Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/493

Conisborojtgh Castle, 449 of the ferry over the Don at its foot has undergone translation, and is known as Kingsferry. Who the king was who gave name to both has 1 ong been unknown ; probably he was of Northumbria. The old Soke, the growth of centuries, received its final consolidation at the Conquest, when it was granted by William the King to William Earl Warren. At that time the fee was probably one extensive parish, for Conisborough seems to have been the mother church of Barthwell, Hatfield, and Sandal, three churches named in Domesday. Conisborough as a parish church, therefore, thinks Mr. Hunter, can scarcely be later than yElfred, and may be older than even Don- caster itself. Such is the antiquity of the memories and specula- tions with which this very remarkable place is associated. Immediately before the Conquest it belonged to Harold the Earl. Earl Warren evidently took it as it stood, and seated him- self in the English "Aula " at Conisborough, having about him the twenty-eight vills which either wholly or in part were appended to it, and which included much of the Wapentakes of Strafordes and Siraches. These were the lands " quae pertinent ad Coninges- berc," and which formed the " Socas pertinens." The possessions of Earl Warren in England were extensive, but were especially valuable in Sussex, Norfolk, and Yorkshire ; and what Lewes was to the former Conisborough was to the latter, and as the Soke became an Honour the castle was its " caput." In Earl Warren's foundation charter to Lewes Priory in 1078, it is provided that the monks should find him lodgings as he went and returned from Yorkshire, so that when he crossed from Normandy he took Lewes on his way. The connexion between his two lordships he cemented by giving to Lewes the church of Conisborough. Earl William was created Earl of Surrey about 1088, and died in 1089, and among his possessions stand enumerated the Lordship and Soke of Conisborough, with twenty-eight vills and hamlets. II. William Earl of Surrey, son and heir, supported Robert Curthose against Henry II., and with him retired to Normandy. On being pardoned, and his earldom of Surrey restored, he changed sides and fought for Henry at Tinchebrai. He gave to Roche Abbey the tythe of his Hatfield fisheries. He died 1138. III. William Earl of Surrey, his son and heir, the third earl, joined in the mixed French, German, and English Crusade in 1145, during which, in 1148, he fell, leaving a daughter and heiress. IV. Isabel de Warren, who married, first, William de Blois, a natural son of King Stephen ; and, secondly, Hameline Plan- tagenet, natural son of Geoffry Earl of Anjou, and half-brother to Henry H. William was Earl of Boulogne and Mortaigne, and, by his wife, possibly of Surrey. He died childless 1160. King Henry seems to have taken and held the earldoms for a while in his own hands, but, in 1163, Isabel married Hameline Piantagenet, who enjoyed her honours and estates and, 12 Henry II., paid scutage on sixty knights' fees. Hameline bore the probably 2 G