The fact that each castle is interesting in its own way hardly needs anyone to convince. It's like someone else's apartment - you go in and see the imprint of the owners' personality on everything. And here is the "imprint of the personality" of the owner of the castle, and … his architect and era, and even about the events that took place around some castles and inside them, one could talk for hours. What horrible murder can happen, for example, in our modern apartment? Well, the son and father, on the basis of the hostile relationship that arose between them, which became the result of drinking alcohol, killed each other - one with a blow with a frying pan, the other with a kitchen knife. And, of course, this is a tragedy. But let us recall what Walter Scott writes in his novel Ivanhoe about the black deeds going on in the castles of the Norman lords. I won't even cite an excerpt, it's easier to look at it on the web. But there were castles, for example, in the same England, where kings were killed in dark dungeons, and they were even subtly killed so that no traces were left on the body.
Ruins of the castle of Corfe.
In a word, the history of the castles is very interesting, and they themselves are surrounded by some strange attractive atmosphere. You look at them and think: what's good - ruins, piles of stones, but for some reason I want to go there. So in England there are many fairly comfortable and well-preserved castles, but … people go to where, in general, there are only ruins and … they look at what? On them!
Everything is like in "Harry Potter", isn't it? But this is England …
So on the top of one of the hills called Purbeck, located in the English county of Dorset, you can see just such ruins. These are the ruins of Corfe Castle, whose history is shrouded in secrets and legends, and the walls are witnesses of countless conspiracies, betrayals and numerous murders.
Corfe Castle: bird's eye view.
For some reason, everyone is talking about some kind of mystical atmosphere that envelops this castle, and that it is especially well felt at sunrise or sunset, when you are standing on one of the neighboring hills. Probably, many stood like this on these hills and thought … about what? About how it would be better to capture him, how many people and weapons there are and … about his own greatness in case such a thing succeeds.
Photo of the late 19th century.
Corfe Castle is a ruin. But it is located almost in the middle of the village of the same name, and just in its western part archaeologists have found burials of the Bronze Age. That is, people came here and settled on these hills a long time ago, and … what, I wonder, attracted them here?
View of the castle from East Street. Photo of 1976.
It is known that the VI century BC. the Celtic people of the Durotrigi migrated to this land from the upper Danube. And they were not only a warlike people, but also experienced farmers, and in addition were so civilized that even before the Roman conquest they minted their own coins. The Durotrigs built large settlements in both Dorset and neighboring Somerset and Wiltshire. According to the tradition of that time, such settlements were surrounded by a wooden palisade or surrounded by an earthen embankment. In the village of Corfe, the castle is visible from everywhere!
This was the castle of Corfe before Cromwell's sappers "worked" on it. A model that can be seen in the village of Korf.
Since the Celts did not have a written language as such, we know about the life of the Durotrigs from the Greeks and Romans, so there is little information about them, because for both they were just barbarians living on the border of civilization.
Castle in winter.
So, in "The Life of the Twelve Caesars" Suetonius mentions the battle between this people and the II Augustus legion, which was commanded by Vespasian. This happened in 43, but already in 70, the Durotrigs became part of Roman Britain and no longer rebelled.
The modern plan of the castle.
There is a legend, later recorded by the historian Thomas Hardy, that on the Purbeck hills, where the Durotrigi lived, the Roman legion simply took and … disappeared. And now, in the morning fog, one can sometimes see the warriors-ghosts of this legion, marching towards the settlement of the local Celts. Be that as it may, but the battle between the Romans and the Durotrigs at Maiden Castle really took place, and in it the natives were defeated by the Romans.
Castle plan from 1586.
However, later, when the Romans left Britain, various Scandinavian and also Germanic tribes began to raid these lands. Both the Saxons and the Danes were able to gain a foothold on the Purbeck hills, and immediately began to fight against each other - after all, killing people who spoke a foreign language at that time was almost the most beloved human occupation. It is interesting that when in 875 the king of the Saxons Alfred concluded a peace agreement with the leader of the Danes, Hubba, they managed to live in peace for only two years, and then it was violated, and the war began again.
In that year, a large-scale naval battle took place, in which Alfred and his army managed to sink 120 ships near Cape Peveril. Wanting to protect their lands from raids from the sea, King Alfred the Great ordered to build a castle on the highest hill in this place. And it was the very first Saxon fort on the site of the future Corfe castle.
An embrasure for archers.
Here on March 18, 978, the teenage King Edward arrived with his half-brother Ethelred to visit his stepmother, the Saxon queen Elfrida. And then the legend says that she killed her stepson in order to put Ethelred on the throne.
Today, costumed games are held on the territory of the castle: in this case, the Vikings fight the Saxons.
Within a year, however, Edward's remains were exhumed and, it was said, miraculously survived - a sure sign of holiness among Christians. Then he was reburied at Shaftesbury Abbey, and a cult of veneration for his memory soon developed around him. His remains came to be regarded as sacred relics and were hidden during the persecution of monasteries that took place during the reign of Henry VIII. The bones of the saint themselves, as they say, have already been discovered in the ruins of the abbey in 1931 and today are transferred … to the Orthodox Church of St. Edward Martyr in Brookwood, Surrey. You will be there, worship them, and maybe you will be rewarded from this saint, but in that distant past, the death of Edward only weakened the kingdom. The people knew the new king as thelred the Unreadable and was not very respected. The Danes took advantage of this and intensified the onslaught on the coast. There is a wonderful film, shot by cinematographers of the USSR and Norway, "And trees grow on the stones …". So there is about these Danes and their pirate habits, although other coastal peoples also did not differ in particular piety. However, be that as it may, but in the western wall in the inner part of the castle there are still fragments of the masonry that have come down to us from the palace of Elfrida.
The main entrance to the castle.
From that time on, the ominous glory of the castle of Corfe began, which experienced so many bloody events, as, perhaps, did not fall to the lot of any other castle in England.
Bridge and gate between the towers.
The Norman period in the history of this castle began in 1066. It all began with the fact that, in addition to the old walls and chambers in the castle, the main tower was built for King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror at the beginning of the 12th century. Its ruins still look very impressive, because they rise to a height of 21 m, and even are on a hill 55 meters high.
Ruins of the southwest gate.
Bridge pillars to the southwest gate.
Since Henry I did not leave behind a legitimate male heir, his daughter Matilda, who was supported by her husband Joffrey Plantagenet and the Anjou royal house, claimed the throne. But she ruled for only one year, and then she was overthrown from the throne by her nephew Stefan, a representative of the royal house of Blois. So the civil war began in England. Stefan's army laid siege to the castle of Corfe, but despite the fierce siege that Matilda shared with the soldiers, he survived thanks to the efforts of her loyal companion and experienced commander Baldwin de Redver. However, Matilda still lost the war, and was forced to leave the castle of Corfe and go to Normandy, where her husband ruled.
The same southwest gate. View from the side of the castle.
Then Corfe Castle became one of the five main royal castles in England. King John (John the Landless) kept his royal treasures here. And then King Edward II was also kept here in custody. People here were tortured, killed, and for some reason it was King Henry VII who gave it to his mother. Henry VIII again turned it into the property of the crown. But his daughter Elizabeth the Virgin, in turn, gave Corfe as a gift to her chancellor, Christopher Hutton.
The impressive ruins of the North Tower.
He began with the fact that … he strengthened all the fortifications of the castle even more, explaining this by the fact that a war with Spain was planned ahead of England. And the war really took place, only the Great Armada passed by these lands. Korf, however, remained in private ownership. Then the Hatton family sold him to the Banks family, and it was not just a wealthy family - Sir John Banks at the court of Charles I was not just anyone, but the Chief Justice.
Tourists visiting the cannon from the times of Oliver Cromwell.
During the Second English Civil War (1642-1651), the Banks family sided with King Charles I and supported him against Cromwell. And it so happened that the head of the family died at that time, and his widow, the brave lady Mary Banks, together with 80 soldiers, managed to withstand two long sieges, which the parliamentary troops subjected the castle to. True, in the end the castle fell due to the betrayal of one of the soldiers.
And there is a legend that a royalist officer named … Cromwell made his way to her castle and offered to help her escape, but the determined lady still remained in her house. As a result, Korf fell, Cromwell ordered not to spare the gunpowder and blow it up. But … the story is a funny thing: the defeated Lady Banks lived to see Cromwell's corpse taken out of the grave and hung up on the gallows, Charles II returned to England amid the cheering shouts of the crowd. Well, for her loyalty to the throne, all of her lands, confiscated by the decision of parliament, were returned to her!
Portrait of Lady Banks.
And the castle of Corfe - or rather what was left of it, and the land around it belonged to the Banks family until 1982, when its next owner, Ralph Banks, transferred the entire estate to the so-called National Trust, an organization responsible for the preservation of the cultural heritage of Britain. so it is an important national tourist destination today!
Everything you want for tourists, including a typical 17th century English cottage.
If someone is interested in knowing the history of this rather unusual, shall we say, castle and its inhabitants, then he can read the book published in English "The Story of Corfe Castle, and of Many Who have Lived There" by George Bankes, which can be buy in online stores.
