Castle (25 page)

The downside, naturally, was that Edward was not getting much free time to spend at his new castle (which by now must have been very nearly finished) or, for that matter, with his wife. Sadly, we do not have much specific information about Elizabeth Dallingridge; women have left fewer traces than men in the records of medieval royal
government
. The Dallingridges probably wrote personal letters to each other, just as the famous Paston family of Norfolk would do a century later, but none have survived. Similarly, there are no wills or prayer books, no inventories or epitaphs that can shed any light on Elizabeth’s personality or tastes. Nevertheless, using sources like this for other women of her age and upbringing, we can start to imagine what the life of Lady Dallingridge must have been like.

During Edward’s long absences, Elizabeth would almost certainly have been in charge of running both the household and the Dallingridge estate. Although she would have delegated much of the humdrum work to a professional estates steward, he would have been answerable to Elizabeth, and she may well have overlooked his accounts. Likewise, the domestic staff – the cook, the huntsman, the chaplain and the butler – would all have looked to her for their orders. Elizabeth’s ability to act as lady of the manor during her husband’s long absences may have been part of her original appeal to the dashing Sir Edward. Of course, we should not kid ourselves here – the eligible young lady’s principal attraction, from Edward’s point of view, was undoubtedly her huge tracts of land. But it would be a mistake to imagine that men only married to get their hands on property, or because they wanted to produce an heir. While these were very important considerations, men like Edward also married for companionship and love. Chivalric romances are full of young knights doing quite ridiculously dangerous things to win a lady’s heart, and many of the most successful careers in the Middle Ages were built by a husband and wife team supporting each other and working together.

Elizabeth, therefore, would have been an educated woman, able to read not just English, but also French and Latin. The spur to her literacy, however, would not have been its administrative usefulness, but its ability to bring her closer to God. The fourteenth century was a period when religion among the aristocracy was becoming a much
more
personal, introspective affair. Encouraged by the introduction of confession in the thirteenth century, men and women who could afford them were increasingly buying books of hours and prayer books so they could practice their devotions in private.

This increasingly personal and private piety is reflected in the design of the chapel at Bodiam castle. Of course, chapels in castles are nothing new; even the earliest earth and timber castles had chapels within their bailey walls, and there are chapels at the Tower of London, Colchester and Rochester. The chapel at Bodiam, however, differs from these in two ways. First, it flaunts its vulnerability. As we noted right at the start of this chapter, the chapel is provided with a very large three-light Gothic window, which pierces the castle’s east wall. In addition, the chapel is the only room in the castle that interrupts the otherwise perfect symmetry of the overall design. Both effects are quite deliberate; the Dallingridges wished to advertise their devout Christianity. Such was their devotion, the architecture suggests, that they were willing to expose themselves to attack and to compromise the shape of their castle. Defence and consistency pointedly take second place to religious considerations.

The second important innovation at Bodiam can only be seen from inside. By the start of the fourteenth century, it had become common for the main part of the chapel to be overlooked by a small, private room, so that privileged individuals (usually the castle’s owner) could observe the mass in private. At Bodiam, a door in the Dallingridge master bedroom led into a small closet that looked down directly on to the altar. Like the increasing use of personal books of religious devotion, and the tendency to employ confessors in aristocratic households, this arrangement at Bodiam speaks eloquently of the increasingly private religious life of the fourteenth-century nobility.

Strange as it may seem at first, the movement towards a more personal form of worship was led by men like Dallingridge – men who had been soldiers in France, with quite bloody reputations. These,
however
, were the men who, as they grew older and closer to God, had the most on their consciences. Henry, Duke of Lancaster, for example, a veteran from the early campaigns of the Hundred Years War, picked painfully at his conscience in his
Livre de Seyntz Medicines
, describing the sores that afflicted his soul on account of the killings in his youth. Sir William Beauchamp, another old soldier, sought similar atonement by becoming an enthusiastic sponsor and devotee of new religious cults. Even the brutal Sir Robert Knowles, Dallingridge’s one-time captain, eventually repented of his earlier atrocities. Later in life he founded a church at Pontefract, and sought absolution from the Pope.

Likewise, when Dallingridge joined the ranks of the kings’ councillors, he started to mix with another group of individuals who advocated a more contemplative, personal form of piety. The
literati
who gathered at the court of Richard II, like the king himself, were much given to such introspective musings, and shared Richard’s anti-war sympathies. Sir John Clanvowe, who like Dallingridge was a frequent attendee of council sessions and also a chamber knight, wrote poems deriding the ideals of chivalry, and condemning men who went to war for profit. John Gower, another court poet, echoed these views.

‘In the present day,’ he wrote, ‘chivalry is maintained for pride and foolish delight’.

Another individual at court whom Dallingridge would certainly have met was Geoffrey Chaucer, who was already entertaining the great and the good with early drafts of
The Canterbury Tales
. At one level, their lives had strong parallels, even before they met in the king’s household. Both were born in the early 1340s and both fought in the French wars from 1359. Chaucer, like Dallingridge, had briefly been in the service of John of Gaunt, and had also served as a Member of Parliament at the same time as Sir Edward. But their careers had taken quite different turns. Dallingridge belonged to the gentry; Chaucer was the son of a merchant. Edward made money in the wars, but Geoffrey was captured on his first expedition and had to be ransomed. As he grew
older
, Chaucer increasingly took up his pen as a clerk and poet; Dallingridge continued to rely on his sword to cut a path to greatness.

So what did the writer make of the fighter? Some modern authors suggest that, like Clanvowe and Gower, Chaucer was very critical of contemporary knighthood. Others contend that he has nothing but sincere praise for it. Others still maintain that the poet was trying to reconcile the two contradictory positions. Ultimately, it all depends on whether or not Chaucer is being ironic, and this we have no way of knowing; he is simply too subtle a writer.

A more important issue for us, and equally unfathomable, is how Edward Dallingridge regarded himself. Did he, like Clanvowe and Knowles, regret the killings of his youth, and seek absolution? Or did he not regard them as misdemeanours at all, but a necessary part of his chivalrous calling? Did he come to view himself as a medieval mercenary, or still regard himself a very parfit gentil knight? When, suddenly, he died late in the summer of 1393, did he go with his sins on his head, or repenting them? We do not know. Nor, frustratingly, do we know how or why he died. Probably in his late forties, he was not exactly old, even by medieval standards. Perhaps it was a lingering war wound, sustained on the battlefields of France. It could have been a sudden heart failure, brought on by his high-fat, low-fibre diet. Alternatively, as the hardest-working royal councillor, perhaps it was sheer exhaustion from all those long hours in the saddle that finally laid Sir Edward low.

They may have been private in their devotions, but when it came to being buried, medieval aristocrats liked to be seen in public. Although they were hardly ever seen praying inside their local parish churches, they nevertheless lavished money on rebuilding them as a point of pride, and were often interred inside, encased in grand tombs. The tomb of Edward’s parents, Roger and Alice Dallingridge, has survived in the parish church of Fletching, then the centre of the family’s power. Although the stonework was sadly disfigured and destroyed in places during the Reformation, the carved coat of arms still survives, and matches the one on the front of the castle. Moreover, the lid of the tomb still has its fine monumental brass, depicting Roger and Alice in all their finery.

The tomb brass of Roger and Alice Dallingridge
.

This memorial, of course, was probably commissioned by Edward, and shows how the Dallingridges wanted to be commemorated in death. Both figures are portrayed as pious, with their hands pressed together in prayer. Roger, however, is decked out in full military gear, his helmet on his head, and his sword by his side. Here, at least,
we
see no contradiction between the ideals of a military life and a Christian one.

Fate did not deal squarely with Sir Edward. He rose fast and achieved his goals quickly, but he was cut down with equal suddenness. As a leading adviser to the king, he stood for a moment on the cusp of greatness, ennoblement and immortality seemingly within his grasp. But his premature demise means that today we find no mention of a Lord Dallingridge in our dictionaries of the peerage. Death may even have cheated him of a role in Shakespeare. Other royal councillors got to star in
Richard. II
, but Dallingridge missed his cue.

Posterity has been equally unkind to this meteoric man. There is no epitaph in any chronicle to explain how, through brilliant soldiery and astute political manoeuvring, Dallingridge climbed to the top of the social and political ladder. Nor is there any effigy to mark the end of this knight’s tale. Edward and Elizabeth were buried with great solemnity in the abbey of Robertsbridge, but it was dissolved and destroyed four and half centuries ago.

Sir Edward’s memorial, however, does not lie hidden inside a parish church, or concealed in the pages of a chronicle. It is tucked among the rolling hills of East Sussex, in a little river valley, at the centre of a sparkling moat. Lasting fame may have ultimately eluded him but, many centuries after his departure, it has come to rest on his magnificent home.

EDINBURGH AND STIRLING
are, with good reason, the most famous castles in Scotland. Both stand on top of great outcrops of rock, looming majestically over the streets and houses below. They look proud, invincible, and defiant – appropriately, given the pivotal roles that both have played at the crucial turning points in Scotland’s history. William Wallace won his famous victory over the armies of Edward I at Stirling Bridge, and proceeded to recapture the castle; Robert the Bruce’s troops seized Edinburgh from the English before going on to defeat them at Bannockburn. Their participation in the great events from Scotland’s past has secured lasting celebrity for both castles. Edinburgh, of course, has a slight edge on its northern cousin. Its location at the heart of the nation’s capital, as well as the great military tattoo that takes place there every year, ensures that Edinburgh Castle continues to top the league as Scotland’s most famous historic monument.

But while they can justly be called famous, neither Edinburgh nor Stirling can be described as typical. As the property of the nation’s
rulers
, they have been endlessly modified by a succession of kings and queens, eager to adapt and improve the two most prestigious castles in their possession. More importantly, many of the buildings we see today within the walls of both castles were put up in the sixteenth century, at a time when the court of Scotland was closely linked to the court of France. They were constructed by Continental masons, following the European fashion for Renaissance courtyards, rather than local craftsmen adhering to native Scottish traditions. Moreover, both castles underwent major renovation and redevelopment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, transforming them out of all recognition. In short, these two castles are the exceptions, and not the rule.

In Scotland, the rule was not courtyards but towers, and it is the tower, or ‘tower house’ design that has given Scottish castles their unique and enduring identity. From the middle of the fourteenth century, hundreds and hundreds were built in every corner of the country, from the Borders to the Shetlands, from Aberdeenshire to the Outer Hebrides. As well as being totally different from the courtyard castles that were being built in England at the time, they also outlived castles south of the border. Whereas castle-building in England and Wales was in decline from the end of the fifteenth century, Scotsmen continued to build tower houses right up until the middle of the seventeenth century.

So why did Scotland do its own thing in the late Middle Ages? And why did Scotland enter a new and dynamic phase of castle-building when in England and Wales, it was drawing to a close? If you take an old-fashioned view of castles as primarily military buildings, the answer is quite obvious. If Scotland has more castles than England and Wales, it must be because Scotland was a more violent and war-torn place. This view of castle architecture certainly seems to fit with the traditional view of Scottish history in the three-hundred-year period when tower houses were being built. The coming of the tower
house
coincides with the coming of a new and notorious dynasty of Scottish kings – the Stewarts.