But Brougham Castle is finer than the Hall, or than memories of De Brohams. Brougham derives its name, down the long alleys of time, from _Brovacum_, a Roman station in these outposts of the Roman dominion, thickly studded with such. And a military post of the first importance it continued to be until the time of Henry the Fourth. Normans built the keep of the old castle, and the families of Vipont and De Clifford added to it, and held the marchlands against the Scots, or warred for or against their sovereigns, with more or less success, until their line ended in a woman: the famous Ann Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, who was as good a man as any. She was born in 1590, and enjoyed length of days and strength of mind during the whole of them, dying at last in 1676. Marrying twice, and unhappily on both occasions, she was twice widowed, and left with an only daughter. Upon her second widowhood she retired to these scenes of her youth, and busied herself in rebuilding her ancient and ruined castles of Brougham, Appleby, Skipton, Bardon Tower, Pendragon, and Brough; together with the restoration of numerous churches, and the erection of monuments to various people, including herself. She was as ceaseless and busy a builder as old Bess of Hardwick herself, and an imperious and masterful old lady who even withstood Cromwell. He declared he would ding down her castles as soon as she built them up, but she merely replied that they would be rebuilt every time, and Cromwell was obliged to give in. “Let her build an she will, for me” he said, and build she accordingly did. She is described as having been a “perfect mistress of forecast and aftercast,” who “knew well how to converse of all things, from predestination to slea-silk;” and she certainly was tenacious of her rights, or what she conceived to be her rights; being as remarkable a litigant as she was a builder. By all accounts, she was nothing less than an unmitigated terror, and the plain man, who reads of her autocratic ways, is apt to think that the unhappiness of her marriages was felt by her husbands a good deal more than by herself. [Sidenote: _THE CASTLE-BUILDER_] We know a great deal about this extraordinary woman, for among her activities was the writing, at tremendous length, about herself and her ancestors; and in those pages she dwells with an amusing complacency upon the early beauties of her face, her form, and mind. [Illustration: COUNTESS PILLAR.] It was in 1652 that she so thoroughly repaired Brougham Castle, making it afterwards her principal residence; but the day of castles was done, and, as she really must have foreseen, her works were left, after her death, to decay. Her only daughter had married the Earl of Thanet, who in 1728 caused the most part of Brougham Castle to be demolished, and the materials sold. And here it stands to-day, a roofless shell.