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 LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 (Addressed to the Lincoln Diocesan Architectural Society at their Meeting in June, 
 
 1S75). 
 
 By G. T. CLARK, ESQ. 
 
 When " the devil looked over Lincoln," he is said to have 
 smiled at man's costly devotion. But if the smile of the 
 arch-enemy of mankind was,, as must be supposed, in deri- 
 sion of man's attempts at pro^^ress, the occasion of it was 
 singularly ill-chosen, for in the whole of Britain it would be 
 difficult to find a tract for the well-being of which man has 
 exerted himself so much and so successfully. Two thousand 
 years ago, that broad but not unbroken plain which extends 
 from the Wash to the Humber, from the Trent and the 
 uplands of Nottingham and Derby to the German Ocean, 
 was composed of arid heath and moorish fen, contributing 
 httle to the material support of man, and probably nothing 
 to his moral culture. Beasts of chase, fish, and water-fowl 
 shared the territory with savage hordes, but little removed 
 from the animals upon which they preyed. By slow degrees, 
 by many generations of men, labouring through many cen- 
 turies, great things have been achieved. The fen has been 
 banked and drained, and the heath brought under culture, 
 so that the whole expanse is now covered by green pastures 
 and rich root-crops, and year after year the autumnal 
 sun is reflected from broad fields waving with golden grain. 
 
 Nor has the moral been behind the material progress. 
 From the castled hill of Bel voir, to the rocks of Newark and 
 Nottingham, and the crowned promontory of Lincoln, the 
 land bristles with the works of man. The constructive taste 
 and skill of many generations, and their deep religious 
 feeling, are represented by a rich variet}'^ of ecclesiastical 
 architecture, from the rude and primitive tower of Barton, 
 to the lordly spires of Louth and Newark, and the glorious 
 lanthorn of Boston ; churches and schools, mansion-houses 
 and granges, " tower and village, dome and farm,' ai'e un- 
 
 ,'}' . . ....... ... 
 
 1 fc' 
 
% LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 mistakeable evidences of peace, prosperity, and civilization. 
 There, too, are to be seen, not sparingly scattered, the 
 sunken arch and ruined aisle, the ivy-covered remains, and 
 richly-carved fragments, of many religious houses, making 
 pleasant the study of hoar antiquity, and reminding us that 
 there was a time when each was a centre of gospel truth, and 
 of an early and beneficial civilization, the abode of men who 
 did good work in their day, and founded by those who — -^ 
 
 " Lov'd the Church so well, and gave so largely to it. 
 They thought it should have canopied their bones 
 Till Domesday." 
 
 Something of all this is visible to mere mortal ken, and 
 far more to him who adds to the material prospect a know- 
 ledge of the past and the distant. It is true that the vision 
 thus beheld from the guarded mount of Lincoln is not equal 
 to that far wider and more noble outlook from a more exalted 
 pinnacle, upon the description of which Milton has poured 
 forth in one glittering roll the full stream of his learning, 
 illuminated by the fire of his genius, but it is nevertheless 
 one in which the student of the past may well take delight. 
 
 Lincoln itself is thickly strewed with the footsteps of the 
 past. The Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, the 
 Englishman, and the Norman, have successively been lords 
 of the soil, and each has left his mark, either in material 
 traces, or in a nomenclature still less liable to decay, A 
 great historian, our chief authority also in matters of topo- 
 graphy, has pronounced the earthworks to the north of the 
 city to be of British origin. If this be so, they must be the 
 work of those Romanised Britons who attempted, though in 
 vain, to hold their country against the Picts and Scots, and 
 the Scandinavian hordes from beyond the German Ocean, 
 and who, while so striving, showed some considerable 
 acquaintance with the Roman rules of castrametation, though 
 unequal, it would seem, to the works in masonry for which 
 that people was so celebrated. The conclusion that these 
 earthworks are, if not Roman, post-Roman British, rests 
 upon the fact that their outline is rectangular, and that the 
 enclosure is bisected, nearly equally, by the Roman way. 
 
 Of the earlier Britons, those dispossessed by the Romans, 
 the traces are slight indeed, and probably confined to a few 
 nearly effaced entrenclmients, and to the roots of such 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE. 3 
 
 proper names as " Durnomagus," " Segelocum," " Bano- 
 vallum," on the Bane river, and " Lindum," names which 
 probably, hke " Eboracum " and " Londinum," represent an 
 earher appellation. The mound at Risehohne, if sepulchral, 
 may, of course, be of any age ; but the district, possess- 
 ing but few of those grand features which are usually 
 the earliest to receive their names, and the latest to lose 
 them, has retained no very obvious traces of its primal 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Of their successors, the remains are of a very different 
 character. The imperial mistress of the world left every- 
 where traces of her sway not easily to be obliterated. Her 
 measures of war were also calculated — pads imponere morcin. 
 From the station at Lindum, great roads radiated in several 
 directions, and preserved that facility of communication 
 which civilised conquerors usually seek to establish. 
 
 In the modern city of Lincoln, the Roman Lindum is well 
 represented. The Roman walls, 10 to 12 ft. thick, and '20 
 to 25 ft. high, included a nearly rectangular area, within 
 which was the high ground of the upper city, and the slope 
 from thence to the river, a space in length, north and south, 
 1100 yards, and in breadth, at the upper end, 460 yards, 
 and at the lower end, 590 yards. Of this enclosure, the 
 northern or upper end was cut off by a cross wall, and 
 formed the military quarter, 385 yards N., and south by an 
 average of 517 yards E., and west. Of the four gates of the 
 station, that to the north, upon the Ermine Street, still bears 
 a name which must have descended from the time when it 
 was first erected, and when it probably superseded an earlier 
 structure, and is called the New-port. Of the opposite, or 
 south gate, only one jamb remains. Of the east gate, the 
 place is known, and a few of its very peculiar stones are 
 built into the adjacent enclosures. The west gate was laid 
 open a few years ago, but as the arch gave wa}'^ under the 
 process, it was removed. Of the walls which connected 
 these gates, some fragments remain. One lies west and 
 another east of the north gate, and there is a considerable 
 mass south of the north-east angle, capping which, the 
 foundations of a round tower, of 9 ft. interior diameter, have 
 been discovered. There is also a fragment of wall in the- 
 slope of what is called the observatory mound, a little west 
 of the remains of the south gate. The exterior ditch, also 
 
4 LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 Roman, is in parts very perfect, broad and deep along the 
 north front, and, though narrower, deep and well preserved 
 about the north-east angle. There is also, within the area, 
 a fragment of the wall of a considerable building, known, 
 probably from its mediceval use, as the Mint. These Roman 
 walls are all laid upon the natural ground, although the 
 earth is more or less heaped up against their inner face as 
 a ramp or terrace. 
 
 The southern half of the Roman station is divided between 
 the cathedral and the castle, the church, though the later 
 occupant, taking the larger half. Some centuries, however, 
 must have passed between the departure of the Romans 
 and the throwing up of the earthworks of the castle, during 
 which time the Roman walls were broken down, and their 
 contained buildings laid waste, as is shown by the dilapi- 
 dated condition of those remaining parts which have been 
 found buried beneath the castle works. 
 
 The English fortress is placed within the south-west 
 quarter of the Roman station, and its outline, roughly four- 
 sided, was no doubt governed by the lines of the two adjacent 
 Roman walls. It stands on the crest of the steep slope, 
 covered, as in Roman days, by the city, and descending 
 about 200 ft. to the river. It is contained within a massive 
 earth-bank, from 50 to 80 yards broad, and from 20 to 
 30 ft. in height, internally of easy slope, externally steep, 
 and which, though in substance within the Roman area, 
 extends its skirts beyond the line of the wall, so that the 
 Roman west gate was found buried within its substance, and 
 a fragment of the south wall is still seen to rise through its 
 slope. This bank measures, upon its north face, 180 yards, 
 upon its south face 170 yards, its east 134 yards, and its 
 west 163 yards. Here, as at York, it is evident not only 
 that these earth- works are of post-Roman date, but that the 
 Roman walls were completely ruined before the earth-works 
 were thrown up. The enclosure may contain from six to 
 seven acres. At the south-east angle the bank swells into 
 and ends in a large conical mound, about 40 ft. high, and 
 50 ft. diameter at the top. Besides this, there is a second 
 and larger mound, about 40 ft. high, and 100 ft. diameter at 
 the top, which was the citadel or Keep of the place, and the 
 site of the hall of its English lord. This mound, though 
 near the centre of the south front, was not a continuous 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE^ 5 
 
 part of the regular earth-bank, which it here replaced. It 
 had, as at Tamworth, Arundel, and elsewhere, its own proper 
 circular ditch, communicating on the outside with, and form- 
 ing a part of, the regular ditch of tlie place, as may yet be 
 traced out, notwithstanding much filling up. 
 
 It will thus be seen that Lincoln Castle, as regards its 
 earthworks, belongs to that type of English fortress in which 
 the mound has its proper ditch, and is placed on one side of 
 an appended area, also with its bank and ditch. Such ai'e 
 Windsor and Arundel, Berkhampstead and Tonbridge, on a 
 large, and Laughton-en-le-Morthen and Barwick-in-Elmete, 
 on a smaller scale. The general ai-ea, which at Windsor, 
 Arundel, and Berkhampstead, is oblong, to suit the contour 
 of the ground, is here, as at Tonbridge, Tickhill, and Clare, 
 where the ground is not strongly marked, nearer to a more 
 solid figure, of which, in this case, two sides and the con- 
 tained angle are governed by the line of the old Roman 
 ^\^d\L In general these fortresses are much alike, and all 
 belong to that class of burghs known to have been thrown 
 up by the English in the ninth and tenth centuries, and at 
 about the same time by the Scandinavian settlers in Nor- 
 mandy. Two mounds, though not unknown, are uncommon. 
 At Lewes there are two, one at each end of an oblong- 
 enclosure. At Hereford, besides the keep mound, now 
 removed, there is a mass of earth at the north-east corner 
 of the outer area, a part of the bank, and at Cardiff, also, 
 besides the keep mound, are two masses of earth upon the 
 north-east and south-east corners of the enclosure, forming, 
 which there the keep mound does not, a part of the bank. 
 Such subordinate mounts are not uncommon in earthworks 
 of all ages, and are totally distinct from the grand isolated 
 moated mound which gives character to the earthworks 
 of the ninth and tenth centuries, both in England and 
 Normandy. 
 
 When, in 1068, the Conqueror marched fi'om York to 
 Cambridge, he paused at Lincoln, even then a very im- 
 portant place, fenced in and pojjulous, not, indeed, as yet 
 boasting a minster, but numbering 1150 inhabited houses, 
 a leading member of the famous Danish civic confederation, 
 and governed by twelve lawmen, who wielded powers else- 
 where exercised by the territorial lords. As he traversed 
 the entrenchment that covered the northern front, and 
 
6 LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 entered the city through the strong Roman gateway, still in 
 use, he could not but appreciate the strength and importance 
 of the place, of which he seems to have been allowed to take 
 peaceable possession. Here, as at York and Cambridge, he 
 at once ordered the Enghsh stronghold to be converted into 
 a Norman castle. What was the precise condition of the 
 existing work, or what was immediately executed in obedience 
 to William's order, we do not know ; there were, of course, 
 defences either of timber or stone along the crest of the banks, 
 and upon the summit of the mound ; but whether William 
 merely directed these to be strengthened, or had them, re- 
 placed by walls such as were coming into use in Normandy, 
 does not appear ; probably the former, as time pressed ; 
 there was much work of the same kind to execute all over 
 England, and it was important to secure an immediate 
 shelter for the Norman garrison. It is pretty clear, from 
 the rapidity with which the chief castle at York was con- 
 structed, and from its early destruction by fire, that timber 
 entered largely into its composition ; and the lesser castle in 
 that city, placed upon the Bayle Hill after the insurrection, 
 and which was completed in a very few days, must have been 
 wholly of that convenient material. That the 166 houses 
 which we learn from Domesday were destroyed to make way 
 for Lincoln Castle, were not removed to allow of the extension 
 of its area, is certain, for the Norman walls stand upon the 
 English banks. It is probable that during the long and 
 prosperous reign of the Confessor, houses had been allowed 
 to be built upon the slopes and glacis of the ditch, and, 
 perhaps, actually within the fortress. This, of course, could 
 not be tolerated, and is probably the removal recorded. 
 But, if timber was employed, it was. of course, only until 
 works in masonry could be erected, and whatever the Con- 
 queror's officers may have actually executed, there can be 
 but little doubt but that they or their immediate successors 
 designed the gates, walls, and keep of the castle, as these 
 now stand. 
 
 The Norman Castle. — The castle is placed in the south- 
 west quarter of the Roman station, high above the city and 
 the valley of the Witham, which he to its south and east, 
 and somewhat elevated, artificially, above the table land to 
 its north and west. Its walled enceinte lies just within the 
 Roman area, to the adjacent limits of which its southern 
 
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LINCOLN CASTLE. 7 
 
 and western fronts are roughly parallel. The curtain wall, a 
 very remarkable, and on the whole a very perfect work, is 
 built upon the ridge or central line of the earth-bank, and 
 therefore contains the same space, and is in circuit about 
 650 yards ; it is from 8 to 10 ft. thick, and 30 to 35 or even 
 40 ft. high, exhibiting much herring-bone work, and cer- 
 tainly of Norman date. Opposite to the great mound, 
 where the earth-banks cease, the wall is continued across 
 the ditch and up the slope of the mound, as at Tamworth 
 and Tonbridge. To enable it to reach the level of the 
 battlements of the Keep, it is raised by steps to the point of 
 junction, and there contains chambers which will be more 
 conveniently described with the Keep. 
 
 In tlie wall are two principal gates, one to the east, open- 
 ing into the upper city, opposite to the Exchequer Gate of 
 the Close, and the other to the west, opening direct into the 
 field. Besides these is a small door opening towards the 
 south upon the lower city, and a door in the Keep in the 
 same direction. 
 
 The east or main entrance is placed in the east wall at 
 about 40 yards from its south-east angle. The west gate 
 stands in the west wall, about 30 yards from the north-west 
 angle, which length is thrown back at a very obtuse angle, 
 probably to avoid the remains of the Roman west gate, 
 which stood about four yards in front of it. Both gates are 
 of Norman date, and were oi'iginally much alike, each being 
 a plain arch, placed in a rectangular bay or recess in the 
 wall, 18 ft. wide by 10 ft. deep, instead of, as was more 
 usual, in a regular square gatehouse, as at Tickhill, Por- 
 chester, and Sherborne. The bay may have been closed in 
 the rear by a cross-wall with a second archway, of which 
 there is an indication at the west gate. There was an upper 
 chamber wfth a timber floor. At the east gate the arch is 
 full-centred, of 14 ft. opening, without chamfer or rebate, or 
 ornament of any kind. Probably tliere is a portcullis 
 groove, but if so it is blocked up and completely concealed 
 by the woodwork of the modern doors. It is certain that 
 the main entrance of a Norman castle could never have been 
 so constructed that there should be no rebate against which 
 the door should be pressed when closed, and probably the 
 fitting was composed of a ring of stones inserted, as in the 
 doorway in the cross-wall of Rochester keep, without bond, 
 
8 LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 into the exterior arch. Over the door is a pointed win- 
 dow, probably an early English or early Decorated inser- 
 tion. Later in the Decorated period, this gateway has been 
 masked by a front containing a bold equilateral arch, 
 springing from two angular corbels, behind which the 
 ISiorman doorway is seen. Above, the two outer angles are 
 capped by two round turrets, corbelled out of the angle and 
 rising about 6 ft., and between them the curtain projects at 
 a low angle, the salient being over the entrance. The 
 arrangement is unusual, but the effect is good. It is said 
 that the turrets contained staircases, ascending from the 
 upper floor to the battlements, but they are not now acces- 
 sible ; there were lateral walls projecting forward from each 
 s.de of the entrance. Across the ditch, and between them, 
 was the drawbridge, traces of the recesses for working which 
 still remain. The entrance was flanked by two stone lions, 
 of one of which a fragment is preserved in the castle ; the 
 interior additions to this gate are entirely modern. 
 
 The west gate, of the same age and pattern, has fortu- 
 nately been long walled up, and so has escaped alteration. 
 Here the portcuUis groove is exposed to view, and there is 
 a rebate for the door, though concealed by the cross wall. 
 Here also is what looks like the springing of an arch across 
 the inner face of the bay, though Norman mural towers were 
 sometimes, as at Ludlow, left open, to be closed only with 
 brattice- work. The upper floor has two small Norman 
 windows in front, and a small door, flat-headed, but with a 
 round-headed arch of relief; this opened upon the battle- 
 ments of the barbican. Of this barbican, which was com- 
 posed of two flanking walls and an outer gate, the north 
 wall remains and part of the south. The wall rises to the 
 level of the upper floor of the gatehouse, projects about 30 ft. 
 and is 7 ft. thick. The masonry is evidently of the date of 
 the gateway, and contains some herring-bone work. The ap- 
 proach must have been very steep, the sill of the gate being 
 some feet above the level of the counterscarp. 
 
 Another work' of Norman date is a rectangular tower, 
 about 25 ft. by 40 ft., placed upon the summit of the south- 
 eastern mound ; it is of two floors, vaulted, and chiefly built 
 in ashlar ; it contains a good straight mural staircase. To 
 the Norman work has been added, in the Decorated Period, 
 a iront, upon the east face, also of two floors, flanked by two 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE. 9 
 
 square turrets, bringing up the whole tower to a square of 
 40 ft. The pecuHarity of this tower is, that, instead of 
 flanking the curtain, it is set back a httle from its line. 
 A modern gazebo has been added above, and the whole is 
 dignified by the name of the Observatory. 
 
 In the curtain, at the foot of the Observatory mount, and 
 betw'een it and the Keep, is a pointed arch of relief, and below 
 it, beneath a rude flat lintel, composed of two large stones, 
 is a small door, either never opened, or closed at a very 
 early period. This arch is certainly late Norman, and seems 
 of the same date with that part of the curtain in which it is 
 imbedded. 
 
 The Keep, also Norman, is an unusually perfect example 
 of a shell keep. It is in plan a somewhat irregular polygon, 
 64 ft. north and south by 74 ft. east and west, diameters 
 within the walls, which are about 8 ft. thick. Within, ;t has 
 twelve sides, of irregular lengths. Without, are fifteen, and 
 each angle is capped with a broad flat pilaster, all rising 
 from a common plinth. About tw^o-thirds of the height 
 thei-e is a set-off, common to wall and pilaster ; the latter 
 has also a bold roll moulding. The wall is 20 ft, hiiih to 
 the rampart walk. The parapet is gone. The Keep stands 
 upon the line of the curtain, which abuts upon it at opposite 
 sides ; so dividing it that there are eight facets outside and 
 seven inside. The main entrance is by a full-centi-ed arch 
 of 7 ft. opening, set in a broad, projecting buttress or pilaster 
 towards the north-east. The arch of the actual doorway 
 and of its inner recess is segmental. There was no port- 
 cullis, and the door had a stout wooden bar. Above the 
 outer arch is a hood-moulding with a light Norman orna- 
 ment, said to be a restoration from the original. At present 
 a straight steep flight of steps leads up to the door, and 
 these, though modern, probably represent the original mode 
 of approach. There is another and smaller door, diagonally 
 opposite to the main door, to the south-w^est ; this is quite 
 ])lain, the arches all segmental, the outer boldly splayed. 
 The opening is 5 ft. 6 in. wide. There are traces of some- 
 thing like a thii'd door in the eastern face outside the curtain, 
 opening from a bay in the wall. Opposite to this, in the 
 west wall, is another bay, also 12 ft. wide, but no trace of an 
 opening. There are no loops in the wall of the Keep, no 
 trace of any buildings within its area, nor have any founda- 
 
10 LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 tions been discovered there. It is prett}? clear that any 
 accommodation provided there was by means of timber struc- 
 tures placed against the wall, as at York, leaving an open 
 court in the centre. There are indications, on the masonry, 
 of an upper floor. Where the two curtains join the Keep, each 
 contains, at its rampart level, a mural chamber, about 6 ft. 
 wide by 12 ft. long, the floor of which is about 10 or 12 ft. 
 from the ground. These chambers are choked with brambles 
 and not accessible, but they have no door towards the ram- 
 parts of the curtain, and seem to have been entered from the 
 upper part of the Keep ; that to the west is a garderobe, 
 and has a loop and shoot upon the north or inner face ; 
 the other has a loop only, and that outwards ; one of them 
 is said to have been groined and vaulted ; the vaults spring- 
 ing from columns in the angles. This is probably that 
 towards the east, and it may have been an oratory, as at 
 Arundel. 
 
 The above works, curtain, gateways, Observatory tower, 
 and Keep contain the only Norman masonry now extant. 
 The curtain, for its great length, is singularly deficient in 
 flanking towers. At the south-west angle the wall has been 
 laid open by a wide breach, and built up, and there may 
 have been a tower, but it is more probable that here was 
 the junction with the city wall. 
 
 Generally, the lower two-thirds of the curtain look much 
 older than the upper part, and the hue of junction is very 
 mieven, as though the wall had long been left in a ruinous 
 condition. This may have been so, but as there is no diminu- 
 tion in the excessive thickness, it seems more probable that 
 the new work is confined to the facing, No doubt when the 
 castle was taken by the county much was done to the walls, 
 but they could scarcely, at that time, have been much lower 
 than they are now, for to rebuild them at their present 
 thickness would have been a great and quite unnecessary 
 expense. 
 
 The herring-bone work is of a superficial character, con- 
 fined to the facing ; not, as in the Roman work, carried 
 through the substance of the wall. Mr. Wilson, in his paper 
 on this castle, states that when the foundations of the cur- 
 tain were laid open during some repairs, they were found to 
 be worked in with a sort of framework of timber, tieing the 
 whole together. Such a precaution was often taken by the 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE, 11 
 
 Norman builders, even to the extent of enclosing ties in the 
 superstructure, especially where the work was laid upon 
 made ground. The cavities left by the decay of such ties 
 are seen at Rochester, Dinas Powis, and Brunlaise. 
 
 There is a flanking tower capping the north-east angle of 
 the place, an insertion, though whether replacing a Norman 
 structure is not known. It is called " Cobbe Hall," and is 
 in plan very slightly horseshoe, wqth prolonged sides and a 
 square rear. It is in breadth 25 ft., and in length 40 ft. It 
 has a basement and fii-st floor, both covered in with acutely 
 pointed vaulting, with deeply splayed loops towards the 
 field. The basement is reached by a trap-door and ladder, 
 and the upper floor and battlements by a stone stair. It 
 seems from the rings let into the wall to have been a prison. 
 It has been called a chapel, probably because its round or 
 apsidal end looks towards the north-east. 
 
 There is a deep well in the north side of the great. en- 
 closure, still in use, and the bottom of which has recently 
 been enharged into a cistern. The castle stands upon the 
 oolite rock, and is mainly built of that material, laid as 
 roughly-coursed rubble, but the Keep, tlie Observatory 
 Tower, and the Decorated work are mostly of ashlar. 
 
 It is difficult to form a decided opinion as to the age of 
 the several works in masonry remaining in this castle. The 
 two gateways and much of the curtain, especially its north 
 and west sides, are probably efiily Norman. The Keep and 
 Observatory Tower are later in the same style. To judge 
 from the little postern ; the curtain between the Observatory 
 mount and the Keep, and probably the part beyond it, are 
 also late Norman, that is to say the English defences of the 
 Keep were the last to be replaced, and it was a century 
 before the isolation of its mound was broken by the carrying 
 the curtain across its ditches, and the completion of the 
 general enceinte. Altogether it seems probable that the 
 lower stage of the two gateways, and the ohler part of the 
 curtain, were constructed during the reign of the Conqueror, 
 or, at any rate, before the close of the eleventh century. 
 The Keep and Observatory Tower were probably built, the 
 upper floor of the gateways added, and the curtain raised 
 and completed, in the reign of Stephen, who granted, with 
 the castle and city of Lincoln, to Gernons Earl of Chester, 
 licence to fortify a tower in the castle, and to hold it until 
 
13 LINCOLN CASTLE. 
 
 he recovered his own castle of Tickhill, and even then, when 
 he surrendered Lincoln, he was to retain his own tower, 
 which his mother, Countess Lucia, had fortified, in the 
 castle, of which also he w^as to retain the hereditary con- 
 stableship. As the Keep was the only part of the castle 
 which could be held independently of the rest, it must be to 
 it that the charter relates. It is curious that Tickhill should 
 also have a mound and polygonal keep. 
 
 As to the later works, Cobbe Hall, and the additions to 
 the Observatory Tower and the eastern gateway, are pro- 
 bably the w^ork of Thomas of Lancaster, Earl of I^incoln, who 
 held the castle from 1312 to 1322. The Pipe Roll of 2nd 
 John, A.D. 1200, records a charge of £20 by the Constable 
 of Lincoln Castle for the repairs of the New Tower, probably 
 the Keep. 
 
 The additions directed by the Conqueror to the defences 
 of the hill, already strong by nature and by art, rendered 
 Lincoln, under the Norman dynasty, even a more important 
 city than it had been under the eai-lier governments. Its 
 castle was the almost impregnable fortress held by or for 
 the sovereign, of a very important division of England ; 
 but it was a division strong in its rivers and marshy ground, 
 in its English and thoroughly disaffected feeling, and open to 
 the visits of the Danes, no longer as enemies, but as allies to 
 the cause of the people. Its position, dominating the whole 
 shire, challenged comparison with Belvoir, which received a 
 similar accession of strength, and Nottingham, on the brow 
 of which a rectangular keep of the first class was then in 
 progress ; but what confirmed its central authority, and 
 placed it far above any castled eminence of the counties of 
 the Midland, was the recognition of the hill as the centre 
 of an important bishopric, and the foundation by Remigius 
 of the stately pile to which many succeeding centuries have 
 added beauty and grandeur. 
 
 The castle long remained a part of the demesne of the 
 Crown, but was administered by constables, whose office 
 was, at times, regarded as hereditary, and, on one very 
 important occasion, was held by a lady. Always a strong 
 position, it became especially valuable upon the death of 
 Henry I., when the long civil war broke out between his 
 daughter and his nephew, and by one party or the other 
 all existing castles were strengthened, and an immense 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE. 13 
 
 number of new ones built. In such a state of anarchy a 
 castle became a necessary of life, and the bishops vied with, 
 and even surpassed, the lay barons in their examples of 
 military architecture. Sherborne, Malmesbury, and the 
 strong and magnificent Devizes, were the work of Bishop 
 Roger of Salisbury, as were Newark and Sleaford of his 
 nephew, Alexander of Lincoln ; and the castle of Ely, of 
 Giles, another nephew, and prelate of that see. Durham, 
 also, was held by its bishop, and the Close of Lichfield 
 strongly entrenched. 
 
 Of the lay adherents of Matilda, Robert Earl of Glou- 
 cester, her wise and faithful brother, built the castles of 
 Cardiff, Bristol, and Gloucester ; Fitz-Alan held Shrewsbury ; 
 D'Albini, Arundel ; Talbot, Hereford ; Paganel, Ludlow ; 
 Brian Fitz-Count, Wallingford ; D'Oyley, Oxford ; Robert 
 of Lincoln, Wareham ; Mohun, Dunster ; Lovel, Castle 
 Gary ; Mandeville, Walden and Plessis ; and Fitz-John, 
 Melton. Dover, much strengthened by Maminot, was sur- 
 rendered to the queen. It is curious that of all these 
 castles, six only, Sherborne, Bristol, Ludlow, Walden, and 
 Dover, with Hedingham, held by De Vere for Stephen, are 
 certainly known to have had square keeps ; of the others, 
 seven are doubtful, but thirteen had shell keeps upon mounds. 
 
 Among those who at first adhered to the cause of Stephen 
 were the two half-brothers, William de Roumare and 
 Ranulph Earl of Chester, who had hereditary claims upon 
 a large Lincolnshire property, and, of some sort, upon the 
 castle of Lincoln. These, as regarded the castle, were 
 exercised mainly by the Earl of Chester, the younger, but, 
 in England at least, the most powerful of the two. 
 
 Their claims dated from a period before the Conquest, 
 and were no doubt connected with the ownership of the 
 English fortress. Aelgar Earl of Mercia, son of Earl 
 Leofric, and lord of mau}^ Lincolnshire lordships, was 
 father of the well-known Earls Edwyne and Morker, and of 
 Ealdgyth, widow of Gryffydd of Wales, and afterwards of 
 Harold, and of Lucia, or Lucy, the eventual heiress of the 
 family, and as such claiming not only the Lincolnshire 
 lands but, as it seems, the hereditary constableship of the 
 castle. Mr. Nichols, in a very valuable paper upon the 
 earls of Lincoln, has shown that Lucy married Ivo Taillc- 
 bois, one of the Conqueror's barons, a hero both of histoi-y 
 
14 LINCOIiN CASTLE. 
 
 and romance, and, in right of his wife, a great landowner 
 in Lincolnshire. Her name occurs in his charter in 1085 
 concerning the church of Spalding. Ivo died in 1114, and 
 their daughter, another Lucy, an heiress or co-heiress, and 
 who claimed the constableship of Lincoln Castle, and forti- 
 fied one of its towers, married first, Roger de Roumare, 
 and second, Ranulph de Briquesard, called Le Meschines 
 or the younger, Earl of Chester, who died 1129. By each 
 she had a son. (1) William de Roumare, afterwards Earl 
 of Lincoln ; and (2) Ranulph, called Gernons, Earl of 
 Chester. These two half-brothers, unstable and greedy 
 politicians and soldiers, played considerable parts in the 
 war of the succession, and had much to say to Lincoln 
 Castle. 
 
 Early in the struggle in 1140, Stephen acknowledged the 
 claim of De Roumare, and created him one of his earls, 
 called in derision " pseudo-comites," because they had not 
 the usual third penny from a county. Notwithstanding 
 this favour, however, the brothers, a few days or weeks 
 afterwards took the castle of Lincoln by surprise, turned out 
 the royal soldiers, and held it for Matilda. Stephen, highly 
 incensed, marched at once to Lincoln, and, supported by the 
 citizens, laid siege to the castle from the west front, that 
 next the city, but on which the ground was less steep than 
 within the city itself. Earl Ranulph, on this, escaped from 
 the place, leaving it, with his wife and children, in charge 
 of De Roumare, while he went to persuade his brother-in- 
 law, Robert Earl of Gloucester, to come to their rescue. 
 Robert accordingly led a force of 10,000 men in that 
 direction, and the two earls, fording or swimming the 
 Trent and the marsh lands on its margin, were met by the 
 king in person. The result was the Battle or " Joust 
 of Lincoln," fought on the 2nd of February, 1141, in 
 which Stephen was taken, to be exchanged a short time 
 afterwards for Eail Robert. Mr. Nichols has pointed out 
 that a certain Gilbert de Gant, a young Lincolnshire noble, 
 being taken in the battle, was married by the Earl of 
 Chester to his niece Rohesia, and was also created Earl of 
 Lincoln, which title he retained till his death, in 1156. 
 Mr. Nichols suggests that Rohesia was probably a sister's 
 daughter, and a co-heiress of Lucy Taillebois the first, and 
 therefore a co-heir of Earl Aelgar. 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE. 15 
 
 William de Roumare left a son, who died before him, and 
 the grandson, though hohling a large Lincolnshire estate, 
 and in i-ank an earl, never assumed the title of Lincoln. 
 He died childless, 1198, and the title of Lincoln seems to 
 have been dropped for a time, Alice, Earl Gilbert's daughter 
 and heiress, being styled only " Countess Alice, daughter of 
 Earl Gilbert." 
 
 In 1144, also at Christmas, Earl Ranulph was a second 
 time besieged in Lincoln Castle by King Stephen, and also 
 without success ; but two years later, he, being at the king's 
 court, was made prisoner, and had to give up the castle as 
 his ransom. Once fairly in possession of it, Stephen caused 
 himself to be crowned at Lincoln. 
 
 Li 1147 their positions were reversed, and the city was 
 attacked by the earl, but without success, and in 1151 he 
 became a second time Stephen's prisoner, and so continued 
 a few months, until at the pacification of Wallingford, in 
 1151, he was set free, included in the general amnesty, 
 and received from Stephen the grant of the city and castle 
 already noticed, to be held until Tickhill should be restored 
 to him. 
 
 During the reign of Henry XL the Crown recovered much 
 of its power, and Lincoln Castle seems to have been dis- 
 sociated from the earldom, although the Earl of Chester 
 preserved a hold upon it. Richard de Hay held the con- 
 stableship in fee, and it descended to his daughter and 
 heiress, Kicholaa, who married Gerald de Camville, who 
 received from Richard L the custody of the castle and the 
 farm of the revenues of the county. Gerard, however, was 
 a partizan of Prince John, and stood a siege in the castle 
 from Longchamp, chancellor to the absent Richard. The 
 castle was relieved by John, but Gerard lost his office and 
 farm in 1194, until John became king. His widow, 
 Nicholaa, held the castle for the king against the insurgent 
 lords. After the war. King John visited Lincoln, and 
 Nicholaa, then of great age, received him at the east gate 
 of the castle, and offered him the keya, desiring to be 
 relieved on account of her age. John gracefully requested 
 her to retain the keys, and she continued in command 
 through the reign of John, and into that of Henry his son. 
 Nicholaa was sheriff of the county, and a very remarkable 
 person. In her latter days she had an assistant assigned to 
 
16 LINCOLN jCASTLE. 
 
 her, and a manor to support the charges of her office. She 
 filially reth'ed, and died m 1231. 
 
 In 1216, towards the close of John's reign, Gilbert de 
 Gant, nephew to the former Earl of Lincoln of the same 
 name, condescended to accept the titular rank at the hands 
 of the invading French Prince Louis, and took the city, but 
 not the castle. He fought and was taken at the " Fair of 
 Lincoln," in May, 1217, by Ranulph de Blondville Earl of 
 Chester, a man of small stature but a great soldier, who 
 added the title of Lincoln to that of Chester four days after 
 the battle, and held it until he resigned it to his sister, 
 Hawise de Quincy, in 1232, The actual relief introduced 
 into the castle before the battle was led by the notorious 
 Fulk de Breaute. 
 
 The descent of the constableship of the castle is at this 
 point rather obscure. It seems, probably during the 
 minority of De Camville's daughter and heiress, Idonea, to 
 have been administered successively by Philip de Lascelles, 
 Walter Evermue, and, in 1224, by William de Longespee 
 Earl of Salisbury, probably as having married Idonea, 
 daughter and heiress of Gerard de Camville. Whether 
 their son William, who died 1257, held it is uncertain, but 
 whatever rights he had were united to those of the Earls of 
 Lincoln by the marriage of his daughter and heiress, Mar- 
 garet Longespee, to Henry de Lacy. Henry was descended 
 from Hawise de Quincy, whose daughter Mai'garet carried 
 the earldom to her husband John de Lacy, who died 
 1240. Their son, Edmond, did not live to inherit, but his 
 son, Henry de Lacy, was Earl of Lincoln, and by his 
 marriage with Margaret Longespee, earl also of Salisbury. 
 In the Escheat Roll, 4th Edward II., he is entered as con- 
 stable of the castle of Lincoln. 
 
 Alice, the daughter and heiress of Henry de Lacy, mar- 
 ried Thomas Earl of Lancaster, and, in her right, of Lincoln, 
 grandson of Henry HI., and thus both the constableship and 
 the fee of the castle became absorbed in the Duchy of Lan- 
 caster, and so in the Crown. During the wars of Charles 
 and the Parliament, the castle was held as a militai-y post 
 for the king. In 1644 it fell, with the city, into the hands 
 of the Parliament, and finally, in 1832, was sold to the 
 county. 
 
 Tiie Pipe and Close Rolls contain many entries in the 
 
LINCOLN CASTLE. 17 
 
 reigns of Henry II., Richard I., John, and Henry III., 
 relating to the castle, sometimes for repairs, sometimes for 
 manacles for prisoners, sometimes for sustentation of 
 soldiers. There are orders for storing corn, for " balistse 
 ad strumum " and " ad turnum," the former worked by 
 hand, the latter by a winch. In 1225, we read of repairs 
 to the gate of the castle, to the " Tour de Luce," and to the 
 barbican. Even in Domesday, we have Waldin, ingeniator ; 
 Heppo, balistarius ; and Ody, arbalistarius. 
 
in I wr I-UPIIjKESS 
 
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