Alnwick Castle (England)

Not far from the southern border of Scotland, in Northumberland County in the north of England there is the Castle of Alnwick – the main residency of the Duke of Northumberland. Alnwick is considered to be the second largest inhabited castle in the country. Alnwick Castle served as a film set for interior and exterior scenes in the Harry Potter films.

So, here is some little history about this wonderful and fascinating castle. In the XI century, Norman Gilbert de Tesson, King William the Conqueror’s standard bearer, built on the spot of the present castle a wooden fortress. In the time of de Tesson, in the castle and near its vicinities there were a number of notable events. In 1093, just a mile from the castle the Scottish King Malcolm III Canmore fell by the hand of Robert de Mowbrays, Earl of Northumberland. Two years later, de Tesson joined Mowbrays in his uprising against the English King William II. The uprising was put down and de Tesson lost all of his lands. The next year, Alnwick changed hands becoming the feoff of Ivo de Vescy, who started building a stone castle on the site of the wooden fortress of Gilbert de Tesson.

Beatrix, de Vescy’s daughter and heir, married Eustace fitz John. In 1134, after the death of de Vescy, Eustace received the title of Baron of Alnwick and became the castle’s new owner. He was a close attendant of Empress Matilda and gave her active support in her struggle against King Stephen for the English crown. Apart from that, fitz John was also one of the allies of the Scottish King David I and supported him in his uprising against Stephen. As the result of all these riots, in 1138 he forfeited his castle, but after the uprising was put down he somehow managed to win back Stephen’s trust to receive the castle back and finish its construction. In 1157, he died and was buried in Wales.

The descendants of de Vescy were famous for their controversial relationships with the crown. In 1172 and 1174, the Scottish king William I the Lion besieged Alnwick twice and both times the castle’s garrison under the command of William de Vescy successfully withstood the siege. Though during the second siege, the castle was saved by the English army who secretly approached William the Lion’s troops hiding under the covering of a fog and took him captive. In 1184, William de Vescy died and his son, Eustace inherited Alnwick, who ironically enough was married to a daughter of William the Lion.

After John Lackland ascended to the English throne in 1199, William the Lion claimed the rights over Northumberland and for 14 years fought for his assertions. During this period, while making his trips to negotiate with the Scottish king John Lackland stopped in Alnwick twice.

Eustace de Vescy was one of the conspiracy leaders against John Lackland in 1212. For this reason John ordered several times to destroy Alnwick, but his orders were not carried out. In 1215, de Vescy joined in the rebellion of barons against John and, moreover, took sides with the army of the Scottish King Alexander II, which the latter sent to Northumberland. After such an outspoken disobedience, John Lackland carried out his threat and burned Alnwick down. In 1216, Eustace de Vescy was killed during the siege of the Barnard castle.

After the following forty years of calm, Alnwick was faced with the new troubles. In the middle of 1260s, the heir of Eustace, John de Vescy joined Simon de Montfort in his uprising against King Henry III. In 1265, in the Battle of Evesham he was wounded and taken captive. And, as it often happened with defeated rebels, he was deprived of all his lands and property. As surprising as it is, after his release from captivity, de Vescy managed to obtain forgiveness from the monarch and recover his rights to the castle’s ownership. After John died in 1288, the castle passed on to his brother William. Throughout his life, the castle remained in the center of the conflict between England and Scotland, which culminated in the rebellion of the legendary William Wallace (Braveheart) against King Edward I Longshanks of England. In the same year, William de Vescy died without leaving an heir, and the castle passed into the care of the Bishop of Durham. In 1309, the Bishop of Durham sold Alnwick and the neighboring lands to Sir Henry Percy.

The Percy family was one of the most powerful English families. One of the Percies – Sir Henry nicknamed Hotspur became a character in the Shakespeare’s play, “Henry IV.” Members of the Percy family had quite a restless character – throughout many centuries they schemed and rebelled both against the English and the Scottish kings. Henry – First Lord Percy of Alnwick (1st Baron of Alnwick) rebelled against King Edward II, which caused him to loose the castle, but later he regained it as his property. During his ownership of Alnwick, he considerably remodeled the castle and rebuilt many things in it. The majority of constructions of that time have survived in a perfect state and reached our days.

After the death of 1st Lord Percy in 1315, the castle was succeeded by his son Henry (it was a family name, and the following seven successive Percies bore this name). For the most of his life, 2nd Lord Percy fought on the continent but he was able to pay some attention to the castle as well, renovating some of the constructions according to the requirements of that time. In 1352, he died in Alnwick. His son, 3rd Lord Percy of Alnwick, was also a warrior and he participated in regular clashes of the English with the Scottish and the French. 3rd Lord Percy died in 1368.

The next Henry, 4th Lord Percy and 1st Earl of Northumberland became the most ill-fortuned owner of Alnwick in its history. An experienced warrior, who distinguished himself throughout thirty years of campaigns against France, this Henry Percy was one of the chief adversaries of Scotland. His son, the very Henry Hotspur who was written about by Shakespeare, manifested himself as a warrior at quite a tender age – when he was just 12 years old, he fought in the battle at Otterburn. Under the cover of the night, Henry Hotspur led his troops against the Scots, but made a mistake when he mistook the location of the camp’s servants for the Scottish army camp and suffered a defeat. Nevertheless, he showed much courage, which justified his nickname and earned him the reputation of a good fighter.

In 1399, King Richard accused Earl of Northumberland and his son of treason. In response, they conspired with other barons and raised a revolt to set their favourite, Henry IV on the English throne. In 1403, having decided that the king had not shown them enough gratitude for their help, the Percies rebelled again. During the revolt, Henry Hotspur was killed and his father’s army was surrounded. Percy’s allies denied them support and turned Alnwick into the hands of the royal forces. The next year, Henry Percy was released from captivity, and in 1405 he once again rebelled against the king. Eventually, he had to flee to Scotland, but he did not calm down and later made one more attempt to rise against the king. In 1409, he was killed.

The next following Henry Percy managed to gain Alnwick back. This Henry was a close friend of the future king Henry V and, unlike his treacherous ancestors stayed faithful to the crown throughout his whole life. Scotland continued to fight for independence, and in 1424 Alnwick was besieged at first, and then it was burned down by the Scots. During the next thirty years, either the Earl of Northumberland would invade Scotland, or the Scots would attack his domain. In 1448, the Scots under the Douglas clan burned the castle again. The same year, 2nd Earl of Northumberland sided with the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses, and in 1455 he was slain in the battle at St Albans.

His son, 3rd Earl of Northumberland followed in his father’s footsteps – he also became an adherent of the Lancastrians, fought against Scotland and the Yorkists. In 1461, he took part in one of the bloodiest battles of England – the Battle of Towton; he fought bravely and fell on the battlefield together with 38,000 other soldiers. After his death, Alnwick Castle returned to the crown and later it was given over to Lord Montagu.

But the war was not over. In 1462, the castle was besieged twice, and in 1463 it was captured by the Yorkists. Alnwick returned to its lawful owners, Earls of Northumberland only in 1469, after King Edward IV ascended the throne. Twenty years later, after an attempt to impose a new tax on the inhabitants of the lands under his dominion, the 4th Earl of Northumberland was lacerated by the crowd.

The castle remained the central scene of different events in the centuries to come. It lodged the headquarters of drafting the troops to fight against the Scottish. The county together with the castle passed to the Crown for a while, when Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland, was executed in 1572 by order of the Queen Elizabeth I Tudor for supporting the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart, who had claims for the English throne. Thomas’s brother, 8th Earl of Northumberland, who also supported Mary, Queen of Scots, died in the Tower under vague circumstances. From the middle of the XVII century, the Earls of Northumberland did not live in the castle, and Alnwick became desolate. In 1766, Sir Hugh Smithson was endowed with the title of 1st Duke of Northumberland. He began to rebuild Alnwick and succeeded in his enterprise – the castle became famous for its fantastically luxurious interiors. Since that time, the Dukes of Northumberland continued to refine the castle and build up its splendor.

Besides its splendor and luxurious interiors, Alnwick Castle is famous for its beautiful gardens and parks, over which landscape architects and designers laboured for many centuries. In 1790, Lancelot Brown laid out a park with a garden in the serpentine style. Later, in the 19th century on the castle’s territory the Italian Garden was created. Some time afterwards, Jacques Wirtz refashioned the old part of the garden, giving it its today’s look.

The Grand Cascade is the main feature of the castle. The magnificence of the falling down mass of water fascinates, while ending in the opulent fountains. Today these fountains are computer operated and form a succession of four patterns. A so-called decorative formal garden is also worth of attention, which is surrounded by a wall, with a rosary and some noble ponds.

There are many legends connected to Alnwick Castle, and one of them takes us back to the distant past – to the 12th century. In the 12th century, England, like all other European countries was going through the dark times of the Inquisition, holy wars on witches, sorcerers, vampires and other dark powers. A medieval English historian of the second half of the XII century, the author of the History of England – one of the main authorities on the history of Great Britain, William of Newburgh (1136—1198) collected many reports about English vampires. One occasion happened in his lifetime and was related to a person who served the owner of Alnwick Castle. This man, known to be of a mean character, was very much angered by his wife’s constant distress (but nothing is mentioned about what had bothered her so much). As he hid on the roof, right above their bed, he had the intention of observing his wife, but he fell down and died the next day. After his funeral, a stranger started to wander through the city’s streets. People were afraid of meeting him, and every day when the darkness fell they locked themselves in their houses. Since that time, a wave of an unexplainable plaque hit the city, after which several people died. It was believed that the disease was caused by a vampire. Eventually, on a Yew Sunday, the local priest gathered a group of the most pious parish and active townsmen and went with them to the cemetery. They dug out the body, which happened to be full of blood that flushed out, when the body was hit with a spade. Having concluded that the corpse was filled with the blood of the victims, the townsmen brought it to the city and burned it there. Since that time, the strange plaque, when people were killed by sucking out their blood, ceased, and the city returned to its normal way of living.

This article uses the materials from the following web-resources:

http://www.alnwickcastle.com; http://www.caslall.ru; World’s Castles.