King John, that most erratic of monarchs, held the castle, and visited it in 1212, 1213, and 1216. In this latter year, however, it was attacked by Lewis of France, who laid siege to it from St. Martin’s (November 11) to St. Nicholas’s Day (December 6), and finally took it. Robert Fitz-Walter, an adherent of Lewis, took the opportunity to revive his wife’s claim, but without success. It was finally recovered by John, and transmitted to his son Henry III., who placed Richard de Argentin in charge of it, and expended £20, and probably other sums, in its repairs. In 1226 it was held by Hubert de Burgh, on whose fall Henry granted it to be held in capite by William de Valence, after whom it was held by his son, Aymer, Earl of Pembroke.
Edward III. resumed possession in 1327, and granted the castle to John of Gaunt, his son, from whom it finally passed into the Duchy of Lancaster, to which it is nominally attached. Henry IV. kept his Easter here in 1429, and Henry VII. continued to appoint a constable and a porter. It is described as “castrum non immensum sed pulcherrimum.” Hertford fared better than most royal castles, possibly from its convenient position as regarded London, for in the reign of Henry VIII. it contained lodgings suitable for the king, and Edward VI. and the Princess Elizabeth were both here. By the latter, when queen, it was alienated to Sir William Harrington, who built a large brick house on the site of the inner gatehouse, which still remains. In the time of James I. the castle is described as covering 7¾ acres. The ditch then extended to the roads or streets now known as the Mill Bridge, the Wash, and Castle Street. The mill was upon the Lea just below the castle mounds. The Church of St. Andrew stands about 150 yards from the remaining mound, beyond the river. There was a second mill, probably that on the river above the castle. The castle was finally leased to Mr. Secretary Cecil, in whose descendant, the Marquis of Salisbury, it remains. It is remarkable that Hertford Castle at no time belonged to the earls who bore the title of Hertford. They were, of course, earls of the county, though this is not specified in the peerages. Their principal eastern seat was at Clare in Suffolk, round which they possessed considerable property.
The strength of Hertford as a military position was very great, and depended upon the low marshy ground by which it was almost surrounded, and which was liable to be flooded by the waters of three, or rather four, considerable streams, “flumina non profunda sed clarissima.” Of these, the Lea, flowing from the west, received, a few yards above the castle, the Mimram from the north-west, while a little below the castle the combined stream is swollen by the waters of the Beane from the north, and the Rib from the north-east, the combined volume flowing forward under the name of the Lea. Below, or south-west of the castle, along the course of the Lea, is a wide breadth of lowland, which even now is occasionally flooded, and which in former days must have been an impracticable morass. In the other direction the ground, though built upon and forming a part of the town, is for some distance around but little higher than the meadow, though here and there, elevated 4 feet or 5 feet, appear small deposits of gravel. The castle stands upon the right bank, south-east of the river, and its extreme limit, within the counterscarp or outer edge of its main ditch, included a space something in the figure of an ear, the river forming the shorter side or concavity. In length, north-east and south-west, this space measures 234 yards; its breadth varies from 100 yards to 200 yards, with a mean of 140 yards. The ditch, now almost filled up and in part built over, was about 30 yards broad, and no doubt filled from the river with which it communicated at each end. Within the ditch, taking the line of the old bank, or of the present wall, the area is about three and a half or four acres. The mound is placed on the edge of the river, at the north angle of the enclosure. The bank does not include it, but points to its centre, so that the mound, as was not unusual, formed a part of the enclosing defence. The proper ditch of the mound has been filled up.
Of the mediæval castle there remains only a considerable part of the wall of the enceinte, and, it may be, some ancient masonry built up into Sir William Harrington’s house, which is still inhabited. This is said to have been the gatehouse; if so, it was that of the northern ward, and was upon the line of the wall dividing the one ward from the other. The curtain wall is about 7 feet thick, and 25 feet to 30 feet high, and composed of flint rubble. The battlement is gone or nearly so, and there remains but a part of one mural tower, circular in plan, which capped the south-east angle of the wall of the northern ward. The wall covers the northern and most of the eastern sides of the area. There is no trace of it along the western or river side. No doubt it was less substantial on that side, upon which the natural defence was strong. The south or smaller ward does not appear to have been walled in. It was covered on the three sides by the river and the marsh, and may have been palisaded only. The wall evidently crossed the ditch of the mound, and abutted upon it, or possibly upon the shell keep, all vestiges of which are gone.
The present entrance to the castle is at the eastern angle of the ditch, which is traversed by a road leading to a small and apparently modern doorway in the wall. There is no trace of a main entrance in this direction, but it must be confessed that if the main entrance lay to the south of the gatehouse, it must have been difficult to approach, save by water.
HOPTON CASTLE, SHROPSHIRE.
ABOUT five miles south-east of Clun, upon a tributary of the Teme, is placed the parish and castle of Hopton, the Opetune of Domesday, when it was, like Clun, held by Picot as the successor of Edric. It was a fief of Clun. In 1165 it was held by Walter de Opton as two knights’ fees under Geoffrey de Vere, one of the three husbands of Isabel de Say; and Peter de Opton held it in 1201. William de Hopton may have followed, but Mr. Eyton is not clear whether he may not have been of Monk-Hopton in the same county.
However this may be, Walter de Hopton held the fief in 1223, as did another Walter, 1255–72, and was bound to provide for the defence of Clun Castle one soldier all the year round, and a second for forty days in time of war. In 1304–5, upon the death of Walter de Hopton, he was seized of the Vill of Hopton with its hamlets, and a considerable property about it, chiefly held under Clun, as continued to be the original two fees, by Sir John de Hopton, in the 21 Richard II. The family seems to have remained at Hopton till the reign of Elizabeth, but the castle was still standing and of sufficient strength to be held for King Charles in the seventeenth century. It was taken after a gallant resistance, and dismantled.
