38 



Devize*. 



two of his keepers to assist him in escaping. They did so, and 

 one night he being loaded with chains and unable to walk, was 

 carried on the back of one of them through the castle-yard, across 

 the moat, up an opposite bank, and deposited at the high altar in 

 St. John's Church. The flight was discovered and he was dragged 

 back again to the castle. But Sanctuary had been broken. 

 Churchmen resented this ; and being sufficiently influential, they 

 got Hubert replaced in the church: the king however in permitting 

 this, sent, at the same time, a secret order to the Sheriff of Wilts, 

 to surround the church day and night with guards, and keep the 

 prisoner safe. The Sheriff did as he was ordered; but next day a 

 body of Hubert's friends burst into the church-yard, scattered the 

 javelin-men, and carried off their hero in triumph to the moun- 

 tains of Wales. The end of the story is, that in order to make 

 peace, he afterwards surrendered some part of his estates, and 

 finally died quietly in his bed. 



Of the Castle itself where these various events took place we are 

 assured by ancient witnesses that it was on a noble scale. One 

 says it was the finest ever built by a Bishop ; a second calls it the 

 finest in England : a third the finest in Europe ; and a fourth the 

 finest in Christendom. In this climax, rest on which step you 

 please, and the imagination will be satisfied. It stood on a kind 

 of promontory joined as it were to the mainland on the side 

 towards the town ; a favourite kind of site for old military strong- 

 holds, as may be seen in many instances. Being on three sides 

 protected by a natural slope, the principal artificial defences 

 would be towards the town. On that side accordingly there were 

 two moats, the remains of which were lately crossed in digging 

 the foundations for the New Corn- Exchange. In Henry VIII.'s 

 time Leland saw the castle. He mentions no less than seven 

 places for portcullises in the passage leading from the town. The 

 keep stood on a hill cast up by hand, a piece of work of incredible 

 cost. The rest was in ruins, used as a quarry by the town's-people, 

 part of it "right unprofitably " in building Master Baynton's house 

 at Bromham (i.e. Old Bromham House, long since destroyed.) 

 Lambard, a later visitor in Elizabeth's reign, describes the castle 



