Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/406

380 WARWICK spear heads. In 1824 an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was discovered on Watling Street, near Bensford Bridge, in which a largo number of articles, both of use and ornament, were found. Other burial places have been opened, and similar remains found. Some good examples of Norman work exist in the churches at Kenihvorth, Rytou, Stoneleigh, Berkeswell, Wolston, and Beaudesert. Of famous and interesting places may be mentioned the noble structure Warwick Castle ; the ruins of Kenihvorth Castle and Maxstoke Priory; Maxstoke Castle; Compton Wyniates ; Temple Balsall church; the "three tall spires" at Coventry, with the beautiful churches of St Michael, Holy Trinity, and St John Baptist ; Ragley Hall, Combe Abbey, Wroxhall Abbey, Newuham Padox, Astley Castle, Arbury Hall, Walton Hall, Guy s Cliff, Baddesley Clinton, Tamworth Castle and church, Packington Hall, and Stoneleigh Abbey. Among the eminent persons connected with Warwickshire besides William Shakespeare are John Rogers the martyr, Michael Drayton, Sir W. Dugdale, Dr Parr, Dr Joseph Priestley, Matthew Boulton, John Baskerville, Walter Savage Landor, and Marian Evans ("George Eliot"). See Dugdale, Antiquities of Warwickshire, Thomas s edition (2 vols. fol., 1730); Brewer, Description of Warwickshire (Svo, 1810); Murray, Agriculture of War wickshire (Svo, 1813); Smith, History of Warwickshire (4to, IsSO); Langford, Staffordshire and Warwickshire (4 vols. 4to, 18C8); Langford, "The Saxons in Warwickshire" (Birmingham Archxological Society, 4to, 1881). WAEWICK, the county town of Warwickshire, and a municipal and parliamentary borough, is finely situated on the Avon, on the Warwick and Birmingham and Warwick and Napton Canals, and on a branch of the Great Western Railway, 8 miles north-east of Stratford-on-Avon and 108 north-west of London. The glory of Warwick is still its castle, which has been truly pronounced to be the " most magnificent of the ancient feudal mansions of the English nobility still used as a residence." Its position is at once commanding and picturesque, standing as it does on a rock overhanging the Avon. Its principal features are Caesar s Tower, 147 feet high, built in the 14th century; the Gateway Tower, in the centre; and Guy s Tower, 128 feet, also of the 14th century. There is a fine collection of pictures. The Great Hall and the family apartments were destroyed by fire in 1871, but have been restored. In the collegiate church of St Mary Warwick possesses one of the most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in the country. We learn from Domesday that a church existed before the Conquest, but of its foundation nothing- is really known. It was made collegiate by Roger de New- burgh, the second Norman earl. It was dissolved by Henry VIII. in 1545, by whom it was granted to the burgesses of the town, with an estate then worth 58, 14s. 4d. to main tain it, together with the king s school. A great part of the church was destroyed by fire in 1694, and afterwards rebuilt. The glory of this church, however, is the Beau- champ Chapel, founded by Earl Richard Beauchamp by will, and commenced in 1443 and completed 1464. It is one of the finest examples of pure Gothic in the kingdom. In the centre of the chapel is the splendid tomb of the earl. The church of St Nicholas, near the entrance to the castle grounds, is modern, with a tower and spire, and was erected towards the end of the 18th century. St Paul s is new. The priory of St Sepulchre was founded by Henry de Newburgh on the site of an ancient church for a society of canons regular. It is now a private residence. One of the most interesting places in Warwick is the hospital of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, one of the most picturesque examples of half- timber buildings in England. It was originally used as the hall of the united guilds of the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, and St George the Martyr. The earl of Leicester, by an Act of Incorporation obtained in 1571, founded the hospital for the reception of twelve poor men possessing not more than 5 a year, and a master. The first master, appointed by the earl himself, was the famous Puritan, Thomas Cartwright. There are numerous charities in the town, the principal being those of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas White, and Thomas Oken. The first is derived from the tithes of St Mary, St Nicholas in Warwick, the parish of Budbrooke, and Chaddesley Corbett, Worcestershire, together with the rents of houses and lands in the borough. It produces about 3000 a year, and is used for paying the stipends of the vicar and an assistant minister for St Mary s, the vicars of St Nicholas and Budbrooke, the mayor, the town-clerk, yeoman, serjeant- at-mass, and a beadle; while 460, 10s. is annually given in aid of the king s school. By the charity of Sir Thomas White the sum of 100 is lent, without interest, to young tradesmen for a period of nine years. From the funds left for that purpose by Thomas Oken, allowances are made to the poor. The area of the borough is 5512 acres; the population in 1861 was 10,570, in 1871 10,986, and in 1881 11,800. A fortress is said to have been erected here as early as the year 50, by P. Octavius Scapula, and it is supposed to have been the presidium Romanorum at which a cohort of Dalmatian horse was stationed. It was destroyed by the Danes in one of their incur sions into Mercia, and in 915 Alfred s daughter Ethellleda built the fortress on which the castle now stands. The town is mentioned in Domesday, where we learn that " in the borough the king has in his demesne 113 houses, and the king s barons have 112, from which the king receives Danegeld. The bishop of Worcester has 9 dwellings, the bishop of Chester 7, the abbot of Coventry 36, and four were destroyed to enlarge the castle." In the time of Edward the Confessor the sheriffwick of Warwick, with the borough and royal manors, rendered 65, and " thirty-six sextars of honey, or 24, 6s. instead of honey (pro omnibus quse, ad mel pc,rtincbant Now, with the forra of the royal manors and pleas of the county, it pays per annum 145 by weight, 23 for the custom of dogs, 20s. for a sumpter horse, 10 for a hawk, and 100s. for Queengold. Besides this it renders twenty-four sextars of honey of the larger measure, and from the borough six sextars of honey, at the sextar for 15d." The celebrated Thurkill (or Turchill) was the last Saxon earl of Warwick. William the Conqueror began his first northern campaign in 1068, and the first place where his presence is distinctly recorded is Warwick. He erected here one of his strong fortifications on the site of the old one. Not a vestige of it now exists, but, as Mi- Freeman writes, "the mound itself still remains, a monument of the wisdom and energy of the mighty daughter of JEll red, while the. keep of William has so utterly perished that its very site can only now be guessed at." Of the earls of Warwick who may be noticed, of course the legendary Guy, with the numerous traditions relating his wonder ful achievements, stands first. In proof of his prowess do not his gigantic helmet, his furnace-like pot, and his mighty fork remain in the castle to this day, to testify against all unbelievers ? Prominently in history we have Guy de Beauchamp, who came to the title in 1298, and who was called by the favourite Piers Gaveston "the Black Hound of Arden." He was instrumental in taking Piers prisoner, and in leading him to Blacklow Hill, close to Warwick, and there beheading him in 1311. Richard Nevil, the famous king-maker " (see below), assumed the title in right of his wife Anne, and was slain at the battle of Barnet, 1471. Then the unfortunate George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence, was created earl by his brother Edward IV., but afterwards perished, it is said, by being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. The title has frequently lain dormant. In 1547 it was revived in favour of the Dudleys, when Viscount Lisle was created earl by Edward VI. It became extinct in 1589, and in 1618 was renewed in the person of Robert, Lord Rich, whose eldest son was lord high admiral for the Commonwealth. Again the title became extinct in 1759. The castle had long been in the possession of the Greville family, having been granted to Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, by James I. when it was in a ruinous condition, and he restored it, at a cost, it is said, of 20,000. Dugdale says he made it " not only a place of great strength, but extraordinary delight, with most pleasant gardens, walks, and thickets, such as this part of Eng land can hardly parallel ; so that now it is the most princely seat that is within the midland parts of this realm. " He died from the effects of a wound inflicted by his own servant, September 8, 1628. His successor, Robert Greville, was the son of Fulke s first cousin, and is the Lord Brooke who is famous in the civil war between Charles and the Parliament, and was appointedcommander-in-chief of the Parlia mentary forces of Warwickshire and Staffordshire. He was engaged in the first fight of the war at Edge Hill, and was killed at the siege of Lichfield cathedral, on March 1, 1643. The title of earl of Warwick was bestowed on Francis, eighth Lord Brooke, by George II. in 1746. His son George, who succeeded to the title in 1773, was a great benefactor of the borough, and was lavish in his ex

penditure on the castle.