THE HISTORY OF WARWICK CASTLE

AND THE EARLS OF WARWICK

From website: http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk

The earliest military strategist to make use of the area's defensive features was Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great. With Danish invaders threatening Mercia, the central Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Ethelfleda ordered the building in AD 914 of a 'burh' or an earthen rampart to protect the small hill top settlement of Warwick.

It was, in fact, another invader who was responsible for the first true castle built on the present site. William the Conqueror, wanting to consolidate the Norman Conquest in the midlands and north of England, established a motte and bailey fort here in 1068 as a means of holding the area and securing his lines of supply. William appointed one of his followers, Henry de Beaumont (c. 1088-1119), as Castellan or Constable. The castle would then have consisted of a large earth mound with a timber stockade around both the top and base. It was not until later in the 12th century that stone structures started to replace these wooden ones.

At some point during his stewardship, de Beaumont underwent a change of name and became known, at least locally, as de Newburgh. Five of his descendants duly followed in their forefather's footsteps as Earls of Warwick. The last of these, Thomas, died in 1242 without an heir and the castle and estates passed to his sister Margaret. Margaret's marriage to John du Plessis (1242-63) was childless and, as a consequence, in 1263 the title changed hands once more, the mantle this time falling to her cousin William Mauduit.

Mauduit suffered the misfortune of becoming Earl during the Barons' War, a violent trial of strength between Henry III and a group of dissident nobles resentful of Henry's court policies.

William sided with the king. In the event this proved not an altogether wise move since Kenilworth Castle, the stronghold of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and leader of the rebellious barons, lay just 8 kilometres away. Despite the alarming proximity of his enemy, Mauduit did little to prepare for the defence of Warwick Castle. It was no surprise therefore, except perhaps to William himself, when John Giffard, Governor of Kenilworth, attached in 1264, breached the castle walls, captured Mauduit and his wife and held them to ransom. On his death in 1268, Mauduit was succeeded by his nephew William de Beauchamp. So began a dynasty that was to last 148 years and bring Warwick Castle to the height of its fortunes.

William de Beauchamp (1268-98) made his name as a military commander serving under Edward I. Reflecting the growing importance of the de Beauchamps, his son Guy

(1298-1315) was one of a group of earls known as the Ordainers. With their own interests firmly at heart, they aimed to impose, through a list of 'ordinances' or constitutional demands, some form of control over the way the king, Edward II, both raised his revenue and governed the kingdom.

For some Ordainers, complaints about royal power (especially royal spending power) centred on the role at court of Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight and the king's lover. At a time of heightened political tension in 1312, Gaveston, promised that his life would be safe, surrendered to the Ordainer earls. However, Guy de Beauchamp seized the prisoner and brought him to Warwick Castle. After a perfunctory trial, which may have been held in the Great Hall, Gaveston was sentenced to death and beheaded on Blacklow Hill, just outside Warwick. Although Guy died three years later in 1315, his very young son did not succeed to the title until 1329 because of his minority. Thomas de Beauchamp (1329-69) came of age on the verge of the outbreak of the Hundred Years War with France.

In 1337 Edward III restated the claim of the Plantagenets to the French throne and, in 1338, the long conflict began. Thomas emerged as one of the king's favoured commanders. He fought at

Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) and was among the first men to be made a Knight of the Garter. Such was his position in the ranks of the English army that he became military adviser to Edward III's son, the Black Prince. It was Thomas, too, who started the massive 14th century reconstruction of Warwick Castle.

The fate of his son, Thomas the younger (1370-97, 1399-1401), was bound up with the domestic feuds and political purges which marked the reign of Richard II. In another contest of wills between elements of the nobility and the crown, Thomas and four other lords forced Richard, at the 'Merciless Parliament' of 1388, to dismiss or execute some of his court favourites. In 1397, Richard had his revenge. Sensing that political circumstances were on his side, he brought the lords of 1388 to trial. Warwick confessed to treachery. He was exiled to the Isle of Man and his lands and title were forfeited. It was only when Richard was usurped by Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) in 1399 that Thomas could return to reclaim his inheritance.

The next in line, Thomas' son Richard (1401-39), became perhaps the most prominent Beauchamp of all. Like his grandfather before him, Richard's reputation was forged during an intense phase of the Hundred Years War. Henry V had faith enough in his abilities to make him tutor to his young son, the future Henry VI. When, in 1431, the English bought the captive Joan of Arc for a ransom fee, it fell to Richard de Beauchamp as Captain of Calais, to superintend her trial for supposed heresy and her subsequent execution by burning in the market place at Rouen in northern France. War proved profitable for Richard. It certainly made him enough money to continue with the expensive rebuilding programme at the castle.

Richard's son, Henry (1439-46), had grown up as a companion to the boy King Henry VI. In 1445, the king made his childhood friend the first Duke of Warwick. But he was also the last, the title dying with him in the very next year. Henry was survived only by a baby daughter and when she died at the age of five the earldom and lands passed to Henry's sister, Anne Beauchamp. In the late 1440s Anne married Richard Neville and the de Beauchamp dynasty came to an end.

No Earl of Warwick held sway in the kingdom to quite the extent that Neville did, albeit briefly. Throughout the course of the Wars of the Roses, Warwick, in helping to depose both Henry VI and Edward IV, won himself the title Kingmaker. But the ambition that lifted him to such heights led also to his downfall. On Neville's defeat and death at the battle of Barnet in 1471, the castle and the estates were awarded by Edward IV to his own brother, George, Duke of Clarence.

Clarence had a history of disloyalty (at one time he had been Neville's ally in the Wars of the Roses) and, despite his defection to Edward IV, he had never really taken his eyes off the throne. Suspected of intriguing against Edward, he was imprisoned and killed in 1478. One last knot was to tie Warwick Castle to the Wars of the Roses. After the execution of Clarence, his brother, Richard of Gloucester (future King Richard III), took possession of the castle. His wife Anne was Neville's younger daughter.

The title of Earl of Warwick was retained by Clarence's son, Edward (1478-99), though it brought him little good. As the last Plantagenet (and therefore a possible rival to the Tudor king, Henry VII), he was kept in the Tower of London. There he lingered from 1485 until 1499 when he was executed for allegedly conspiring with the second of the two pretenders to the throne,

Perkin Warbeck. There was no natural successor to Edward and the castle stayed as property of the crown. Under Henry VIII work was carried out to reinforce the walls on the river front.

In 1547, however, a young Edward VI granted the rightful title to John Dudley, a member of the Protectorate which had been set up to help the 9-year old king rule in the years immediately after the death of Henry VIII. From 1550, the new Earl of Warwick exercised immense influence in the running of the country. But Edward's ill-health made his position less than totally secure and the king's early death in 1553 left Dudley facing that he had long feared: the prospect of Edward's sister, Mary, ascending the throne and his downfall from power. His response, in a move which had Edward's blessing before he died, was to place his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne. The coup, its support melting away, lasted barely two weeks. It ended with Mary Tudor reclaiming her right to rule and with Dudley, his son Guilford and Lady Jane Grey executed for treason.

Under Elizabeth I, who succeeded Mary, the Dudley family found itself back in favour. Elizabeth not only created Ambrose Dudley, Guilford's brother, Earl of Warwick (1561-90), she also granted him the castle. Ambrose died in 1590 without an heir and the estate reverted back to the Crown.

In 1604, James I presented the by now dilapidated castle to Sir Fulke Greville. (The title Earl of Warwick, however, was conferred upon Lord Rich in 1618 and it remained in his family until 1759). Greville, who had already served Elizabeth in office, was James I's Chancellor of the Exchequer for a number of years. When he left the post, in 1621, Greville (coming from an age when it was possible to be a poet, a courtier and a public servant) was elevated to the peerage as Baron Brooke. Following his murder at the hands of his discontented manservant, the estate went to his adopted heir, Robert Greville, 2nd Lord Brooke.

At the outset of the Civil War, he was appointed Commander of Parliamentary forces in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. In August 1642, the castle, under Sir Edward Peyto, saw off a feeble siege by royalist troops. After Robert Greville's death, in action at Lichfield, the castle passed to each of his three sons over the next few years. It went first to his eldest, Francis

(1643-58), and then to a younger son, Robert (1658-77).

Not apparently sharing his father's radical, idealistic outlook, Robert played a part in the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Like Francis, he died without any children and it was the turn of the third brother to inherit. Fulke Greville, 5th Lord Brooke (1677-1710), was elected to

Parliament and helped with the repair of the town of Warwick after a disastrous fire in 1694.

The 8th Lord Brooke, Francis Greville, married Elizabeth, the sister of Sir William Hamilton. This was the same William Hamilton whose wife Emma enjoyed a tempestuous and public affair with Lord Nelson. When the Rich family died out in 1759, Francis successfully petitioned for the title Earl of Warwick, so reuniting the earldom and the castle once more. In the 1750s he commissioned Lancelot 'Capability' Brown to landscape the gardens.

His son George Greville (1773-1816) showed an equal zeal for improving the look and style of the castle. He put the finishing touches to the State Rooms and bought many of the paintings and pieces of furniture now on display. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm ran somewhat ahead of his bank account. By 1804 he was forced to sell off outlying estates in order to keep himself solvent

Finances had become less of a problem by the time Francis Richard Greville (1893-1924) and his wife Frances (Daisy) were holding their high society parties of the 1890s. Their son Leopold, known as Guy (1924-28), who married Elfrida Marjorie Eden, older sister of the future Prime Minister Anthony Eden, was a Reuter's correspondent in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and later a Brigadier General in the Canadian army during World War I.

The 7th Greville Earl, Charles Guy, (1928-84), using the stage name of Michael Brooke, tried his hand at breaking into Hollywood films. His career peaked with a supporting role in Dawn Patrol (1938) starring Errol Flynn and David Niven. He also created a cinema screen on the roof of the castle which is still there today. In November 1978, his son David sold Warwick Castle to The Tussaud's Group.

Since then The Tussaud's Group have carried out extensive restoration work and opened up substantial areas of the castle previously closed to the public. In 1982 the Royal Weekend Party was opened which used the expertise of the Tussaud's Studios, introducing wax portraits into the castle. The Victorian Rose Garden was opened by HRH The Princess of Wales in 1986 having been restored back to its original design. The largest investment has been the multi-million pound Kingmaker attraction, in the mediaeval undercroft which was opened in 1994. HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh were given a tour of Kingmaker during their visit to the castle in November 1996. On this visit Her Majesty also unveiled a commemorative sword.

THE EARLS OF WARWICK

1088-1119 HENRY DE NEWBURGH

1119-1153 ROGER DE NEWBURGH

1153-1184 WILLIAM DE NEWBURGH

1184-1203 WALERAN DE NEWBURGH

1203-1229 HENRY DE NEWBURGH

1229-1242 THOMAS DE NEWBURGH

1242-1263 JOHN DU PLESSIS

1263-1268 WILLIAM MAUDUIT

1268-1298 WILLIAM DE BEAUCHAMP

1298-1315 GUY DE BEAUCHAMP

1329-1369 THOMAS DE BEAUCHAMP

1369-1401 THOMAS DE BEAUCHAMP

1401-1439 RICHARD BEAUCHAMP

1439-1446 HENRY BEAUCHAMP (also first and only Duke, 1445-1446)

1446-1449 ANNE BEAUCHAMP

1449-1471 RICHARD NEVILLE (The Kingmaker)

1472-1478 GEORGE PLANTAGENT (Duke of Clarence)

1478-1499 EDWARD PLANTAGENT

1499-1547 CROWN PROPERTY (1499-1509, Henry VII, 1509-1547, Henry VIII)

1547-1553 JOHN DUDLEY I

1553-1554 JOHN DUDLEY II

1561-1590 AMBROSE DUDLEY

1590-1604 CROWN PROPERTY (1590-1603, Elizabeth I, 1603-1604, James I)

1604-1628 SIR FULKE GREVILLE (owned the castle as Baron Brooke while the Earldom was held by the Rich family. The Greville's were granted the Earldom in 1759)

1618-1619 ROBERT RICH I

1619-1658 ROBERT RICH II

1621-1628 SIR FULKE GREVILLE

1658-1659 ROBERT RICH III

1659-1673 CHARLES RICH

1673-1675 ROBERT RICH IV

1675-1701 EDWARD RICH I

1701-1721 EDWARD HENRY RICH

1721-1759 EDWARD RICH II

1759-1773 FRANCIS GREVILLE

1773-1816 GEORGE GREVILLE

1816-1853 HENRY RICHARD GREVILLE

1853-1893 GEORGE GUY GREVILLE

1893-1924 FRANCIS RICHARD GREVILLE

1924-1928 LEOPOLD GUY GREVILLE

1928-1984 CHARLES GUY GREVILLE

1984-1996 DAVID GREVILLE

1996- GUY GREVILLE