THE MANOR OF WAKEFIELD AND

SANDAL CASTLE.

HE Manor of Wakefield, we learn from Domesday Book, is very extensive, including that of Halifax, and stretching from Normanton to the boundaries of Lancashire and Cheshire.

It is more than

thirty miles in length from east to west, and comprises more than one hundred and eighteen towns, villages, and hamlets of these Wakefield and Halifax are the chief; and the two churches mentioned in Domesday are Wakefield and Sandal churches.

It is probable that the manor of Wakefield was granted, in the reign of William Rufus, between the years 1091 and 1097, to William de Warren, second Earl of Surrey, who by charter granted to God and St. Pancras of Lewes, besides other churches, the church of Wakefield, with its appurtenances. William, the first Earl of Warren, standing nearly allied to the Conqueror, viz. nephew to the Countess his great-grandmother, accompanied the Conqueror to England; and having distinguished himself at the battle of Hastings, obtained an immense portion of the spoil.

He had large grants of land in several counties: so extensive, indeed, were those grants, that his possessions more resembled the dominions of a sovereign prince than the estates of a subject. He was married to Gundred, the daughter of the Conqueror. This potent noble founded the priory of Lewes in Sussex, and endowed it with the church of Wakefield and Sandal Magna, besides lands. He died in 1089, and was buried in the chapter-house of his priory at Lewes. His wife Gundred died in 1085, about three years before him, and was also buried in the chapterhouse at Lewes.1

The great Earl was succeeded by his son William between 1091 and 1097; and he gave the churches of Conisboro

1 In October 1845, in the formation of the Brighton and Hastings Railway, the workmen had to cut through the site of Lewes Priory, the principal Cluniac monastery in England. At about two feet from the surface they met with an oblong leaden coffer, or chest, surrounded with Caen stones, upon removing which appeared legibly inscribed upon the upper end of the coffer-lid the name Gundrada. Next the workmen brought to light a second coffer, inscribed Willelm, which was at once assigned to William de Warrene. The lids of the coffers were not fastened, but merely flanged over the edges. Both were ornamented externally with a sort of lozenge or network pattern in relievo, such as our plumbers to this day ornament coffins with. The bones of both skeletons, and the teeth, were in fine preservation. The height of the Earl must have been from six feet one inch to six feet two inches, and that of the Countess from five feet seven inches to five feet eight inches. Mr. Lower, F.S.A., suggests that the letters are not of later date than the earlier part of the thirteenth century. Now the characters in the name of Gundrada tally exactly with those in the same word on her marble tomb extant in Southover church; thus establishing two facts: viz. first, that, after a separation of two cen

and Wakefield to his father's monastery. The Earl was slain in the Holy Land in 1147, and left only one daughter, his heiress; and this great lady could be given to no husband but one of royal extraction. She was first married to William of Blois, one of the sons of King Stephen, who died without issue in 1159. She was afterwards given by Henry II. to his half-brother Hameline, an illegitimate son of Geoffrey Earl of Anjou.

In charters of this date, we find a grant of pannage or liberty of hogs feeding in all the Earl's woods there, reserving only the rent of 2d. for every hog, and id. for every pig. That there was an immense wood upon Wakefield Heath in ancient times, is evident from these deeds; so

turies, the bones of the noble Gundreda and her tomb were again brought into juxtaposition; and secondly, the coffers, or cists, and the tomb are unquestionably coeval.

An interesting inquiry (says Mr. Lower) arises out of this discovery. The remains had certainly been removed from their original restingplace, and re-interred in the coffers, in conformity with a practice not unusual in early times. Gundrada died at Castle Acre, in Norfolk-vi partûs cruciata on the 27th of May 1085, and was buried at Lewes Priory, as proved by the charter of De Warrene, made shortly prior to his own decease, in which he expresses his desire to be interred by her side. The church is believed to have been the place of interment. As the convent increased in affluence, a new church was commenced building in 1243, but not finished until 1268; and Mr. Lower assumes, therefore, that the bodies of the founders were in this interval exhumed from the old church (which would then be dismantled) and deposited in the coffers for re-interment in the chapter-house, upon the site of which, there is reason to believe, the bones were found. The two coffers were subsequently placed in a tomb erected for their reception in Southover church. (See Curiosities of History, 1857, pp. 116-7.)

thick a wood, that a person was employed in directing travellers over that very place where now is the full road between Leeds and Wakefield.

We now pass over the manorial history, to Edward the eldest son of Edmund Langley Duke of York, who succeeded to the manor after his father's death, and was slain at Agincourt in 1415. Dying without issue, his estates came to his nephew, Richard Duke of York. Sandal Castle appears to have been a favourite residence of his. We find from William of Worcester, that the lords of the party of Lancaster were laying waste his lands in Yorkshire, when he hastened to Sandal Castle, and arrived there the 21st of December 1460. The battle of Wakefield ensued, in which he lost his life.1

This battle was fought on the 30th of December, and was indeed a fight of brother against brother; for on the side of the Yorkists there fell Sir John Harrington, who had married the sister of the Lord Clifford, who made himself but too conspicuous on the side of the Lancastrians. Sir Thomas (Sir John's father) also died of his wounds on the following day. As to the site of the battle of Wake

1 Although Shakspeare assigns a prominent part in the battle of Wakefield to Richard, where his father, the Duke of York, was taken and put to death, after exclaiming :

'Three times did Richard make a lane to me,

And thrice cried, Courage, father, fight it out!'

Richard (born 2d October 1452) was only in his ninth year when that battle was fought.

field, it has been supposed by some writers to have been fought on the flat meadows called the Pugneys, which stretch from the castle to the banks of the Calder; but, unluckily for those who have imagined the name to have been derived from the Latin pugna (a battle), and therefore indicative of the exact site of the bloody engagement, Mr. Lumb, the keeper of the Rolls Office at Wakefield, has discovered that the fields in that direction bore the name of Pukenall at least forty-seven years prior to the battle of Wakefield.

It is much more probable that the battle took place in front of the castle, and on the open space of ground which is even at the present day called Sandal Common. The spot where the Duke of York was killed upon the green is about four hundred yards from the castle, close to the old road from Barnsley, now called, from the sign of a public-house, Cock and Bottle Lane. It is a triangular piece of ground, in size about a rood or ten feet, with a fence about it, which the tenant of the place is bound by his lease to maintain; and it has been ever since the Duke's death free from taxes. Camden says that there was a cross erected on it to the memory of the Duke, which was destroyed in the Civil Wars. There have been two rings found on the site of the battle. inside, bore an inscription, Pur bon amour;' and outside were delineated the figures of three saints. Camden gives a print of it. The other ring had on it inscribed the letter R, and very probably belonged to the Duke of York.

The first, on the