Bodiam Castle

em was built in the late 14th century but its story begins a hundred years earlier in Wales at the end of the 13th century Edward the first conquered Wales with a string of impregnable fortress designed to enforce the submission of his new subjects these castles were built to an enclosure design a courtyard surrounded by strong walls their shape was determined by military considerations domestic buildings just had to fit inside as best they could by the time we get to Beau diem however the priorities of castle builders have changed enormously it's still an enclosure castle but the shape is much more irregular it's much more stylish in fact this is almost a perfect square now clearly what's happened here is when the castle has been designed accommodation has been thought about first and defence has been thought about afterwards so if you take away the gatehouse and the towers and the turrets on top what you end up with is the shape of the courtyard house of course castles have always been homes to their owners but beaudion goes a long way towards being a house so where its defences real ones or just for show poor old beaudion castle has taken a bit of a bashing in recent years not from siege engines but from critics we've argued that it's not really a very defensible place at all they've pointed out things like that big window there behind me they've said you could easily smash a missile through a window as big as that and they've also pointed out that the walls are much much thinner than the walls of castles of the 12th and 13th centuries while it's got battlements on the top there are no arrow loops anywhere in the castle those tiny little openings there in that tower just windows but most of the criticism has been directed towards the moat now the moat looks big and impressive but well just have a look at this here this is a plug hole that was put in in the 20th century and if you pulled out the plug the water would run down through this earth embankment and come out there where the ground is much much lower that's the natural level of the land but you can see even without the plug in the 14th century a group of men with picks and shovels could easily hack through this embankment and it's argued drain the moat in a day so why bother building a castle with such a weedy defences in the first place well part of its to do with visual impact as an attacker you couldn't tell just by looking at the outside how thick the walls are and the reflection in the water gives you twice the castle for your money the fact that would not have been lost on the ostentatious Edward Dandridge so is there anything to be said for podiums defenses well I think the answer is yes quite a lot really even if you could drain this moat you're still going to be faced with a vast expanse of mud which is going to be ankle to knee deep to get across the only way really to get across this mode is to use the bridges and that bridge wasn't there in the Middle Ages the bridge originally went from here to over there so if you're coming across it you've got flanking fire on your right-hand side from the castle and as you come through this bit you've got a Barbican and outwork with a big portcullis a big strong gate so even if you're lucky enough and determined enough to get to this causeway well the time you get here you've got a big gap where the drawbridge has gone up and even if by some miracle you manage to get that down you're confronted with this mighty gate now if you're inside this castle you're going to feel pretty secure because the gatehouse is so well designed you've got all the usual features you've got murder hole so you can shut down quick lying or hot sand you've got portcullises there's a groove for a big portcullis and you've got big sturdy oak doors but because it's the 14th century you've got a new trick up your sleeve you've got gum loops but are the gun loops effective or are they just for show this is not the sort of kind of new dove used against castles this was used at point-blank range against men soldiers attacking so we're going to pour our charge in here we're going to use about half of this which is about an ounce is there any danger of this exploding when it goes is this this particular one though I mean the way that this has been reconstructed is very much stronger than the originals but the original guns did explode quite frequently we're going to put some warning in next please and grass here but I mean really they use whatever they could get their hands on this isn't okay right are we gonna run it home okay what you see it's just a piece of stick it's nothing more technical now okay what we're firing this gun is is this kind of stuff it's called hail shot it's not a single projectile not a ball or an error no it's basically what we've got here is a very large sawed-off shotgun so are we all ready to fire more or less the next thing we need to do is to pour it some powder in we've got a nice puddle on top of the gun there we go stick this stuff on here it's called match Masha's yeah but it's basically it's just some some rope which has been soaked in saltpeter so they're all small get continuously you didn't really a nice things to be quite honest with you you saw a large group of people you ruffian in their direction and you fight and you pray to God it didn't blow up on it right have a care oh did you get anyone no I think I've scared a few dogs they're fantastic now let me know we've fired that which is terrific let me just ask your opinion on these gun loops are they effective or not well directly in front of us across they would have been a bridge onto which guys would have had to run so it's at the castle now if there was a portcullis or a gate at the far end they would run onto that bridge and they would have been stuck there and at that point they would have been in the direct line of fire at these gun loops sitting duck and a large cannon here with a large charge of shock would have signed through like a scythe record it would have been extremely effective yes okay well more evidence to suggest that beaudion castle was not just for show but was actually a serious fortification I think so yes whether we think its defenses were for real or just for show there's no denying that bow diem is a very showy castle this is hardly surprising when you consider the personality and the history of its own ten to add a language was a night a minor aristocrat he and his wife Elizabeth were pillars of the local gentry community in Sussex they had money style and power but his family hadn't always been this rich Edwards great-grandfather had been a mere Forester a place called Dowling rich near East Grinstead in Sussex about the only thing that he left his descendants was the family name but over the next three generations the Dallin garages pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and the way they did this was by making really good marriages Edwards grandfather did very well for himself in this regard and Edwards father Roger did even better marrying into the local gentry and ending his days as an MP but it was Edward himself who made the last and biggest leap forward his wife Elizabeth was a fantastically wealthy young lady and Edward himself became the first Dallin bridge to take up the distinction of knighthood tedward was knighted when he was about 20 and he and Elizabeth had already been married for a couple of years they lived together at bow diem not in the car so which didn't exist but in an old manor house inherited from Elizabeth's family Edward however wanted more and he dreamed of a new home that would announce to the world that he had finally made it even today you can still see how much pride Edward Allen Ridge took in his family outside the main gate house if you look above the doorway you can see there are three coats of arms or shields and the one in the middle is the Dallin Grich coat of arms that's the coat of arms that Edward inherited from his own father one on the Left belongs to Edwards wife Lady Elizabeth is very rich wife and the one on the right is the coat of arms of Edwards mother another place where the family money came from above the shield's there's a unicorn a medieval symbol of virtue and something Dandridge added to show that he was tough and pious so in just a hundred years the darling judges had done very well for themselves and they were very proud of that fact by skillfully playing the marriage market they've built up in a state of about 200 pounds a year so Edward was a very rich man but he wasn't super rich he was still only a knight and knights generally had to content themselves with manor houses not castles because castles cost thousands and thousands of pounds so here's the big mystery how did Edward dal Ingrid a humble knight manage to build a castle like podium one option was to borrow the money another was to sell some of Elizabeth's estates but there is a third possible way that Edward Allen rich made money part of the clue is once again in the heraldry around the back of the castle on the pasture and tower there are three more coats of arms one on the left and the one on the right are both blank but the one in the middle is the coat of arms of mangled Sir Robert Knowles Robert Knowles was one of the most notorious men of his age as Captain in the Hundred Years War and he made an absolute fortune from the depredations he carried out against the French plunder ransom that kind of nasty stuff when a markable thing is that Edward darling bridge was there in France with him doing exactly the same thing so we know from those coats of arms up there this castle this beautiful fairytale castle with a podium is built from the blood of French peasants lords have no power to understand how a medieval knight called Edward Dowling bridge came to build odeon castle we have to look at the epic struggle between England and France known as the Hundred Years War now the Hundred Years War isn't a particularly accurate term and it's a very useful one for historians to describe a period of intermittent conflict between England and France which actually stretched 116 years between 1337 1453 now in the only years this conflict went very very well for the English they had spectacular victories at places like pasión haughty air in the 1360s it's not going so swimmingly but nevertheless it's still a great opportunity for men like Edward Dandridge young ambitious men to go off to France absolutely Dallin garages first experience of the war was as a teenager in 1359 when he spent the winter with a royal army outside palace over the next 20 years Dandridge had a good war he went on diplomatic missions to Italy and fought in France under powerful commanders like Robert Knowles Amir LeBaron he enlisted with an English force which marched 500 miles from Bordeaux to Calais and was part of a naval expedition which captured a French ship in the Netherlands in all these actions there were plenty of opportunities for Dallin rich to make a small fortune from the spoils of war but if war could be a quick route to riches becoming a knight in the first place involved making a hefty initial investment protecting yourself in battle was absolutely essential and the latest technology in shining armor was far from cheap he is exactly what the language would look like if darling rich was wearing the latest the most up-to-date the most expensive kit I mean this is an extraordinary piece of workmanship a single skull which is actually tapered and flanged this amazing piece of engineering is cleverly constructed so that it comes apart by removal of a single pin so that's an advice from the right well Pfizer comes right off allowing the knight to actually breathe and and talk and and do any form of action until he's ready for really close combat and then he can put it back on again this must have cost a packet for these people if we got any idea of how much this cost we don't have any precise evidence in terms of orders of sale for example these pieces are not actually in England we know from documents that we've got English armors but we don't know is of anyone who's making this quality and then surviving pieces are attributed mostly to Italy and Germany is a tuberous school so for start this would have to have been in water so if I were telling which had the full kit like this you couldn't live up to London and order a piece like this you'd have to be getting it from that's right yeah well it's interesting because I know we know that he went to Italy in the 13 70s well perfect he could have ordered it from Italy this is exactly the kind of kit that you would have had in the 14th century if he could afford it now I'm trying to push you on this rink and he's given me a kind of a very rough thing for what we could expect that to cut I'm expecting several hundred I was going to say it is going to be in terms of three to four hundred pounds that's amazing because that's twice what he earns a year from his estates he's got about 200 pounds of land so it's a lot of money although spending two years salary on armor gave you plenty of protection it also made you more of a target captured arms and armor is a major source of revenue stealing other people's kid yeah oh absolutely oh I thought you I don't you you got hold of other people for the person themselves and then ransom them as well yes you can't there are keeping you're keeping their equipment yes you are and that is why you see a lot of pillaging with battlefields because it was so valuable by sacking and looting French towns ransoming French noblemen and perhaps even stealing their armor it would have been easy for Edward Allen bridge to make a mint in the Hundred Years War in this day and age we might frown on such behavior but darling grudge probably considered himself to be a very chivalrous Knight so what did people at the time make of such mercenary tactics Geoffrey Chaucer's night in the Canterbury Tales got up too much the same things as Sir Edward how did you square this idea of chivalry ax being nice to people of sparing people's lie to the bloodletting of 100 Years War well I think chivalry is often a facade and a static facade that covers up extreme violence and brutality and that's very much the case in the description of the night so the description opens with this list of virtues a catalog describing what a wonderful honorable man he was a knight there was that a worthy man that throw the time that he first began to ride an out he loved chivalry trials and honor freedom and Curt see and where he was he but though it goes on to describe his campaigns it actually specifies that he always kills his foe and that's something which nights weren't supposed to do it also lists the battles that he was involved in and it mentions battles like Alessandra and that was a notorious battle at the time it wasn't a cause of Honor it wasn't a proper crusade it wasn't seen as something that was fighting the heathen or fighting for a noble cause it was basically a large group of mercenary soldiers who raided the town and it was extremely brutal they slaughtered everyone there the whole town was sacked the Knights just took all their pillage and left and I think it's that kind of knighthood that's very much criticized in the late 14th century the idea of going to war for the sake of personal gain whatever poets like Chaucer thought many soldiers like Dandridge returned from France rich men intent on raising their social status and what better state a symbol than a cask with the necessary funds to build a castle all de language needed next was a reason as luck would have it the continuing war against France provided that crafty night with all the reason he needed in 1385 the French had taken control of the channel and had built up an invasion force of 1,200 ships and 30,000 men as beau diem is only a few miles from the coast Dandridge could argue that building a castle was vital in case the French attacked when England was threatened with invasion in the twentieth century these kind of things pillboxes sprang up all over southern England because the fear of attack was very real and in the 14th century the fear of attack was very real faired word Allen bridge - with the Menace from the French providing the perfect excuse for a castle all Dallin bridge needed now was the approval of the king and that meant getting his hands on a license to crenelated a licensed Akron lay was basically a thumbs up from the king to begin building and in 1385 Edward Allen courage got hold of one from Richard the second Edwards original letter has not survived but luckily Kings kept copies and in the public record office the rolls reveal King Richard's record of the license it says King to all those who see this license hello no he thought of our special grace we have granted to our dear and beloved ed Waldo Dallin Greg a chapelier Edward Allen Granger tonight that he may strengthen with a wall of stone and lime his manor house of Bodie and Bodie ham and that the castle is built as the king in defense aeonium patria in defense of the country against the king's enemies the license itself though doesn't survive because the Dallin rogers dad survived so none of their documents do but it would have looked something like this although beau diem has no neighbors to rival it today in the 13 80s it was one of several new castles that were being built along the south coast but were these castles really built to see off the French or were their owners just capitalizing on people's fear of invasion well this is all that remains of cooling Castle in Kent not a million miles from Beau diem castle it was built in the 1380s like podium and up there on the gatehouse is a little chart a little metal thing that put up exactly when the castle was built and it says know if that beef and shall be that I was built in defense of the country now don't you can be too cynical about that I think if you asked Edward a language he'd say much the same that he built Bodie and Castle in defense of the country of all the new castles which sprang up on the south coast bow diem was by far the most dazzling it's not just a building but a perfectly proportioned work of art now everybody's reaction when they see beau diem for the first time is they go wow what a great castle because that's what it looks like it's got this fantastic big wide moat it's got a lovely big gatehouse it's what crenellations has got round towers it looks like a perfect fairytale castle now there's nothing accidental it looks that way because Edward Allen Grich asked for all these features he told his architect I want an all-singing all-dancing castle with knots on one of the most striking features of the castle is its courtyard interior my darling bridges day an increasingly sophisticated economy meant that great house holds no longer needed to move around as much with local markets able to meet their lavish needs they could settle in one principal residence to provide permanent accommodation for a household of perhaps forty people Dandridge borrowed a classic medieval pattern but not from a castle this is the front corner of Jesus College in Oxford and this is a 16th century College but as you can see the layout of it is very much like a medieval college or a medieval castle like podium over here you've got accommodation in this range on the back you've got a great whole and to one side the kitchens which serve it and on this side the build is in here at the moment of Jesus but there's a chapel there so everything that's necessary for a household or a college community is packed in within these four walls so if beau diems inner courtyard resembled an ox bridge quad what about the inside of the actual rooms in the castle for that a little expert guesswork is needed tell me a little bit about the room we're in here we've got this what I take to be from the guidebook Dalen Grudge and his lady wife's chambers what were these rooms like in the 14th century you must imagine the windows being glazed you can see the bars for the glazing there and quite possibly the glass would have been stained so you must imagine color coming in through the windows certainly not only do they have the fireplaces but as you can see the five phases are very ornate the one in the upper chamber even has tall battlements on so you don't just have the balance on the outside the castle as you works you walk in them through this motif Keats gets me feedback I did spot very very interesting it's got no room to put knickknacks on top of the boundaries but though I imagine lots of knickknacks in the room itself probably glazed pottery a lot of metal where I've lots of pewter a whole series different things of that kind but it's a modern remember with Allen Greg that you've got somebody here who is not quite at the top social stratum although clearly clearly very wealthy and moving fast and clearly moving up fast so much of the stuff that he would have would not necessarily be quite at the top level so for example you might expect tapestries on the walls but it's more probable here that instead of tapestry who got wall wall hanging hangings with paintings on them slightly less expensive no that's very colorful very grandiose just see them as such a sort of up and coming over stuff he's moved out the old manor house and eventually lady down are interesting we've got to lose that it's just so kind of middle part and you know get some tapestries one day dear so what's in was in this tower that is next route via the down bridges apartment well the tower probably function is a suite of ancillary rooms to the private suites we've just seen on on that side but one of the things you've got in here is this wonderful series of the trains you can see the arch way too much ways one above the other here and then they're both sharing the same chutes going out into the out into the moat the latrines here at Bodie I'm actually discharged directly into the moat so when you when you think of a romantic theme of Bodom as this wonderful sheet of water you've got to make them rational if you can open sealer here there's a huge number of toys here a billion there's over 20 fireplaces it really is accommodation on that quite magnificent scale it's almost as if the accommodation itself is is part of what darling greediest tries to displace the world he's really trying to say look I'm a Great Lord here I can offer huge amounts of hospitality the guests are always welcome in my head the state-of-the-art lavishness of bow diem paid for by 20 years of looting and pillaging in France cemented down ridges position in the top echelon of Sussex society both his pocket and his ambitions and had been well served by the wall on his relentless rise to the top Edward had made some very powerful friends but he'd also made some very powerful enemies in England in the 13 80s its owner the Earl of Amaral was one of the richest men in the country and had serious political clout as a wealthy patron eronel employed a number of retainers basically his paid supporters and the rising star among these men was one Edward Dowling brich who fifty miles down the coast was busy building a little castle of his own as Aaron duels right-hand man he felt strong enough to take on anyone one morning Dandridge rode out to hunt but on this particular morning it wasn't just deer he was hunting his prey was political well connected through his powerful patron Arundel and well protected by his own wealth and senior position in the county Dallin grid was throwing his weight around playing a dangerous game with high stakes he's trespassing and he's doing it to make a political point it's a direct challenge to the authority of his newest neighbor a man called John of Gaunt now John of Gaunt is not a man you cross lightly he's the King's uncle and arguably the most powerful man in the kingdom by hunting all over his land Dallin Grich is picking a fight with a man he sees as an outsider someone interfering in local affairs and sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong Gowen bridges trespass was meant to be noticed along with the rest of the Sussex gentry he resented Gold's recent acquisition of huge estates on his patch but gaunt incensed by the actions of this nouveau riche upstart took Dandridge to court and the reason we know about the conflict between Dandridge and John of Gaunt is because of this wonderful summary of the proceedings in the court that's recorded on this contemporary role you can see down bridges mentioned there at the top Edoardo Stalin Creek and there's John of Gaunt style john king of Castile and Duke of Lancaster now what emerges more than anything else from this summary account is the kind of man down bridge was it gives you a little window onto his personality he comes across as a man with a really fiery temper in fact twice he throws down his gauntlet and challenges his accusers to a duel you can see the word do Elam just there now in reward for this very theatrical performance in court he's charged with contempt and fined nearly a thousand pounds and he's then thrown into prison until that fine is paid you can see there there's an order to the sheriff keep him in safe and secure custody the thing is he doesn't remain in prison for very long when John of Gaunt popped up to Spain Dalen grudges patron the Earl of arendelle stepped in and had a word in the Kings ear the fine was never paid and Dandridge was soon out of jail and restored to his position at the head of Sussex Society Edward got off the hook because he was well-connected beaudion castle which he started building around the same time was designed to help him play the patronage game it was intended not just to impress his inferiors but also to entertain his betters like Aaron do or the king there's only one entrance to podium now but in Dallin gorgeous day a second bridge led to the back door so this area here that looks like a kind of patio veranda where you could have enjoyed your gin and tonic is in fact where that bridge came in and you're coming into the tradesmen's entrance this is where the food the wine the beer the saw anything would have come in this way to serve these two rooms you come into a passageway as a room at that side behind a wooden screen which is the great hole and there's a series of rooms this side behind this stone screen it looks like three big windows in fact it's three doors this door here on the left goes into a room called the buttery not for butter but for bottles it's corruption of the word bottles and this side you've got another door straight into a room called the pantry corruption of the French word path bread bread in there you got bread in there bottles in there and between the two stepping up because there's floorboards that have vanished coming between the two rooms you've got a passageway and that passageway is leading you to a room which is the great kitchen come down to the bottom of this tower because you can see at the bottom this is where you get your water oh well now the well contains the same water I'm afraid as the moat but don't worry it's not for drinking this water would have been brewed into a lure use for boiling or washing or that kind of thing so no problems there and if you look up to the top of the tower which you can do because there are no floors anymore and the top you can see lots of little holes about 600 of them that's a dub cut and they are you would've had doves obviously doing what it does do nesting on roosting what have you and those doves I'm sorry to say whether eating or best for laying eggs so that's the well tower coming back into the kitchen and thinking yourself back to the 14th century you can imagine this place is a hive of activity getting ready for a big dinner you've got an enormous roaring fire here lots of cooking going on because it's got to produce sufficient food and by sufficient I mean of course a lot force Edward for lady'd a language and their guests because you're going to have to fill this room full of food this is the Great Hall and as great halls go it's pretty small pretty dinky it's about 40 feet long about 25 feet right let's just describe the service arrangements here well you've got three two maybe three tables long tables with long benches for the darling Rogers household the plebs if you like and at this end you've got a big long table the other way going lengthwise and a big window to keep it nice and well-lit and this is where the darling Richard was Edward would've sat here at the top lady down bridge beside him relatives and friends here so the whole thing that gives you a flavor what it's like the whole thing a very medieval way of living and dining you might think in fact it's a dining arrangement that survives today in a very medieval place it's dear old Oxford again at Jesus College the medieval separation is preserved between the nobility on the raised dais and the plants on the benches below and just as in Tallinn Rogers day the food for top table is significantly better than the stuff that served to the proles for their starters here at Jesus it's pate de foie gras for the fellows and vegetable terrine for the students at bow diem the menu was a little different the late 14th century is the first time we know exactly what a rich men like Dallin gradual eating because the first ever recipe book in english appears in the 13 90 s the form of curry which is just a corruption of the word cookery was written by one of the cooks - king richard ii what kind of things are we going to be eating in a household like Edward Allen bridges well the first thing he'd look for is some game because that's always high prestige and I'm going to be doing some pigeons which will account at his game but were farmed in the castle chicken livers we think of chicken as a very cheap meat but that's a recent development then we're looking at spices very expensive very high prestige what's the spice there's cloves cinnamon and some Masoner right now that sounds to me if we're in the Middle Ages there's any sort of expensive stuff Barry this is coming from the Far East yes who lives Indonesia all right gosh that is a lot like some 14 central dish is called not only for expensive ingredients but also for a good deal of creativity and imagination like the so called train roast the Train roast is dried fruits and almonds and they've been strung on piece of strength what is that where the Train thing comes from where is the train I hear the train that comes from it's the term for days entrails this is a joke dish the medieval people loved joke dishes things that didn't look like what they were or had surprises in them like four and twenty blackbirds boats in a pie and this is one of them it looks like when it's finished it will hopefully look like desert and trails but it's dried fruit I hope this is a funny joke you don't look convinced well I just I the idea of my going to elaborate lengths to make something look like deers entrails yum yum yum ah but anyway let's this cooks went to great lengths for these subtleties the dishes so here's a 14th century feast that would have been strictly the top table only in Daland Rajas Great Hall of Oh diem right that's the macros pasta the pasta cooked with a butter and cheese the chicken livers or garbage is the dish is called and that's the train roast this look like deers and trails and the pigeon which is served with the wine and orange sauce I can just imagine Edward and Ingrid with the Olivera a little something say and now my Lord deers entrails right of course mushroom be eating this I should be serving if you can take my apron off for me it's how I look presentable and then due to the high table with this because this kitchen isn't any old kitchen it's the kitchen a place called depends first place in CHEM and as you can see on the back of the kitchen is this lovely 14th century Hall so let's just get rid of these nice and dinner for one there this Hall is almost exactly the same kind of hall that down Ingrid built with podium castle it's quite a lot bigger but the arrangement is exactly the same and you can see there's exactly the same service arrangement as there is a podium you've got this passageway here and the three doors once again one two the buttery one to the pantry and the passageway through the middle of them up to the kitchen and this screen the screen that's vanished at BO diem is still here at Penn thirst and up on top of it there is a gallery and if there was a feast here you it has minstrels on top minstrels were versatile entertainers as well as performing songs have courtly love they might also juggle dance and recite poetry as well as having them play at a big feast a rich patron like Dandridge might have retained a troupe of minstrels for weeks or even years at a time Mary you've got a fantastic range of medieval instruments here these are all reconstructed ones aren't yes I imagine this is a harp what are the strings made out of cut got there is a various treatises from the Middle Ages about making strings for fiddles and harps and there's lovely one which says that they can be made either of sheep you Scotties or of wolfies guddi's but that something to the effect that you mustn't mix the two up because if you do the war fees Gotti's destroy us and corrupted the sheepies guddi's huh this is called a positive organ they appear in English art from round about thirteen hammers oh okay so Edward darling reject probably there's one of these oh yes from Roberts bridge Abbey that has survived some very early well it is apparently they say it's the earliest surviving keyboard music Roberts bridge Abbey is just a few miles worth of odium castles so what we have here is a manuscript written in Edward a languages day in Edward a languages backyard yes once Sir Edwards guests have been well fed and well entertained were ready for bed they would have retired to one of the castles towers which as you can see contain spectacular guest rooms up there you can see that this room had two windows both of which have window seats and both of which would have been glazed as you move around you can see that there's a fireplace so they would have been nice and warm and next to that as a tiny darkened doorway which led off to a private toilet so Edward had spared no expense in making his guests feel nice and comfortable and at home a man like his patron the Earl of Arundel would have felt that Edward was trying really hard to keep him happy but at a stroke Edwards efforts to curry favor with arendelle's suddenly looked in vain in 1388 arendelle was one of the leaders of a rebellion against Richard ii but within a year the king had crushed the rebels and was restored to the throne Dandridge may have seen off the challenge of John of Gaunt but if he now lost his patron Arundel everything he'd struggled so hard to achieve might be lost Edwards future hung an precariously in the balance in 1389 Sir Edward Allen bridge has pretty much got it all his flashy new castle at bow diem is well underway he's fabulously rich from his exploits in the Hundred Years War and he's got a very powerful patron in the earl of arundel but then Aaron will challenge the Kings power and lost by rights Dallin grid should have fallen with him but he didn't instead in the very same month Dallin grid craftily changed sides and joined the King's Council before long he had become one of the Kings most trusted and busiest advisors people tend to make and keep records when there's money at stake an Edward Allen bridge was no exception this is his lovely little expense account for the year 1392 and he's a royal councilor and he's billing the king for his travelling expenses and it enables you to see him running around all over the place here he's charging the king for a trip to London just there and he's gone to Stanford and Nottingham he's even gone to Woodstock in Oxfordshire all together he's spending two hundred and seven days in the King's service so beaudion castle in 1392 is nearly finished but Edward a language spending all this time in the saddle in the King's service isn't getting a great deal of time to enjoy his new house when Edward was away on business his estates in Sussex didn't just manage themselves with the help of a trusted steward or manager his wife Elizabeth was in charge her ability to act as lady of the manor was probably part of her appeal to the dashing Sir Edward of course Elizabeth's primary attraction when it would came to marry her was her huge tracts of land but it probably wasn't her only attraction it's often assumed that in the Middle Ages men only married because they wanted to get their hands on land or because they wanted to get children but they also wanted companions like we do today they wanted someone to help out with the management of their households and their estates so although we don't have much information about Elizabeth we can guess from her background that she was a very well-educated lady and she would certainly have been able to read but the reason the Dallin grudges were able to read in the first place was down to their religious education they probably had their own prayer books which began to appear in English during their lifetime they would certainly have regarded themselves as pious people the Chapel of beaudion tells us that now chap was in cars was nothing new as long as you've had castles way back to the 11th century they've had chapels in them but there is something new in the 14th century if I come up here through this bit which children in the room for the priest and his vestments you wouldn't have come up through the priests through when it was built I'm going through a vanished floor here and go up this ladder I come to this window at the top now this room that I'm stood in was an oratory private pew where the darling bridges would have come in through their private apartments which are back there they could have attended chapel without actually having to go to the service and mix with their household who would have been stood there so they can sit here and listen to the mass in private and that's what's happening in the 14th century people are not becoming less pious but their piety is becoming much more personal this move towards a more personal devotion is underlined by the nobility's increasing use of private confessors in preference to public church services the importance of religion to Dallin bridge is seen in the design of beaudion the only feature that breaks the symmetry of the castles exterior is the chapel window through which day language announced his piety to the outside world so the castle elegantly combines two apparently conflicting functions it may be a flamboyant status symbol but it also conforms to the spiritual code of the time of contemplation confession and atoned answer Edward a language the warrior Knight who'd spent his youth plundering on the battlefields of France might have felt he had plenty to atone for other nights at the time clearly had a lot on their consciences crosses Knight is described as someone who's been on all these battles who comes back from his be OSH from his travels in order to go on pilgrimage and that that's the ride and he's dressed as if he's in penance he's just very scruffy Lee and you could see that he's come back from fighting all these bloody wars and now he's going to atone for his sins and atone for all the things that he's done wrong and that's why he's on pilgrimage as a kind of penance by 1393 Edward Dandridge had served as a king's counselor for four years during that time he'd negotiated treaties in Brittany surveyed the fortifications at Calais and by skillful diplomacy ended a bitter dispute between the king and the citizens of London by this time beaudion castle was probably finished and the 46 year old a language might have been looking forward to some quality time in his sub Jewess new home but in August that year at the very height of his power and influence his life was cut short you can see from some of the clues on this monumental brass incidentally monumental brasses are a 14th century thing you can see from some of the clues that this is definitely add a language tomb this chap here and his male shirt has got in gray old cross which is the Dallin grid coat of arms and up here you've got another day language coat of arms this part of the tomb and as a unicorn they're the same thing that features on the front of Bodom castle if you look at the figures you can see how the Dallin bridges wanted to be remembered in death they're both very pious they've both got their hands pressed together in prayer but this guy here has got no shame about displaying his martial qualities his military background he's got a sword down here he's got all his armor on no shame in that now I have to confess that this isn't Edward and Elizabeth down bridge this is his parents my introduced Roger and Alice telling rich and they're buried here in the parish church of fletching in Sussex now the damages we've been dealing with Sir Edward and Lady Elizabeth being that much grander were buried not in a parish church but in a sister Shan abbey they were buried at the abbey of Robert's bridge just a few miles west of podium there's no record of how it would died perhaps it was gout from all those fancy dinners or a lingering war wound sustained on the battlefields of France there's no obituaries in any Chronicle to describe how through brilliant soldier II and astute political maneuvering he reached the very top of the social and political ladder nor is there any effigy to mark the end of this Knight's Tale the abbey of robert's bridge was destroyed long ago in the 16th century but in a way it doesn't matter that we haven't got Sir Edwards tomb because we've got his wonderful castle remember the Dallin grudges had started out as humble foresters but Sir Edward ended up as a king's councillor and who knows how do you live longer he might have risen him further still but even as it stands Bodie and castle is a fitting memorial to the man and his great ambitions after beau diems time castles in England continued to change no longer needed for defense they evolved into the great houses and palaces of the Renaissance built just 50 years later from gaudy red brick personal so is a very mannered castle indeed a far cry from tough-looking boding in the history of castles beaudion stands at a turning point it looks back nostalgically to the great fortresses of edward first and it looks forward to the courtyard houses of centuries to come the castles of late medieval England might look tough and imposing but at heart they were elegant peaceable and thoroughly domesticated late medieval Scotland oh that's another story

Channel: J Bassett

Views: 316,890

Rating: 4.8166008 out of 5

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Id: eyRLUcbWNyI

Length: 46min 33sec (2793 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 27 2016