WARWICK CASTLE: by C. J. Ryan
WARWICK CASTLE, one of the most magnificent and well-preserved of the baronial palaces of the middle ages, is among the first of the historic monuments that American travelers visit in England, for it is in the immediate neighborhood of Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace, to which most Americans pay their respects early in their tour. Warwickshire is a typically English county. It is not only central in situation but, as Henry James writes, "It is the core and center of the English world, midmost England." He rightly considers there is no better way for a stranger who wishes to know something of typical English life and scenery than to spend some time in Warwickshire, with its richly-wooded and densely-grassed undulating landscape, its famous historical relics, and its literary associations. Not only is the county sacred to the memory of Shakespeare, but it is also the scene of many of George Eliot's finest stories. The backgrounds of Middlemarch and Adam Bede are here.
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
WARWICK CASTLE, FROM THE AVON
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
INNER COURT AND TOWERS OF WARWICK CASTLE. GUY'S TOWER ON THE LEFT
The castle stands on a commanding eminence, overlooking the river Avon, and from every point of view it presents an imposing and highly picturesque appearance. It is little touched by time, though some of it dates from Saxon times, and it passed through a great siege in Cromwellian times. The oldest portion which is conspicuous is Caesar's Tower, a solid building 150 feet high, built soon after the Norman conquest. The greater part of the castle was built in the 14th and 15th centuries, and, with the exception of the great Keep, which has disappeared, it has been very little injured. The roof of the great Hall and some parts of the other buildings were destroyed by fire in 1871, but they have been carefully restored. The dungeons below Caesar's Tower are painfully interesting, and the view from Guy's Tower is famous for its beauty. Guy, Earl of Warwick in the tenth century, is a notable hero of chivalric legend, though it is probable that the stories about him have been greatly exaggerated. Tradition relates that he defeated in single combat a doughty champion of the Danes in the time of Athelstan. If the Dane had won the English would have lost their independence, says the legend. Guy, who was disguised as a simple pilgrim when chosen—through a vision—for the defender of his country, immediately afterwards retired for life to a hermitage in a cave near Warwick, at Guy's Cliff, a romantic spot where the river Avon winds through picturesque rocks, woods, and meadows.
The interior of Warwick Castle contains many priceless relics of antiquity, such as the mace of the great Earl of Warwick, the "King-maker" (died 1471), relics of the legendary Guy, the helmet of Oliver Cromwell, the well-known Warwick vase found in Hadrian's villa, Tivoli, and many celebrated portraits by Vandyck and Rubens.
Warwick Park is noted for its magnificent ancient cedars. Nathaniel Hawthorne has written about Warwick Castle and the surrounding scenery in a way that cannot be bettered. He says, in one passage:
"We can scarcely think the scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of battlements, the high windowed walls, the massive buttresses, shape out our indistinct ideas of the antique time."