The chapel was in the tower shown in the picture reproduced here, and was fitted up ‘in a ruder style’ and at a more early period than the other apartments. Bishop Percy describes the sculptured badges as being still in a fair state of preservation, and mentions the motto on the ceiling: _Esperance en Dieu ma Comforte_. At that time--namely, just before the fire which has been mentioned--this chapel was used as the parish church, that building being then a mere ruin with only the west end standing at the distance of a bow-shot from the castle. Since then it has been rebuilt with red brick, and is uninteresting, save for an early tomb slab by the south door. The full measure of the destruction caused first by the Parliamentary agents, and a century and a half later by the fire, can be gauged by reading Leland’s account of the castle written in the reign of Henry VIII. He describes it as being constructed with very fair and great squared stones inside and out, and the tradition at the time was that much of it was brought from France. No subsequent writer has ventured to state whether the stone comes from Caen or any other French quarries, although its power of resisting the action of weather is so remarkable that, despite the fire and the century of total neglect which has since passed, it has a freshness--almost a newness--of aspect hardly to be expected in a castle erected probably between 1380 and 1390. There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, ‘pastery,’ larder, and kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the conduct and duties of every one, from my lord’s eldest son down to his lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512 and later; it is more than possible, for the pictures are ancillary to reading. The prices to be paid for food and many other necessities are given, also the sums given out by the treasurer to each department, and what was to be done with what remained unspent during the year.