A HISTORY OF SURREY 



was put in command. He had only loo men, but 

 was well victualled with 300 sheep and 100 oxen." 

 His tenure was scarcely more glorious than Wither's. 

 The royal forces had retired to Oxford, and Sir 

 William Waller was occupied in clearing the skirts 

 of Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex of their outlying 

 garrisons. He appeared before Farnham with 

 horse and dragoons only. On I December 1642 

 he blew in the gate with a petard. This was 

 probably the gate at the gate house outside the 

 castle. Waller had no artillery, and determined 

 men with muskets ought to have made the fixing 

 of a petard, a sort of iron extinguisher screwed on 

 to gates or walls to blow them down, a dangerous 

 exploit for the assailants. Denham's poetical 

 reading should have incited him, if his military 

 want of experience failed, to make ' the engineer 

 hoist with his own petard.' A barricade of timber 

 had been raised inside the gate, which the garrison 

 suffered the assailants to remove, and Denham 

 surrendered.'" He was allowed to join the king at 

 Oxford, vnth the laurels of Cooper's Hill fresh 

 upon him, but no laurels from war. Wither con- 

 tinued to serve in the army, Denham returned to 

 civil employment. The record of the two poets 

 at Farnham is fidy ended by a story that when 

 Wither fell into the hands of the royalists, Denham 

 begged that he might not be hanged, because 

 while Wither lived he was not himself the worst 

 poet in England. 



Waller, on 29 December, gave orders from 

 Chichester for the blowing up of the castie to make 

 it untenable as a fortress. Part of the keep wall 

 only was blown up, probably where the path goes 

 up from the garden now, and perhaps part of the 

 enceinte to the north-east. Waller occupied the 

 still habitable bishop's palace as his headquarters 

 during a great part of 1643 and 1644, and breast- 

 works were erected at the end of the towm towards 

 Alton. 



On 9 January 1645 Goring seized Farnham for 

 the King without fighting. Some part of the 

 garrison had been left, apparently, when Waller 

 finally marched from Surrey in the previous 

 September, but the keep was indefensible. Goring 

 could not have safely quartered in the town had 

 there been an enemy then in the castle, but the 

 next day he retired westward, before troops 

 ordered up from Guildford could molest him. On 

 4 July 1648, when the royalists were rising at 

 Kingston, Parliament ordered Farnham to be 

 further dismantied.'' And no doubt con- 

 siderable damage was done by the soldiers, who 

 stripped it of much of its lead, timber and 

 glass, which they sold to replace the arrears of 

 their pay. 



In 1648 the Committee for the sale of bishops' 

 lands conveyed the castle to John Godwyn of 

 Blechingley.' ' This Goodwyn was elected member 

 for Haslemere in 1649, and in 1656 was elected 

 both for Reigate and East Grinstead, sitting for the 

 latter place. In 1660 he represented Blechingley. 

 At the Restoration the castle was given back to the 

 Bishop of Winchester, who found it in a niinoui 

 condition. Bishop Duppa spent ;^2,ooo or more 

 upon it in his short episcopate, and Bishop Moriey 

 nearly ^^10,000, which he raised by a lease of 

 Bishop's Waltham and profits of buildings erected 

 at Winchester House. Bishop Thomas, 1761-81, 

 did something to it, and other bishops both before 

 and after him have made alterations, and the 

 general result, though picturesque, is perplexing. 

 The late Bishop Thorold repaired the castie and 

 its drains very thoroughly, laid down a mile and 

 100 yards of stair-carpet, repaired an acre and a 

 fifth of roof," and fitted up rooms for the housing 

 of ordination candidates. 



So great an episcopal palace was not without its 

 distinguished visitors at many times. Henry VIII. 

 was there on 31 July and 3 August, 153 1.'* Queen 

 Mary was there, entertained by Gardiner, on her 

 way to Winchester, where she was married to 

 Philip of Spain. Queen Elizabeth was there in 

 1567 and in 1569. On the latter occasion she 

 gave her famous warning to the Duke of Norfolk 

 to beware on what pillow he laid his head, referring 

 to his projected marriage with Mary Stewart. 

 Mary's agent, the Bishop of Ross, was there as a 

 prisoner in Home's custody a little later. Elizabeth 

 was Cooper's guest in 1591. In 1603 King James 

 was there. On 16 May 1608 the king took a 

 lease of Farnham Castie and parks from Bishop 

 Bilson, for the lifetime of the bishop," as he found 

 it so convenient a centre for his hunting in the 

 Surrey bailiwick of Windsor Forest. In 1609 he 

 made it over to Ramsay,'" then Viscount Hadding- 

 ton, who had stood by him in the Gowrie Plot, and 

 who became Earl of Holderness in 1620, and joint 

 Lord Lieutenant of Surrey in 1624. The king 

 found the place in a state of great disrepair, the 

 park palings and the lodges especially being broken 

 down and ruinous ; squatters had occupied the 

 parks, and the neighbours stole the palings for 

 firewood. The celebrated surveyor, John Norden, 

 was called in to report upon necessary repairs, and 

 subsequently carried them out.*' A fire in the 

 stables on I June 1609 was an additional mis- 

 fortune. But till Bilson's death in 1616 the place 

 remained in the hands of Ramsay. On 10 June 

 the rights of Sir George and Sir Robert More, as 

 keepers of the parks and constables of the castie, 

 were bought out for anannuityof j{^io66/. lod.," 



" Wither had left 300 sheep and 

 60 oxen at his house, which he com- 

 plains the royalists took. The sheep 

 were no doubt the same 300 which 

 Denham had in Farnham. 



10 Rushworth, pt. iii. vol. ii, p. 82. 



" y.C.H. Surr. i. 408-11. 



t2 Manning and Br3y,Hitt. of Surr., 

 quoting an 'original paper' dated < At 



the Committee at Kingston Sept. loth, 

 '^49»* Goodwyn was to receive recom- 

 pense out of the arrears of rent due 

 from the bishop's lands, not exceeding 

 ;f50. The castle, parks, and all ap- 

 purtenances were subsequently purchased 

 by Goodwyn and conveyed in trust for 

 his family, and settled by deeds of 25 

 September 1648, 28 February 1656, 



604 



20 June 1656 (see Manning and Bray, 

 Hilt, of Surr. iii. App. cxli.). 



t3 Tette ipso epucopo. 



»« L. and P. Hen. ^111. v. 177. 



IS Cal. of SJ*. Dom. i6o]-io, p. 

 431. 



" Ibid. p. 535. 



" Ibid. p. 508. 



18 Loselcy MSS. 10 June 1608. 



