In the Civil War the town was spared the disaster of a siege, perhaps because the castle was not in a proper state for defence. If fighting had occurred, there is little doubt that the keep would have been partially wrecked, as at Scarborough, and Richmond would have lost the distinction of possessing such an imposing feature. As soon as one digs down a little into the story of a town with so rich a history as this, it is tantalizing not to go deeper. One would like to study every record that throws light on the events that were associated with the growth of both the castle and the town, so that one might discard the mistakes of the earlier writers and build up such a picture of feudal times as few places in England could equal. Richmond of to-day is so silent, so lacking in pageantry, that one must needs go to some lonely spot, and there dream of all the semi-barbarous splendours that the old walls have looked down upon when the cement between the great stones still bore the marks of the masons’ trowels. One thinks of the days when the occupants of the castle were newly come from Brittany, when an alien tongue was heard on this cliff above the Swale, even as had happened when the riverside echoes had had to accustom themselves to an earlier change when Romans had laughed and talked on the same spot. The men one dreams of are wearing suits of chain mail, or are in the dress so quaintly drawn in the tapestry at Bayeux, and they have brought with them their wives, their servants, and even their dogs. Thus Richmond began as a foreign town, and the folks ate and drank and slept as they had always done before they left France. Much of this alien blood was no doubt absorbed by the already mixed Anglo-Saxon and Danish population of Yorkshire, and perhaps, if his descent could be traced, one would find that the passer-by who has just disturbed our dreaming has Breton blood in his veins.