ON the north-eastern shore of England, where the cliffs of Yorkshire rear a bold though broken front towards the German Ocean, there is seen, midway between the Tees and the Humber, or, more nearly, between Whitby and Flamborough Head, a tall and rugged and almost isolated headland of rock, which, from times beyond the records of history, has borne the appropriate name of Scarborough. The scaur or rugged cliff, the tall summit of which forms the natural burgh or strong place, rises precipitately about 300 feet from the sea beach, and has on its northern side the small bay of which Scalby-ness forms the opposite horn, and to its south the deeper and more spacious inlet, on the strand of which, under the protection of the scaur, is nestled the ancient seaport town of Scarborough.
At no period when life and limb were valued and endangered could the advantages of Scarborough as a place of dwelling or of refuge have been overlooked. What art has executed at Flamborough, Nature, with a bolder hand, has here provided. The bay gave facilities for fishing or for pursuits connected with the sea, and the half-isolated cliff afforded security from attack from any quarter. And yet there is no evidence that Scarborough was regularly inhabited by either the original Brigantes or their Roman invaders. The adjacent wolds are scarred with traces of early contests, but are of too cold and too barren a character to have supported any considerable population, or indeed any population save a few shepherds. The vale of the Derwent, now rich and fertile, was, in Roman times, a chain of impassable swamps and morasses, flanked with dense and equally impenetrable forests. Neither Holderness nor the south of Cleveland contain many Roman remains, nor does there appear to have been any regular settlement by that people between Delgovitia and Derventio (Millington and Stamford Bridge or New Malton) and the eastern coast.
The tract between the Humber and the Whitby Esk was invaded in the sixth century by a tribe of the Engles, who from invaders became settlers, and, as was the manner of the Teutonic tribes, finally consolidated themselves into a kingdom, the nucleus of the well-known Deira. That they inhabited the coasts of Holderness and Cleveland, the edges and valleys of the Wolds and of Pickering and the adjacent plain of York, is a matter of history, and is shown by the names of their settlements and the existing peculiarities of the speech of the people, their descendants, and by the very marked Burh of Skipsea, which has survived all its subsequent additions; but the rock of Scarborough, though as strong and almost as grand a natural feature as Bamborough, is not on record as a Deiran fortress, still less as a regal seat, nor does it exhibit, nor indeed did it need, any of those remarkable and well-defined earthworks which indicate the later Saxon residences. Its first appearance in history, though late, is creditable. When, early in 1066, Harold Hardrada and his traitor ally Tostig wasted and pillaged the earldom of Morkere, the men of Scarborough met the invaders in arms, and made a brave, though fruitless, resistance.
Scarborough is not named in Domesday, though the soke of Walesgriff, or Falsgrave, of which it seems to have formed a part, is therein recorded, and then belonged to William de Perci, the lord of eighty-six Yorkshire lordships, and the ancestor of that Agnes whose Louvaine descendants assumed her family name. Percy, however, did not long retain this manor, for Eudo of Champagne, kinsman, and by marriage nephew to the conqueror, on the departure of Drogo le Brevere, the reputed founder of the Norman works at Skipsea Castle, received from William the land of Holderness, and with it, probably, the adjacent manor of Falsgrave. Their son, Stephen, besides his paternal heritage of Holderness, held maternally the Norman territory of Aumarle, or Albemarle, from whence his mother Adeliza was styled “Comitissa de Albamarla,” and Stephen, who died in 1127, bore the same title.
His son, William, the second earl, lord of Holderness and founder of the Abbey of Meaux, took a very active part in English affairs, and was in his time the most powerful baron in the north. He commanded at the battle of the Standard in 1138, and received from King Stephen what Dugdale calls the earldom of Yorkshire. He died in 1179, having been a liberal benefactor to many Yorkshire religious houses, and according to William of Newburgh, who wrote in about 1190, the builder of Scarborough Castle. If this be so, it must have been when William came into the earldom, that is, soon after 1127, for on the accession of Henry II., in 1154, Scarborough was one of the castles selected for demolition, and upon the earl’s resistance, Henry himself, after a severe struggle, took possession of it, and, becoming acquainted with the value of its position, instead of destroying, attached it to the Crown. Taking all this into consideration, and having regard to the material evidence afforded by the remains of the keep and the older parts of the curtain, the most probable conclusion is that Earl William’s fortress was of a temporary character, and the keep (arx magna et præclara) and the older parts of the existing masonry are the work of King Henry at a later period.
In the Pipe-roll of 4 Henry II. the sheriff of Yorkshire is allowed £4 for works on the castle of Scardeburc, and subsequently Henry granted or confirmed a charter of incorporation to the town, for the farm of which, 30 Henry II., an account was rendered by the sheriff. The town continued to thrive, and from time to time contributed to the “dona ad auxilium,” to talliage and scutage. King John paid four visits to the castle in 1201, 1210, 1213, and 1216, remaining there altogether about nine days. In 1202 and 1204 John de Builly was the constable, and then and in 1213 military prisoners were kept there. In 1208 Builly was superseded by Robert de Vaux, and he again in 1215 by Geoffrey de Neville, the King’s Chamberlain, at which time sixty “servientes” and ten “balistarii” seem to have constituted the garrison. That John kept the castle in repair appears from frequent allowances for works. Wine also was sent there from Portsmouth, and lead for covering a tower. Payments occur for “servientes,” “balistarii” and others employed in the castle. During John’s reign it appears that at one time William de Duston was in charge, and had orders to receive William, Earl of Albemarle, and his companions into the castle. This was William de Fortibus, a Magna Charta baron, and Earl of Albemarle, in right of his mother, Hawise, the daughter and heiress of Earl William le Gros. Probably he took advantage of John’s difficulties to revive a claim to the castle, which, however, he does not seem to have been able to enforce. In 1215 Neville was again in office, and had an order for 100 marcs, “ad opus—ad castrum nostrum de Scardeburg’ muniendum.” John de Neville, son of Geoffrey, took charge of the castle under Henry III. in 1225, and the fortress seems to have been kept in repair all through that reign. In 1252 Henry granted to the town a permission for the construction of a new pier.
The strong, and, on the whole, just government of Edward I. led to the neglect of such of the castles of the kingdom as were not necessary for the defence of a menaced frontier, and among them of Scarborough, but under his son they became again of importance, and Scarborough reappears in the public records. Edward II. was here in 1312, and left the castle in charge of Gaveston while he proceeded to York. It was attacked and taken by the Earl of Pembroke, not by assault, but by starvation. In 1318 the town was burned by the Scots, but they do not appear to have been able to take the castle. Sixty years later the town was threatened by sea by a Scottish adventurer, who, however, failed to take it, and was subsequently made prisoner. For the next three centuries Scarborough Castle was left to fall into decay, or only so far repaired as to be employed occasionally as a prison. In 1536, the year of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Aske, who was a native of Aughton on the Derwent, led his ill-disciplined followers against it, but without success. A little later, in 1553, during Wyatt’s rebellion, it was taken, probably by surprise, by the Earl of Stafford, but held for three days only.
In the contest between Charles and the Parliament in the seventeenth century, Scarborough, with many other Yorkshire castles, more or less ruinous, was held for the king, and in July, 1645, the Parliamentary forces laid siege to it in form. A battery was posted upon the roof of the chancel of the ancient parish church, about 170 yards from the outer gate of the castle, and a second to the north of it, upon the edge of the cliff in front of the barbican. The castle was taken and held for a short time, and in 1648, being again held for the king, it was a second time attacked and taken, and shortly afterwards a mine was sprung in the ground floor of the keep, laying open its eastern side. Probably the forebuilding covering the entrance to the keep was destroyed at the same time.
The town of Scarborough was walled from an early period. Leland speaks of banks and ditches, and fragments of the walls, and mentions its two gates, Newburgh and Aldburgh, or Anborough, one of which remains. The town ditch extended from the castle barbican along the high ground southwards, and upon it, 550 yards from the barbican, was the Anborough gate. The town contained three friaries and one parish church, dedicated to the Virgin, and belonging to the Cistertians. It is a large building near the castle, of which the chancel, or lady chapel, has remained in ruins ever since the first Parliamentary siege. The platform occupied by the castle is extra parochial, usually an ecclesiastical, not a military privilege.