With the monuments of two such spirits side by-side, fancy might wander into perfect labyrinths of mystic and speculative thought, not void of beauty, tracing the unseen workings of the spirit-powers there sought to be embodied, each lingering about and shedding itself around the temple consecrated as its shrine—devotion, yet meetly expressed in the tapering spire—human Despotism and human frailty, finding in every age a fitting representative within the lordly castles of the robber chiefs, from the day when its walls formed the boundary of life to feudal wives and slaves, and its dungeons, the tombs of vanquished foes, through every age of its isolated grandeur, down to the picture of aggregated solitudes and woes, that it presents in the character now assigned to it, of a prison-home for criminals.
But for some such sense of the invisible links that make the present purposes to which its limits are devoted, one with the past, there might seem to be much difficulty in connecting the picture of the felon-town now enclosed within its walls, with any associations of history; or the accumulations of red brick, slate-roofed ranges of well-lighted, well-ventilated and comfortable chambers, made dark or miserable
only by the spirits that tenant them, with the ideas or expectations a castle-prison could suggest. That such should be the only cells to be found or seen, is to the eye and ear of mere curiosity an absolute disappointment. One feels half angry at the sudden annihilation of the vague and undefined fillings up that fancy had given to the outline of the feudal relic. The learned may know it all before-hand, but the uninitiated cannot fail to receive an unwelcome surprise, in finding the substantial and important looking keep, withal its crust of stucco, little more than a shell, whose kernel is made up of modern habitations, as fresh-looking as though they had but yesterday sprung up as pimples on the face of nature, a title not inappropriate to most red brick emanations of architectural skill. But our visit to the Castle must not be spent in such vague lamentations over what is not; neither would we in our regrets desire to be classed among the morbid cravers after horrors, that can find pleasure in condemned cells, gibbets, chains associated with murderers, or any such like appurtenances of a county gaol; thankfully we claim exemption from any such mental disease, nor even as the chroniclers of facts would we dwell one moment on the points of detail that would pander to such a taste in our fellow beings.
A prison must ever teem with painful associations, one scarcely more so than another, nor does the fact
of an apartment, in no way differing from those around it, having been tenanted by a Rush, whom some would call the mighty among murderers, make it an object to our ideas more worthy either a visit or description. The simple initials in the wall of the prison-yard, above the dishonoured grave where he lies, with the few others who have met a like miserable fate, speak to the heart—and we turn from them with an inward whispering, there—who was his murderer?—was it justice, human or Divine? Did the child speak with folly, or childhood’s own wisdom, when it asked if Rush died for breaking God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” did not those who killed him also break it? Such is not fiction—its simple baby logic answers for it—but we say as to the child’s query, We cannot answer you. Many a great and noble heart recognises the minister of justice, as God’s own delegate, to claim the yielding up of his Creature’s life, a satisfaction to the broken laws of God and man. Many as great and noble, and we would think as mindful of the great ends of justice and design of punishment, would say, Leave the gift of God, the breath of life, at His disposal, who has said, “Vengeance is mine;”—trust to His justice as to His mercy, to which alone you appeal, when sending the soul into his presence, reeking with guilt and sin. As spoke the child, on that sad, solemn day of darkness,—when the spirit of sin
seemed to breathe over the debased city, and spread its contaminations through every channel where its subtle essence could find an inlet, till the moral vision of the very purest seemed to be obscured, and the atmosphere tainted for a while, by the sickening familiarity with the face of crime;—the last day of the wretched victim of unrestrained passions in life and in death,—whose struggles of vanity and egotism, with the quailings of the flesh, evidenced by the whitening hair, the trembling hand, and vapid mutterings, through a trial prolonged to an unheard-of length, had drawn around him a host of witnesses, almost without a parallel in history; and not alone of the mass of unlearned and ignorant, whom we are wont to charge with insensibility and coarseness, nor of the stern philosopher, nor even sickly religionists, who find some concealed duty in witnessing elaborations of torture, but of the gentle hearts that move within the mothers and daughters of England; and white-gloved and richly-dressed ladies thronged to use the tickets that gained them privileged entrance to a gallery that overlooked this spectacle of human agony—(oh! is there one among that assembled galaxy of England’s fair ones that can recal that scene, without a shudder and a blush for the very refinements that cast their cloak around the horrors of the reality?)—that day,—when the festivities of concert and party over, when the merriment of the
bustling, noisy fair outside the court of trial had died away, and room was left for the last act of the drama—as then, the child lifted up its saddened voice, with its question so quaintly simple—so was it echoed back to us from the grave of that poor criminal, and a torrent of memories, linked with that fearful time, came flooding back upon us, as the fruit of the tree of crime, whose seed was then sown before our eyes, seemed to lie scattered at our feet, in the later-made grave, and sin-filled cells around us. But enough of this—the darkest tragedy of later days associated with our castle prison—how many more silent, but not less sad, have been enacted within its limits, in chambers now inaccessible to human tread, we may not know! how many death sighs have been breathed out from its hidden dungeons, how many spirits violently sundered from their earthly tabernacles, and sent wandering through eternity before a home had been prepared for their rest, the record books of earth yield no account, but they are registered above; shall it avail to plead, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” when the great final day of reckoning shall come, and the judges and rulers of the earth shall be summoned to give an account of their stewardship? But these are not the thoughts awakened upon crossing the threshold of this portal, for, strange to say, the first greeting offered us, is the smiling welcome of gay, liberty-loving
flowers, blooming as sweetly and merrily in that atmosphere of sin and sorrow, as ever they could have done on mountain heath or valley’s dell. Who knows what messages of hope and love these simple tenants of the miniature conservatory have breathed to weary, sin-laden hearts, bowed down in penitence for guilt! There was kindness in the heart that placed them there, and justice is blessed in owning servitors that do her bidding with such gentle mien. Modern prisons, their advantages and defects, have formed subjects for the pens of many writers; no need, therefore, that we longer dwell on this aspect of our city stronghold. Colonies of zebra-clad prisoners tenant the wards, and thread the intricate passages leading through tiers and radiating wings of cells, so cunningly arranged that, amid all the appearance of congregations, separation and solitude is ensured, even upon the giant wheel itself, and still further, even in the place for worship, where boardings, shelvings, and all manner of strangely devised contrivances, prevent communion between the several classes of the unfortunate, that suspected and condemned may not mingle, the felony and the misdemeanour may not be in juxtaposition; these are the features that meet the eye, and it would not be right to leave such judicious arrangements unnoticed,—albeit our visit to the castle walls may have more to do with its past than present history.
Tradition assigns the foundation of this castle to Gurguntus, the son of Belinus, the twenty-fourth king of Britain from Brutus, who, having observed in the east part of Britain a place well fitted by nature for the building a fortress on, founded a certain castle of a square form, and of white stone, on the top of a high hill near a river, which castle was completed by his successor, Guthulinus, who “encompassed it with a wall, bank, and double ditches, and made within it subterraneous vaults of a long and blind or intricate extent.” Another early writer ascribes to Julius Cæsar the honour of being its founder, and explains the origin of certain rents and fissures, perceptible in its sides before its recent restoration, to the earthquake that shook the earth “when the vail of the temple was rent in twain;”—he adds, that afterwards Thenatius, Lud’s son by marriage with Blanche, kinswoman of Julius, gave it the name of “Blancheflower.” Others attribute this title to the whiteness of its walk, and assign to the Normans its appropriation to the edifice they found existing here.
Without doubt, as the metropolis of the Iceni, it was an important place prior to the advent of the Saxons, who made it the royal seat of the kings of East Anglia, and afterwards the residence of governors, called aldermen, dukes, or earls. During the Danish wars, the castle was often lost and won again,