HISTORY ALSO AVAILABLE TEACHER’S KIT TO DOWNLOAD CONISBROUGH CASTLE INFORMATION ACTIVITIES IMAGES Conisbrough’s spectacular limestone keep is nearly 100 feet high and is cylindrical with wedge-shaped turret- buttresses, a design unique in Britain. Now with reinstated roof and floors, it was built in the late 12th-century, and subsequently reinforced by turreted curtain walls. Conisbrough was among the inspirations for Sir Walter Scott’s classic novel, Ivanhoe. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Isabel, daughter of Hugh, third son of Henry I of France. The family was thus closely linked to the royal nobility The first Norman Castle of France and England. William, the first Earl of Warenne was one of the King’s Hamelin Plantagenet and the Stone Castle original followers from Normandy in 1066, and one of the chief knights in the campaign of conquest. He was The third earl who died in 1147 left no male heir, having given property by King William in many different areas only one daughter, Isabel. She married the son of King of England, his other two chief estates were based on Stephen, William de Blois, who became the fourth Earl Castle Acre in Norfolk and on Lewes in Sussex. Warenne. He died without issue in 1159, and in 1163 William’s principal English holding appears to have been Henry II arranged another marriage for the widowed his Yorkshire estate, at the head of which was Isabel. The fifth earl was Hamelin Plantagenet, Henry’s Conisbrough. Very little is known of Earl William’s first illegitimate half-brother, son of Geoffrey of Anjou. castle at Conisbrough, although it is thought to have Hamelin seems to have spent more time at his been of the common motte and bailey design and Yorkshire castle than any of the previous earls; he held probably built at some time around 1070 on the site of the earldom for close on forty years, from 1163 until his the present stone castle. In May 1088, William de death in 1202. It was this period that saw the Warenne was made Earl of Surrey. Unfortunately, in construction of the great stone keep of the castle and June of the same year William died from wounds its development as a place suitable for royalty – King received in battle, he was succeeded by his son, another John, nephew of Hamelin, did actually stay here in 1201. William, who was earl from 1088 until 1138. The cylindrical keep probably dates from around 1180, There is little documentary evidence for the history of Hamelin seems to have ordered its construction to his the castle in the late 11th and 12th centuries, but the own design, there being no other example of this type second earl gave the living and income from the church of keep anywhere in the country. The closest parallel to at Conisbrough to his father’s priory at Lewes. This gift, the Conisbrough keep is found at Mortemer, near and the gift of other churches besides, was confirmed Dieppe in France, a castle also held by the Warenne by the third earl, another William, who succeeded in family. Evidence suggests that the keep at Mortemer is 1138 and died on crusade in 1147. These direct also the work of Hamelin Plantagenet. descendants from the first earl and his wife were close relations of the Kings of England: the second earl was It is generally now assumed that the construction of the the nephew of Henry I and William Rufus. He married stone curtain walls of Conisbrough followed not long BOOKING AND SITE INFORMATION: 0370 333 0606 [email protected] www.english-heritage.org.uk/onlinebooking TEACHER’S KIT CONISBROUGH CASTLE after the keep, but the layout and the planning of the retained the Yorkshire castles. Lancaster did not hold stone buildings within the bailey may not have been Conisbrough for long , for in 1322 he led a rebellion begun until the 13th-century and may be the work of against the King which ended with the battle of Hamelin’s son William, earl from 1202 until 1239. After Boroughbridge. Thomas was captured and tried for the death of William in 1239, the castle passed to John, treason, found guilty then executed outside the walls of his son by his second marriage to Maud, the widow of his own castle at Pontefract. Subsequently Conisbrough Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. She took custody of the was then held by Edward II until 1326, the king stayed castle during the minority of her son, who held the briefly at Conisbrough in November 1322, in 1324 he manor from 1239 until 1304. John married Alice, the ordered the expenditure of up to 40 marks on sister of Henry III. From the Hundred Rolls (records of repairing the towers and walls of the castles at the local court assizes) of the period of the seventh Pontefract and Conisbrough. earl’s tenure, there come tales of men and women imprisoned at Conisbrough, and of the colourful if The castle was delivered back to John de Warenne in rather unlawful dealings of the seneschal and constables 1326. He seems to have regained security of tenure of the castle, one of whom, Richard de Heydon, was during the early years of the reign of Edward III, and charged with ‘devilish and innumerable oppressions’. certainly by 1331-32. Though unable to divorce his wife, John had two sons by Maud de Nerford who had been The Last Earl Warenne the wife of Sir Simon de Derby. By a conveyance ratified by the king, John attempted to secure the John died in 1304 and, since his own son William had tenure of the manor and castle of Conisbrough for his been killed at a tournament in Guildford in 1286, he two sons and for Maud after his death; but the careful was succeeded by his eighteen-year-old grandson John. plan went awry, for John outlived all three and died A marriage was arranged for him to Joan de Barr, heirless in 1347. granddaughter of King Edward I. This was not a happy marriage and there were no children; John was thus the The Later Middle Ages eighth and last Earl Warenne. By 1313 Earl John was separated from his wife. Then began a series of efforts Conisbrough reverted to the Crown and Edward III to obtain a divorce which were repeatedly unsuccessful. conferred the estate on his fourth son, Edmund Langley, At last it seemed in 1316 that the divorce would be whose mother, Queen Philippa, administered the estate allowed, but once again judgement went against Earl for him while he was still a child. His tenure lasted until John and, rightly or wrongly, he held Thomas, Earl of 1402, and the majority of the improvements to the Lancaster, responsible for the failure of his case. accommodation of the inner ward most probably date Intending insult rather than romance, therefore, Earl to this time. Edmund’s son Edward, Earl of Albemarle John abducted Lancaster’s wife Alice. Lancaster and later Duke of York, succeeded in 1402 and died in retaliated by promptly divorcing her and seizing the 1415 at Agincourt. His brother, Richard, Earl of Warenne castles of Sandal and Conisbrough from his Cambridge, had been beheaded for treason earlier in seat at Pontefract in November 1317. the same year, but the castle now passed to his widow, Maud, who lived at Conisbrough until her death in At this point King Edward II intervened and an uneasy 1446. The castle then passed to her stepson, Richard agreement was reached, under which Earl Thomas Duke of York, who died at the battle of Wakefield in 2 OF 11 TEACHER’S KIT CONISBROUGH CASTLE 1460; his son succeeded him and in 1461 became The Fame of Conisbrough Edward IV. Thus Conisbrough once again became a royal castle and the estate passed to the Crown, a The fame of the castle, spread by Sir Walter Scott’s settlement which was fixed in perpetuity in 1495. novel Ivanhoe, is world-wide. Scott, who must have seen the castle and been deeply impressed by it, was Collapse relaying local tradition when he called it a ‘Saxon’ fortress. The picture he portrays of events and people By then, however, the castle was probably suffering at Conisbrough in the reign of Richard I is of course from neglect. A survey carried out in 1537-38 by fictitious. By then the keep would just have been built, commissioners of Henry VIII, records that the gates of but the castle would not yet have had enclosing stone the castle, both timber and stonework, the bridge, and walls. about 55m (60 yd) of walling between the tower (keep) and the gate had all fallen. In addition, one floor of the keep had fallen in, so that by this date the castle had already reached something like its present state of ruin. It is because of this early ruination, and because of sympathetic ownership thereafter, that the castle still survives with its keep largely intact. During the Civil War of the 17th-century, many castles were severely damaged either by bombardment during a siege or deliberate destruction afterwards, to prevent their further defensive use. However, because the collapse of the gate and a stretch of its defences had already made Conisbrough indefensible, it escaped further destruction at this time. The remains of the castle were granted to the Carey family. They passed through several other families, before being sold to Conisbrough Borough Council by the 6th Earl of Yarborough in 1946. The ruins were taken into guardianship by the Ministry of Works in 1950.