“The King wished Peter de Gavestone to be conveyed to him by Lord Adamar de Valense, Earl of Pembroke, for safety; and, when they were at Danyntone next Bannebury, the same Earl sent him away in the night; and he went near to one place for this reason. And on the morrow in the morning came Guy, Earl of Warwyk, with a low-born and shouting band, and awakened Peter and brought him to his Castle of Warwyk and, after deliberation with certain elders of the kingdom, and chiefly with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, finally released him from prison to go where he would. And when he had set out from the town of Warwyk even to the place called, somewhat prophetically, Gaveressich, he came there with many men making a clamor against him with their voices and horns, as against an enemy of the King and a lawful outlaw of the Kingdom, or an exile; and finally beheaded him as such xix day of the month of June.”

So the “Black Dog” did indeed bite him to some effect. This tragic spot is a place called Blacklow Hill, one mile north of the town. A monument to this misguided humorist, following his natural propensities in a land where humour is not appreciated, was erected on the spot by a Mr. Greathead, of Guy’s Cliff House, in 1821. The inscription itself has a complete lack of humour—

“In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, on the first day of July, 1312, by barons as lawless as himself, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, the minion of a hateful king, in life and death a memorable instance of misrule.”

With this fierce “Black Dog of Arden,” whose teeth were so sharp, the architectural history of the Castle becomes clear. He repaired and strengthened it, after the rough handling it had received in the Barons’ War, in the reign of Henry the Third; but to Thomas de Beauchamp, his grandson, is due Cæsar’s Tower, about 1360, and it was his son Thomas, who built Guy’s Tower, named after the mythical giant, about 1394.

It costs two shillings to see Warwick Castle. I believe if you happen to be a resident of Warwick or Leamington, there is a reduction of fifty per cent. The entrance is not so old as it looks, and was cut through the rock in 1800. It leads to the gloomy Barbican, whose overhanging walls give a truly mediæval approach and form the completest contrast with the scene that opens beyond.

The visitor enters a huge courtyard, now one vast lawn, nearly two acres in area; with the residential portion of the Castle and its state-rooms on the left. Ahead is Ethelfleda’s Mount, and on the right, guarding the curtain-wall at intervals, are Guy’s Tower; the incomplete Bear Tower, with its mysterious tunnel, the work of Richard the Third; and the companion Clarence Tower, built by George, Duke of Clarence, his ill-fated brother, murdered in the Tower of London. Beside Ethelfleda’s Mount is the Hill Tower.

Immediately to the left of the entrance are the brew-house, laundry and then Cæsar’s Tower, with its gloomy dungeon, a most undesirable place of residence with vaulted stone roof and mouldy smells, meet for repentance and vain regrets. Here the “Black Dog” imprisoned the flippant Gaveston, and many later generations of prisoners passed weary times, scratching their not very legible records upon the walls for lack of employment. Among them is the record of one “Master John Smyth, gunner to the King,” who appears to have been a prisoner here for the worse part of four years, in the hands of the Cromwellian partisan, Lord Brooke. We learn nothing further of the unfortunate gunner, nor why he was meted such hard measure.

MafTER : IohN : SMyTH : GVNER : TO HIS :
MAIESTyE . HIghNES : WAS : A PRISNER IN THIS
PlACE : AND lAy HERE . frOM 1642 TELL th

WILLIAM SIdIATE ROT This SAME
ANd if My PEN HAd Bin BETER foR
HIS SAKE I Wovld HAVE MENdEd
EVERRi leTTER.

Mafter 1642 345
Iohn : SMyTH GVNER to H .
MAIEfTys : HighNES WAS
A PRIfNER IN This PlACE
IN : ThE . yEARE of OVR L
ord 1642 : 345
miserere
ihs mary
ihs mio

Mr. William Sidiate (or possibly it is “Lidiate”) who thus, in the quaintest of lettering inscribed the sorrows of his friend the imprisoned gunner, appears to have been fully conscious of the eccentricity of his handiwork, but the inferiority of his “pen”—which was probably a rusty nail—can have had nothing to do with his weird admixture of “large caps,” “upper case,” “lower case” and italic type which I confidently expect will make the compositor of this page smile and sigh by turns.

The Great Hall, with its armour and pictures and relics of Guy, is of course the chief feature of the long round of sight-seeing that makes Warwick Castle second to none as a show-place. It was greatly injured in the fire of December 1871, when many priceless relics were destroyed. Facsimile replicas of some have been made, and of the ancient armour which survived it has been said that there is no finer in the Kingdom, except that in the Tower of London. It is remarkable that although the Castle has passed from family to family, and sometimes to families not related to their predecessors, the continuity of things has been maintained. Here is the mace of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, “the Kingmaker,” who was slain in 1471 at the Battle of Barnet; here are portions of the armour which belonged to Prince Edward, murdered at Tewkesbury, after the battle; together with relics of the Dudleys, such as the miniature suit of armour made for the “noble Impe”; together with a helmet of the great Oliver Cromwell, and the suit worn by Lord Brooke, shot at the siege of Lichfield. His buff leathern jerkin was burnt in 1871, and that we now see is a facsimile of it. Here, too, are those preposterous relics of Guy, already mentioned, together with a rib of that Dun Cow of terrific story which he slew upon Dunsmore. The visitor will see that rib with surprise, and note that the cows of a thousand years ago were larger than ever he suspected. It is the rib of a whale.