TINTAGEL CASTLE. 231 



eight horses decayed; one cellar and bakehouse ruinous. The 

 timber of the great hall had been taken down by command of 

 John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1330-1337), "because the hall 

 was ruinous and the walls thereof of no value." 



It may appear strange that Tintagel should have become 

 dilapidated so soon ; especially if, as I suppose, it had not existed 

 more than a hundred years. We must however remember that 

 the same holds good of Eestormel, Liskeard, and other Castles 

 which have been erroneously described as seats of the British Earls, 

 and yet were built about the same time as I suppose this to have 

 been. After the death of Earl Edmund, in 1 300, all the Cornish 

 Castles, except Launceston, ceased to be kept up ; and in the 

 survey of 1337 were described as "out of repair." Hence, when 

 William of Worcester, Leland, Norden, Carew, and others speak 

 of them, they use much the same language of all. Truro Castle, 

 built by one of the Norman Earls, Leland speaks of as " now clene 

 down"; and William of Worcester, in 1478, as ^'dirutum." Lis- 

 keard Castle, says Leland, is " now al in ruin : fragments of 

 waulles yet stand." Eestormel he calls "sore defaced"; and 

 Norden talks of " the planchings rotten, the walls falldowne, &c. 

 " The cannon needs not batter, nor the pioneer to undermine, nor 

 " powder to blow up, this so famous a pyle, for tyme and tirrannie 

 " hath wrought her destruction." If these Castles, in compara- 

 tively sheltered situations, had so soon become ruins, the only 

 wonder is, that Tintagel, exposed to every blast and storm from 

 the Atlantic, should have lasted so long. 



Before 1385 the Castle must have undergone some repair, for 

 in that year we find it a state prison, in which John of North- 

 ampton, Lord Mayor of London, was imprisoned ; " condemned 

 thither," says Carew, " as a general penetenciary, for his unruly 

 maioralty." In the year 1397, Thomas, Earl of Warwick, was 

 a prisoner for treason, here according to some, but in the Isle of 

 Man, according to Baker and others. He was released in 1399, 

 and recovered all his manors (Carnanton, &c.,) which had been 

 forfeited. 



From the tim^ when this Castle became a prison, a small 

 annual sum was granted for repairs until the reign of Queen Eliza- 

 beth, when it was discontinued by Lord Treasurer Burleigh, as 

 *' being a superfluous expense to the Crown"; and ever since, the 



E 



