REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1903 35 



of the Red Rose in the wars of the fifteenth. The name 

 " Donestanesburgh " shows that it was a "burh," or fortified 

 tribal centre, at a date possibly as early as that of Bamburgh, 

 and was probably established by some forgotten Dunstan. 

 Of tlie causes that led to its demolition and desertion nothing 

 is with precision known. About the middle of the thirteenth 

 centuiy the Barony of Embleton, which included the Manor 

 of Dunstan, was purchased by the celebrated and powerful 

 Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester. His motive for so 

 doing is not easily ascertained, though probably he sought 

 thereby to confirm his already acquired influence in the 

 North, in the carrying out of which scheme he conceived the 

 project of raising an impregnable fortress on the basaltic 

 ramparts of Dunstanburgh. He was killed at the battle of 

 Evesham in 1265, and it is recorded that one of his feet, 

 hacked off on that disastrous field, was encased in a silver 

 shoe, and preserved in Alnwick Abbey till the Reformation. 

 On de Montford's death the Barony of Embleton, along 

 with the rest of the Earldom of Leicester, was forfeited to 

 the crown, and thereafter granted by Henry III. to his 

 own son, Edward, Earl of Lancaster, from whom it passed 

 to his sou Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and great-nephew 

 (not grandson as stated in a local guide-book) of Simon de 

 Montford, who had married a sister of Henry III. By him 

 instructions were given for preparing the sandstone for the 

 election of the Castle of Dunstanburgh, the architect of which, 

 despite a statement to the effect that he was Daniel Oardifoe 

 of Hexham, is still unknown. The work of construction was 

 briskly carried out, a hostelry for the accommodation of the 

 workmen, eighty feet long by twenty feet broad, being erected 

 in the immediate neighbourhood. A moat also, eighty feet 

 broad and eighteen feet deep, was dug on the West side 

 of the building between it and the field of Embleton. In 

 1322 Earl Thomas came to an untimely end, being executed 

 by the orders of Edward II., in his own castle at Poutefract, 

 fur "secret dealings with the Scots." The estates were 

 thereby forfeited anew, but were restored in 1324 by 

 Edward II. to Henry, younger brother of Thomas, whose 

 loss of them is conveniently glossed over in the deed of gift 

 with the somewhat disingenuous explanation that "he had 



