THE approach to Newark is long and dull, by way of the suburban “London Road” and past the decaying Beaumond Cross, but this leads at length to the great open square of the Market-place, the most striking of all such centres of public resort to be found on the way to the North. Newark-“upon-Trent” is a misnomer, for neither the town nor the castle, which was once the “new work” that gave the place its name, are on that river, but only on a branch of it—the Devon—which falls into the Trent at Crankley Point, some miles below the town. The “new work” was only new some eight hundred years ago, when Edward the Confessor’s castle on the banks of the Devon was built, or when it was rebuilt or enlarged by Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, 1123–47. Bishops and other mighty castle-builders in those times not infrequently built their own prisons when piling up their grim fortresses, and so the Bishop of Lincoln found, when King Stephen seized him and kept him in durance within his own stronghold. A judiciously low diet of bread and water, and confinement in an unhealthy dungeon below the level of the river, soon broke the haughty Churchman’s spirit, and he transferred the castle to the Crown. But Newark Castle has better claims to notice than as the dungeon of one of those old bloody-minded prelates. As the place where King John ended his evil life, we may well look upon its ruined walls with interest. His rebellious barons scattered on his approach in that year of 1216, and England seemed in danger of a long continuance of its troubles under the profligate king. But a surfeit of peaches brought that wicked life to a hasty conclusion, and here, on the banks of the sluggish Devon, one of the worst of English monarchs died. We need not regard peaches with apprehension because John is said to have died of them. We must consider whence they came; from the monks of Swineshead Abbey, where the king had stayed on his journey to Newark. Now, Holy Church had the very best of reasons for hating that monarch, and from hatred to murder was not a far cry in those days. So of peaches King John doubtless died; but of peaches subtly flavoured with poison, there is little doubt. The castle was again seized by the barons, in the succeeding reign, but they surrendered, after a week’s siege, and by the gift of the king, the Bishops of Lincoln received their own again. Under Edward the Sixth it again became the property of the crown, and when James the First “progressed” through England to his throne, these walls sheltered him during a week of festivity. A lawless and discourteous, as well as a weak-minded king, as we shall see. Crowds assembled during the festivities set apart by the corporation, and a fellow was caught in the act of pocket-picking. By order of the king, the unfortunate wretch was strung up, instanter, without the veriest semblance of a trial! There’s your lawlessness, and here follows the discourtesy.