In September, 1069, the Danish fleet once more ascended the Humber. These allies were joined by the men of Northumbria and the English earls from Scotland. The rising threatened William’s throne. He charged Malet and Fitz Gilbert to hold firm, and received from them the assurance that they were safe for a year. They must have repented of their pledge when they beheld the whole population of the city mustering thick as wasps before the castle. The garrison at once fired the adjacent houses to clear the way for the defence, and thus burned a large part of the city, during which they sallied out in force. They were intercepted; three thousand are said to have been slain; the castle fell, and the commander was taken prisoner. The new defences were destroyed, probably by fire, and the north once more was free. The numbers engaged show that the garrison occupied not merely the mound, but the lower ward also. Unfortunately for the English, they had no leader capable of meeting William in the field. He marched into the east, met with, partially crushed, and partially subsidised, the invading Danes in the parts of Lindsey, and, such the terror of his name, entered York unopposed. He directed the castle again to be renewed, and then was carried out that wide and terrible devastation of the northern counties, necessary, perhaps, to enable him to hold England, but which has loaded his name with infamy. Upon the completion of his horrid task he kept the Christmas of 1069–70, amidst the blackened ruins of York.
Christmas past, William visited Durham, put down a considerable rising in the country about the Tees, and, after an absence of a few weeks, returned, for the last time, to York. What remains at York of a military character can be attributed to the Conqueror, or to the period of his reign? Probably none whatever. It has been usual to suppose that immediately upon the orders of the Conqueror there were constructed keep and walls, such as we attribute to the Norman period. But this period of architecture lasted nearly to 1200, and it is probable that but very few of the Norman keeps were coëval with William. The Normans had much to occupy them. Their masons, and sometimes even their materials, were imported from Normandy, and it is probable that in most cases, as certainly at York, the new lords availed themselves of such defences as they found ready to hand, and only replaced them with regular masonry by very slow degrees. Of the present walls only the inner part or core of the gateways, and a part of the wall above the Layerthorpe postern, present any distinct Norman features, and these seem late rather than early in the style. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the defences of York, for at least a generation after the Conquest, were a line of palisades along the crest of the earth-bank, similar works about the castle and the Bayle, deep ditches, and gatehouses, very possibly, of masonry.
And now, with a general description of the existing walls, these remarks are brought to a conclusion. It will be observed that the wall follows everywhere the line of the embankment, being built upon it, and, consequently, but seldom of any great height, the steep exterior bank and ditch being reckoned a great part of the defence. The ditch, indeed, is fast becoming a matter of history. A few years ago a good example of it covered the front of the city from the Ouse to the railway arch, but now the works of the new station have encroached most unnecessarily on the ditch, and a part of it is already filled up. It is curious also that the foundation of the wall is, for the most part, very shallow in some places, certainly not above two or three feet. Much of the wall, indeed, of Walmgate rests upon rude, slightly-pointed arches; possibly because the foundation was bad, similar arches are seen below the castle wall of Southampton, intended, like these, to be covered up. It is also to be remarked that parts of the wall, especially the oldest part at Layerthorpe, are not above two or, at the most, three feet thick, so as to afford no possibility of a rampart walk, without which the wall would, of course, be of little use for defence. At Layerthorpe this want has been supplied by an inner wall, built upon arches, and carrying the rampart walk. At the wall which contains the precinct of St. Mary, meant evidently for defence, for which a licence was granted by Edward II., it would seem that this rampart walk was an interior construction, or scaffold of timber. Where the wall is decidedly of late date, as near Lendal, it is much thicker, and the rampart walk is an essential part of it, though here the stone steps must have been supplemented below with either timber or a bank of earth. Layerthorpe postern seems to have a regular gatehouse placed upon the inner end of the bridge of the Foss, and forming an appropriate termination of the wall in this direction. Fishergate postern, a portcullised doorway of the style of Henry III. or Edward I., seems to have been a water-gate upon the Foss. The adjacent square tower by which the curtain is ended seems in part of the same date, but to have been partly rebuilt in the Perpendicular period. York is fortunate in its gates, though these have been treated most injuriously. They contain the original Norman gatehouse, a small rectangular building, with a round-headed portal at each end, and a flat timber roof between. There was an upper story, now removed, and hinges for double gates. There is no portcullis, a defence well known to the Normans, but of which they made no great use. In the Decorated period these gatehouses were cased, an outer portal added, and a portcullis introduced at one or both ends. At Monk Bar the portal passage was vaulted. There was added a lofty superstructure with turrets or bartizans corbelled out at the angles, and lateral doors communicated with the adjacent curtains. Each gatehouse had, in advance of it, a rectangular enclosure or pen with embattled walls, and an outer gate opening on the further side of the ditch. Two small doors opened from the first floor of the gatehouse upon the walls of this structure, and thus was formed the barbican. The drawbridge was worked inside, over the ditch. One only of these barbicans remains, that of Walmgate; but those who wish to see other and rather earlier examples of this appendage will find one of a similar type at Carlisle, and a very fine one at Alnwick. The walls have been so patched and repaired that it is difficult to form an opinion concerning their age. They were strong enough in 1138 to hold at bay the Scottish King David, who laid siege to York, during the contest between Maud and Stephen, a short time before his defeat upon the field of Northallerton; but, with the slight exceptions already mentioned, their oldest parts seem of the Decorated period, perhaps of the reigns of Edward I. and II., or even of that of Henry III. The charming little tops to the loops in the Walmgate wall can scarcely be later than Edward II. Much of the superstructure is far later. The walls were ordered to be repaired by Edward III., in July, 1327, before the battle of Nevill’s Cross, and much has been done to them even down to the present day.
The Castle of York, to which the Conqueror directed his special attention, ought, one would suppose, to retain some memorials of that age. This, however, is not the case. The wall in the lower ward, upon the Foss, may, in parts, be early in the twelfth century, but the round mural towers cannot be earlier than the reign of Henry III. Clifford’s Tower, indeed, the keep of the fortress, is a very interesting structure. Circular or polygonal keeps, such as Cardiff, or Arundel, or Pickering, were often of the Norman period; but the regular round or quatrefoiled tower, introduced largely by Philip Augustus into France, found its way into England, and the two principal varieties of castle keep of the quatrefoil pattern were at Warwick, now removed, and this at York. It is in plan a quatrefoil of 60 feet and 80 feet diameter, with walls 9 feet thick and 40 feet high, three of the angles above the first floor being occupied by circular turrets corbelled out, and the fourth by a small square projection, which contains, below, the entrance, and above, a small chapel, handsomely arcaded and embellished with the dog-tooth moulding. This keep had a ground floor looped all round, and a first floor with corresponding loops. Probably the chambers were attached to the walls, and supported upon posts and beams, leaving a small open court next the entrance and containing the wall. Two circular staircases lead to the first floor, and from thence to the battlements. The tower has been much injured by attempts, first to destroy and then to repair it. The tower itself looks of the reign of Richard or John. The chapel has been regarded as an addition, if so, it is a very early one. York Castle was notorious in the reign of Richard I., for the dreadful tragedy perpetrated there upon and by the Jews in 1189. The castle was then burned, and we are told that Osbert de Longchamp, governor for the king, and who took up the cause of the Jews, rebuilt the work of Rufus in the castle. Probably this included the keep, very nearly as it is now seen. There was a second and very narrow ward outside the present castle wall, capped with low drum towers, apparently of the reign of Henry III. or Edward I.
THE END.
WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ducange gives “Glorieta, ædificiolum altius, nostris gloriette.” In the Roman de Partonopex mention occurs of a finely-painted chambrette thus named. In the Statutes of Milan, also, the following clause is found: “Si quis de cætero construere vel construi facere voluerit aliquam Baltrescham, ponticellum, vel Glorietam, in ejus domo, super muro proprio vel communi, per quam immediate prospici possit in domum vicini, hoc ei liceat,” &c. Lacombe gives “Gloriette: prison, petite maison de plaisance, cabinet de verdure,” &c. A favourite resort near Dorking, commanding a fine prospect, is known as “The Glory.”
[2] Hutchins, Hist. Dorset, vol. i., third edit., pp. 487, 494. Arch. Journ., vol. xxii., p. 215, 217.