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As they approached, the inhabitants of the district round Alnwick began to pour into the castle; but orders were issued that all the fighting men should join the force of Sir Robert Umfraville, the sheriff of the district, who was gathering a force to give the Scots battle. "I fear that there is small chance of the Scots making their way hither," Oswald's instructor said, in lugubrious tones.
Mr. Croker quotes a passage from The Heroic Epistle, which ends: 'So when some John his dull invention racks To rival Boodle's dinners, or Almack's, Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes, Three roasted geese, three buttered apple pies. Johnson saw Alnwick on his way to Scotland.
The followings of the various nobles and knights of the northern counties had left the main body on the way home, and Northumberland had brought with him, to Alnwick, only the men-at-arms who formed the regular force retained under his standard.
Silence, solitude, and strict fasting were the injunction upon all, and their buildings were sternly simple. The porter's lodge and curtain-wall enclosing Hulne Priory still stand, and its outline can be traced, though the ruins are scant. Yet this, like all else at Alnwick, bears evidence of the troublous times on the Border.
"'Tis a matter that I have often turned over in my mind, when on a long day's ride, and I have thought of what might happen were a new man to become abbot of Alnwick; but such an absolution would assuredly go for much. No one can doubt, more especially an abbot, that absolution by an abbot is most effectual; and that the offences committed before it are wholly wiped out, and cannot be revived."
The Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the "King-maker" himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at the same time.
His escort accompanied him, as near the border as it was safe for them to go. The next day they rode into Chester, and then, by easy stages, up to Alnwick. Oswald went to Hotspur's apartments, as soon as he entered the castle. "I congratulate you heartily," Hotspur said, as he entered. "I see that you have won your spurs.
Its diamond-paned windows look into a wonderful courtyard, where you expect to see monks walking, or perhaps cavaliers; and on the hill above the garden, there are earthworks thrown up by Oliver Cromwell's army during the siege of Dunster Castle the "Alnwick of the West."
King David of Scotland captured the old timber castle there in 1135 on his great invasion of England, and Eustace afterwards built the first masonry work of Alnwick Castle, traces of his walls having since been found.
But all the glories of most of the castles of England have vanished, and naught is to be seen but ruined walls and deserted halls. Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen's mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but the fate of most of them is very similar.
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