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granted away by Elizabeth. In 1601 it was purchased by Richard Harley ; in 
1643 dismantled by the Parliamentarians. It descended amidst divers vicissitudes 
to the Lady Langdale, whose heir is R. D. Harley, Esq., of Brampton Bryan. 
As the thoughtful and sometimes eloquent historian of the Civil War con- 
cludes his notice of the castle in this connection, so may we be allowed to do. 
‘Even in the days of Elizabeth it was falling to decay, but its massy fragments 
“are slow to yield. Fifty years have made very little alteration in these remains, 
“‘which stoutly resist the siege of time; and as in the sunset of an autumnal 
‘evening, it flings the broad shadows of its desolate towers across the valley up 
‘to Bringwood Chase and the borders of the county which it once protected, it 
“exhibits to the traveller no faint or feeble emblem of the departed gandeur of 
‘those chieftains who, with their retainers, once occupied its courts and cham- 
‘bers, and, except that they have given their deeds to history, and a portion of 
“their blood to the blood royal of England, have left nothing behind them but 
“the name of Mortimer.” (p. 321.) 
