OF KENILWORTH.] SIEGE OF THE CASTLE.-DE MONTFORT. 217 as already noticed at the battle of Lewes. But having now recovered his liberty, and made various state arrangements, he assembled his victorious troops in the month of June following; and with his son, Prince Edward, at their head, sat down before the walls of Kenilworth Castle, which still held out under the surviving son of De Montfort. Sir Henry Hastings, to whom Montfort, during his absence in France-where he was endeavouring to awaken a strong interest on behalf of the barons-had entrusted the command, so ably conducted the defence, that six months elapsed before any impression could be made upon the garrison by the king's forces. Famine, however, accomplished what mere force could not effect. On the 20th of December, 1265, after the Dictum had been issued, a special stipulation was entered into that "Sir Henry Hastynges and all those that were with him should have life and limme, horse and harnesse, with all things within the castelle to them belongyng, and a certeine of leysure to cary away the same." The castle was then delivered up to the king. The principal cause which had rendered this monarch so unpopular among his natural subjects, the old and high-spirited nobility, has been already noticed in the account of Rochester. His patronage of foreigners, and predilection for exotic customs, had prejudiced the native chivalry against him; and hence the series of battles and sieges which only ended with the death of Simon de Montfort †, and the surrender of Kenilworth Castle. At this siege stone balls of great size were employed by the which have been since dug up, measure sixteen weigh nearly two hundred pounds.' "But I doe CP.HICHOLLS besieged; some of them, inches in diameter, and 6 The Dictum de Kenilworth," here referred to, was made by twelve persons, bishops and peers of the king's selection; the object of which was to soften the severity of the parliament holden at Winchester, which had entirely confiscated the estates of the rebels and their adherents; instead of which, this decree that they might not be rendered desperate-sentenced them only to a pecuniary fine of not more than five years' income of their estates nor less than two.-Hist. "Of this erle speaketh Ranulph, Monke of Chester, in his Policronion, and calleth him Symon the ryghtwise, sayinge that God wrought for him miracles after his deth the whyche, for fere of the VOL. I. kynge and Sir Edwarde, his sone, were kept close and FF not thinke," says an old commentator," that gunnes of those dayes were such gunnes as we nowe use, but rather some pot gunne, or some such other invention." The warlike engines then in use, however the 'catapulta' or 'mangonels'-were sufficiently powerful to throw stones much heavier than those found at Kenilworth, as in a subsequent portion of this work we shall have occasion to show. It was whilst prosecuting this siege that the king gave his niece in marriage to the Duke of Brunswick; when the queen and her ladies, who had travelled from Windsor for that purpose, graced the ceremony with their presence. Having thus recovered possession of the fortress, King Henry bestowed it upon his younger son, Edmund, "with free chase and free warren, and right to hold in Kenilworth the weekly market and annual fair," already mentioned; and, two years afterwards, created him Earl of Lancaster. 1279. {brilli In this year the Castle of Kenilworth became the scene of one of those brilliant displays which commenced and vanished with the days of chivalry, but which still sparkle in the pages of the old chronicles, and enliven the tedium of more grave details. Edward I., on coming to the throne, greatly encouraged those martial exercises and amusements in which he himself so much delighted and excelled. It was under his auspices that, in imitation of the British Arthur, this fete of baronial splendour was got up; and at the head of it was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was imbued with the true spirit of his age, and delighted in those military spectacles which brought beauty and chivalry together*. On this occasion, the round table was introduced at Kenilworth, by means of which the guests were placed, for the time at least, on a footing of equality†. The company consisted of five score knights, and an equal number of ladies. Among the former were many French and other foreign knights of distinction, who, in honour of their ladye-loves, had come to break a lance with England's chivalry. The halls of the Castle were thrown "He spent," says Lambard, "greatlie upon it, in so much, as Leland wryteth, that he consumed a round table and tresselles of massic golde, which the same King Edward had not long before made to honoure the knighthood of that order withall." + In the old Baronage, vol. i., p. 143, the circumstances attending this splendid fête are thus somewhat differently and more fully related :-Having procured the honour of knighthood to be conferred upon him by Edward the First, Mortimer, at his own cost, caused a tournament to be held at Kenilworth, where he sumptuously entertained a hundred knights and as many ladies for three days, the like whereof was never before in England; and there began the Round Table-so called by reason that the place wherein they practised those feats was environed with a strong wall, made in a round form. Upon the fourth day, at the close of the fête, the golden lion, in sign of triumph, being yielded to him, he carried it, with all the company, to Warwick. The fame thereof being spread into foreign countries, occasioned the Queen of Navarre to send unto him certain wooden bottles, bound with golden bars and wax, under the pretence of wine, which, in truth, were all filled with gold, and for many ages after were kept in the Abbey of Wigmore-whereupon, for the love of that queen, the said Sir Roger Mortimer added a Carbuncle to his arms. OF KENILWORTH.] THE ROUND-TABLE REVELS. 219 open to the daily banquet; the tilt-yard was thronged with rival knights, where the fairest dame, presiding at the ring, rewarded the successful competitors for every successive display of martial strength and agility. In the evening music and dancing filled up the interval till supper, after which the ladies retired to their 'bower,' and the wassail bowl circling for a time at the barons' board, closed the brilliant exhibitions of the day. Of the dress of these court dames it is mentioned, as a proof of extreme luxury in that age, that they all appeared in "rich silken mantles." Of this great military festival, Hardyng has drawn the following picture, which gives us a still more magnificent idea of Earl Roger's splendour. The assembly, according to his account, was nearly tenfold that mentioned by other chroniclers :— "And in the yere a thousand was full then, Two hundred, also sixty and nineteen, At Kilengworth, the Round-table as was sene, The justes, that thei might well and clerely see Who justed beste there for their ladye-love, For whose beautie it should the knightes move In armes so eche other to revie [rival] To get a fame in play of chivalrye."-HARDYNG CHRON. In illustration of this subject, it may be proper to introduce a passage from Strutt's View of Manners and Customs, in which he justly remarks, "That all these warlike games-such as those of the round-table, and tilts and tournaments are by historians too often confounded together. They were, nevertheless, different games, as appears from the authority of Matthew Paris, who writes thus-Non in hastiludio illo quod vulgariter torneamentum dicitur, sed potius in illo ludo militari, qui mensa rotunda dicitur-'Not in the tilts which we commonly call tournaments, but rather in that military game called the round-table.' The first was the tilting, or running at each other with lances; the second, probably, was the same with that ancient sport called barriers, from the old French barres or jeu de barres, a martial game of men armed, and fighting together with short swords within certain limits or lists, whereby they were severed from the spectators; and this fighting without lances distinguished the barriers, or round-table knights, from the other." [V. also Warner's Illustrations, critical and historical, vol. i. p. 255.] This splendid exhibition at Kenilworth was succeeded by the revival of the Round-Table at Windsor; and "so great was the concourse that flocked from all the countries of Europe-and particularly from France-to reap the laurels of chivalry in the court of Edward, that Philip de Valois, the French monarch, either stimulated by envy, or fearful that his own palace would be deserted by the flower of his nobility, instituted a round-table in his kingdom also. "The tournaments of this magnificent reign," observes Warton," were constantly crowded with ladies of the first distinction, who sometimes attended them on horseback, armed with daggers, and dressed in a succinct soldier-like habit or uniform, made expressly for the purpose." "But this practice," says Warren, on the testimony of Knyghton, "was at length deemed scandalous," or at least very unfeminine. The Hall, in which were held so many splendid reunions and banquets, is still magnificent in decay. Its proportions are ninety feet in length, forty-five in breadth, and the same in height-proportions which were generally observed by the ancient builders in all edifices where harmony of parts and grandeur of effect were to be combined. In the windows the richness of the mouldings and tracery still remains as a proof of what they must have been when, on the decoration of this Castle, all that art could accomplish or wealth command was lavishly bestowed. The undercroft, or hall, as described in OF KENILWORTH.] KING EDWARD IN KENILWORTH. 221 the survey, is "carried upon pillars and architecture of freestone, carved and wrought as the like are not within this kingdom." It is of the same dimensions as the Barons' Hall, above, and was intended "for the domestics and those numerous guests and retainers who were not entitled to a place at the upper table." On each side of the upper hall is a fire-place; near to the inner court is "an oriel, in plan comprehending five sides of an octagon, and a fire-place. On the side opposite is a recess with a single window and a small closet, described by the guide as 'Queen Elizabeth's dressing room.' From the period just mentioned till that of Edward the Second, Kenilworth appears to have enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, if not sunshine. It was the frequent resort of that" brave but unlettered nobility" among whom it was the monarch's ambition to keep alive the martial ardour which his example had awakened. On the death of the first Edward, however, and the accession of his son, a crisis was approaching. The reign of the latter, his weak and impolitic government, his disregard of public opinion, his total abandonment of the kingly duties in favour of pleasure; his patronage of foreign adventurers, and his protection of servile flatterers, on whom he lavished wealth, and power, and honours, alienated the nobility, and hastened his own downfall and that of his favourites. But without minutely entering into this subject, we shall merely touch upon such facts, or incidents, as connect the Castle of Kenilworth with the history of that period. On the attainder of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, in the fifteenth year of this reign, Kenilworth again reverted to the crown, and was held by the king until the eve of his abdication,' when the orders issued to Odo de Stoke, his castellan, for its defence, could not be carried into effect. The king had left the capital and become a fugitive from his exasperated vassals. Having lost his favourites-the Gavestons, and now losing both the Le Despensers by a horrid death—the unhappy monarch, thinking to secure his safety by flight, went on board a ship at Bristol, with the view of seeking refuge on the coast of Ireland. But contrary winds prevailing, he was driven on the coast of Wales, and being there made prisoner by Leicester, brother of him whom he had lately caused to be attainted, was conducted to Kenilworth Castle. "Alas," says the chronicle, "with corrupt dispositions even to everting of all bonds of either religious or civil duty, what will not money, diligence, and fair words accomplish! For by these means the desolate, sad, and unfortunate king fell into his cousin of Lancaster's hands, and with him the yonger Lord Spenser, Earle of Glocester, Robert Baldock, Lord Chancellour, and Simon de Reding, there being no regard had to the detention of any other. The king was conveyed by the earle from the place of his surprise to |