44 Rev. J. W. Dunn on Warhworth. 



The first account we have of Warkworth is in the year 

 737, when Ceolwulph, king of Northumberland, granted his 

 manor of Wercewode, and the church he had there builded, to 

 the monastery of Lindisfarne, of Avhich in that year he be- 

 came a member, and, 



" for cowl and beads laid down 

 The Saxon battle axe and crown." 



The monks did not long enjoy their new possession, for, about 

 100 years afterwards, they were deprived of it by Osbert, one 

 of the rival princes of Northumbria. 



The next notice of Warkworth is not until the reign of 

 Henry IT., in, or perhaps before whose fourth year (1145) it 

 was granted by him to Roger Fitz Richard, who held it by 

 service of one knight's fee. This Roger has been supposed to 

 have been the first builder, and to him the exterior works of 

 the edifice have been ascrii3ed.* 



The manor continued in this family until the reign of Ed- 

 ward II. At this time surnames appear to have been intro- 

 duced, and so, John Fitz Richard, the then possessor, took 

 the name of John de Clavering, from the designation of pro- 

 perty obtained by the marriage of his ancestor, Roger Fitz 

 Richard, with a daughter of Henry de Essex, Lord of Cla- 

 vering. 



This John de Clavering, having no expectation, as it seems, 

 of male issue, in consideration of a life estate of £400 per 

 annum, made over to the king the reversion of Warkworth 

 and its broad lands, reserving only a life estate in it also. 

 He thus acquired a considerable status for the time, to the 

 chagrin and discomfiture of his next of kin. 



King Edward III. in the second year of his reign, 1329, 

 John de Clavering being still living, granted the castle and 



* But the facts — that Henry II. 's charter (set out in Placita 

 de quo warranto) conveys an already existing castle of Werkewrd, — 

 that William the Lion, in marching southwards, in 1174, did not 

 deign to stop there, for " weak was the castle, the wall, and the trench," and 

 Roger, the son of Richard, a valiant knight, had it in ward but he could not 

 guard it," — and that it is decidedly more advanced in style than the castle of 

 Newcastle (1172-1177) and the Galilee of Durham (1175) — are strongly in 

 favour of a later date for at least the greater portion of the walls and entrances. 

 Mr. Hartshorne's reasons seem to have been written without a reference to the 

 charter of gift, and some time before his description of Prudhoe Castle, which 

 is contradictory to them. The present works cannot be termed weak, and may 

 fairly be considered as substituted for the feebler castle granted by the king. 

 It is remarkable that while the conveyance expressly includes the castle, the 

 Croyland record of the Lion's ravages calls it " Castelliim regis de Werkewrda 

 quod Rogerus filius Ricardi custodivit," as if the old fabric was still subsist- 

 ing. 



