The more recent history of the Castle may be given in a few words. In the sixth of Henry II., Guy le Strange, Sheriff of Shropshire, accounted in the exchequer for salaries paid out of the king’s revenues to the wardens in the Castle of Blancminster (Oswestry), the inheritance of William Fitz-Alan, then lately deceased. In the fifteenth of John, the nephew (John) of the Earl of Pembroke, guardian of the Marches of Wales, was made Governor of Blancminster. In Henry III., John Fitz-Alan, as heir to Hugh de Albany, Earl of Arundel, had upon the death of that Earl, assigned for his purpatry, the Castle of Arundel, and upon paying £1000 fine was admitted to the possession of Oswestry Castle. In the twenty-fourth of Henry III., on the death of John Fitz-Alan, John le Strange had a grant of the custody of the lands of John, his son (then a minor), with an allowance of 300 marks per annum, for guarding Blancminster and other places. In the first of Edward I., John de Oxinden had the custody of the Castle of Blancminster, upon the death of John, Earl of Arundel. In the third of Edward I., Bogo de Knovil was Sheriff of the county, and Keeper of the Castle of Blancminster. In the eighth of Edward I., Isabel, mother of Richard, Earl of Arundel, had the custody of the Castle of Blancminster, and also of the hundred of Oswaldster during the minority of her son; but two years afterwards her brother, Edmund de Mortimer, supplanted her, and got the grant to himself. In the eighteenth of Edward I., Adam de Montgomery died Governor of the Castle. In the twenty-seventh of Edward I., Peter Meuvesine de Berwicke, juxta Akinton, died in the same office. In the twenty-seventh of Edward II., after the attainder of Edmund, Earl of Arundel, Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, had a grant of the Castle. In the twenty-first of Richard II., Richard, Earl of Arundel, being attainted or executed, the king seized upon his lands and manors, and granted them to William Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire. In the seventh of Henry IV., Thomas, son of the attainted Earl, after he was restored in blood, freed the burgesses from many impositions of the Constable of the Castle. Amongst the names of subsequent Governors of the Castle we find those of John Trevor, Vaughan, Jeffrey Kyffyn; and in the twenty-fifth of James I., Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, his wife, Lord Walden, Sir Arnold Herbert, and William Herbert, “grant to the Lady Craven, Sir William Whitmore, George Whitmore, and their heirs, the lordship, manor, and Castle of Oswestry.” The state of the Castle in the Civil Wars has already been described.
In a record of the Inquisition, 21 Richard II., 1398, preserved in the Tower of London, there is a curious inventory of articles contained in Oswestry Castle on the attainder of Richard, Earl of Arundel, taken by order of the King. The Jurors consisted of inhabitants of the town and district. The record states, that “the Castle, Vill, and Lordship of Oswaldestre, in the Marches of Wales, is worth yearly, with its customs and appurtenances, besides the fees of all the officers there, and besides all reprizes made there, one year with another, £252, 16s. 2d.” * * * * “That the said Earl was seized as of fee of one messuage in the Vill of Oswaldestre, by his deed enfeoffed one John ap Wyllym, to have to him and his heirs for ever, worth yearly beyond reprizes, 6s. 8d. Also, that the said Earl was seized as of fee of the advowson of the free Chapel of St. Nicholas, within the Castle of Oswaldestre, worth 46s. 8d. Also, that the said Earl of Arundel had within the Castle of Oswaldestre, on the 18th day of July last past, and afterwards, the following goods and chattels, that is to say,—in the Wardrobe there, 5 yew bows, 4 elm bows, 20 sheaves of arrows, 6 cross-bows, lances, with 6 heads, 1 gun, 1 barrel of gunpowder, 200 quirells, 3 pol-axes, 2 sparthes, 3 broken jacks, 3 pair of gauntlets, 3 pallets, 1 banderich for a cross-bow, 1 table, 1 pair of stakes, 3 pair of fetters, 6 pair of iron handcuffs, with iron bolts, 1 coler, with 2 iron shakylls, 1 file, 1 hammer. In the Great Chamber, 1 cupboard, 2 tables, 4 forms. In the Middle Chamber, 3 chests, 2 forms, 1 table. In the High Chamber, 1 hand-mill, panel of a certain trefreget. In the Constable’s Hall, 3 tables, four tressels, 3 forms, 1 bason, with a laver, 1 small chest. In the Butlery, 1 chest, broken at the top, 1 bucket, with an iron chain, 1 barrel for weapons, 31 keys of different locks. In the Chapel, 1 vessel for the holy water, 1 missal, 1 gilt chalice, 2 linen towels, with a frontal, 2 surplices, 2 chessibles, with accompaniments, 1 hand-mill for grinding corn. In the Kitchen, 1 stone mortar, with a pile of wood. In the Larder, 2 broken oxheads, with 6 bushels of salt; which said artillery, arms, goods and chattels, are put into the custody of Madog Lloid, the Deputy of Robert Legh, Chivaler Constable of the Castle aforesaid, for the defence of the same.” After enumerating several other articles, the Inquisition record adds, “and in a certain house in the Vill of Oswaldestre (the said Earl possessed) 601 fleeces of wool, weighing 2 sacks, and ⅛th of a sack, at per sack 100s.; 50 gallons of honey, at 7s. a gallon. Also the said Earl had on the 18th day of July aforesaid, and afterwards, in the said Castle, 1 white stallion, price £10; 1 race-horse, called Young Sorrell, price £13 6s. 8d. And in the Park of Oswaldestre Superior, 16 horse colts, 13 of which are 3 years old, and 3 of them 2 years old: price in the whole, £66 13s. 4d.” The record further adds, that the said “Earl had after the 18th of July, £720 in money, and that one Thomas Harlyng, late Receiver-General of the said Earl, took and carried away the same, whereof he is answerable to the King.” A great number of articles, with monies, cattle, &c., are stated to have been taken away by various persons named, who are made answerable to the King for the same.—This document is curious, inasmuch as it throws some light upon the military weapons in use at the period, on the plain and scanty domestic articles in the Castle, and on the low value of farming stock, &c. The record presents no account of the Earl’s apartments, or those of his servants, or of the furniture there used. Probably all the valuable property which he possessed in the fortress was carried away and disposed of before the Earl was attainted. The entire record furnishes evidence of nothing polished or luxurious; on the contrary, it is a catalogue of mere rudeness, discomfort, and barbarity; giving no marks whatever of vice-regal grandeur or princely state.
As an additional fact it is proper to mention, that the Bailey-Head was the original ballium, or quadrangle of the Castle; that the mount in the Castle-field, known by the name of the Cripple-bank, or gathe, was also the site of the ancient Barbican, or outer gate, at which the poor and diseased received relief. Of the free chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas, infra Castrum de Oswaldestre, the advowson of which belonged to the Arundel family, there is not a trace left to mark its situation.
The sketch of Oswestry Castle which forms one of our illustrations shows that, in its pristine state, it was a formidable structure, of great strength and stateliness. The architecture seems to be of the Saxon order.
THE WALLS.
The ancient Walls of the town were the work of Edward I., and no doubt were well and firmly built; but scarcely a vestige of them remains. Their circumvallation is, however, correctly marked in most of the old books, and old inhabitants of the present day point out various sites on which portions of the walls stood. Edward was generally successful in giving strength and endurance to his military buildings. Caernarvon, Conway, and Rhuddlan Castles, all designed and erected under his superintendence, are noble fortresses in the present age, notwithstanding the dilapidations they have suffered from military attack and “Time’s effacing fingers.” The Walls of Oswestry must have suffered much injury during the period of the Commonwealth; and perhaps private encroachments since that time have been the principal cause of their entire disappearance.
ANCIENT HOUSES.
There are still remaining several ancient timber houses, to mark the architecture of bye-gone times. Among these are, the Three Tuns public-house, in Bailey-Street, and an antique edifice forming the angle of Bailey-Street and Cross-Street, in front of which is the figure of a spread eagle, raised on the plaster, and supposed to have been the residence of the Lloyds, of Trenewydd, who bore the eagle in their coat of arms. The Three Tuns was a popular house in former days, and was the resort of most of the drapers who visited the fairs and markets of the borough. Among the other old timber buildings are Miss Holbrooke’s, in Salop-Road, the most attractive of any in the town, from the neatness in which it is kept, the Coach and Dogs, and the Fighting Cocks public-houses. These relics of past days may not be allowed to remain much longer, now that improvement in the town is likely to become so rapid in its strides.
The railway extension, from Oswestry to Welshpool and Newtown, will effect important changes in most parts of the borough; and as the antique relics to which we have been alluding are comparatively useless in a social point of view, their sites may soon be covered with buildings better adapted to the comforts and requirements of the present day.