Belonged to Warwick the Kingmaker, and the arms of the Nevilles still appear on one of the ruined towers. Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Henry VII., was imprisoned here for a time, and also her cousin, the unfortunate Earl of Warwick, eldest son of the Duke of Clarence, who passed all except the first years of his childhood in confinement.
child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII. on the throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle, and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to play the part of Pharaoh’s chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his execution that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was said ‘that he could not discern a goose from a capon.’
On a commanding position raised above the Forest of Galtres, and having a most memorable view over the whole vale of York, stand the castle and village of Crayke. Until 1844 Crayke was a detached fragment of the county of Durham, and the castle was to a great extent rebuilt in the fifteenth century by Robert Neville, Bishop of Durham. The Parliament ordered the castle to be made indefensible in 1646, and it is now partially restored as a private house. About four miles to the north we reach the beautiful neighbourhood of Coxwold and Newburgh Priory. The roads near the park are bordered by wide and beautifully kept turf, and, with afternoon sunlight throwing long shadows from the trees and turning the grass into a golden green, there could scarcely be found any more attractive approaches for a village and its park.
Some portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into one extremity of the house, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198—probably the year of his death—was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole life there. In his preface he denounces the inaccuracies and fictions of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh was given by Henry VIII. to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose family was Bonne et belle assez. One of his descendants was created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I., and the peerage became extinct in 1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The present owner—Sir George Wombwell, Bart.—inherited the property from his grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George is one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854. His account of that famous deed, written in the diary which he kept during the eleven months he was in the Crimea, is of thrilling interest. I am able to give some extracts which describe his temporary capture by the Russians:
‘Both brigades of cavalry then advanced, and an order in writing came down from Lord Raglan telling us to attack some guns, which were firing on us.... We broke into a gallop, every man feeling convinced that the quicker we rode through the awful shower of grape-shot, musketry, and shells which they poured into our flanks as we passed, the better chance we should have of escaping unhurt.
‘We charged up to the guns, which kept firing at us till we got up to them, and cut the Russian gunners down as they stood at their guns. The way the showers of grape and cannister, musketry, and shells came among us was something too awful to describe; the men were falling in heaps all round me, and every time I looked up I could see our line getting thinner and thinner, till, by the time we passed the guns and got up to the third line of Russian cavalry, we were but a mere handful.... My horse was shot under me, in what place I know not, but down he came. I luckily soon caught a trooper which had lost its rider, and got on his back and joined the second line, but in coming back he got quite knocked up and refused to move.
‘I at last got him into a slow walk, and was congratulating myself on having passed unseen two squadrons of Russian Lancers, when suddenly a horrid yell arose and I was surrounded by a lot of them, brandishing their swords and lances, and desiring me to throw down my sword, which, seeing resistance was useless, I did. They then seized my pistols in my holsters, and helped me in a very rough way off my wounded trooper, and marched me off a prisoner on foot between two of them, with three more behind.
‘I, of course, walked quietly with them, but seeing the 11th Hussars coming back at a gallop, when they got near I made a rush forward and luckily caught another trooper, on which I jumped and joined the 11th, and rode back with them.... The first person I met was the Duke of Cambridge, who, seeing me coming into camp, rode up and said, “Well done, young Wombwell.”’
The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying what is generally called ‘the Duke’s Room.’ Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus FitzClarence, whose father was George IV., died in 1856 in the bed still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir George wore at Balaclava; the missing sword and pistols bringing home vividly the reality of the incident just described.