A letter dated October 30, 1648, addressed to Hugh Potter, Esquire, at Northumberland House, gives a most clear account of the miserable work of destruction:
‘Sir,
‘Yours I received; and since I writ my last, on the same daye, the Commissioners sett on workmen to pull downe and deface that stately structure. They fell upon the Constables Tower, and hath with much violence pursued the work on thursday and ffriday. Their Agents wold showe noe care in preserveinge any of the materialls, but pitched of the Stones from the Battlements to the ground; and the Chymneys that stood upon the Lead downe to the Leades, which made breaches through the roof where they fell. All the Battelements to the roofe, on the ffront of the Castle (excepting the High Tower over the Gate) are bett downe. What materialls could be sav’d Mr. Plaxton did sett on some Tenants to take awaye, and laye in the barne. Belieeve it, Sir, his Lordship hath sustained very deepe losses in his house; I conceive 2000l. will not repaire the ruynes there: But I hope their work is at an end; for this day the Major and Mr. Plaxton are sett forward to attend Major Generall Lambert with the Lord Generall’s order to him: And in the meane tyme the soldiers are to hold them of, from doinge further violence to the Castle which I wish had bin done by order 2 dayes sooner.’
The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book. The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the sides of the rooms were ornamented with a ‘great profusion of ancient sculpture, finely executed in wood, exhibiting the bearings, crests, badges, and devises, of the Percy family, in a great variety of forms, set off with all the advantages of painting, gilding, and imagery.’
The chapel was in the tower shown in the picture reproduced here, and was fitted up ‘in a ruder style’ and at a more early period than the other apartments. Bishop Percy describes the sculptured badges as being still in a fair state of preservation, and mentions the motto on the ceiling: Esperance en Dieu ma Comforte. At that time—namely, just before the fire which has been mentioned—this chapel was used as the parish church, that building being then a mere ruin with only the west end standing at the distance of a bow-shot from the castle. Since then it has been rebuilt with red brick, and is uninteresting, save for an early tomb slab by the south door. The full measure of the destruction caused first by the Parliamentary agents, and a century and a half later by the fire, can be gauged by reading Leland’s account of the castle written in the reign of Henry VIII. He describes it as being constructed with very fair and great squared stones inside and out, and the tradition at the time was that much of it was brought from France. No subsequent writer has ventured to state whether the stone comes from Caen or any other French quarries, although its power of resisting the action of weather is so remarkable that, despite the fire and the century of total neglect which has since passed, it has a freshness—almost a newness—of aspect hardly to be expected in a castle erected probably between 1380 and 1390.
There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, ‘pastery,’ larder, and kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the conduct and duties of every one, from my lord’s eldest son down to his lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512 and later; it is more than possible, for the pictures are ancillary to reading. The prices to be paid for food and many other necessities are given, also the sums given out by the treasurer to each department, and what was to be done with what remained unspent during the year.
From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel—in fact, every one’s bed, tools, and clothing—were removed in seventeen carts each time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
‘Item.—Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde for the Yoman and Grom o’ th Vestry In all xi Beddes for the furst Cariage. And the iiᵈᵉ Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii Cariages allowid theime.’
The daily life of the great nobles was carried on at this time in a scarcely less elaborate and sumptuous manner than that of the king’s court, and an instance of the magnificence of the Earl of Northumberland’s establishment can be taken from the eleven resident priests. Of these, the chief was a doctor or bachelor of divinity, who was dean of the chapel. One of the priests was my lord’s secretary, another his surveyor of lands, another a master of grammar, another rode with my lord, and one was chaplain to the eldest son.
The servants were so numerous that no one had more than one duty, and when one considers the liberal food allowed to every one in the establishment, to obtain a post in my lord’s household must have been an ideal for the hungry agricultural peasant, and accounts to some extent for the ease with which a feudal lord could rely upon the devoted services in peace or war of a hundred or more stout men.