34 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



But, in spite of all these disadvantages, some attempt at 

 cultivation of fruit was not unfrequently made. 



At Carlisle there must have been gardens round the town, 

 and outside the castle walls, if the old rhyming Chronicle of 

 the Wars in 1173 and 1174, between Henry II. and William 

 the Lion, of Scotland, is to be believed. The supposed 

 author, Jordan Fantosme, describes the siege of the Castle 

 of Carlisle. The translation of one verse runs thus* : — 



" They did not lose within, I assure you I do not lie, 

 As much as amounted to a silver denier. 

 But they lost their fields, with all their corn 

 [And] their gardens [were] ravaged by those bad people. 

 And he who could not do any more injur)' took it into his head 

 To bark the apple trees ; — it was bad vengeance." t 



Scattered throughout the Pipe rolls and Exchequer rolls 

 and Liberate rolls, there are to be found a few entries which 

 indicate some of the royal gardens in the twelfth and thirteenth 

 centuries. In 1 158-9 occur payments to the king's orchardman, 

 " Henricus Arborarii," in London, and to the vine-dressers at 

 Windsor and elsewhere. J In 1259, Henry III. made extensive 

 alterations at the Palace of Westminster, and among payments 

 to workmen and carpenters and others, § occur several to 

 labourers for " levelling the area of the garden with a roller." 



In the reign of Edward I. further entries occur for keeping 

 the garden, and for dressing the vines in the vineyard at 

 Westminster, and of payment of the daily wage of 2g:d. to 

 "Roger le Herberur," "formerly servant to the Lord the King 

 Henry, the king's father." In 1276-7, we find the king paying as 

 much as ^^97. 17s. y^d. to Master Robert de Beverley, keeper of 

 the king's woods, " for divers necessary things ... to make 



* Surtees Society, 1840, p. 77. 



f A curious confirmation of the gardens at Carlisle even earlier, 1131, 

 is in the Pipe Roll, 31st Henry I. (printed ed., p. 141). 



Receipt from Crown lands — "William Fitz Baldwin renders account of 

 30s. of old farm of the king's garden of Carlisle. He delivered 

 [the same] into the Treasury — And he is quit. And the same 

 William owes 30s. of the farm of the same garden of this year 

 past." 

 + Pipe Roll Society. Vol. I., 1884. 

 § Devon Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, 1837. 



