Preface

Tutbury Castle and its Curious Tenures

From 'Abbeys Castles and Ancient Halls of England & Wales'  by Timbs & Gunn c1870

The masonry which has been added to the earlier defences is composed of a group of buildings on the south front, flanked by curtains, which run west and east along the top of the bank. This curtain, now about 6 feet, was originally 20 feet high, with a rampart accessible from its flanking tower and by a double flight of open steps from within. The east curtain is broken a lofty rectangular mural tower, which faced the turn of the road up to the Castle, on the opposite side of the ditch: the interior wall, with a square angled-turret, only remains. This tower is perpendicular in style and has evidently been blown up by gunpowder.

The Castle buildings have been broken down, but what remains is as sharp and fresh as though lately executed. The outward wall and altered windows remain of the great hall; at the west end is a brick building, probably of about the time of Queen Anne, or George II. At the east end is a group of state apartments. Here are two very fine crypts, no doubt cellars, entered from the court by handsome doorways and six or eight descending steps. They have been covered with barrel vaults, ribbed transversely and diagonally, with large carved bosses – fitted receptacles for the very best of drinks. Above there are handsome rooms, with chimney places with mouldings set with flowers and the “hart lodged” and what may be a conventional pomegranate. These buildings are in the best and perpendicular style. In the court is a deep well, still in use.

Tutbury, as mentioned in our account of Chartley, was one of the prison-houses of Mary Queen of Scots, in a low range of buildings at the south-east angle of the Castle. It originally consisted of two large rooms, an upper and a lower one; the former has disappeared; but the square holes in the wall are visible, in which the beams of the flooring were inserted. Of the lower apartment, the walls remain; the entrance is by a descent of several steps; It had a vaulted ceiling and the projecting ledges or supports afford by their accumulation of earth sufficient nourishment for brambles. The room is lighted by two small windows, deeply cut in the thick wall. The upper room had two large pointed windows, commanding a fine view, the extent of which, to its luckless prisoner Mary, must have made her narrow prison more irksome and dreary. She was removed hither from Chartley and placed under the care of George, Earl of Shrewsbury, then constable of Tutbury Castle. At Chartley the Queen had been placed under the care of  Sir Amias Paulet, when Anthony Babington, of Dethic and his accomplices attempted to rescue her: maintaining a correspondence with her by means of a hole in the wall, which they closed with a loose stone; the attempt however, ended in their own destruction and the removal of the Queen to Tutbury. “Like every other place of her confinement”, Says Mrs Howitt, “Chartley is a ruin. Crumbling walls, trees growing where rooms once were and inscribed with the names or initials of hundreds of visitors; tall weeds and melancholy yews, spreading around their shade – mark the spot as one fraught with many subjects of thought on the past and the present, on the changes of the times and of national character.

  Tutbury was held for the King and taken by the Parliament, in the wars of Charles I. Subsequently, by order of the House, it was reduced very nearly to the condition in which it is now seen.

Tutbury is a curious old place, with old services and customs, some of which are entitled to be called “Jocular Tenures,” Thus when John of Gaunt was lord of this Castle, Sir Philip Somervile the manor of Briddeshall by these services: that when his lord keepeth Christmas at his Castle of Tutbury, on Christmas Eve and be lodged in the town by the Marshal of the Earl’s house; and on Christmas-day he shall go to the dresser and carrying his lord’s mess to his table, shall carve the meat to his lord and this he shall do as well at supper as at dinner: and when his lord hath eaten, the said Sir Philip shall sit down in the same place where his lord has sat and shall be served at the table by the stewards of the Earl’s house. And upon St. Stephen’s Day, when he hath dined, he shall take his leave of his lord and shall kiss him; and for this service he shall nothing take and nothing give. These services Sir Philip performed to the Earl of Lancaster forty-eight years for the manor of Briddeshall.

  Sir Philip also held the manors of Tatenhall and Drycot, in this country, by the following services: that he, or his attorney, should go to the Castle of Tutbury, upon St. Peter’s day, in August and show the steward that he is come to hunt and take his lords greese, or wild swine, at the cost of his lord; whereupon, the steward shall cause to be delivered to Sir Philip on horse and saddle, worth 50 shillings, or that sum to provide one and one hound; and shall likewise pay to Sir Philip, for everyday to Holyrood-day, two shillings and sixpence for himself and one shilling for his servant and hound. And the woodmasters of the forest of Needlewood and Duffield, with all the parkers and foresters, are to attend upon Sir Philip, while their lords greese is taking in the said forest, as upon their master during that time; and at the expiration thereof , Sir Philip shall deliver up the horse and barcelet  (or hound), to the steward with whom he has dined on Holyrood-day at the Castle of Tutbury, he shall kiss the porter and depart.

  But the most extraordinary custom at this place was the barbarous diversion called Tutbury Bull-running, the origin of which is too curious to be omitted. During the time that the ancient Earls and Dukes of Lancaster hade their abode and kept a liberal hospitality at their honour at Tutbury, great numbers of people resorted here from all parts, for whose diversion musicians were permitted to come, to pay their services. At length quarrels arose, when it was necessary to form rules for a proper regulation of these services and a governor was appointed by the name of King, who had officers under him to see the laws executed; As appears by the charter granted to the King of the Minstrels, by John of Gaunt dated August 22, 4^th of King Richard II. In the reign of Henry VI, the Prior of Tutbury – for there was an abbey founded here by Henry de Ferrers, for Benedictine monks, which Abbey was richly endowed and remained in great splendour until the reformation – gave the minstrels, who came to matins there on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a bull to be taken on this side the river Dove, or else the prior paid them forty pence. This custom continued after the Reformation, with Alterations.

  On the 16^th August the minstrels met in a body at the house of the bailiff, where they were joined by the steward of the manor, from whence they marched in couples, to church, the King of the minstrels walking between the steward and the bailiff, with music playing, each of the four under officers carrying a white wand immediately following and then the rest of the company. Being seated in the church, prayers were read and a sermon preached, for which each of the minstrels paid the Vicar a penny. From hence they returned in procession to the large hall in the Castle, where the King sitting between the bailiff and steward, made a report of such minstrels had offended against the statutes, when the guilty were fined a small sum. Moreover, to exhort them better to mind their duty, the steward gave them a long charge; in which he expatiated largely upon the origin and excellence of music; its power upon the passions; how the use of it had always been allowed in praising and glorifying God; and although it might sometimes be demeaned by vagabonds and rogues, he maintained that such societies as theirs, legally founded and governed by strict rules, were by no means included in that statute. This charge being finished and various forms gone through, they retired to the great hall, where an excellent dinner was provided and the overplus given to the poor.

  The next object was the taking of the bull, for which purpose the minstrels repaired to the Abbey-gate and demanded him of the prior; afterwards the went to a barn by the town-side, where the bull was turned out with his horns cut off, his ears cropped and his tail diminished to the very stump, his body besmeared with soap; and his nostrils filled with pepper, to increase his fury. Being then let loose; the steward proclaimed that none were to come nearer to the bull that forty feet, nor to hinder the minstrels, but to attend to their own safety. The minstrels were to take him before sunset, on this side of the river, which if they failed to do and he escaped into Derbyshire, he still remained the lord’s property. It was seldom possible to take him fairly, but if they held him long enough to cut off some of his hair, he was then brought to the market-cross, or bull-ring and there baited; after which the minstrels were entitled to the bull.

  Hence originated the rustic sport of Bull-running, which, before the close of the last century, had become a horrible practice. The harmony of the minstrels had turned to discord and noise; their solemn and harmless festivity into rioting and drunkenness and the white wands of the officers into clubs and destructive weapons. In short, the sport had got to such a pitch of madness and cruelty, that not content with torturing the poor bull, the people fell in the most savage manner upon each other, so that it became a faction fight between the mobs of the two counties; and seldom a year passed without great outrages and frequently loss of life. Happily, the Duke of Devonshire, who had become owner of the Castle and lord on the manor, abolished the inhuman custom.

  The hivie-skivie and tag-rag of the scene are thus noticed in a ballad of the early part of the last century:

“Before we came to it, we heard a strange shouting,

And all that were in it look’d madly;

For some were a bull-back, some dancing a Morrice,

And some singing Arthur O’Bradley!”

“With awful sorrow I behold

Yon cliff that frowns with ruins old;

Stout Ferrars* there kept faithless ward,

And Gaunt performed his castle-guard**

There captive Mary*** look’d in vain

For Norfolk and her nuptial train;

Enrich’d with royal tears the Dove,

But sigh’d for freedom not for love.

‘Twas once the seat of festive state,

Where high-born dames and nobles sat;

While minstrels each in order heard,

Their venerable songs preferr’d

False memory of its state remains

In the rude sport of brutal swains.

Now serpents hiss and foxes dwell

Amidst the mouldering citadel;

And time but spares those broken towers

In mockery of human powers.”

* Robert de Ferrars joining a rebellion against Henry III., forfeited the possession of Tutbury

** A service imposed upon those to whom castles and estates adjoining were granted.

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