The Young Lovell

PART III

On the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord, 1486, in the dark of the night between two o'clock and four, the Young Lovell took the Tower of Cullerford, setting fires all round it and beneath it and driving out all its inhabitants. On the seventeenth, a little before six in the morning, he stood on the height of the White Tower and looked down into Castle Lovell. This was a very still dawn, the sun being already risen, for it was near midsummer. The sea was a clear blue, and in a sky as clear that sun hung, round and pale gold. To the eastward, towards the seas called The Lowlands, were several monstrous grey shapes, going up into the heavens like tall columns in a church and twisting in a writhing manner as if they had been pallid serpents in an agony. They advanced towards one another as if they had been dancers. Separated again and so ran before the pale sun, that they appeared to be sentient beings. But, waterspouts such as these, far out to sea, were no very unfamiliar sight in those parts during hot weather and no man heeded them very much.

The better to have a sight of this Castle of his – for the great courtyard was occupied with many hovels, so that even from on high it was difficult to see who there was moving – the Young Lovell mounted upon the parapet of the battlements and stood looking down. He was all in his light armour, for it would fall to him to be very active that day, so that he had steel only upon his chest, his arms, and the forepart of his thighs, shins, and feet. In such accoutrement he could spring very easily over a wall five foot in height, and his round helmet was a very light one of black iron surmounted by a small lion's head.

This Castle that he now looked down upon was a very fair great Castle. The battlements which were a circle of nearly a quarter of a mile, had in them three square towers of three stories each and two round ones of two, the peaked roofs of all these towers being of slate. In the centre of the space enclosed by the battlements rose up the keep, a building of four stories, four round towers being at each corner that spread out at the top with places for pouring down lead, Greek fire, or large stone bullets upon any that should assault those towers. But, in between the keep and the battlements, there had gradually grown up a congeries of hovels like a dirty thatched town. The Young Lovell had never liked this in his father's day, but then he had been the son and had had no say in these matters.

This state of things had arisen, although the tenure of the lands appertaining to the Lovells was as follows: that is to say, that in time of war each of the outer towers should be manned by able-bodied fellows from the one hundred and twenty-seven hamlets, villages, townships, and parishes that the Lovells owned. Thus, giving on the average five capable tenants to each of these, there should have been six hundred men to hold the outer walls, being forty men to each of the towers in the walls and two hundred and eighty for the battlements between. The inner keep should in such a case be held by the best men-at-arms and the knights and the squires that a Lord Lovell should have about him. And the tenure of the six hundred bondsmen from those hamlets and parishes was such that, by giving their services for indefinite periods during times of war for the defence of that Castle, they were excused all further services, or service in any other parts. For it was held, that the defence of that Castle was very necessary for the protection of the realm from the false Scots if they should take Berwick and so come down into England by that way.

That had been the original tenure, but by little and little, when the Percies had had those lands of the Vescis by the treachery of Bishop Anthony Bek, they had begun to make changes in these tenures, desiring to have men to accompany them upon journeys whether against the Kings of England or Scotland, as suited their humour. So that in many townships and parishes the Percies bargained with their bondsmen for so many days' service in the year and rent-hens and other things. And this the bondsmen had agreed to readily enough. For, on account of the perpetual takings and re-takings of the town of Berwick by the Scots and the English, there was never any knowing when they might not be called in to defend that Castle for a year's space at a time, and so their farmings would go to rack and ruin, and their towers, barnekyns and very parish churches lie undefended at the mercy of the false Scots. And when the Lovells had bought these lands of the Percies they had changed the tenure still more, not so much because they desired to ride upon journeys, for by comparison with the Percies, they were stay-at-homes, but because, as a family, the Lovells were greedy of money and desired rather the payments of rents and the service of men in their own fields than much military doings.

So they had had to hire men-at-arms by the year or for life. Thus, in that Castle, which had been meant to be defended by six hundred men upon varying services, sleeping on the floors of the towers, or here and there as they could, the Lovells would have a certain number of men-at-arms, but seldom more than two hundred and fifty that dwelt there in the Castle. And because these men-at-arms would have wives and children and kith and kin, or they would not stay there, they could not sleep to the number of many families in these towers, whether round or square, that went along the battlements. Some of them, it is true, took these towers for homes, making great disorder, keeping them very foul and filthy, shutting up the meurtrières, or slits for arrows, in order to keep out draughts, and much unfitting that Castle for defence when sieges came. For there, in those towers which should be places of defence, there would be warrens of children crying out and shrieking women. And other men-at-arms had built them hovels between the battlements and the keep, building with mud and roofing with rushes, so that all that space was like a disorderly town with little streets and sties for pigs and middens and filthy water that ran never away.

Thus this place had become a source of manifest danger, but the Young Lovell's father would not clear out all these places, because to him they were a source of much profit, for he employed the women and children and the hangers on and rabble to work in his fields all the year round, and so he had much money by that means. But because he recognized that his Castle was thus in some danger – for any enemy that won on to the battlements might, by casting down a few torches, set all these roofs on fire, and so the inner keep would stand in the midst of a furnace and all those people within the battlements be burned and slain like rats in a well – the old Lord Lovell had determined to make a safe place for himself and for the money that he and his father had hoarded up, being a very vast sum. So he had hired to come to him out of France an esquire called La Rougerie, being the son of the man that the King Louis XI of France used to build all his fortresses. So this La Rougerie had considered very well the situation and extent of this Castle that upon three faces was thundered upon by the seas at high tide. Then that La Rougerie perceived at about ten yards from the North-east end of the Castle, a crag of rock well in the sea even at high tide, in shape like a dog's tooth and nothing useful except to gannets, and not even to them of much use, for they would not build their nests so near the Castle. So this La Rougerie had advised that Lord Lovell that he should build upon that rock a great slender but very high tower, with walls of stone six yards in thickness. For the first eighty feet of its height there should be no openings at all, not so much as slits for the firing of arrows. And in the windowless chambers there the Lord Lovell should keep his treasure walled up. And above these there should be rooms for the guards with arrow holes in the form of crosses, and above these fairer rooms with somewhat larger windows, where the Lord Lovell and his family might retire, if so be his Castle should be taken, and above these dwelling rooms should be attics and granaries where gunpowder and ammunition should be stored and arrows and the quarrels of cross-bows, and there the sakers should be kept so that they should not rust upon the battlements in time of peace. And there were pulleys for hauling up these cannons on to the battlements above. Seven of these sakers there were that could cast a bullet weighing thirty pounds of stone or fifty of iron, in full flight into the furthest part of that Castle upon which those battlements looked down as a church steeple looks into the graveyard. For this tower was intended solely for the protection of that lord and his people in case any enemy should take the Castle itself. They would retreat there by a little narrow drawbridge giving into a very little door at the foot of the tower, being thirty feet long, and over a piece of sea that by nature of the currents, and by reason that the Frenchman hollowed out the rocks, ran there almost tempestuously if there were any wind at all, which happened on most days in these parts. And once there, the Lord Lovell could thunder upon his Castle thus taken by enemies with cannon balls of stone and iron, with arrows and with iron bolts shot by arbalists. There could not any inch of that Castle go unsearched, for the battlements were one hundred feet above the keep itself.

This then was the White Tower upon which the Young Lovell stood. Up to the seaward side of this tower he had come from a boat, just before sunrise, climbing up iron spikes that were inserted in the mortar for that purpose, and coming to a very small door in the guard room. This tower had been held for him by Richard Bek, Robert Bulman, and Bertram Bullock, who had been its captains, and dwelt there in his father's day, being much trusted by the old Lord Lovell. These esquires, with ten men, had held this tower very stoutly against them of the Castle that could in no wise come to them. To them had resorted ten or fifteen other stout fellows, that had slipped in over the drawbridge or came there by climbing up the spikes of the seaward wall. They victualled themselves how they could from the sea; but indeed they had food enough within the tower of the old lord's storing, except that at first they lacked of fresh meat, which in the summer time was a grievous thing.

What the Young Lovell could not tell was how many men they of the Castle had, for some reported that they had as few as a hundred and eighty, and others as many as three hundred. How that might be it was very difficult to say, for there was a constant coming and going between Castle Lovell and Cullerford and Haltwhistle, as well as Wallhouses, where the evil knight, Henry Vesey, had his men. In short, if they had withdrawn all their men into Castle Lovell they might have three hundred well armed between them. And this the Young Lovell thought might be the case, for when he had taken the tower of Cullerford there had been very few men there, or none at all. So he judged that Sir Simonde Vesey would have been forced by agreement to withdraw all his men from Haltwhistle to the defence of that Castle if Sir Walter Limousin had agreed to leave Cullerford defenceless. And without doubt, too, the Vesey of Wallhouses would have his men there as well. Thus there might be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of the Lady Margaret of Glororem.

So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could observe in that Castle. But because he could not very well see between the openings in the battlements, he seized his chance and sprang on to the very top of the stones. He had observed the watchman on the keep below him. This man walked regularly from side to side, keeping his watch, and at each turn he would be gone regularly for as long as you could count ninety-eight. So, in the absence of that watchman, he stood there and looked down.

But until he stood there many things had gone before; there were so many people active about his affairs. There were the Bishop Palatine, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, the old Princess of Croy, the Lady Margaret, the Earl of Northumberland, the bondsman Hugh Raket, and the people in the Castle themselves. And all these ran up and down that county of Northumberland upon the Young Lovell's affairs.

Let us consider them in that order.

First there was the Bishop Palatine, John Sherwood. He did not stir himself much. Nevertheless he sent a messenger to the people of the Castle – the Knights of Cullerford, Haltwhistle, and Wallhouses, as well as the Decies. He warned them that he had given his full absolution to the Young Lovell, and had accepted his homage as a tenant-in-chief of the See of Durham. He commanded them, therefore, on pain of absolution, to evacuate the Castle and lands of that lord. Those in the Castle replied with an assurance of their ready and prompt obedience to the Prince Bishop. They said that they would immediately set the Young Lovell in possession of all such lands and emoluments as he held as tenant-in-chief of the Palatine see. They would do it immediately upon his producing to them the title deeds and charters of such lands of his. For, as matters were, they did not know which of his lands and townships he held of the Prince Bishop and which of the King, their most dread lord. As for his holdings from the King, those they could not, nay, they dare not, surrender; for these had been adjudged to them by a writ fouled in the court of the Warden of the Eastern Marches. That might be a small matter in itself, but, in addition to the assigning of the lands to themselves, there went certain huge fines to the King, as was fit and proper. At that moment they were very ready to surrender their own holding of the Castle, but they could not themselves pay the fine to the King, for they had not so much money amongst them. Supposing, therefore, that the Young Lovell held that Castle of the King, they would be guilty of high treason if they surrendered it without paying those fines, and they could not pay themselves, neither could they have any security that the Young Lovell would do so.

So they said they would very willingly surrender all the lands that that lord held of the Palatine see as the Young Lovell should produce to them his charters and show which was which.

This was a very cunning answer, for by professing to be so ready to surrender at the command of the Bishop that prelate was precluded from proceeding to their instant excommunication which he would have done. That would have caused at least half of their men, if not a greater proportion, to fall away from them, for there was a sufficiency of piety left in the North parts. Moreover, as against that answer, the Bishop was advised that he could not, as he would willingly have done, send his own forces with the Young Lovell against the Castle. For it was true enough that, until the Young Lovell could appeal against that judgment of the Lord Percy's, those false knights held a certain part of his lands in the interests of the King, so that the Prince Bishop could not well war upon them.

As for the Young Lovell's deeds and charters they were hidden up by the Knight of Haltwhistle in his tower at that place, so that, for the moment, he could by no means come at them and it was difficult for the Bishop's advisers to say how he might have them again. For they had not even any certain evidence that those muniments were at Haltwhistle. The Young Lovell had the news of Elizabeth Campstones, his old nurse, and she was a prisoner in the Castle. It was true that the lawyer Stone had by that time come round to the side of the Young Lovell, and he was assured that those charters and deeds had been removed to the tower at Haltwhistle. Still he had not seen this done, for they had gone at dead of night.

Therefore the Bishop wrote another letter to them of the Castle, saying he was assured that they and no others held all those deeds and summoning them immediately to surrender. To this the Decies answered that he had not those deeds and papers: that they were very certainly not in that fortress as far as he commanded it: that he would very willingly surrender them, but he did not know where they were. He imagined that they might be in the White Tower over which he had no control.

The lawyer Stone said that that might very well be the truth that was in the Decies' mind. For that ignorant fool was mostly heavy with wine. The evil Knight of Wallhouses had counselled the others that they should make the Decies commander in name of that Castle at the very first, so that if any penalties should fall on any heads for the seizure it should be on the Decies'. Moreover, they had removed the muniments without telling the Decies, so that they might the more easily be rid of him when it served their turn.

Thus the Bishop's advisers said that here was a very difficult and lengthy matter to deal with. For if the Bishop should write to any one of those cunning people for those deeds he would immediately, or beforehand, pass them on to the other and say he could not surrender them since he had them not. If on the other hand he wrote to them all at once they would give the deeds to their wives or to some safe person and so make the same answer. So they must issue writs against all the county at the same moment.

So far the Bishop had got in those fourteen days. In the meantime it was the turn of the Knight of Lyonesse.

This Sir Bertram rode well attended to the Castle of Warkworth to talk with the Earl of Northumberland and to lay before him all the truth of that matter, and how the King did not wish that the North parts should be enraged against him. And at first the Earl treated this Cornish knight with little courtesy. But very soon that Sir Bertram showed to the Earl a paper that he had of the King to empower Sir Bertram to remove the Earl from the wardenship of the Eastern Marches if the Earl would not do all that Sir Bertram bade him. And Sir Bertram proved to the Earl how necessary it was, the King's purse being at that time in no good condition, to win the goodwill of the great lords of the North. He said that the Earl might take all that he could get from the poorer people, but the nobles he must keep his claws from.