Scenes in North Wales: With Historical Illustrations, Legends, and Biographical Notices — John Shaqi
Scenes in North Wales: With Historical Illustrations, Legends, and Biographical NoticesWright, G. N. (George Newenham)
History
Scenes in North Wales: With Historical Illustrations, Legends, and Biographical Notices
Wright, G. N. (George Newenham)
Wales, North -- Description and travel
There are many historic events of deep interest connected with the story
of this warrior pile. Like the artist of the brazen bull, Edward was the
first who was necessitated to make trial of the sufficiency of his new
state prison. Here he was besieged and nearly reduced by famine, and
only rescued from such a critical situation by the providential arrival
of a fleet with supplies. This was also the appointed rendezvous of
forty thousand loyalists who attached themselves to the fortunes of King
Richard the Second, and were destined to check the career of Bolingbroke.
Here Percy and King Richard held an interview, from which it would appear
that the unhappy prince mistrusted his faithful friends; for, secretly
withdrawing from Conway, he put himself into the hands of Northumberland,
at Flint, by whom he was betrayed into the power of his rival. Amongst
its different vicissitudes Conway Castle was once converted into a public
treasury, and discharged its trust with honour and good fortune. In the
civil wars of King Charles’s time, being held by Dr. Williams, archbishop
of York, for the king, the country gentlemen entrusted to his Grace’s
keeping their title deeds, plate, and most valuable moveables. This
trust he cheerfully undertook and made himself entirely responsible for
their value by giving to each depositor a personal receipt. In the May
of 1645, Prince Rupert was appointed governor of the castle, and by his
order Sir John Owen was substituted for the archbishop in the
guardianship of the valuables lodged within. Sir John constantly evading
the archbishop’s applications on the subject of the deposit, the prelate,
to avoid his own ruin, and seeing no prospect of a return to regal
government, joined the Parliamentarians, assisted Mytton in the reduction
of the castle, and having again got into possession of those treasures
for which he had pledged himself, restored them uninjured to the
respective owners. For these services parliament granted him a free
pardon and a release from all his sequestrations. The singular beauty of
this fortress appears to have obtained for it not only the admiration but
the respect of the ruin-making conquerors of the seventeenth century; but
being at last granted by Charles the Second to Lord Conway, while it was
still roofed and perfect, that gothic personage dismantled the entire
structure, and sold the lead, iron, timber, and all other disposable
materials which could be easily separated.
The suspension bridge at Conway is thrown from the foot of the southern
tower to a small island in the river, the suspension piers corresponding
in design with the rounders of the castle occasion little interruption to
the harmony of the whole, and reduce it to a mere question of taste,
whether the bridge be not an appropriate accession to the scene, and the
very drawbridge of the castle.
BEDDGELERT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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