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Updated: September 7, 2025
In the Wars of the Roses, Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of them.
The beautiful monument over her grave is by Raymond Smith, and is an exact duplicate of the original one, also by him, which was being injured so much by the weather that it was removed to a position inside the church. The island on which yet stands the lighthouse which was Grace's home is the Longstone, almost the farthest seaward of the rocky group of the Farnes, lying almost opposite Bamburgh.
In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country.
He held out against them for a day or two, but was then captured and taken to Durham. Meanwhile the high-spirited Countess held Bamburgh against all assailants; but Mowbray's capture gave Rufus an advantage he was not slow to use. Returning to the North, he ordered Mowbray to be brought before the walls of Bamburgh, and threatened to put his eyes out if the Countess did not immediately surrender.
Lord Crewe, in his will, left a great part of his fortune to found the Bamburgh Trust, for which his name will ever be remembered. The most notable of the trustees, Archdeacon Sharp, administered the moneys in so wise and beneficent a manner that to him most of the credit is due for the real usefulness of the Crewe charities.
He reached Bamburgh, and invested it, but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland.
The reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little isle of Lindisfarne.
Needless to say, she preferred to give up the castle, and Mowbray's reign as Earl of Northumberland was over. Thereafter Bamburgh was visited by various sovereigns in turn, when their affairs brought them to the northerly parts of their kingdom. When Balliol, tired of long years of conflict, surrendered most of his rights to Edward III., it was at Bamburgh that the convention was concluded.
In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville's Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower. At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior.
There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes points out the proper course to be taken. We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have treated of him in connection with Bamburgh.
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