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Carlisle Castle was first built during the reign of William II of
England, the son of William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066.
At that time, Cumberland (the original name for north and west Cumbria)
was still considered a part of Scotland. William II ordered the
construction of a Norman style motte and bailey castle in Carlisle on
the site of the old Roman fort of Luguvalium, dated by dendrochronology
to 72AD, with the castle construction beginning in 1093. The need for a
castle in Carlisle was to keep the northern border of England secured
against the threat of invasion from Scotland. In 1122, Henry I of
England ordered a stone castle to be constructed on the site. Thus a
keep and city walls were constructed. The existing Keep dates from
somewhere between 1122 and 1135.
The act of driving out the Scots from Cumberland led to many attempts to
retake the lands. The result of this was that Carlisle and its castle
would change hands many times for the next 700 years. The first attempt
began during the troubled reign of Stephen of England.
On the 24th of May 1153 King David I of Scotland died at Carlisle
Castle. His body was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, the resting
place of his parents, King Malcolm III and Queen Margaret.
On 26 March 1296, John 'The Red' Comyn, since the fourth quarter of 1295
Lord of Annandale, led a Scottish host across the Solway to attack
Carlisle. The then governor of the castle, one Robert de Brus, deposed
Lord of Annandale, successfully withstood the attack, before forcing the
raiders to retreat back through Annandale to Sweetheart Abbey.
From the mid-13th century until the Union of the Crowns of England and
Scotland in 1603, Carlisle Castle was the vital headquarters of the
Western March, a buffer zone to protect the western portion of the
Anglo-Scottish border.
Henry VIII converted the castle for artillery, employing the engineer
Stefan von Haschenperg. For a few months in 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots
was imprisoned within the castle, in the Warden's Tower. Later, the
castle was besieged by the Parliamentary forces for eight months in
1644, during the English Civil War.
The most important battles for the city of Carlisle and its castle were
during the Jacobite rising of 1745 against George II. The forces of
Prince Charles Edward Stuart travelled south from Scotland into England
reaching as far south as Derby. Carlisle and the castle were seized and
fortified by the Jacobites. However they were driven north by the forces
of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the son of George II. Carlisle
was recaptured, and the Jacobites were jailed and executed. That battle
marked the end of the castle's fighting life, as defending the border
between England and Scotland was not necessary with both countries again
one in Great Britain.
After 1746, the castle became somewhat neglected, although some minor
repairs were undertaken such as that of the drawbridge in 1783.
Some parts of the castle were then demolished for use as raw materials
in the 19th century to create more or less what is visible to the
visitor today.
Working notes:
•
On 13th April in 1596, Kinmont Willie was rescued from Carlisle Castle
in a daring rescue mission led by the Bold Buccleuch.
• Harraby is Carlisle's hanging place.
• Sir William Douglas of Nithsdale (c. 1370 – 1391 AD) was a
Scottish knight and Northern Crusader. He was an illegitimate son of
Archibald the Grim, 3rd Earl of Douglas and an unknown mother. A
man of apparently dashing bearing, Douglas was with the Franco-Scots
army when it unsuccessfully besieged Carlisle Castle in 1385, the
defending Governor being Lord Clifford. He is recorded as there
performing feats of valour and killing many Englishmen. According to
Andrew of Wyntoun:
"A yhowng joly bachelere
Prysyd gretly wes off were,
For he wes evyr traveland
Qwhille be se and qwhille be land
To skathe his fays rycht besy
Swa that thai dred him grettumly" (Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland ix,
c.21)
• David I of Scotland died on 24 May 1153 at Carlisle on 24 May
1153, less than a year after the death of his only son and heir Henry,
Earl of Northumberland.
• The story of the Stewart queen’s imprisonment at Carlisle
Castle, the first place to which she was taken after fleeing Scotland
and crossing the Solway Firth into England.
Mary spent just eight weeks at Carlisle Castle, from 18 May to 13 July
1568, with Sir Francis Knollys as her custodian. Although Mary was
permitted to take walks outside the castle walls with her ladies, and
walk the stretch of castle walls that later became known as ‘the lady’s
walk’, the other limitations placed upon her movements (such as the fact
that she couldn’t travel elsewhere or receive guests without the
permission of Elizabeth I) were a foreshadowing of the long years of
imprisonment to come.
Mary was kept in Queen Mary’s Tower, which was largely demolished in
1834 due to its unsafe condition and is now a ruin. As the original
Norman entrance this was one of the oldest parts of the castle. Mary
arrived after a four-hour crossing of the Solway Firth with her retinue,
and she expected that her stay at the castle would be a short one –
believing she was simply awaiting the help of her cousin Elizabeth I who
would help her to regain the throne. Sadly for Mary, this ill-advised
plan was to lead to her being imprisoned for the rest of her life.
Although Mary wrote to a supporter soon after her arrival that she had
been ‘right well received and honourably accompanied and treated’
whether or not she realised it at this point, she was a prisoner, and
was being kept under armed guard. Sir Francis Knollys was sent north
from London by Elizabeth I to be Mary’s keeper and although he described
her as ‘pleasant’ he was under pressure not to allow his royal prisoner
to escape.
Mary’s retinue included her faithful friend Mary Seton, who was able to
help the queen to maintain her appearance. The cost of keeping the queen
and her court at Carlisle was £56 a week, money which was payable by
Elizabeth I. Mary’s accommodation was on the south-east corner of the
inner ward in a building known as Warden’s Tower (and later, as Queen
Mary’s Tower). Despite the conditions, Mary lived in much more sumptuous
surroundings than the majority of Elizabeth’s subjects, and a
19th-century text confirmed that the tower was in a better state of
repair than the rest of the castle, with richer architecture.
See also:
• Douglases in
Carlisle
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