WILLIAM BINGLEY
1798

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Caernarvon is, taken in the whole, by much the most beautiful town in North Wales. It is situated on the eastern side of the Menai, the streight that divides Anglesea from the other parts of Wales, and is a place extremely well adapted to afford a few months retreat for a thinking mind from the busy scenes of the world. Here an admirer of nature may bury his cares in contemplating the greatness of her works; he will certainly find scope enough. Its situation, between the mountains and Anglesea, renders it a convenient place from whence travellers may with advantage be able to visit both.

Its name is properly Caer-yn-Arfon, which signifies a fortified town in the district opposite to Mona or Anglesea.¹ The walls around the town are nearly entire, and as well as the castle, in their external appearance, the same as they were in the time of their founder Edward I. They are defended by a number of round towers, and have in them two principal gates, entrances to the town. Over one of these is a spacious room which is the Town hall, and in which the assemblies are frequently held. The buildings are upon the whole pretty regular, but the streets, as in all other antient towns, are very narrow and confined. On the outside of the walls is a broad and pleasant terrace walk along the side of the Menai, extending from the quay to the north end of the town walls, which seemed to be the fashionable promenade in the fine evenings for all descriptions of people. The Court-house, in which the assizes are held, and all the county business is done, stands nearly opposite to the castle gates, and is within a neat little place. The Custom-house, a small insignificant building, is on the outside of the walls, and not far from the quay.

From the top of the rock, behind the hotel, I had an excellent bird's-eye view of the town. From hence the castle, and the whole of the town walls, may be seen to the greatest advantage; and on a fine day, the Isle of Anglesea, with Holyhead and Pary's Mountains, appear spread out like a map beneath the eye. Sometimes even the far distant mountains of Wicklow may be seen towering beyond the channel. On the other side, towards the east, is a fine and varied prospect of the British Alps, where Snowdon, whose

- - - - hoary head,
Conspicious many a league, the mariner,
Bound homeward, and in hope already there,
Greets with three cheers, exulting -

And the lofty glydes are seen to far over top the rest.

Caernarvon is in the Parish of Llanbublic, and the parish church, dedicated to St. Publicius som of the emperor Maximus and Helena the daughter of Octavius Duke of Cornwall, is situated about half a mile from the town. Within it I was shewn a marble monument, on which were two recumbent figures of Sir William Gryffydd, of Penrhyn, who died in 1587, and Margaret his wife. The names and dates are at present nearly erased from some mischievous persons having cut them out with knives. In this church the service is always performed in the Welsh language; the English service being performed in a chapel of ease situated in the north-west corner of the town walls, and formerly built for the use of the garrison.

At Caernarvon is a small but pretty good harbour, used chiefly by the vessels which trade there for slates, of which many thousands are exported every year to different parts of the kingdom. These slates are brought from the mountains of Llanberis, a village ten miles distant. The quarries are generally high up amongst the rocks, and the workmen, in conveying them down from thence, are obliged, as well as one horse before, to have another behind the carts, to prevent the whole, in some of the dangerous steeps in which these mountains abound, from being dashed headlong to the bottom, which must sometimes inevitably be the case without this contrivance. This seems a most inconvenient mode of conveyance: it appears that sledges, similar to those used in many parts of Westmoreland and Cumberland for conveying slates down the mountains, would not only be less expensive, but much more safe and commodious.

The entrance into Caernarvon Castle is through a high grand gateway, over which is a figure of the royal founder grasping in his hand a dagger. In this gate, which has been otherwise remarkably strong, there have been no less than four portcullises. The castle is a large and irregular building, much more shattered within than from viewing it on the outside would be led to imagine. The towers are for the most part octagonal, but there are three or four which have each ten sides; amongst these is the Eagle Tower, the largest and by far the most elegant in the whole building. This tower, which received its name from the figure of an eagle yet left at the top of it, stands at one end of the oblong court of the castle, and has three handsome turrets issuing from its top.

In this tower it was that Edward, the first Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward II. was born, on St. Mark's Day, the 25th of April, 1284. Mr. Pennant² says, that the prince was brought forth "in a little dark room not twelve feet long, nor eight in breadth." This assertion is certainly founded upon tradition, but I wonder very much at that gentleman's retaining the opinion, after he had once examined the place. This room has indeed had a window and a fire place in it, but has never been anything more than a passage-room to the other apartments, which, during the queen's illness, though nearly the most magnificent in the castle, must have been shut up, as useless. I have no doubt whatever, but that when Edward swent for his queen from England, he provided for her a more magnificent and suitable bed-room than this, which, besides being extremely inconvenient at a time like that, at the birth of an English prince, must, from its being so small and confined, have been beyond measure unhealthful. If hte prince was born in the Eagle Tower, it must have been in one of the larger rooms, occupying in width the whole inside, in an apartment suitable to the majesty of the heir apparent to the English crown, and not, as the guide, who shewed me the castle termed it, "in such a dog-hole as this." From the top of the building I was highly gratified by an extensive view of the Isle of Anglesea, the Menai, and the country many miles round.

At the other end of the court, and opposite to this tower, is a gate, called the Queen's Gate, said to be that through which the faithful Eleanor, Queen of Edward I. first entered the castle; it has been guarded by two portcullises, and had once a communication with the outside of the castle by a draw-bridge over a deep moat. It is at present considerably above the level of the ground on the outside, owing probably to the fosse having been filled up with earth from thence.

The state apartments are larger, and have been much more commodius than any of the others. The windows have been wide and elegant. On the outside the building is square; but I was surprised, upon going into them, to find all the rooms perfectly polygonal, the sides being formed out of the vast thickness of the walls. The floors and stairs throughout the castle are almost all beaten in and demolished.

There was formerly a gallery quite round the castle, by which, during a siege, a communication could be had with the other parts without danger. On one side this yet remains undemolished. It was next the outer wall, and was lighted by narrow slits that served as stations, from which, during a siege, arrows, and other missile weapons could be discharged with advantage upon the enemy. The castle occupies the whole west end of the town; it has been a fortress of great strength, and before the introduction of artillery was, no doubt, able to withstand for a long time the most forcible attacks of an enemy. The exterior walls are in general about three yards in thickness. From its situation and strength it seems to have been well adapted to overawe the newly acquired subjects of its founder. It is bounded on one side by the Streights of Menai; by the Estuary of the Seiont, exactly where it receives the tide from the former, on another; on the third, and part of the fourth sides, by a creek of the Menai; and the remainder has the appearance of having the insulation completed by art.

From a heap of rubbish, near the end of the court opposite to the Eagle Tower, there is an acho which repeats several syllables most distinctly. There is also a single reverberation, and it appeared to proceed from some part of that tower.

This castle, from whatever point, or at whatever distance it is viewed, has a romantic singularity, and an air of dignity that commands an awe, and at the same time pleases the beholder. Its ivy-clad walls appear in some parts to be going fast to decay, while in others they even yet retain their antient form.

When one considers that it has withstood the shocks of more than five hundred winters, one almost wonders that it has stood so long; for what is there that does not fade?

The tower that long hath stood
The crash of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer - Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base;
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass
Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk,
Achsia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.

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This huge rotundity we tread grows old;
And all those worlds that roll about the Sun,
The Sun himself shall die; and antient Night
Again involve the desolate abyss.

It appears probable, That the town of Caernarvon sprang from the antient Segontium, a Roman city, about half a mile distant, and is not, as generally supposed, indebted to Edward I. for its name, for Caer-yn-Arfon might, with equal propriety, have been applied to the old city, as to this more modern fortress. The town, however, was no doubt the creation of Edward, and it was most probably formed, in a great measure, from the ruins of the old fort.

After this monarch had subdued the Welsh, he began to secure his conquest by erecting several strong holds, in different parts of Wales; and it appearing that Caernarvonshire, on account of its mountains and morasses, was a county very likely to encourage insurrections, he determined to guard as much as possible against such, by erecting there the castles of Conwy and Caernarvon, two of the strongest in the whole principality.³

He began this castle in the begining of 1283, and completed it within that year; for on the 25th of April, in the year following, his son Edward, the first Prince of Wales, frequently afterwards stiled from the event, Edward of Caernarvon, was born here.⁴ Mr. Pennant, from the authority of manuscripts in the possession of Sir John Sebright and Sir Roger Mostyn, of Gloddaeth, says, that it was built within the space of one year, by the labour of the peasants and at the cost of the chieftans of the country, on whom the conqueror had imposed that hateful task.⁵ The revenues of the Archbishopric of York, which was then vacant, were applied towards defraying the expenses.⁶

The reason why the Queen was brought here to bring forth the prince was, that since the Welsh remembered but too keenly the oppressions of the English officers who, in former reigns, had been placed over them, they flatly told the king that they were determined never to yield obedience but to a prince of their own nation; and Edward, perceiving them resolute, thought it a necessary policy to have her removed, though in the depth of a severe winter, from the English court, to this place, and thus, if possible, delude them into that obedience which he supposed it might be difficult to retain by mere force. By this means he, in a short time, by assenting to their demands for a prince of their own, reduced the whole country to his will.

This place appears either to have suffered very little from the calamities of war, or very few events have been given to posterity. In the year 1294, in an insurrection of the Welsh, headed by Madoc, one of the chieftans of the country, it was suddenly attacked during the fair, and after the surrender, the town was burned and all the English found in the place cruelly murdered.⁷ When and by whom this damage was repaired, or how soon afterwards the castle was retaken by the English, is not mentioned in any of the accounts that I have seen.

The first person whom I find appointed by Edward to be the governor, was John de Havering, with a salary of two hundred marks, for which he was obliged to maintain constantly, besides his own family, eighty men, fifteen of whom were to be cross-bowmen, one chaplain, one surgeon, and one smith; the rest were to do the duty of keepers of the gates, centinels, and other necessary offices.

In 1289, Adam de Wetenhall was appointed to the same important office. The establishment for the town and castle was as follows. The constable of the castle had sometimes sixty, and at other times only forty pounds per annum. The captain of the town £12 3s. 4d. for his annual fee; but this office was sometimes annexed to the former, and then the salary was sixty pounds for both. The constable and captain had twenty-four soldiers allowed them for the defence of the place at the wages of fourpence a day each. Certainly this slight garrison could only be established for peaceful times!⁸

In the year 1644 Caernarvon Castle was seized by Captain Swanley for the parliament, who at the same time took four hundred prisoners and a great quantity of arms, ammunition, and pillage.⁹ It must however have been very soon afterwards retaken, for in May, 1645, I find it amongst the castles which were fortified for the king.¹⁰ Lord Byron was then the governor, but on the castle being besieged by General Mytton and General Langhorn, about a year afterwards, he surrendered it to them upon honourable terms.¹¹

In 1648 General Mytton and Colonel Mason were besieged here by Sir John Owen, with a small force of a hundred and fifty horse and a hundred and twenty foot; but Sir John having received notice that a detachment from the parliament's army, under the command of Colonel Carter and Lieutenant Colonel Twisleton, were upon their march to join Mytton, drew off his troops to attack them, and meeting them on the sands, near Llandegai, betwixt Bangor and Conwy, after a sharp engagement, his party was routed, about thirty of his men killed and himself, and about a hundred others were taken prisnoers.¹² From this time all North Wales became subject to the Parliament.

William Prynne, the barrister, for publishing his book, called Histrio Mastyx, was sentenced by the Court of Star Chamber, in 1637. to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, to lose the remainder of his ears, to be stigmatized on both his cheeks with an S for Schismatic, and to be imprisoned in this castle for the remainder of his life.¹³ The former part of his sentence was severly put in execution, but after a short confinement he was restored to liberty, and held a seat in the House of Commons till his death.

The property of the castle is, at present, in the crown, where it has been for near a century. It was formerly held by the families of the Wynnes of Glynllivon, the Wynnes of Gwydir, the Bulkeleys of Baron Hill in Anglesea, and the Mostyns of Gloddaeth.¹⁴

Edward II.'s cradle

The cradle of the unfortunate Edward II. is still preserved, and either is now, or was very lately, in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Ball of Newland, in Gloucestershire. It descended to him from one of his ancestors who attended that prince in his infancy, and to whom it became an honorary prequisite. This singular piece of antiquity, which I have delineated on the oposite page, from an engraving in the London magazine for March 1774, is made of heart of oak, whose simplicity of construction, and rudeness of workmanship, are visible demonstrations of the small progress that elegancy had at that time made in ornamental decorations. On the top of the upright posts are two figures of birds, supposed, by some, to have been intended for doves, the emblems of innocency, but though these somewhat resemble owls in their shape, I conjecture them to have been intended for eagles, as the tower was called the Eagle Tower, and had a figure of that bird at the top of it. The cradle itself is pendent on two hooks driven into the uprights, linked by two rings to two staples fastened to the cradle, and by them it swings. The sides and ends of the cradle are ornamented with a great variety of mouldings, whose junctions at the corners are cut off square without any degree of neatness, and the sides and ends are fastened together by rough nails. On each side are three holes for the rockers. Its dimensions are three feet two inches in length; twenty inches wide at the head, and seventeen at the foot; one foot five inches deep, and from the bottom of the pillar to the top of the birds, it is two feet ten inches.¹⁵

The town and castle had several privileges and immunities granted to them by their founder. The most material of these were, that Caernarvon should be a free Borough, that the constable of the castle should be the mayor for the time being, and that the burgesses might elect two bailiffs.

They had likewise their own prison for all petty transgressions; which prison was not to be subject to the sheriff. They had also a merchant's guild, with this peculiar privilege, that if the bondsman of any person belonging to it dwelt within this town, having lands, and paying scot and lot for a year and a day, after that time he should not be claimed by his lord, but should remain free in the said town. The inhabitants were besides exempt throughout the kingdom, from toll, lastage, passage, murage, pontage, stallage, danegelt, and from all other customs and impositions whatsoever. And by the same charter Jews were not permitted to reside within the borough.¹⁶ They had also another privilege, which was, that none of the burgesses could be convicted of any crime committed between the rivers Conwy and Dyfy, unless by a jury of their own townsmen.¹⁷ The princes of Wales had here their chancery, exchequer, and justiciary of North Wales.¹⁸

The town is at present governed by a mayor, one alderman, two bailiffs, a town-clerk, and two sergeants at mace. The representative for the place is elected by its burgesses, and those of Conwy, Pwllheli, Nefyn, and Criccaeth. The right of voting is in every one resident or non-resident, who has been admitted to his freedom.¹⁹

About half a mile south of Caernarvon are a few walls, the small remains of Segontium,²⁰ the antient Roman city, mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus, which appears to have been the principal station the Romans had in this country. Dinas Dinorddwig,²¹ and all the others being only subordinate stations. The Roman road from Dinas Dinlle to Segontium, and from thence to Dinas Dinorddwig, is, in somec places, still visible.

Segontium received its name from the river Seiont,²² which runs from the lower lake at Llanberis, passes under the walls, and discharges itself into the Menai, near the castle of Caernarvon. It has been of an oblong form, and formerly occupied about six acres of ground. It is now divided into two parts by the road which leads to Beddgelert.

Not far from hence is the antient fort which belonged to it; this is also of an oblong figure, and contains about an acre of ground. the walls are at present about eleven feet high and six in thickness, and at each corner there has formerly been a tower. The Romans formed their walls in a manner much different from what we do now; they first placed the stones in order one upon another, generally in two courses, the one regular and the other in a zigzag fashion, and then poured boiling mortar upon them, which, from its fluidity, insinuated itself into the many openings and hollows of the work, and thereby, from its strength, bound the irregular pieces of stone frequently used, into a firm and solid wall. In making the mortar they mingled sand with the lime, unrefined by the skreen, and charged with all its gravel and pebbles, and even some of the mortar, on breaking it, has been found tempered with pounded brick. The mortar used in these walls has acquired from time almost the hardness of stone.

Along the walls are three parallel rows of circular holes, each nearly three inches in diameter, which pass through the whole thickness; and at the end are others similar. There has been much learned conjecture as to the design of these holes, some have supposed them to have been used for discharging arrows through at the enemy, but from their length and narrowness it is impossible that this should ever have been the case. Others have thought that they might have been left in the walls to admit air, in order to harden the liquid cement that was poured in; but this cannot have been so, since there are such at Salisbury that appear to have been closed with stone at the ends, and others have bneen found even below the natural surface of the ground at Manchester. Mr. Whitaker,²³ in his history of Manchester, says, that he by chance met with one that was accidentally laid open from end to end, which he thought disclosed the design of all the rest, and which he supposes to have been this: that as the Romans carried their ramparts upwards, they took off from the pressure of the parts below, and gave a greater strength to the whole by turning little arches in their work, and fixing the restof the wall upon them. At Segontium this appears to me to have been by no means the case, for the holes are too small, and at by far too great a distance from each other to have been of any material use in taking off from the weight; and for my own part, if I may be allowed a conjecture, merely from their external appearance, I should be inclined to suppose, notwithstanding the circumstance of their being said to be found below the natural surface of the ground at Manchester, that they were made for no other purpose than merely to place in them poles for resting the scaffolding upon, used in constructing the walls, and they may probably have been left unfilled up in order top admit the air into the interior of the work, or for some other purpose, with which I am not acquainted. I am more inclined to this conjecture, since they are all parallel, and the rows at a proper distance above each other to admit the men to work. Mr. Pennant says, the holes at the end seem to run through the wall lengthways; these, I should think, may go six or eight feet in the wall, butv there is no reason whatever to suppose they ever went through.

Camden²⁴ says, that this was the Setantiorum Portus of Ptolemy, but Mr. Whitaker,²⁵ with much greater propriety, fixes that at the Neb of the Nese, a high promontory of land in the river Ribble, about eight miles west of Preston, in Lancashire.

Matthew of Westminster²⁶ informs us, that the body of Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, was discovered here in the year 1283, and honourably interred in the neighbouring church, meaning, I should suppose, that of Llanbublic. How the body of Constantius came to be interred here I know not, for even the same author, in the former part of his work, relates that he died at York.²⁷ Helena, daughter of Octavius, Duke of Cornwall, and mother of Publicius, who was born at Segontium, and to whom the church is dedicated, is said to have built there a chapel, which the learned Rowlands tells us was in being in his days.²⁸

Cadwallo, the Prince of Wales from 365 to 376, on account of the Isle of Anglesea being infested with the Irish and Pictish Rovers, removed the British Court from Aberffraw, where it had been placed about two hundred years before by Caswallon, law hir to Segontium, or, as the Welsh called it, Caer Segont, where it remained about a century, till affairs becoming more settled in Anglesea, it was restored to the island by Roderic Mawr, Roderic the Great, where it afterwards continued during all the time of the British princes.²⁹

Whilst I was at Caernarvon, I was induced from curiosity, to attend some of the meetings of a curious kind or branch of Calvinistical methodists, who from certain enthusiastic extravagancies, which they exhibit, are denominated Jumpers. I will describe them from an account of one of their own countrymen, as my own observations did not lead me to be so minute as he has been. "They persuade themselves that they are involuntarily acted upon by some divine impulse; and becoming intoxicated with this imagined inspiration, they utter their rapture and their triumph with such wildness and incoherence - with such gesticulation and vociferation, as set all reason and decorum at defiance. This presumtion seized chiefly the young and sanguine, and, as it seems, like hysteric affections, partly spreading through the crowd by sympathy; its operations and effects varying according to the different degrees of constitutional temperament, mock all description. Among their preachers, who are also very various in character, (illiterate and conceited - or well meaning and sensible - or, too frequently I fear, crafty and hypocritical) some are more distinguished by their success in exiting these stravaganzar. One of these, after beginning perhaps in a lower voice, in more broken and detached sentences, rises by degrees to a greater vehemence of tone and gesture, which often swells into a bellowing, as grating to the ear as the attendant distortions are disgusting to the sight - of a rational man. In the early part he is accompanied only by sighs and occasional moans, with here and there a note of approbation; which after a while are succeeded by whinings and exclamations; till, at length one among the crowd, wrought up to a pitch of ecstacy, which it is supposed will permit no longer to be supressed, starts and commences the jumping; using at intervals some expressions of praise or of triumph. The word most generally adopted is "gogoniant."³⁰ (glory!) Between these exclamations, while labouring with the subject, is emitted from the throat a harsh undulating sound, which by the profane has been compared to a stone-cutter's saw. The conclusion, which I am almost ashamed to describe, has more the appearance of heathen orgies, than of the rational fervour of christian devotion. The phrensy spreads among the multitude; for in fact a kind of religious phrensy appears to seize them. To any observations made to them they seem insensible. Men and women indiscriminately, cry and laugh, jump and sing, with the wildest extravagance. That their dress becomes deranged or the hair dishevel'd, is no longer an object of attention. And their raptures continue, till, spent with fatigue of mind and body, the women are frequently carried out in a state of apparent insensibility. In these scenes indeed the youthful part of the congregation are principaly concerned; the more elderly generally contenting themselves with admiring, with devout gratitude, what they deem the objections of the spirit." Their exertions are so great at these times, that the hardest labour they could be put to, would not so much waste their animal spirits, or weary their limbs, as two hours spent in this religious fury. Were their meetings seven times a week, instead of once or twice, I am confident that the strongest constitution could bear it but a very short time.

Besides these they have their general meetings, which are held once or twice in a year, at Caernarvon, Pwllheli, and other places in rotation. At these they sometimes assemble so many as five or six thousand people. They hold their general meeting at Caernarvon in the open air upon the green, near the castle; and not contented with their enthusiastic extravagancies upon the spot, many of the people, from the country, have been known to continue them for three of four miles of their road home.³¹

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¹ Ar Fon, or Armon, means opposite to Mona.

² Tour in Wales, II. 215.

³ Carte's History of England, II. 196.

⁴ Matt. West. 372. Speed says, the prince was born on St. Mark's day, 1285. See his Chronicle, II.

⁵ Pennant's Tour, II. 215.

⁶ Grose's Antiquities, VII. p. 8.

⁷ Henry de Knyghton, 2502. Tho. Walsingham, 26. Holinshed's Chronicle, II. 273. Stow's Annals, 206.

⁸ Pennant's Tour, II. 216.

⁹ Whitelock's Memorials, 87.

¹⁰ Rushworth's Historical Collections, Part IV. Vol. I. p. 21.

¹¹ Whitelock, 208.

¹² Rushworth, part IV. vol. II. p. 1146. Whitelock, 311.

¹³ Whitelock, 26.

¹⁴ Grose's Antiquities, VII. 9.

¹⁵ See London Magazine for March 1774, p. 135, 136.

¹⁶ Grose's antiquities, VII. p. 9.

¹⁷ Pennant's Tour, II. 218.

¹⁸ Gibson's Camden, 665. Wynne's Memoirs of the Gwydir family, 417.

¹⁹ Pennant, II. 219. who quotes Willis's Notitia Parliam. III. part I. 76.

²⁰ Called also by the Welsh Caer Custeint, the fort of Constantine, and Caer Segont, the fort on the river Seiont.

²¹ The following is a copy of an inscription, supposed to be Roman, dug up not along ago near this place,

H L
I M P
Q T R O
D E C I O
I S A
E R

²² Gough's Camd. II. 548.

²³ Second edition, vol. I. p. 47.

²⁴ II. 798.

²⁵ History of Manchester, I. 180. 182.

²⁶ P. 371. See also Leland's Collectanea de rebus Britannicus, vol. II. p. 46, 346, and 404.

²⁷ Constantius, vir fummae magnitudinis Eboraci in Britannia diem clausit extremum. Matt. Westm. 130. And see Holinshed's Chronicle, I. 63.

²⁸ Mona antiqua restaurata, 165.

²⁹ Rowland's Mona antiqua, 1493 172.

³⁰ The following is an extract from a Letter inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for September 1799. p. 741. It is dated from Denbigh, and has the signature W. M. B. "What renders this sect particularly dangerous is, that the preachers are in general instruments of Jacobinism, sent into this country to disseminate their doctrines; and I assure you, that Paine's Works, and other books of the like tendency have been translated into Welsh, and secretly distributed about by the leaders of this sect. These are facts which may be depended on, and which are well known to many in this country as well as to myself." Such is the zeal which the enemies of our country exhibit in disseminating their poisonous principles into the minds of the illiterate and vulgar, who unable to see through their shallow artifices, are frequently I fear too easily led into their wicked designs.

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William Bingley - A tour round North Wales, performed during the summer of 1798: containing not only the description and local history of the country, but also, ... London. 1800.

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