Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/449

 Cockermouth Castle, Cumberland. 415 tract of high land which is bounded by two rivers. The position is not the less strong, and is such as either Britons, Romans, or Saxons might very well have availed themselves of. There is, however, no positive evidence that they did so, and nothing now seen is of necessity older, or as old, as the Conquest. The foundations of the western tower, and of the greater part of its contiguous curtains, so far as they contain the upper ward, are probably Norman, and may be the work of William de Meschines, in the reign of Henry I. As the works could scarcely have been confined to so small an area as the present upper ward, it is probable that the whole of the pre- sent area was included in the Norman castle, and that the cross ditch was then excavated. How the area was then occupied, where was the hall, where the kitchen, does not appear; probably not on the present site, seeing that the windows are evident insertions in, and the buttresses additions to, the north curtain. Moreover, no part of the line of buildings dividing the upper from the lower ward shows any trace of Norman work. Whatever or wherever were the Norman buildings, they probably stood until the Decorated period, or early in the fourteenth century, when the present cross buildings, the kitchen and the hall, seem to have been erected, and much of the curtain rebuilt or strengthened. The outer gatehouse and the south-eastern tower are not unlikely to be of the same date, though there have been large additions to, and alterations in, the former building, in the Perpendicular period, when the barbican was added. The Tudor windows in the upper ward are the only traces of still later alterations. The effects of the Parliamentary strife upon the building, beyond the removal of the roofs, do not appear to have been serious ; and, as the gatehouse seems always to have been inhabited, no doubt some sort of atten- tion was paid to it, and to the flag tower. More recently, a dwelling- house has been built within the area, within one window of which hangs a curious relic of the past, in the shape of an escutcheon of Percy and Lucy quartered, in old stained glass. The remodelling of the Norman castle in the Decorated period was probably the work of Anthony de Lucy, who held the lordship from 2 Edward H. to 17 Edward HL, and was an active soldier, a great military chief in the counties of Cumberland and Westmore- land, and likely enough to put into the best possible order a castle important both to his own estates and to the national frontier com- mitted to his charge. The Perpendicular additions, including the armorial shields over the gateway, must have been later than 22 Richard H., when Maud, the Lucy heiress, carried Cockermouth Castle to Henry Percy, who agreed to quarter her arms. The Umfranville shield commemorates Maud's first husband, Gilbert, Earl of Angus. The Nevile shield is that of Henry Percy's first wife, who was a daughter of Ralph Lord Nevile. As this Henry was a very considerable person, and survived till 1408, it is probable that he built or rebuilt the upper part of the gatehouse between 1388-9 and 1408.