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Belmsley.

(Ulmetum-Bede. Elmeslac and Hamelsec-Domesday. ElmesleyCamden. Helmsley.)

ELMSLEY is a place of great antiquity, and has been a station of importance during the early era of the Saxon sway in Britain. Its etymology is from elm being a Druidical grove of lofty elms, and flac or flaec, a dell or hollow. It is situated in Ryedale, through which runs the river Rye, and is designated by Gulielmus Nubrigensis, "a vast solitude and horror," previous to the time of Walter Espec, and the Norman era. It is 12 miles from Easingwold, 6 from Kirby Moorside, 16 from Malton, and 23 from York.

The following appears to have been the condition of the place at the period of the Domesday Survey:—

In Elmeslac hb. Vctred. 1. de VIII carucates ad. gld. 4 .

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Ne ht com ibi, vi uill cu. II. car. Pbr ና

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car poss. ee.
æccla. e. Silua past cap arabil vi lev lg 1. lev.

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lat. T. R. E. ual XXXII sol. m. x. sol.

dim

Translated thus,-In Helmsley Uctred had one manor of eight carucates to be taxed, there may be four ploughs. The Earl has now there six villeins with two ploughs. A church and a priest. Wood pasture and arable fields (campus arabilis) six miles long and one and a half broad. In the time of King Edward (the Confessor) valued at 32 shillings, now 10s.

Independent of the above, we find from the same authority, that in Elmeslac, "three Thanes had three and a half carucates of land to be taxed, and land to two ploughs." Also "In Hamelsec (another mode of spelling adopted by the Norman

scribes) were four carucates and two oxgangs of land to be taxed.

Such was the early history of the place previous to the Conquest, after which it was bestowed upon the Earl of Morton who held it as a fief under the usual conditions of vassal. age. At no great interval of time subsequent to the Conquest the manor of Helmsley became the property of Walter Espec, a young nobleman of Norman extraction; and five carucates of land geldable, were held by the Lord de Ros, who held it of the king in capite by the rent of 4 shillings per annum. Walter Espec gave to the monks of Rievaux the manor of Helmsley, with wood and pannage for their hogs out of his forest of Hamelac; and Everard, son of Robert de Ros, also gave an essart here, with his wood on the west side of the town.

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Walter Espec died without issue, and Adelina youngest sister of the above, having married Peter de Ros, brought the lordship of Helmsley to the Ros family. Robert de Ros, surnamed Fursan, built and fortified the castle of Helmsley, known in the early records as Fursan Castle. In the reign of Richard I. the estates were forfeited to the crown by the rebellion of its lordly owner, but in the reign of John, he was restored to favour and the possession of his castle and manors. It remained the baronial residence of this distinguished family till the reign of Henry VIII. when Thomas Lord Ros was created Earl of Rutland, and Lady Katharine, daughter and heiress of Frances, the sixth Earl, married George Villiers first Duke of Buckingham, by which marriage the lorship of Helmsley passed to the gay and dissipated nobleman who wasted it by profligacy, when it was purchased by a predecessor of its present noble owner, of which more hereafter.

Helmsley Castle with its terrible walls, gateways, and towers, was first erected as a place of defence at a period when the north was exposed to the incessant inroads of the Scots. To check such invasions many castles were built, into which

Burton's Monasticon, p. 357.

In the year 1214, Robert de Ros, Peter de Brus, and Richard de Percy, reduced the city and county of York to the obedience of the Dauphin of France.

the inhabitants of a district took refuge on any alarm of danger, and for centuries such a state of things continued unchanged.

The battled towers, the donjon Keep,

The loop hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep
In yellow lustre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high
Moving athwart the evening sky,

Seem'd forms of giant height;
Their armour as it caught the rays,
Flash'd back again the western blaze

In lines of dazzling light.

Its situation was aptly chosen for beauty and grandeur, and the picturesque ruin looks down upon the principal part of the town, which probably first grew up into importance under its protection.

The

The grand entrance to the castle on the south was by double gates between two towers of uncommon strength, and the gateway leading into the first court or vallum measures twenty feet in thickness. Beyond this was another gateway, leading to the inner court where were the lodgings, &c. walls of the castle were very strong and well cemented, as appears from the broken fragments, which adhere together with remarkable tenacity. The outer wall was surrounded by a deep broad ditch fed by the waters of the Rye, and crossed by two draw bridges on the north and south sides. The keep, whose chief architectural features are those of the 13th century, was 95 feet high, and though deprived of its roof, floors, and windows, is, owing to the excellency of the masonry, in a good state of preservation. Near to the keep are slight vestiges of a building of a more light and ornamental appearance, supposed to have been a chapel, under which was the dungeon, a necessary appendage to those military strongholds, as a place of confinement for prisoners of war.

The grand hall or banqueting room where the fair Norman damsels and their gallant lovers led the merry dance, and cheered the gloomy hour of night with minstrelsy and song, is

no more.

"Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres."

During the troubled reign of Charles, this castle was strongly garrisoned and placed under the governorship of Colonel Crosland. Soon after the surrender of York, Sir Thomas Fairfax addressed himself to the reduction of Helmsley Castle, then considered one of the strongholds of the county. In Colonel Crosland, however, he found a brave and honourable opponent. In one of those deadly onslaughts, Fairfax receiv ed a musket-ball in his shoulder, and was carried off all but dead to York, where for some time he vibrated between life and death. A party of the Royal Horse from Skipton and Knaresbrough, advancing to relieve the garrison, the Lord Fairfax sent a party under Major Sanders to make good the siege; but before they came up, the besiegers routed the king's party, killed and wounded divers, captured 80 horses, and a quantity of meal, salt, and other provisions, and took about 50 officers and gentlemen, besides common soldiers, prisoners.' After numerous sallies without much effect on either side, except wounds and waste of ammuniton, a proposal of surrender was at length agreed upon. Colonel Crosland drew up the terms of surrender himself, conceived in a high military spirit, and agreed to by Fairfax. The terms were as follows:

1. That the Governor of the Castle and all the other officers shall march out with their arms, horses, and all the rest of their goods belonging unto them, and to be safely conveyed to the garrison at Scarbrough without any molestation.

2. That the soldiers shall march out with their arms loaded, matches, lighted, colours flying, and drums beating, and to be safely conveyed to the said garrison.

3. That the gentlemen, or others the country men, that came hither for protection, may have free liberty to depart with their goods, unto their own dwellings, aud to have my Lord Fairfax's protection for their safe guard.

4. That the Lady Duchess of Buckingham's goods within the Castle, her servants and their goods, may remain safe within the Castle, or the town of Helmsley, under my Lord Fairfax's protection, as they have been formerly without interruption.

5. That any goods within the Castle belonging to any gentleman in the country, or to any other whatsoever, may have three days' time after

'Whitelock's Memorials and Grose's Antiquities.

Fairfax's Correspondence, Vol. 3. p. 120.

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