Their son was Ralph Nevile, who died 5 Edward III., (1331), and who appears in an inquisition (1 Edward III.) as holding Middleham Manor and Castle. His son, Robert Nevile, the Peacock of the North, had from his grandmother the castle and manor of Middleham. He died, without issue, before his father, leaving Ralph his brother and heir, who died 41 Edward III. This Ralph, Lord Nevile of Raby, took a very active part in all the public transactions of his time, both in war and peace. He died seized of the castle and manor of Middleham, and was the first layman buried in the Cathedral of Durham.
The next lord was John, his son, also a great soldier and diplomatist. He died 12 Richard II., 1388, leaving Ralph, his son and heir, who added to the wealth and power of the family, and also held the castle, manor, and lordship of Middleham at his death in 4 Henry VI., 1425. John, son of Ralph, died before his father, 1423, who was succeeded by his grandson, Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, who died 2 Richard III. Middleham, however, had passed to Richard Nevile, Earl of Salisbury, son of Earl Ralph, who died 4 Henry VI., by his second wife, a daughter of John of Gaunt. The Earl of Salisbury, by an inquisition of 12 Richard II., had then Middleham. This is the earl who, in 37 Henry VI., marched with 4,000 men from Middleham into Lancashire on his way to London, to obtain redress from the king and queen for injuries done to his son. On this earl’s forfeiture, before 38 Henry VI., his Lancastrian kinsman, Sir John Nevile, was made constable of Middleham Castle, then in the Crown. Sir John fell at Towton, 1 Edward IV., and his son Ralph became Earl of Westmoreland. But Middleham remained in the Crown.
At Middleham, then in charge of Nevile, Archbishop of York, Edward IV. was confined by Richard, Earl of Warwick, the prelate’s brother. Edward escaped when hunting in the park. After Barnet the castle was granted to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to the exclusion of the male heirs of the Marquis Montagu, Warwick’s brother. Richard was much here; raised the rectory to a deanery, with a view to the foundation of a college; and here his son Edward, Prince of Wales, was born. After Richard’s death, Middleham fell to the Crown, and was leased to various persons. Finally it was sold to Mr. Wood, of Littleton, ancestor of the present owner. Recently the keep has been partially cleared of rubbish, and some of the most dangerous portions have been under-pinned; but a little more assistance of the same character is much needed to save some of the most prominent features of the ruin from destruction.
MITFORD CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
THIS is one of the most remarkable of the Northumbrian castles. It is situated about two miles above and west of Morpeth, on the right bank of the Wansbeck, which here makes two very sharp bends, the larger and higher of which includes the castle, the church of St. Andrew, the new Hall, and the ruins of the old one. The church, the nave of which was long roofless, has been repaired, and is now in good order. It is the burial-place of the ancient barons and modern lords of Mitford. The chancel is early English; the nave rude but good Norman, with a pointed south door in the same style. The old Hall, of which a tower is standing, was a Tudor building, constructed by the Mitfords, in part from the materials of the castle. The present Hall, the Mitford residence, is modern.
What remains of the castle occupies the summit of a knoll of sandstone rock, rising about 70 feet, on the north side abruptly, and elsewhere more or less steeply, from a marshy meadow, which on the north, east, and west is encircled by the folds of the Wansbeck, and on the south by a sweep of a tributary stream, which joins the river just below the castle. Each watercourse flows beneath a steep and high concave bank, thickly wooded, and the result is a sylvan amphitheatre of great seclusion and much beauty.
The castle knoll, at its summit, is about eighty yards across, irregularly circular. Along its brow runs the enceinte wall of the place, much broken down, but which seems to have been about 20 feet high and 7 feet thick. It may be traced all round, save at one point on the south face, where it is encroached upon by a quarry opened for the materials of the new Hall in 1810. Towards the north the wall is tolerably perfect, though more or less riven, and without its battlements. The inclosure is now an orchard.
The northern portion of the area is somewhat higher than the rest, and has been parted off by a cross wall, creating an inner ward, of small dimension, semi-circular plan, and considerable strength. In this ward stands the Norman keep, a square of about 36 feet, but having its north side in two oblique faces, forming a salient. It has, therefore, five sides, a rare and certainly original departure from the usual Norman plan. The walls are about 7 feet thick, and the interior area 22 feet 6 inches square. This space is divided by a cross wall, north and south, into two equal parts, each barrel-vaulted, with a plain, round-headed arch springing from a plain chamfered abacus. The north face of each chamber is oblique, to match the exterior salient. Of these chambers, one has a loop in the north gable, and the other, in the corresponding place, two small stone spouts, about 3 feet from the floor, as though for the admission of water. Both chambers are ruined at the south end.
All the keep above the ground-floor walls is destroyed, and the rubbish conceals the exterior wall face, but the whole is clearly of excellent ashlar. From and within the west wall a small mural stair descends, turning the south-west angle to a door in the south wall, opening into the west vault. This door has a flat segmental arch. The outer entrance seems to have been in the west wall in the floor above the basement. It is said that an exterior stone stair is concealed by the rubbish. This keep stands upon the rock, here, perhaps, 20 feet above the rest of the area. It blocks up the triangular, or rather segmental inner ward, standing about 50 feet from one angle and 30 feet from the other. Its salient extends to within 10 feet of the northern, or corresponding salient of the ward, and its southern face is about 6 feet within the cross wall. In the curved outer wall of this ward, towards the north-west, is a very remarkable window recess, 8 feet broad and of the same height, to the plain Norman abacus, whence springs its round-headed arch, over which is a hood-moulding of the same pattern, the only attempt at ornament. The wall here is 8 feet thick, but as the outer 2 feet are not original, the window-case is gone. It was probably of two lights, and opened upon the cliff.