The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

CHAPTER XVII
IVANHOE

From 'Bonnie Scotland' to 'Merrie England' was not a long step for Sir Walter, for he had already peeped into Yorkshire at Barnard Castle for his poem, 'Rokeby.' The principal scenes of 'Ivanhoe' are laid in the opposite end of the same county, between Sheffield and Doncaster. They extend, however, as far south as Ashby de la Zouch, and northward to the ancient city of York. As we rode through this populous country, humming with the industry of thousands of busy mills, its crowded cities showing street after street of substantial business houses, its more open spaces dotted with neat cottages surrounded by well-kept gardens, its streams crossed by bridges of stone and steel, its roads in excellent repair, and its entire aspect betokening the peace and prosperity of a great civilization, it was difficult to picture it in fancy as the great forest roamed by Robin Hood and his merry men; as a land in which King Richard and Wilfred of Ivanhoe performed their feats of chivalry and daring; as the region in which Cedric the Saxon still resented the intrusion of the Normans, and Front-de-Boeuf maintained a feudal castle concealing horrors too frightful to mention.

Map of England

We succeeded, however, in finding a bit of the original forest, in identifying the ruins of two castles which figure prominently in the story, and several others which doubtless served as types of the prevailing Norman style of architecture, besides other interesting places more remotely associated with the tale.

The town of Ashby de la Zouch, to which all the people of the story wend their way in the early chapters, is on the western edge of Leicestershire, about midway between Birmingham and Nottingham. The ancient castle derives its name from the fact that it was formerly owned by the Zouch family, who seem to have had possession until 1399. Scott was slightly in error in stating that at this time (1194) 'the castle and town of Ashby belonged to Roger de Quincey, Earl of Winchester,' who was then absent in the Holy Land. It is not inconceivable, however, that Prince John might have taken temporary possession, and, after all, that is the main point of the story.

The castle was a ruin in Scott's day, presenting an appearance very much the same as now. It suggested the scene of Prince John's banquet, but the novelist well knew that it was not the original castle which stood on the spot in 1194. Of the old castle we found only a single wall. The date of its foundation is uncertain, but it was probably built in the earlier part of the same century. Its successor, represented by the ruins now visible, was built in 1474, nearly three hundred years after the period of the novel. The reigning king was Edward IV, and one of his prime favourites was William, Lord Hastings, who was not only loaded with wealth by his sovereign, but given almost unlimited authority to enclose for private use whatever land he wished and to build wherever he pleased. Accordingly Hastings took possession of three thousand acres of land at Ashby and erected a huge castle, despoiling the neighbouring castle of Belvoir of much lead, with which he covered his towers. The strong fortress and splendid castle thus erected stood intact for less than two centuries. During the Civil War it was besieged and captured by the Parliamentary Army, and in 1648 was deliberately made untenable by a Committee of the House of Commons, who had been appointed to determine what castles and other fortified places were to be retained and which ones were to be destroyed. Ashby, unfortunately, was condemned and huge sections of its walls and towers were undermined and pulled down.

The ruin consists of two large towers, connected by an underground passage, the great hall, the chapel, and the room of Mary Queen of Scots. The kitchen tower was of great strength, having walls in some places ten feet thick, and the remains of a huge kitchen fireplace may still be seen. The most imposing part of the ruin is the keep. This was a tower eighty feet high, fitted up in great magnificence as the Earl's apartment.