CHAPTER III.
Clifford Castle—Lords-marchers—Fair Rosamond—Ruins of the Castle—The silent cottage—Approach to Hereford—Castle—Cathedral—Nell Gwynn—Cider—Salmon—Wolves.
Leaving Hay, the valley widens, the background softens, and the whole scene assumes the character of an English vale, where the hills on each side are cultivated to the summit. On the right, as we proceed, a deep umbrageous wood comes in to give effect, just where effect was wanting; and, surmounting a conical eminence above the road, near the second milestone, the hoary ruins of Clifford Castle intermix with the monotony of modern life the associations of the olden time.
Clifford Castle was built by William Fitzosborne, earl of Hereford, but was held at the time of the Domesday Survey by Rudolphus de Totenie. It was obtained by the Cliffords by the marriage of Walter Fitz-Richard with Margaret, daughter of Ralph de Cundy. Walter Fitz-Richard—a descendant of Richard II., duke of Normandy—whose father accompanied the Conqueror into England, having married the heiress of Ralph de Cundy, of Clifford Castle, took the name of De Clifford, and the place remained the baronial seat of the family for two centuries.
The nobles of that age were not merely required to do military service for their lands, but other imposts were laid upon them by the feudal custom, which had the effect of a true property tax. At the marriage of Matilda, daughter of Henry I., with Charles V. of Germany, the king collected a sum equal to about £135,000 of our money from the land, at a fixed rate per hide; and the returns (certificationes) show very clearly the distribution of property at the time. We find Walter de Clifford set down for one hide in Herefordshire in Wales. It may be noted, in passing, that Henry was not only generous in granting lands to his own and his father’s followers, but the same request being made to him by some Flemings, whose share of terra firma had been wrested from them by an incursion of the sea, he made no scruple to comply. “Being very liberall,” say the Welsh chronicles, “of that which was not his owne, he gave them the land of Ros, in West Wales, or Dynet, where Pembroke, Haverford, and Tenby are now built; and they there remain to this day, as may well be perceived by their speech and conditions being farre differing from the rest of the countrye.”
The Norman knights who settled on the Welsh borders acquired the name of Lords Marchers, being styled Marchiones Walliæ in the Red Book of the Exchequer; although the title of nobility derived from this, Marquis, was not introduced till the reign of Richard II. These lords marchers, of whom were the Cliffords and other families in Hereford, had each a law for his own barony, and determined of their own authority all suits between their tenants. They were entitled to the goods and chattels of such of their tenants as died intestate. This power, in fact, was such as could only be continued by violence; and hence the coolness or treachery of some of them when any serious attempt was made by the sovereign to introduce the laws and customs of the English into Wales. After the death of Llewellin, the last prince of Wales, this was at length effected by Edward I.; but still, the Marches, not being included in the division of the land into counties became a scene of such anarchy, that it was found necessary to institute a court of judicature for that district alone. This court continued till the first year of William and Mary, when it was dissolved by an act of Parliament, in consequence, as the preamble states, of its having become “a great grievance to the subject.” Previous to this, however, in the time of Henry VIII., the Marches of Wales were definitely united to England; when Clifford and other places, which were before a debatable land of bloodshed and confusion, became a part of Herefordshire.
But Clifford Castle is not associated merely with ideas of war and rapine, but with those of love and beauty. Here was born that too celebrated lady, of whom Dryden says—
“Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver,
Fair Rosamond was but her nom de guerre.”
She was the daughter of one of the earls of Clifford, and became celebrated for her amour with Henry II.; who built her a bower in Woodstock Park, which he defended from his jealous wife by the classical device of a labyrinth. Queen Eleanor, however, who was as well read in ancient history as her spouse, was not slow in hitting upon the expedient of the clue of thread; and, on reaching her rival, the historical romancers add, she compelled her to swallow poison. Whatever may have been her fate, Fair Rosamond was buried at Godstow, and a Latin epitaph inscribed on her tomb to this effect: