Читать книгу Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle онлайн

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Now the Lady Lucia inherited many of the lands of her Saxon ancestors; and among those which passed to her Son William of Romara, was Bolingbroke. He was a man of many, and wide domains, but of them all he selected this, as the place for erecting a stronghold, capable of defence in those troublous times. The castle is described by Holles (temp. Charles I) as “surrounded by a moat fed by streams, and as covering about an acre and half; built in a square, with four strong forts,” probably at the corners; and “containing many rooms, which were connected by passages along the embattled walls and capable to receyve a very great prince with all his trayne.” The entrance was “very stately, over a fair draw bridge; the gate-house uniforme, and strong.” The gateway, of which the crumbling ruins were engraved by Stukeley in the first half of the l8th century, finally fell in 1815; and nothing now remains above ground. The whole structure was of the sandstone of the neighbourhood, which, as Holles observes, will crumble away when the wet once penetrates it. The moat is still visible; and further, in the rear of it, to the south, beyond the immediate precincts, there is another moated enclosure, still to be seen, the residence doubtless of dependants under the shelter of the castle; or these may have been earthworks excavated by the forces besieging the castle. We cannot here give in detail the long and varied history of the great owners of Bolingbroke. But, omitting minor particulars:—“A Gilbert de Gaunt by marrying a Romara heiress, obtained the estate. One of his successors of the same name, joining the Barons against King John and Henry III., forfeited it. It was then granted to Ranulph, Earl of Chester. It afterwards passed to the de Lacy family, earls in their turn, of Lincoln; and by marriage with Alicia de Lacy, Thomas Plantagenet, grandson of Henry III. obtained it, with the title. A later Gaunt, the famous John, Duke of Lancaster, married the heiress of this branch of the Plantagenets, and so in turn became Earl of Lincoln and Lord of Bolingbroke, and their son Henry, born here April 3, 1366, became Henry IV. As being the birthplace of a sovereign, the estate, instead of remaining an ordinary manor, was elevated to the rank of an ‘Honour’” (Camden’s Britannia, p. 471) and is entitled, in all legal documents “the Honour of Bolingbroke.” Since the accession of Henry IV. it has remained an appanage of the Crown; and as Duke of Lancaster, King Edward is “Lord of the Honour,” at the present day. Gervase Holles states that Queen Elizabeth made sundry improvements in the interior of the castle, adding “a fayre great chamber with other lodgings.” The Constable of the Castle was (in his day) “Sir William Mounson, Lord Castlemayne, who received a revenue out of the Dutchy lands of £500 per annum; in part payment of £1,000 yearly, given by the King to the Countess of Nottingham his lady.” He also says “In a roome in one of the towers they kept their audit for the whole Dutchy of Lancaster, Bolingbroke having ever been the prime seat thereof, where the Recordes for the whole country are kept.” [32]