Rochester Castle / by Charles Henry Hartshorne.

  • Charles Henry Hartshorne
Date:
[1863]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rochester Castle / by Charles Henry Hartshorne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    great utility, as will hereafter be seen, in protecting the kingdom from invasion. A charter of King Offa, granted in the following year, 789, gives one plough land to Bishop Weremund for the use of the church placed in the castle named Hrofescaester. The Church of St. Andrew became subsequently enriched by donations of land in 811, by Coenwulf, King of the Mercians. It was enriched also by three endowments of a similar kind in different years, 842, 850, 855, by JEthelwulf. In the last of them, the Castle of Hrobi is again spoken of as being a boundary of his gift. There are numerous other instruments relating to the see, but as they make no allusion to the present castle, it would be only a waste of time to notice them. Enough has been said to show that there is sufficient evidence to prove both the ancient existence of a castle at Rochester before the Con- quest, and its immediate connection with the see founded by the piety of iEthelbert. There is now a considerable break in the history of the bishopric. It has continuously been followed for nearly two centuries and a half, but the line of succession of those enjoy- ing it can no longer be traced with the same precision. During the interval elapsing between the death of iEthelwulf in 855, and the next mention of the castle, six Anglo-Saxon princes had enriched the monastery of St. Andrew, whilst they governed Wessex. This embraces a period of rather more than two hundred years, and brings down the general history rather abruptly to the time when Lanfranc sat at Canterbury, and William had nearly secured the conquest of England. The survey of Domesday shows that an exchange of land was made by the Conqueror and the Bishop of Bayeux. Odo received land at Aylesford as an equivalent for the site where William built his castle at Rochester.4 In the year 1088 a great dissension arose amongst the English nobility in consequence of part of his Norman follow- ers favoring his own cause, whilst others, who were the more numerous party, were desirous of establishing Robert, Earl of Normandy, on the throne. The earl’s chief supporter was Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. This royal prelate was one of the 4 Epi-scopus etiam de Rouecestre pro tantum de hac terra tenet quod 17s. id, excambio terre in qua castellum sedet, valet. Domeoday, vol. i. p. 2, b.
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