extensive buildings, whose style would seen to correspond with the date of this licence. This Robert, having married two wives, who were heiresses, would be a wealthy and important personage; he died in 1249. Two more Roberts succeeded in their turn; the second of them being summoned to Parliament, as 1st Baron de Tateshall, in 1297, died in the year following. On the death of his grandson, another Robert, and 3rd Baron, without issue, in 1305, the estates reverted to his three aunts, Emma, Joan, and Isabella, the second of whom, married to Robert de Driby, inherited Tattershall. Their two sons dying, the property again reverted to a female, viz., their daughter Alice, married to Sir William Bernak, Lord of Woodthorp, co. Lincoln, who died 1339. His son, Sir John Bernak, married Joan, daughter and co-heir of Robert, 2nd Baron Marmyon, who died 1345; and, on the death of his two sons, the property, for a third time, passed to a female, in the person of his daughter Maude, who married Sir Ralph Cromwell. He was summoned to Parliament as Baron Cromwell in 1375, and died in 1398. His grandson, the 3rd Baron, also a Ralph, married Margaet, sister and co-heir of William, last Baron D’Eyncourt. These several marriages with heiresses had largely augmented the estates and wealth of the successive families, and this Ralph, being made Lord Treasurer in 1433 by Henry VI., levelled the older castle to the ground, and, having obtained the Royal licence to rebuild, he erected the present majestic pile in 1440, at a cost, as William of Worcester informs us, [230] of 4,000 marks. At this palatial residence, and in London, he lived in great state, his household consisting of 100 persons, and his suite, when he rode to London, commonly comprised 120 horsemen; his annual expenditure being £5,000. In a previous chapter we quoted a charge made upon Lord Clinton, when living at Tattershall, for 1,000 faggots. At Hurstmonceux Castle, a similar building to Tattershall, the oven is described by Dugdale (“Beauties of England—Sussex,” p. 206) as being 14ft. long. In such a furnace the daily consumption of faggots would not be a trifle.
To speak here for a moment of building in brick. From the ordinarily unsightly character of brick structures it is usual to regard brick-building disparagingly, but we have only to go to Italy, the hereditary land of Art in various
forms, to see edifices unsurpassed for beauty in the world, which are constructed wholly, or in part, of brick. The Cathedral at Cremona, with its delicately-moulded Rose windows and its Torrazo, 400ft. in height; those of St. Pantaleone, Pavia; of the Broletto, Brescia; or the Ducal Palace at Mantua, with its rich windows; or the Palazzo dei Signori at Verona, with tower 300ft. high; not to mention more, are all splendid specimens of what can be achieved in brick. In England, nothing like these has ever been attempted; the only modern church of brick worth a mention is that of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, with its graceful spire. In the 15th century, and slightly earlier, a few substantial and finely-constructed erections of brick were made, of which one of the earliest, if not the earliest, was the magnificent Gate Tower of Layer Marney in Essex, built by the 1st Lord Marney, and for which he is said to have imported Italian workmen for the moulded bricks. Owing to his death the entire structure was not completed. But the gateway, flanked by two octagonal towers, each of eight stories; and the summit, chimneys and divisions of windows, with their varied mouldings, are a very fine piece of work. [231a] Another of these brick structures, of about the same date, was Torksey Castle, in our own county; another was Hurstmonceux Castle, in Sussex, said by Dugdale [231b] to be the only one at all rivalling Tattershall; while, by a curious coincidence, its founder was Sir Roger de Fiennes, one of the family, which, at a later period, owned Tattershall.
As we stand before Tattershall Castle and gaze on its stately proportions, we cannot but feel that brick, properly, treated, can rival stone. What remains now is probably barely a third of what the building originally was, and stands, doubtless, on the site previously occupied by the Keep of the earlier castle. It is a type of a particular stage of construction, when the palace was superseding the grim feudal fortress, although retaining several of the warlike features. Besides an inner moat, completely surrounding the castle, there was also an outer one, protecting it on the north and west. [231c] Both these moats were supplied with
water from the river Bain, and they had an inter-connection by a cut on the north side of the castle, close by which there was a small machicolated tower, probably connected with a drawbridge. On the space between the moats were buildings detached, serving for barracks, guardrooms, etc., and one of these, now used as a barn, opposite the north-west angle of the castle, is still fairly perfect. The entrance to the inner castle court, on the north-east, was defended by a lofty gateway, with portcullis, and flanked by two turrets, which were still remaining when Buck’s drawings were made, in 1727. This noble keep, in Treasurer Cromwell’s time, had at least five groups of noble buildings about it; so that we can now hardly conceive the imposing appearance of the whole. What remains is 89ft. in length, by 67ft. in width, rising boldly into the air, slightly sloping inwards as it rises, to give a greater idea of height, until its turret parapets are found to be 112ft. from the ground; while its massive walls, the eastern one 16ft. thick at the base, are in keeping with its large proportions. The variety of outline in the well-set windows, the shadow-casting angle turrets, and the massive machicolations, all serve to relieve the structure of monotony. The red bricks, too, are varied by having others of a dark grey tint introduced in reticulated patterns, which relieve without being obtrusive. As I have observed elsewhere, a geologist of experience states that both the bricks and the locally-termed grouting, or mortar, are alike made from local material. [232] The covered gallery on the summit of the keep, surrounded by battlements, pierced with windows, and partly pendent over the machicolations, though said to be unique in this country, is a feature not uncommon in France and Germany. The internal arrangement of four grand apartments, one above another, is similar to that of Kirkby Muxloe, but it is now difficult to assign to them their particular uses. Nothing remains of these apartments beyond their windows, three beautiful stone mantelpieces, and two or three massive oak bauk-beams. Of one of the latter, now gone, the writer has a rather gruesome
recollection. In the reckless hardihood of youth, there were few parts of the castle which were not reached by himself and his not less daring companions; and, in a moment of heedless adventure, on jackdaws’ eggs intent, he walked across one of these beams from the eastern gallery to the western wall, with nothing but empty space between him and the ground, 70 or 80 feet below. He performed this feat safely, but a few days afterwards the beam fell. At that time, in the forties, [233] three of the corner turrets had conical roofs covered with lead. The writer’s name was cut in the lead of the most inaccessible of these, as well as on several other places, still to be seen. The lead has been sold, and the roofs removed, long ago. Within these roofs was a complicated network of supporting beams, crossing and re-crossing each other, among which pigeons, and even owls, nested. A schoolfellow of the writer clambered up into one of these, bent on plunder, but the beams were too rotten to bear his weight, and he fell to the floor, some 15 or 18 feet, on to the hard bricks. No bones, fortunately, were broken, but he sustained such a shock that he was confined to his bed for some weeks. But a more remarkable escape occurred at a later date. Visiting the castle, a dozen or more yeans ago, while the writer was looking down to the basement from the topmost gallery, close to the foot of the small staircase which leads to the flat roof of the south-eastern turret, the son of a farmer in the parish came up to him and said, in the most unconcerned manner, “Sir, my brother fell from here to the bottom yesterday.” I replied, with surprise, “Was he not killed on the spot?” “No,” was the answer, “he was only a little shaken.” The boy, probably about 10 or 11 years old, was wearing a smock frock, loose below, but fastened fairly tight about the neck. In search of eggs, I presume, he sprang across the open space below him, from the eastern gallery to a ledge running along the south wall, but, in attempting to do this, his shoulder struck the brickwork of the corner turret, which spun him round, and he fell. His smock frock, however, filled with air, and buoyed him up, thus checking the rapidity of his descent, and he alighted on the ground upon a heap of small sticks and twigs dropped by the jackdaws, and the result was
little more than a severe shaking. We have noticed the handsome mantelpieces, which are referred to and engraved in several publications. They are ornamented with the Treasurer’s purse and the motto “N’ai j’ droit,” and other heraldic devices of the Tattershall, Driby, Bernak, Cromwell, D’Eyncourt, Grey of Rotherfield, and Marmyon families, a study for the genealogist. Nor may we forget the vaulted gallery on the third floor, with bosses of cement and beautifully-moulded brickwork in its roof. This fine old ruin has not only suffered from the ravages of time, but the elements have also played havoc with it. On March 29, 1904, at 2.30 p.m., in a violent thunderstorm, it was struck by lightning. The “bolt” fell on the north-east corner tower, hurling to the ground, inside and outside, massive fragments of the battlemented parapet. The electric fluid then passed downward, through the building, emerging by a window of the third storey, in the western side, tearing away several feet of masonry, and causing a great rent in the solid wall beneath. The writer inspected the damage within a few days of the occurrence, and was astonished at the violence of the explosion.
After the extinction of the Cromwell line the estates probably reverted to the Crown, as we find that Henry VII. granted the manor of Tattershall, and other properties, to his mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond; and in the following year he entailed them on the Duke. On the Duke dying without issue, Henry VIII., in 1520, granted these properties to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by letters patent, which were confirmed by Ed. VI. in the year 1547. On the deaths of the two infant sons of the Duke, shortly after the father’s decease, Ed. VI., in 1551, granted the estate to Edward, Lord Clinton and Saye, afterwards Earl of Lincoln, whose descendant, Edward, died without issue in 1692, when the property passed to his cousin Bridget, who married Hugh Fortescue, Esq., whose son Hugh was created Baron Fortescue and Earl Clinton in 1746; and the estates have continued in that family ever since.
We now pass to the church. As the castle was a sample of transition from the feudal fortress to the baronial palace, so the church, although of the Perpendicular order, is not quite of the purest type, being of the later Perpendicular period. Begun by the Treasurer Cromwell, it was not completed at his death in 1455, but the work was carried on and finished by his executors, one of whom was William of Wykeham,
Bishop of Winchester, the most famous building prelate of his time. It has been noticed, by competent judges, that there is “a remarkable resemblance in points of detail, in the churches built or enlarged by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, at Colly Weston, Northants; Lambley, Notts.; and Tattershall,” as is the case with other groups of edifices erected by the same parties. (“Archæolog. Journ.,” No. 12, 1846, pp. 291–2.) It was established as a collegiate institution, with provision for a provost, six priests, six secular clerks, and six choristers. Dedicated to the Trinity, it is a noble stone structure, in shape cruciform, with nave, aisles, and north and south transepts, chancel, north and south porches, and tower at the west end. There were formerly cloisters on the south side, but they were demolished. The tower is supported by buttresses, having six breaks reaching to the base of the embattled parapet, and angle pinnacles, with a square-headed west door; on the whole it is rather heavy. The best external feature of the church is the clerestory. Internally the nave has six lofty bays with very slender pillars and a low-pitched roof. It is very spacious. It has been recently supplied with chairs, and the old pulpit revived. But for many years the chancel was the only part used for services, and, indeed, as regards accommodation, the only part needed. The chancel is separated from the nave by a very unusual arrangement,—a massive stone rood screen, the upper part of which was, some years ago, used as the singing gallery; and a former old female verger used to refer, with keen enthusiasm, to the time when, under the late Mr. Richard Sibthorpe’s ministrations (whose perversions and reversions between Romanism and Anglicanism were, at the least, remarkable), this gallery reverberated with the inspiring strains of the fiddle, the trombone, the hautboy, the clarionet (“harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer”), and other kinds of music, to the hearty enjoyment of all. This massive screen was the gift of a member of the collegiate body, one Robert de Whalley, in 1528. Little survives of the original choir but some stalls and sedilia. In the north transept, removed, for preservation, from their original positions, are some of the finest brasses in the county; only half, however, of the once very fine brass of the Treasurer Cromwell and his wife remains, remarkable for the ape-like “wild men” on which his feet rest; and in the course of years, since Gervase Holles wrote his “Notes