MONG the Anglo-Norman fortresses which so long upheld the feudal power, and maintained the independence of the British Islands, that of Carisbrooke holds a distinguished place. Crowning an elevated position near the centre of the island,-of which it has been for ages the ornament and safeguard,―and from its keep and battlements commanding every approach,

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VOL. I.

it had all the advantages which the necessities and warlike spirit of the times could demand. It appears to have been selected as a post of defence from the remotest period of the Saxon monarchy, of which it still retains many substantial vestiges; and although nothing has been discovered that connects it by positive evidence with the Roman epoch, there can be no reasonable doubt of its having been one of the numerous military stations occupied by that people for the vigorous maintenance of its power.

At last, after the lapse of four centuries, the sway of the Cæsars began to wax faint; and when the victorious legions were finally withdrawn from the British shores, the natives, taking advantage of the strong places which had previously kept them in awe, seized them to their own use, and over the Roman substruction erected, after their own manner, the bulwarks of native strength and independence. Of this the keep, or donjon, hereafter to be noticed, presents clear and distinct evidence; but whether comprised in the fifty castles reconstructed by Alfred-under the circumstances already stated in this work-remains uncertain. From the localities, however, and other particulars which distinguished the castles so built or repaired on Roman foundations, it appears highly probable that Carisbrooke owes its preservation to that wise and patriotic monarch. Continually harassed by foreign marauders who infested these narrow seas, he found no measure so effectual as that of erecting castles and garrisoned forts on all those points of the coast most exposed to their piratical fury. But after the death of this monarch, and the conflicting policy which, during a century and a half, prepared the way for Norman supremacy, the national bulwarks had suffered from neglect; they were mostly ungarrisoned, and nearly all so much dilapidated that they could offer no effectual resistance against an invading enemy—a fact which readily accounts for the easy conquest which awaited the Norman army on its first landing on the coast of Sussex.

After the battle of Hastings, the Conqueror, with that characteristic policy which marked his actions, adopted every measure for the consolidation of his authority, by portioning out to his martial followers the domestic strongholds and landed possessions of the vanquished and proscribed natives. Of the Norman barons who then shared the profuse liberality of their leader, we have mentioned several instances in the course of the present work. But among the chief men who owed him fealty, and whose friendship and faithful services it was important to conciliate by rewards for the past, and the prospect of others in future, none came in for a more enviable share of his favour than his near kinsman,

William Fitz-Osborne.-This warlike Norman had accompanied his Chief in the expedition to England; and, among the brilliant circle of martial

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attendants who had espoused his cause, stood eminently distinguished for his talents and experience. He had the entire confidence of his sovereign; and at the battle of Hastings, where Roger Montgomery had also a high command, performed the

honourable and arduous duties of marshal of the army. Recommended to the Conqueror by the ties of blood, as well as by the high military talents which he had displayed in the field, he receiving a grant of the Isle of Wight,"Ita, Gulielmus Filius Osborni, Vectam Insulam conquisivit, primusque Vectæ Dominus erat." He was made constable of the newly-erected Castles of Winchester and York, and

installed in the high office of Chief Justiciary for the King in the north. In the exercise of his new authority as Lord of Wight, he appears to have acted towards the old inhabitants with a rigour and exclusiveness which strongly evinced his distrust of their professed attachment to the foreign dynasty. Proceeding to the very extreme of the feudal despotism with which he had been so recently invested, he expelled the native inhabitants, divided their possessions among his Norman followers and retainers, and, reconstructing the ancient fortress of Carisbrooke, surrounded himself with a host of martial adherents, who held their new possessions on condition of military service to the chief, wheresoever and whensoever it should be required.

"to

Having had the first grant of the Isle of Wight from the Conqueror, be held as freely as he himself held the kingdom of England," Fitz-Osborne instituted the Knights' Court, which was one of the privileges enjoyed by him as lord of the island, namely, that of holding a judicial tribunal called "Curia Militum," from the judges being such as held a knight's fee from the lord of the island, who "gave judgment as courts of equity without a jury."

To this powerful Baron the whole of the Norman work now remaining in the Castle of Carisbrooke may be attributed. In Domesday Book he is

called William Fitz-Osborne, Earl of Hereford—a name familiar in the pages of our early history. But his enterprising career was cut short by the casualties of war, when he had been scarcely four years in possession of the island; for, being sent by the Queen to support Ernulf, Count of Hainault, who was then enforcing his family claim to the earldom of Flanders, both she and the count were slain in battle. Dugdale is of opinion that he adopted this quarrel from the relationship which subsisted between that nobleman and himself he having married for his second wife Rechildis, the mother of Count Ernulf, the Queen's nephew. His remains were interred with great ceremony in the Abbey of Cormeilles, which he had founded, and in which one of his sons had previously become a monk. Bequeathing his Norman possessions to his second son, those of England, including the earldom of Hereford and lordship of the Isle of Wight, descended to his eldest son,

Roger de Bretteville--so named from the place of his birth.-Taking part with the turbulent spirits of his day, and highly initatei by the King's refusal to sanction the marriage of his sister Emma with Ralph de Waer, or Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, he took advantage of the King's absence in Normandy to have the union solemnized by a grand public festival, at which were present many of the great military tenants of the crown, who, readily entering into the rash views of Hereford, concerted measures for dethroning the King. The conspiracy, however, was divulged by Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, who was nevertheless beheaded for his participation therein at Winchester. They were routed by the King's forces at a place called Fagadune; and the wreck of the insurgents escaping to Norwich, fortified themselves in the castle for a time, but were soon forced to surrender. Earl Roger made his escape to Hereford; but being apprehended and brought to trial, he was found guilty of levying war against his sovereign, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment and the loss of his estates. The rigours of confinement and confiscation, however, do not appear to have subdued his haughty spirit; for at the feast of Easter, when the King sent him a gracious present of certain costly robes-consisting of a royal mantle, an inner surcoat of silk, and an upper garment lined with precious furs, in remembrance of the station he once held in the King's favour—Earl Roger caused a fire to be lighted in his prison, and, throwing the royal present into it, stood by with a look of complaisance, and chafing his hands at the blaze, till the whole present was consumed. This insane and insolent act being immediately reported to the King, he swore his usual oath-" per splendorem Dei”—by the glory of God—that in future Earl Roger's only robe should be the roof of his prison! He kept his word: the Earl was

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remanded to strict confinement, and died about six years afterwards, leaving two sons, Raynald and Roger, both excellent soldiers under King Henry I. Carisbrooke Castle and the honor attached now reverted to the crown, in which it continued till the next reign, when it was granted to

Richard de Redbers, first or that name, being nephew to the late earl, and son of Baldwin de Brion. Remaining faithful to Henry in the contest which followed, he was rewarded by many additional marks of royal favourthe chief of which were those of Earl of Devon and Lord of the Isle of Wight. When Henry I. granted not only his lands, but also the dominion over the whole Isle of Wight to Richard de Redvers, to be held in escuage at fifteen knights' fees and a half, the crown had from that time no demand on the landholders of the island. The king received escuage, or scutage, from the lord of the island only, whose tenants were chargeable only in aid to him; they held their lands as " of the Castle of Carisbrooke," whence, in the Liber Fodorum, it is styled the Honor of Carisbrooke. They were chargeable towards making the lord's eldest son a knight, and to the marrying of his daughter. All heirs under age were in the wardship of the lord of the island; the tenants were bound to defend the castle for forty days at their own charges whenever it should be attacked, and were also to attend the lord at his coming into, and at his leaving, the island. The lord had the return of the king's writs, he nominated his own bailiffs, and his constable was coroner within the island; he had a chase, now called the Forest of Parkhurst; and a fence month not only there, but in certain moors, with a free warren on the east side of the river Medina. He had also wrecks, waifs, and strays, with fairs and markets at Newport and Yarmouth.-Sir R. Worsley.