Malmesbury Castle was a castle in the town of
Malmesbury
Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the up ...
,
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Details
The town of Malmesbury was an important settlement in the early medieval period, both as a trading centre and as the site of
Malmesbury Abbey
Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution ...
. Early in the 12th century the Abbey came under the control of Bishop
Roger of Salisbury
Roger of Salisbury (died 1139), was a Norman medieval bishop of Salisbury and the seventh Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England.
Life
Roger was originally priest of a small chapel near Caen in Normandy. He was called "Roger, priest of the ch ...
who built a
motte and bailey
A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortification ...
castle close to the abbey adjacent to the church.
[Wiltshire County Archaeology Service, p.7.] In 1139 King
Stephen of England
Stephen (1092 or 1096 – 25 October 1154), often referred to as Stephen of Blois, was King of England from 22 December 1135 to his death in 1154. He was Count of Boulogne '' jure uxoris'' from 1125 until 1147 and Duke of Normandy from 1135 u ...
had become concerned about the loyalty of Roger and several other bishops and seized their castles, including Malmesbury. The civil war of
the Anarchy
The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin, the only legiti ...
broke out shortly afterwards between Stephen and the rival claimant for the throne, the
Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda ( 7 February 110210 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude, was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as ...
, in which Malmesbury Castle played an active part.
At the start of the Anarchy, the local baron Robert fitz Hugh seized Malmesbury Castle from Stephen in 1139, but the king recaptured it shortly afterwards, sacking the town in the process. The castle became used by local royal forces to raid the surrounding countryside, much to the complaint of contemporary chroniclers. In 1144
Robert of Gloucester unsuccessfully besieged the castle, and it remained in royal hands until taken by the future
Henry II in 1153 towards the end of the civil war.
Malmesbury Castle
', the Gatehouse website, accessed 31 May 2011. In the reign of
King John the local monks petitioned to have the castle destroyed; the king agreed and it was demolished in the early 13th century.
[
Today no remains of the castle survive, and archaeology has yet to precisely identify the site of the castle within the modern town.][Wiltshire County Archaeology Service, p.18.]
See also
*Castles in Great Britain and Ireland
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 10 ...
*List of castles in England
This list of castles in England is not a list of every building and site that has "castle" as part of its name, nor does it list only buildings that conform to a strict definition of a castle as a medieval fortified residence. It is not a li ...
Bibliography
* Davis, R. H. C. (1977)
King Stephen.
' London: Longman. .
* Pounds, Norman John Greville. (1994)
The Medieval Castle in England and Wales: a social and political history.
' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
* Wiltshire County Archaeology Service. (2004)
The Archaeology of Wiltshire's Towns, An Extensive Urban Survey: Malmesbury.
' Trowbridge, UK: Wiltshire County Archaeology Service.
References
{{Authority control
Castles in Wiltshire