubt long been destroyed. York had its full share of the calamities which drenched the land with gore during the slow foundation of the English Commonwealth. It was burned in 738 during the archbishopric of Egbert, brother to Eadbert, King of Northumbria. In 867 it was taken by Inguar and Ubba, the sons of the Danish Lodbrog, who severely avenged their father’s death upon the lands watered by the Ouse, massacred the inhabitants and destroyed the city, which, though fortified, does not seem to have been vigorously defended, and no mention is made of the castle. Gudrum, a Danish chief who held the city during the absence of Inguar and Ubba, is thought still to be remembered by the association of his name with the principal street of the city. It is to this period, judging from material evidence, the only evidence afforded, that may most probably be attributed the completion of the earthworks as we now see them, upon the south-eastern front of the city, upon and beyond the Foss.

The dangers which York had most to apprehend during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, that is from the first appearance of the Vikings upon the shores of Britain, came chiefly from the east, and by the way of the Humber and the Ouse. Hence, the defence of the city on that side, and against a maritime foe, became a matter of vital importance to the earlier Saxon settlers, who had to defend themselves against a brood later from the bowels of the North, and possessing all that fierceness of which civilisation had more or less deprived their predecessors. The first object was to defend the river. We learn from the Saxon Chronicles that the English way of effecting this was to throw up two large mounds, one upon each bank. Thus in the eighth and ninth centuries they defended Nottingham, and Hertford, and Stamford, and Buckingham, and thus they would naturally defend York, and this is doubtless the origin of the Castle Hill on the left and the Bayle on the right bank, which may thus be attributed to the ninth century. These mounds are the almost invariable accompaniment of an English aula, or chief residence, and nowhere are they more abundant than in Yorkshire. The date of many of them is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle, and close analogy affords a clue to that of most of the others. Usually they have a circular ditch, proper to, and shutting off the mound, while on one side, also included within its proper ditch, is a base court or area. Tamworth, of which the date is recorded, is an excellent example of such a work, as is Tickhill, and, on a smaller scale, Barwick-in-Elmet and Laughton-en-le-Morthen. The York mounds are of the same character. Clifford’s Hill had, until recently, its proper ditch, fed from the Ouse, and isolating it from the lower ward, now disfigured by the assize courts and prisons, but which also had its ditches, of which the Foss formed and does still form a part. So also the Bayle Hill had its ditch, now filled up, and that this surrounded the hill, and was fed from the Foss, is evident to those who examine it closely, and observe the depression in the later wall, where it is carried over the filled up ditch to reach the slope of the mound. But, to complete the defence of the city from that side, something more was required. The Danes came in their own ships, and would have ascended the Foss and thence attacked the city. An area was therefore traced out beyond the Foss, and which, covering the river and flanking the Ouse, made an attack on that side a work of danger. The Walmgate, as the new outwork is called, is fortified by a curved bank, in the English manner, and which extends about 900 yards, resting on the marsh of the Foss island at the one end, and on the Foss itself at Fishergate on the other. A glance at the map will show how completely this front of the city was protected by the Walmgate works beyond the Foss, by the Foss itself, by the castle in its rear, and by the Bayle Hill and its connected works beyond the Ouse. It is remarkable that such Saxon remains of buildings as are found in York are contained within the two suburbs of Walmgate and Micklegate. Saxon interments in great numbers are found about the city, many laid above those of the Romans, as the British remains are laid below them. The suburb of Walmgate was built upon and traversed by a Roman road, but no Roman remains have been found within it. Probably it lay too low for habitations. If, on the one hand, these fortifications tended to repel enemies, on the other, the great wealth of the city operated as a still stronger attraction to invite them. Notwithstanding the Danish invasions and spoilings, the vitality of the city continued strong. Alcuin, who wrote in the same century in which lived Inguar and Ubba, commemorates its wealth and splendour, its love of literature (indicated by the volumes in the cathedral library), and its great commercial prosperity. In 923 the city fell before Bagnald, a Northman, and after the middle of the eleventh century, when Deira was passing into Yorkshire, York was again disturbed by the oppression of Tostig, against whom the whole province rose, and a gemote was held here in 1065, at which, says Freeman, both English and Danish blood were represented. The object of the assembly was in truth the breaking up of the kingdom, and the provincial movement was aided by the Mercians and the Welsh. Happily, however, wiser counsels prevailed, peace was purchased by concession, and Tostig, against whom the revolt was directed, was banished. The defences of York were once more to be tried before the coming in of the Normans. In the fated year 1066, Tostig, encouraged by his Norman allies, hovered over the English shore, and uniting with Hadrada, entered the Humber, and laid up their ships at Riccal, 9 miles below the city. Edwin and Morker left their seats at Laughton and Barwick, and mustered their forces at York, and the armies met at Gate-Fulford, two miles down the river. The two earls were beaten, and York surrendered, and agreed to give hostages at Stamford Bridge, though the actual handing over is thought to have taken place at Aldby, where a mound and foss still indicate the residence of the Northumbrian kings. But though the earls had failed, Harold was not wanting to his duty. Notwithstanding the impending invasion from the south, he marched at once to York, resting neither day nor night. He reached Tadcaster while the city was actually capitulating. He entered York without resistance, left it without delay, and fought and won the battle of Stamford Bridge. Again he marched through York, and upon the Derwent came up with the Norwegian reserve. These he put to flight; then returned, and after passing two days in York, again marched southward, to lay down his life for England at Hastings. York was thus a witness to the last and noblest effort of the great English leader to free his northern capital from the invader, and so, with her defences sorely broken down, and with but little military credit, she awaited the approach of the Normans. The Norman conquest found York a very considerable city, and if her military reputation at that time stood low, events showed this to be due rather to the want of a leader than to the absence of bravery in her citizens. The city was then composed of seven divisions called “shires,” of which one, containing the outer Bayle, belonged to the archbishop. There were 1,800 “Mansiones hospitatæ,” that is, houses paying customary rents, and two castles. William visited York for the first time in the summer of 1068. The citizens received him with submission, and as usual he ordered a castle to be built, and equally as usual the place selected was the mound of the existing stronghold. Its construction and defence were entrusted to William Malet, Robert Fitz Richard, and five hundred selected knights. Malet, who had distinguished himself at Hastings, was sheriff of Yorkshire and a large landholder in the shire. At York William received acknowledgment of his supremacy from Malcolm of Scotland, Æthelwine Bishop of Durham, and Archill a great Northumbrian Thane. It appears from Domesday that of the seven shires one was laid waste in the construction of the castle, and the houses were reduced from 1,800 to about 1,036. Probably the people had been allowed to build up to the castle ditch, and it was necessary to clear an esplanade around it. The submission of York was due to circumstances, and was apparent only. In the following year, 1069, the citizens rose against the Norman garrison. They were joined by Eadgar and the men of Northumbria, and the castle was beleaguered. Of course, little could have been done in so short a time towards substituting masonry for the lighter English works, which were probably of timber, or at best of walling without mortar, and Malet must have confined himself to strengthening the works already in existence. The position, even if only stockaded, was a strong one, and Malet held out until William came to his assistance, harried the city, defiled the minster, and punished the citizens. He now ordered a second castle to be constructed upon the Bayle Hill. That this was a mere stockade is clear from the fact that it was completed in eight days, before he left the city. Rapidly as the works were constructed, still the post must have been very strong, for the mound was high and steep, its ditches broad and deep, and filled with water from the river. But though such works were capable of being held safely by a few resolute men, as at Wigmore, against an army, the defences were familiar to the English, and would not strike them with the same terror as the stony and lofty keeps which the Normans had lately begun to build in Normandy, and which William had commenced in London. William Fitz Osborne was placed in charge of the second castle, which much resembled that recently constructed in his own earldom at Hereford. Even this double bridle failed to restrain the fierce spirit of the English. After a brief rising, which was put down by William’s lieutenants, the people organised a final and more serious attack.

In September, 1069, the Danish fleet once more ascended the Humber. These allies were joined by the men of Northumbria and the English earls from Scotland. The rising threatened William’s throne. He charged Malet and Fitz Gilbert to hold firm, and received from them the assurance that they were safe for a year. They must have repented of their pledge when they beheld the whole population of the city mustering thick as wasps before the castle. The garrison at once fired the adjacent houses to clear the way for the defence, and thus burned a large part of the city, during which they sallied out in force. They were intercepted; three thousand are said to have been slain; the castle fell, and the commander was taken prisoner. The new defences were destroyed, probably by fire, and the north once more was free. The numbers engaged show that the garrison occupied not merely the mound, but the lower ward also. Unfortunately for the English, they had no leader capable of meeting William in the field. He marched into the east, met with, partially crushed, and partially subsidised, the invading Danes in the parts of Lindsey, and, such the terror of his name, entered York unopposed. He directed the castle again to be renewed, and then was carried out that wide and terrible devastation of the northern counties, necessary, perhaps, to enable him to hold England, but which has loaded his name with infamy. Upon the completion of his horrid task he kept the Christmas of 1069–70, amidst the blackened ruins of York.

Christmas past, William visited Durham, put down a considerable rising in the country about the Tees, and, after an absence of a few weeks, returned, for the last time, to York. What remains at York of a military character can be attributed to the Conqueror, or to the period of his reign? Probably none whatever. It has been usual to suppose that immediately upon the orders of the Conqueror there were constructed keep and walls, such as we attribute to the Norman period. But this period of architecture lasted nearly to 1200, and it is probable that but very few of the Norman keeps were coëval with William. The Normans had much to occupy them. Their masons, and sometimes even their materials, were imported from Normandy, and it is probable that in most cases, as certainly at York, the new lords availed themselves of such defences as they found ready to hand, and only replaced them with regular masonry by very slow degrees. Of the present walls only the inner part or core of the gateways, and a part of the wall above the Layerthorpe postern, present any distinct Norman features, and these seem late rather than early in the style. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the defences of York, for at least a generation after the Conquest, were a line of palisades along the crest of the earth-bank, similar works about the castle and the Bayle, deep ditches, and gatehouses, very possibly, of masonry.

And now, with a general description of the existing walls, these remarks are brought to a conclusion. It will be observed that the wall follows everywhere the line of the embankment, being built upon it, and, consequently, but seldom of any great height, the steep exterior bank and ditch being reckoned a great part of the defence. The ditch, indeed, is fast becoming a matter of history. A few years ago a good example of it covered the front of the city from the Ouse to the railway arch, but now the works of the new station have encroached most unnecessarily on the ditch, and a part of it is already filled up. It is curious also that the foundation of the wall is, for the most part, very shallow in some places, certainly not above two or three feet. Much of the wall, indeed, of Walmgate rests upon rude, slightly-pointed arches; possibly because the foundation was bad, similar arches are seen below the castle wall of Southampton, intended, like these, to be covered up. It is also to be remarked that parts of the wall, especially the oldest part at Layerthorpe, are not above two or, at the most, three feet thick, so as to afford no possibility of a rampart walk, without which the wall would, of course, be of little use for defence. At Layerthorpe this want has been supplied by an inner wall, built upon arches, and carrying the rampart walk. At the wall which contains the precinct of St. Mary, meant evidently for defence, for which a licence was granted by Edward II., it would seem that this rampart walk was an interior construction, or scaffold of timber. Where the wall is decidedly of late date, as near Lendal, it is much thicker, and the rampart walk is an essential part of it, though here the stone steps must have been supplemented below with either timber or a bank of earth. Layerthorpe postern seems to have a regular gatehouse placed upon the inner end of the bridge of the Foss, and forming an appropriate termination of the wall in this direction. Fishergate postern, a portcullised doorway of the style of Henry III. or Edward I., seems to have been a water-gate upon the Foss. The adjacent square tower by which the curtain is ended seems in part of the same date, but to have been partly rebuilt in the Perpendicular period. York is fortunate in its gates, though these have been treated most injuriously. They contain the original Norman gatehouse, a small rectangular building, with a round-headed portal at each end, and a flat timber roof between. There was an upper story, now removed, and hinges for double gates. There is no portcullis, a defence well known to the Normans, but of which they made no great use. In the Decorated period these gatehouses were cased, an outer portal added, and a portcullis introduced at one or both ends. At Monk Bar the portal passage was vaulted. There was added a lofty superstructure with turrets or bartizans corbelled out at the angles, and lateral doors communicated with the adjacent curtains. Each gatehouse had, in advance of it, a rectangular enclosure or pen with embattled walls, and an outer gate opening on the further side of the ditch. Two small doors opened from the first floor of the gatehouse upon the walls of this structure, and thus was formed the barbican. The drawbridge was worked inside, over the ditch. One only of these barbicans remains, that of Walmgate; but those who wish to see other and rather earlier examples of this appendage will find one of a similar type at Carlisle, and a very fine one at Alnwick. The walls have been so patched and repaired that it is difficult to form an opinion concerning their age. They were strong enough in 1138 to hold at bay the Scottish King David, who laid siege to York, during the contest between Maud and Stephen, a short time before his defeat upon the field of Northallerton; but, with the slight exceptions already mentioned, their oldest parts seem of the Decorated period, perhaps of the reigns of Edward I. and II., or even of that of Henry III. The charming little tops to the loops in the Walmgate wall can scarcely be later than Edward II. Much of the superstructure is far later. The walls were ordered to be repaired by Edward III., in July, 1327, before the battle of Nevill’s Cross, and much has been done to them even down to the present day.

The Castle of York, to which the Conqueror directed his special attention, ought, one would suppose, to retain some memorials of that age. This, however, is not the case. The wall in the lower ward, upon the Foss, may, in parts, be early in the twelfth century, but the round mural towers cannot be earlier than the reign of Henry III. Clifford’s Tower, indeed, the keep of the fortress, is a very interesting structure. Circular or polygonal keeps, such as Cardiff, or Arundel, or Pickering, were often of the Norman period; but the regular round or quatrefoiled tower, introduced largely by Philip Augustus into France, found its way into England, and the two principal varieties of castle keep of the quatrefoil pattern were at Warwick, now removed, and this at York. It is in plan a quatrefoil of 60 feet and 80 feet diameter, with walls 9 feet thick and 40 feet high, three of the angles above the first floor being occupied by circular turrets corbelled out, and the fourth by a small square projection, which contains, below, the entrance, and above, a small chapel, handsomely arcaded and embellished with the dog-tooth moulding. This keep had a ground floor looped all round, and a first floor with corresponding loops. Probably the chambers were attached to the walls, and supported upon posts and beams, leaving a small open court next the entrance and containing the wall. Two circular staircases lead to the first floor, and from thence to the battlements. The tower has been much injured by attempts, first to destroy and then to repair it. The tower itself looks of the reign of Richard or John. The chapel has been regarded as an addition, if so, it is a very early one. York Castle was notorious in the reign of Richard I., for the dreadful tragedy perpetrated there upon and by the Jews in 1189. The castle was then burned, and we are told that Osbert de Longchamp, governor for the king, and who took up the cause of the Jews, rebuilt the work of Rufus in the castle. Probably this included the keep, very nearly as it is now seen. There was a second and very narrow ward outside the present castle wall, capped with low drum towers, apparently of the reign of Henry III. or Edward I.

THE END.

WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ducange gives “Glorieta, ædificiolum altius, nostris gloriette.” In the Roman de Partonopex mention occurs of a finely-painted chambrette thus named. In the Statutes of Milan, also, the following clause is found: “Si quis de cætero construere vel construi facere voluerit aliquam Baltrescham, ponticellum, vel Glorietam, in ejus domo, super muro proprio vel communi, per quam immediate prospici possit in domum vicini, hoc ei liceat,” &c. Lacombe gives “Gloriette: prison, petite maison de plaisance, cabinet de verdure,” &c. A favourite resort near Dorking, commanding a fine prospect, is known as “The Glory.”

[2] Hutchins, Hist. Dorset, vol. i., third edit., pp. 487, 494. Arch. Journ., vol. xxii., p. 215, 217.

[3] Ibid., p. 219.

[4] Conventual Buildings, Christ Church, Canterbury, Archæologia Cantiana, vol. vii., pp. 105, 109.

[5] “Hæc est conventio inter Gundulfum episcopum et Eadmerum Anhœnde Burgensem Londoniæ.”

“Dum idem Gundulfus, ex præcepto regis Willielmi Magni, præesset operi magnæ turris Londoniæ, et hospitatus fuisset apud ipsum Eadmerum quadam vice ipse cœpit episcopum rogare ut concedet sibi societatem ecclesiæ quam regebat, videlicet, Sᵗⁱ. Andreæ. Quod ei episcopus satis libenter concessit. Et ideo concessit Sancto Andreæ et fratribus ibidem Deo servientibus medietatem piscariæ quæ vocatur Niuue Uuere, quam diu viveret. Cum vero moreretur, totam eam ibidem concessit, et totam terram suam quam habebat in Lundonia, et domos tali pacto, ut ipse et uxor ejus ad Rouecestriam deferrentur et ibidem sepelirentur, omnique anno eorum anniversarium observaretur.”—“Textus Roff.,” Ed. Hearne, p. 212.

[6] A.D. 1190. “Sub his diebus Wˢ Eliensis Epˢ, Angliæ Justiciarius et Apostolicæ sedis legatus, fecit Turrim Londinensem fossato profundissimo circumcingi, sperans se posse Tamisiæ fluenta in urbem ducere. Sed post multos de fisco sumptus se laborare inutilita comprobavit.”—M. Paris, Ed. 1646, p. 161.

[7] “Itaque spe frustratus, in arcem se regiam cum suis omnibus recessit; quorum tantus erat numerus, ut in stricti loci angustiis sua illis esset nocivior multitudo, quam hostium foris frementium multitudo. Æstuebat turris interius comprehensiore multitudinis inclusæ, cito evomitura quos prodendo magis quam tuendos susceperat. Denique post unam noctem egressus ad Johannem et obsessores cæteros. Ille paulo ante rhinoceros sed jam homo, humuli alloquio abeundi facultatem impetravit inclusis.”—W. Heming: p. 530.

[8] “Plancherium” is an upper chamber, probably what is meant here.

[9] “Per posticum quod de Turri plagam meridionalem respicit et fluvio contiguatur, legatum potenter eduxit, et ejus loco defensores idoneos intromisit, eductoque legato occupatores urbis non immerito deridebat, et procedens usque Stratford ad tria miliaria prope London sine quolibet obice castra fixit.”—Chron. T. Wykes.

[10] A balista was an engine for throwing darts as a catapult threw stones and heavy substances. Both were worked by windlasses or winches.

[11] In the “Archæologia,” vol. xxix., plate xliii., is given a plan of Odiham Tower, but accompanied by no description, and without date. It was laid before the Society of Antiquaries by Sir E. Home in 1840.

Transcriber’s Note: