To return to Prince Arthur and his wicked uncle. King John captured at the same time as Prince Arthur many barons and more than two hundred knights of Poitou and Guienne, who were in arms with Prince Arthur. These were all loaded with irons and sent to different prisons in Normandy and England. Many of these poor prisoners perished in their prisons, and no fewer than twenty-two of the noblest and bravest of them were starved to death in Corfe Castle.
From the reign of King John to that of Queen Elizabeth allusion is frequently made in history to Corfe Castle.
It was in 1587, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, that Corfe Castle ceased to be a royal residence, she having sold it to Sir Christopher Hatton for £4,761 18s. 7½d. Sir Christopher repaired and decorated the Castle at vast expense.
During the “Invincible Armada” scare, Corfe Castle once more became a fortress. Cannons were for the first time mounted on its walls, and Queen Elizabeth for encouragement gave a charter to the inhabitants of the Castle and borough, which conferred upon them all the same rights and privileges as those enjoyed by the inhabitants of the Cinque Ports, including the right of returning two members to Parliament. The Spanish fleet did, in fact, pass within a short distance of the Dorset coast; but, as the so-called Invincible Armada came utterly to grief, it gave no further trouble.
As Sir Christopher Hatton died a bachelor, Corfe Castle passed to his nephew Sir William Hatton, who, dying without children, left the Castle to his widow, the Lady Elizabeth Hatton, who married Lord Chief Justice Coke.
On the death of Sir Edward Coke, his widow and daughter found themselves at liberty to dispose of a mansion whose gloomy grandeur and position, remote from the busier scenes of life, did not well accord with their tastes and habits; so that on Sir John Bankes making an offer for the purchase of the Castle, the ladies were doubtless only too glad to conclude the bargain.
Sir John Bankes was descended from a good Cumberland family living in Keswick, where he was born in 1589. At the age of fifteen he went to Oxford University, and in due course became a barrister in Gray’s Inn. His extraordinary diligence in his profession recommended him early to his sovereign, Charles I., and in 1640 he was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. His wife, the brave Lady Bankes, was a daughter of the very ancient family of the Hawtreys, of Rislip, in Middlesex.
To enter the Castle an ancient stone bridge, consisting of four semi-circular arches, must be traversed. There is probably no bridge of greater antiquity in the West of England.
The first ward forms an irregular triangle, containing eight towers, at unequal distances, of amazing strength and durability. The gateway leading to the second ward has provision for a portcullis of vast size similar to that which is found in the grand staircase. Just within the gateway, on the right hand, was a flight of steps which led up to the Great or King’s Tower on the exterior summit of a very high hill. Tradition says, and apparently with truth, that just at the entrance of this second ward, under the archway, Edward the Martyr received his death-blow from the hand of the assassin. The dungeon, an octagonal tower, is said to have been the place of imprisonment for criminals and captives of inferior rank. Near this tower a stone is visible, projecting from the wall, with a deep notch cut into it, which is said to have been the place of execution. The third and principal ward is situate on the highest part of the hill, and on the west part, on the very top of the hill, stood the Great, or King’s Tower, 72 ft. by 60 ft., and about 80 ft. high, with a wall 12 ft. thick. This seems to have been the State prison, as the windows that remain are such a height above the floors that they must have been thus arranged in order to prevent the prisoners escaping. The fourth ward is the least of all the wards; in it was a small garden at the east end, near which was the Sally Port, where the enemy entered when the Castle was surprised; and near it is a well, now stopped up, into which (tradition says) Lady Bankes threw a considerable quantity of money and plate.
King Charles I. was a victim to circumstances. The Civil War was the result of the reaction of the popular mind in favour of liberty from its slavish submission to the tyranny of the Tudor Kings. It was hastened by King Charles’ folly in enforcing subsidies to pay off his father’s debts and to carry on his Continental wars, without the consent of the people; also by his resolution to rule the kingdom without a parliament.