Hedingham Castle
(S/LIB/9/8/2)
A talk given by CFD
Sperling: to an unknown audience probably in the early 1930s. The paper was found in the Society’s
archives.
The name of de Vere is
inseparably connected with the history of Hedingham Castle, for Aubrey de Vere,
who came over with William the Conqueror, was rewarded for his service by a
grant of manors in five different counties; amongst them, that of Hedingham. It had long been a place of importance, the
hill overlooking the ford on the river Colne where the men of the Hundred were
accustomed to meet, which must have been a stronghold in Saxon times or even
earlier.
The first Aubrey de Vere, who
came here, probably found a conical stockaded mound that had, up to that time,
served well enough as a place of defence.
He would seem to have levelled the crown of this and to have extended
its area so that it found in effect a raised plateau. Probably he was content with a timber
structure within a stockade and with his surrounding moat, he felt sufficiently
secure.
On the south slope of the
hill, before the date of the Domesday survey, he had planted a vineyard of six
acres and wild vines remained there until the 18th century. His son,
however, the second Aubrey, a trusted Minister of Henry I, not being satisfied
with the timber structure, between the years 1130 and 1140, set up the great
stone keep, which we still see, for except where parts have been torn out or
broken down, the work remains in a surprising condition of perfection.
The surrounding buildings, the
curtain wall, the gateway tower (which stood to the south of the keep), the
great hall, the pantries, the Chapel and numerous lesser buildings which were
grouped around the keep, are now represented only by a few foundations and
grass grown mounds.
The ground plan of the great
keep is not an exact square, the outside dimensions above the great bottering
plinth being 58 feet (north to south) by 52 feet (east to west). The walls are
about 11 feet thick, and it stands 85 feet high (without the battlements). It is built of stone from Barnack in
Northants, but how the stone was brought here is a matter of conjecture.
This keep is among the finest
and most complete examples of 12th Century Military Architecture in
England. The condition of the tower is extraordinarily perfect. The walls and arched recesses still retain
internally the original plastering.
Its severity of outline is
noticeable. The only external ornament – with the exception of the great
doorway which was obviously originally covered by a fore-building – is seen in
the three upper tiers of the windows.
The basement was used partly
as a kitchen and partly as a prison dungeon.
There is a well in the south west angle inside, and another well
outside, north of the tower.
The first floor, into which
the great doorway opens, was used as a guard room.
On the second floor is the
Audience Chamber or Armoury with gallery around it in the thickness of the
wall. The great feature of this (and indeed of the Castle) is the magnificent
semi-circular arch which spans it from west to east. The great span, 29 feet, and rise, 13½ feet,
of the arch are the more marked because of the responds, or piers, being only 7
feet high. In fact, it is the creation
of which any architect would be proud.
The fire places, both here and on the floor below, are noticeable as
unusually fine 12th century hearths.
All the floors have small
chambers for sleeping places in the thickness of the walls.
The third floor was probably
used as a dormitory.
A bridge of brick, c.1500,
comes to the castle mound with the outer bailey, where now stands the fine
house built by Robert Ashurst in 1719.
All the foundations of the surrounding buildings which have been exposed
show that they have been re-built late in the 15th Century, as
Leland relates, after the Battle of Bosworth by the 13th Earl, who
lived here in splendour, exercising a magnificent hospitality.
In the time of Aubrey de Vere,
1st Earl of Oxford, on 3rd May 1152, it was recorded that
Queen Matilda, wife of King Stephen, died at Hedingham Castle and was taken for
burial at Faversham Abbey, Kent.
The Castle is next heard of
1215 when it was captured from the rebellions Barons by King John, and, two
years later, it held out against Louis, the Danfir, and was captured with
difficulty. Whether the castle was
surrendered owing to treachery or famine it was not stated.
John de Vere, 13th
Earl of Oxford, was one of the chief supporters of the Lancastrian party in the
War of the Roses and took a leading part in the Battle of Bosworth Field.
At the restoration of King
Henry VI to the throne in 1470, he bore the King’s sword. He was afterwards
held in great favour by King Henry VII who bestowed many honours upon him, for
besides being Lord Great Chamberlain, he was created a Knight of the Garter,
made Lord High Admiral and Constable of the Tower.
In 1491 he stood godfather to
the King’s eldest son, afterward King Henry VIII. A few years later, in 1498, he entertained
the King (Henry VII) at the Castle of Hedingham, with great magnificence, from
6th to 11th August, and on leaving, the King passed down
from the Castle to the Village between a double row of the Earl’s Retainers,
each wearing a blue livery with the Earl’s badge. These men far outnumbered the
legal retinue of an Earl, viz 130 men, so when the King reached the end of the
line, he paused and thanked the Earl for his entertainment, but added ‘I may
not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. My Attorney must speak with you
about it.’ This breach cost the Earl
15,000 Marks, a sum perhaps equal to £100,000 at the present day.
The amount of the fine seems
incredible, but it rests on the authority of Francis Bacon, the historian of
the reign of Henry VII, who relates the story as so reported in his day.
John de Vere, the 16th
Earl, entertained Queen Elizabeth and her suite in the Castle August 14th
to 19th 1561. He died the
following year and was buried in Castle Hedingham Church, in the same tomb as
his father, 31st August 1562.
But his son and successor,
Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl, does not appear to have lived long in
the Castle, so that at the end of the sixteenth century, it was unoccupied and
partly dismantled through his caprice and extravagance.
He sold off the greater part
of the de Vere estate, and quarrelled with his father in law Lord Burghley, who
at last purchased the Castle and settled it on his daughter’s issue. This 17th Earl was a poet of
merit, and we are now told, by some that he was the real author of the works of
William Shakespeare.
It is accorded to Bakers’
Chronicle that the Castle buildings were further purposely ruined during the
first Dutch War, in 1666, to prevent the use of them as a prison for the Dutch
Sailors taken in the Sea engagements.
However that may be, from the
Survey of the Estate made in 1592, it is evident that the dismantling of the
buildings had even then commenced. Three
towers that had stood around the keep are referred to as “now destroyed by
Variant of the (17th) Earl,” and are noted on the plan as having
“the lead, timber, iron and glass taken away.”
Some remains of the ornaments
of the old Castle have survived. The interesting carved stone badges of the 13th
Earl, which were noted by Rev William Tillotson, in 1594, as being over a door
in the Castle, may now be seen over the west window of the Church. Whilst the carved stone panel representing
the Battle of Bosworth, which was doubtless set up by the 13th Earl,
one of the leaders of the Lancastrian forces, is to be found over the door to
the Library of Stowe School, whither it was removed by the Duke of Buckingham.
The continuance of this family
in the male line, and its possession of the Earldom for more than five and a
half centuries, has made its name a household word. Its ownership of the Castle ceased in 1625,
on the death of the 18th Earl without issue, but the title passed to
a distant cousin, the 19th Earl, and on the death of his son (the 20th
Earl) without a son in 1702, became extinct.
After some vicissitudes, the
Castle Estate was eventually purchased in 1713 by Robert Ashurst, a son of Sir
William Ashurst, Lord Mayor of London in 1693, and passed by marriage in 1783
to the family of the present owners.
When Mr Ashurst purchased the Estate,
the Keep was but an empty shell, but he soon took steps to put it in a state of
repair with new roofs and floors, and as it remained until the unfortunate fire
in September 1918.
A wooden Observation Hut was
built by the War Office on the top of the tower and this caught fire early in
the morning of September 23rd.
The fire soon spread to the tower roof, and there burnt its way down
from floor to floor until the whole tower was gutted. The stonework, however, was in no way
injured, and as no fire-engines were available until the fire had practically
done its work, the masonry did not suffer, as in other cases, from the pouring
of cold water on heated stonework, so that now the floors have been replaced
and we can contemplate the architectural features of the great Keep with the
same pleasure as before.
The Priories of Hatfield Broad
Oak and Earls Colne were founded by Aubrey de Vere, and this Church of Earls
Colne Priory was the burial place of many of the family, five of the recumbent
effigies of the de Veres, removed from that Church, are now preserved in the
little Chapel of St Stephen in the parish of Bures in Suffolk.
Two only of their tombs now
remain in this county, viz: that of Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl, who
died in 1221, in the Church of Hatfield Broad Oak, and, John de Vere, the 15th
Earl and Elizabeth his wife, 1540, have an altar tomb in the Church at Castle
Hedingham.
In the words of Lord Justice
Crewe, in the time of Charles I, “Time hath his revolutions: there must be a
period and an end to all temporal things, an end of names and dignities and
whatsoever is terrene; and why not of de Vere? For where is Bohun? Where is
Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay what is more and more for all Where is Plantagenet? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres
of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of de Vere stand so long as it
pleaseth God.”
