Ward & Lock's descriptive and pictorial guide to the Isle of Man ...

112 Guide to the Ide of Man.notice. This young lady will presently appear upon thescene, among the ruins of the castle and the cathedral, andthen we shall have something more to say about her.Peel Castle.In the meanwhile we may bestow a few iniuutes' attentionon the vast old pile crowning the mass of rock before us.When the first fortress was built is unknown. Traditionavers that some portions remain (especially the doorway, andits portcuUis, by which we shall enter) which are a thousandyears old. Certainly, in very remote times it was consideredto be a place of immense strength, and unquestionably itmust have been almost inaccessible unless with the consentof the inmates. Two of the early kings of Man are statedlo have died in the castle— Godredin 1187, and Olave in 1237.It Avas probably, therefore, a royal as well as an episcopalresidence. The kings of England availed themselves of thefortress as a prison for rebels and supposed conspirators.Richard the Second, having, or pretending to have, in 1397,reason to suppose that his uncle (the Duke of Gloucester)and the Earl of Arundel and Warwick were conspiringagainst him, banished the Duke to Calais, where he died— perhaps in the course of nature, but more probably by theready hand of a political partisan. The two Earls were attaintedof high treason and sent to the Tower, there to awaitthe headsman. The sentence was, however, in the case ofWarwick, commuted to "perpetual imprisonment, withoutthis realm, in the Isle of Man, for the term of his life." TheEarl's custodian was Sir William Scrope, at that time thelord of Man, having three years previously purchased theisland from the Montague family. But the time came, andnot long to wait for it, when Richard was deposed and himselfmurdered in "bloody Pomfret," and the new king,Bolingbroke that was, afterwards Henry the Fourth, reversedthe attainder of the Earl of Warwick and recalled him frombanishment. The record is still preserved of the paymentto Sir William Scrope, from the Exchequer, of the sum of£1,074 14s. 5d. for expenses incurred in respect to the safecustody of Warwick. As the imprisonment was for a periodsomething short of two years, and taking into account thevalue of money in those times, Warwick was not very badlytreated for a prisoner—or else, Scrope was an adept in the artof making out a bill.About fifty years afterwards another memorable stateprisoner was immured in the dungeons of the strong castle