CHAPTER XXV
Warwick Castle.
The great Castle of Warwick, now the seat of the Earl and Countess of Warwick, who formed themselves into a Limited Liability Company some fifteen years ago, under the title of the “Warwick Estates Co., Ltd.,” has been the seat of the Grevilles since 1605.
The origin of Warwick Castle goes back to Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great and wife of the then Earl of Mercia, a strenuous and warlike lady, to whom are attributed many ancient works. She is credited with building the first fortress in A.D. 915, on that knoll still known as “Ethelfleda’s Mount,” on which a Norman keep was subsequently erected, perhaps by that famous personage Turchil. In the family of Turchil the cognisance of the yet more famous Bear and Ragged Staff originated, which in all succeeding generations has descended from house to house of the distinguished families who have come into possession of Warwick Castle: the Houses of Beauchamp, Neville, Dudley, Rich, and Greville: not as their personal badge, but as that of the castellan for the time being of Warwick. A fantastic theory has been set afoot that, as Siward, son of Turchil, assumed the name “de Arden,” thus founding the numerous knightly family of Ardens, Shakespeare, as the son of a Mary Arden, was probably the rightful owner of Warwick Castle! We may safely say that this never occurred to Shakespeare himself, and may add him to one of that numerous class slyly alluded to by Ingoldsby; people “kept out of their property by the rightful owners.”
The great Guy of Warwick, a giant in stature and doughty in deeds, is a myth, but that does not prevent his armour being shown in the Great Hall of the Castle. His period seems to be placed between that of Ethelfleda and Turchil, for the date of his death is put at A.D. 929. Mythical though he is, the later and very real flesh-and-blood Beauchamps, who came into possession of Warwick in the thirteenth century, were often named “Guy” in allusion to him. His armour, like his legendary self, is a weird accretion of time, and is no longer displayed with the touching belief of less exacting times. The Age of Belief is dead, they say. Of belief in some things incredible, no doubt. He wore, according to the articles seen here, not only armour of tremendous size and weight, but of periods ranging from three hundred, to six hundred and ninety years after his death. A bascinet of the time of Edward the Third covered his head, his breastplate, weighing fifty pounds, is of the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the backplate belongs to the Stuart period. His shield weighs thirty pounds; his great ponderous sword, five feet six inches long, is of the time of Henry the Eighth. “Guy’s breakfast cup, or porridge-pot” is equally wonderful, for it has a capacity of a hundred and twenty gallons. It is really an ancient iron cauldron, once used for cooking the rations of the garrison.
The first historical Earl of Warwick was Henry de Newburgh, who died 1123; and by a succession of changes and failures of heirs the title and estates came to William de Beauchamp, husband of the daughter of William Mauduit.
In the time of Guy, Earl of Warwick, son of this William, the Castle witnessed some stirring scenes. The discontented nobles, troubled at the preference given by Edward the Second to his foreign favourite, Piers Gaveston, and at the apparent impossibility of permanently ridding the kingdom of him, seized that pestilent foreigner and confined him for a short time in a dungeon here.
The favourite was by no means an acceptable person to the English barons, who although all directly descended from William the Conqueror’s Frenchmen, had already been assimilated by this wonderful country of ours, and were as English as—well, let us say as English as any German Jew Goldstein or Schlesinger of modern times who, coming to these happy shores, suffers a sea-change into something rich and rare, and becomes a new and strange “Gordon,” or “Sinclair.” They regarded this flippant Gascon from the south of France as an undesirable of the worst type, and could not and would not appreciate his jokes; a natural enough disability when you come to consider them, for they were all at their expense. If you study the monumental effigies of those mediæval barons and knights which are so plentifully dispersed throughout our country churches, you will readily perceive that although they were frequently very magnificent personages, their countenances do not often show any trace of intellectual qualities. Edward the Second was as flippant a person as his favourite, and when these stupid and indignant barons saw them laughing together, they knew very well, or keenly suspected, that they themselves were being laughed at. Did not this Gaveston fellow call the Earl of Lancaster “the play-actor,” or “the fiddler,” and the Earl of Lincoln “burst belly.” Every one knew he called his father-in-law “fils à puteyne,” or “whoreson.” Guy, Earl of Warwick, was “the black hound of Arden.”
“Let him call me hound: one day the hound will bite him,” said the Earl. Meanwhile, Gaveston went on finding nicknames for every one, and made himself bitterly hated by those dull-minded barons who could not joke back at him. The worst of it was, his lance was as keen, and went as straight to the point, as his gibes. It was little use meeting him in single combat, for he unhorsed and vanquished the best.
Hence this seizure of the hateful person. The story of it is told by Adam Murimuth—