William, the grandson of the founder, recovered the estates. He founded New Shoreham church and port. He also joined in the invasion of Ireland with Henry II., and held the whole kingdom of Limerick in fee. He is accused, though upon scanty evidence, of a wholesale massacre of his Welsh neighbours at Abergavenny. His possessions in England, Wales, and Ireland were enormous, and he also held the Honour of Braose in the Bailliewick of Falaise, in Normandy, and a share of the Honour of Totnes. He married Maud de Hayes or St. Valerie. For some reason not very clearly ascertained, he became obnoxious to King John, and their strife, much embittered by the outspeaking of his wife, led in 1210 to his attainder and exile, and the death of his wife and William their son, it is said of starvation, in the prison of Windsor Castle. He himself died at Paris shortly afterwards, in 1212. He was a considerable benefactor to the Church, and it is recorded of him that he was careful to use God’s name with great reverence. The king seized the Rape of Bramber, and granted the barony to Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Giles, Bishop of Hereford, and Reginald de Braose, brothers of the attainted baron, obtained after a time a share of the estates. Bramber was granted to the bishop, who, however, died within the year. Finally, in the reign of Henry III., Reginald recovered Bramber and Knapp, and most of the rest of the property, and having married Grecia, daughter of William de la Bruere, died 6th Henry III., and was succeeded by William his son.
William de Braose married Eve Mareschal, a co-heir of the great earl. He fell into the hands of Prince Llewelyn, who accused him of too great intimacy with his princess, and put him to death at Builth, it is said, by hanging. He left four daughters co-heirs, whose descendants held the greater part of the estates.
There remained, however, an heir male, in John de Braose, by Maud de Clare: he was the grandson by Maud de Clare of that William who was famished with his mother at Windsor, and he recovered Bramber and Gower. His son was William de Braose, who held Bramber and Gower, and added considerably to the Sussex estates. He is said, in 1262, to have raised a large sum of money from his tenants by foregoing his right of murage. He died at Findon, 1290, 19 Edward I., and was succeeded by John de Braose of Bramber, who married Margaret, daughter of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales. He died at Bramber of a fall from his horse (16 Henry III., 1232), and was succeeded by William, who died 19 Edward I. William was a powerful baron, and active in the wars of Edward I. and II. He was, however, extravagant, and reduced to sell Gower, which led afterwards to disputes between the purchaser and the lawful heirs of the vendor, of whom Aliva, his elder daughter, married John de Mowbray, from whom descended, in the seventh generation, Margaret de Mowbray, who married Sir Robert Howard, whence comes the Duke of Norfolk, the present owner of Bramber Castle. The barony is in abeyance. Probably, with the failure of the elder male line of De Braose, the castle ceased to be a residence, but in 1644 it was strong enough to be held by Captain James Temple, for the king, against a strong Parliamentary party, and it was probably in consequence that the keep was blown up, and the castle reduced to its present condition. There is an engraving by Hollar, taken 150 years ago, representing it very much as it now is.
Another branch of the family of De Braose rose to the rank of Barons of Parliament, and held large Sussex possessions. The last male of this cadet branch, De Braose of Chesworth and East Grinsted, died in the reign of Richard II.
Bramber is, like Pontefract, Lewes, and Dudley, an example of a natural hill, scarped and defended by art, and crowned with an artificial mound; but, unlike those castles, it has both a mound and rectangular keep, a rare combination, found also at Guildford and Christchurch. A rectangular keep upon a natural isolated hill, unaccompanied by a mound, though not usual, is not unknown. Examples of it are seen at Hedingham, Corfe, and Bridgenorth. At Bramber, as indeed is the case in many other sites of early fortresses, the original earthworks have survived the Norman additions, and remain pretty much as they must have existed before the Conquest.
BRIDGENORTH, OLDBURY, AND QUATFORD, IN SHROPSHIRE.
THE river Severn, in its course from Shrewsbury to Worcester, passes for several miles down a deep and rugged ravine, within or near to which lie the populous districts of Coalbrook Dale, Iron Bridge, Coal Port, and Broseley, early seats of the iron manufacture, and evidences of the wealth, though scarcely in harmony with the natural beauty, of the country. The ravine commences a little below the ivy-covered ruins of Buildwas Abbey, and terminates twenty to twenty-five miles lower down, about Bewdley and Stourbridge, where it opens out into a valley of a soft and smiling character.
About half-way down, between Pendlestone rock and the incoming of the Worf, the Severn receives upon its right bank the waters from a short but deep and broad valley, which descends obliquely from the north-west, and between which and the main valley intervenes the point of a steep and narrow ridge of rock, rising about 200 feet above the river, and upon the nearly level summit of which is placed the town and what remains of the Castle of Bridgenorth. The rock is more lofty, and the position far more striking, than that of Pontefract Castle, the defences of which were also in a great degree natural, and in these respects Bridgenorth may challenge comparison with Coucy, which it also resembles in the relation of the castle to the town. In both places the castle lay contiguous to the town, and their connected defences formed the common enceinte, while the castle had besides a ditch proper to itself.
