No mention of the castle occurs till the reign of John, who held the castle and Honour during the minority of Lord Reginald, when the fines, &c., for the Honour were levied by the king’s officers. In the Chancery roll of 1201–2, Nicholas Puinz accounts for 15s. 2½d., half a year’s pay allowed to the janitor of the castle, and the same to the watchman; and these payments are repeated by Reginald de Clifton, who, in 1204, was ordered to place Reginald de Moyon in possession of the castle of Dunster and the heritage then in his custody. A very little before this, the coming of age of Reginald, Hubert de Burgh was in charge, and had accounted “de finibus militum” of the Honour; and 25th February, 1202, John called upon the knights and free tenants to contribute through De Burgh for strengthening the castle. “Our castle,” the king calls it, probably not merely as holding it in wardship, but as asserting the general rights of the crown to all castles. A second Reginald seems to have founded a mass for the weal of his ancestors, to be said daily by a monk or a secular priest, to be provided by the prior, in the upper or St. Stephen’s chapel, in the castle, or during war in the chapel of St. Lawrence, within the priory. If the same was neglected, power was reserved to distrain upon the goods of the prior. Leland mentions St. Stephen’s chapel as connected with the keep. There seems also to have been a second chapel, as usual, in the lower ward. Upon the death of Lord Reginald, about 1213, the Honour again fell into the hands of the Crown during a long minority. Henry Fitz Count was placed in charge, and Alice the widow was allowed dower and “maritagium.” It is curious that John does not appear to have visited Dunster, although he was at Stoke-Courcy.
Henry III., in 1220, placed the forest of Dunster in charge of Peter de Maulay. He retained the castle in his own hands, and there occur several charges for the payment of Roger and William de Vilers, as “balistarii regis,” who dwelt in the king’s castle of Dunster. A specific order in 1222 places the Mohun lands in Carhampton in charge of William Briwer, probably next of kin to the widow, but reserves to the king’s hands the castle and vill of Dunster. Soon after, Watchet market, being unlicensed and injurious to Dunster, was put down (Close Roll I., 137, 418, 605). The above were not the only persons to whom from time to time this valuable wardship was committed.
Of the condition of the castle at the close of this wardship, nothing is on record; but the wealth of the family was much augmented by the match of Reginald, King John’s ward, with a Briwer co-heiress, and either his son Reginald, the founder, 1246, of Newenham Abbey, who died 41st Henry III., 1256, or his grandson John, who died 7th Edward I., 1278, the last baron by tenure, might have built the curtain and mural towers containing the lower ward, of which the bases remain. The keep was probably left unaltered, and indeed, from the great and inconvenient height at which it stood, could have been but little used. The purely defensive parts of castles, when not inhabited by the owner, were usually but little cared for, and the allowance for a porter and a single watchman shows that in this respect Dunster was no exception.
In 1376, John de Mohun, the eighth baron and the tenth in lineal descent from the founder of the family, died, leaving daughters only, and a sale of the castle and the rest of the property was effected by his widow Joan Burghersh. The purchaser was another widow, Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon, and widow, first, of Sir John de Vere, and afterwards of Sir Andrew Luttrell, of Chilton, a cadet of the barons Luttrell of Irnham. Elizabeth was a lady of high rank, of kin, through the Bohuns, to Edward III., and with the command of great wealth. Her son, Sir Hugh Luttrell, became the new lord of the castle and Honour, and probably built the great gatehouse.
The Luttrells were steady Lancastrians, and their representative, Sir James, took knighthood on the field of Wakefield, and fell in the second battle of St. Alban’s, when his estates were confiscated, 1st Edward IV., though only to be restored, 1st Henry VII., in the person of his son, Sir Hugh. Sir Hugh Luttrell stood high in the favour of Henry VII., and seems to have lived at Dunster in great splendour. To a second Sir Hugh, Leland attributes the great gatehouse, and he may have completed or repaired it, and opened its south door leading upon the lower ward. Probably he also inserted the armorial panels over the entrance portal, the last of which, complete, bears his coat impaling that of Margaret Hill, his wife. He also repaired the chapel of St. Stephen. Leland describes the donjon, or keep, as having been “full of goodly buildings,” which, however, had disappeared even before his time. The inhabited part of the castle was then, as now, in the north-east angle of the lower ward. Sir Andrew, Sir Hugh’s son and successor, “built a new piece of the castle wall by the east.”
The next possessor who left his mark upon the castle was George Luttrell, Sheriff of Somerset in 1593. He built the market-house in the town and the older part of the present dwelling-house, which bears date 1589, incorporating with it much of the curtain wall, towers, and walls of the older and more distinctly military building. The entrance to the ward seems to have remained as before, through the gateway between the flanking towers.
During the wars between Charles and the Parliament, the Luttrells sided warmly with neither party, and were out of favour with both. Its owners at this time were Thomas Luttrell, who died 1644, and George, died 1655. In 1643 a Royalist garrison, under Colonel Wyndham, took possession, and the castle was visited by Prince Charles, whose chamber is still pointed out. In 1646 Blake laid siege to the castle for the Parliament, and battered it from the north-west, behind the Luttrell Arms. It was surrendered by Wyndham in April, 1646. A few iron cannon balls, memorials of this siege, have been found.
The government, although they apologised for the military occupation of the castle, levied a local rate for pulling it down. Probably this referred only to the upper part of the curtain wall on either side of the gatehouse. It is said that the gatehouse was injured, but its present condition shows that the injury could not have been of a very serious character.
A century later the accounts show that the Luttrells raised the surface of the lower ward, probably about fourteen feet, evidently with earth obtained by scraping the adjacent slope of the tor. This, which involved the closing up of the old gateway, was probably combined with the construction of a new approach, which passed below and outside of the gatehouse, wound round the castle and the tor, and entered the lower ward at the new level. Matters thus remained until the accession of Mr. George Luttrell in 1869, when, under the judicious advice of Mr. Salvin, a great addition was made to the Elizabethan house, a new tower was constructed on the west front, and the foundation and pavements of buildings along the north front, and connected with the entrance gate and the gatehouse were laid open, and the walls restored and rebuilt, and a terrace formed along a part of the curtain. The approach for carriages was also much improved, though, as before, at the cost of avoiding the great gatehouse.
The ancient walls incorporated with the later residence prove that there must have been very considerable buildings upon the ground now occupied by it, but there is some reason to suppose that both hall and chapel stood near the site of the later gatehouse, and, therefore, to the right or west of the original entry. If this be so, the extent of buildings in the lower ward must have been very considerable indeed, as in the other direction they certainly extended, as does the present house, to the foot of the tor, and were flanked by it. Nevertheless, considerable as the alterations have been, and handsome and convenient as are the rooms of the present mansion, it represents very fairly the original fortress, and, like it, is sheltered by the tor, and predominates over the park, the town, and the sea-coast, commanding a very extensive view, and, as becomes the representative of so important a military post, is itself visible from the tract of country of which it was sometimes the terror, but more frequently the protection.