(♪ Lady of Carlisle, Lucy Farrell ♪)
Cumbria. Home to stunning lakes, dramatic mountains and a beautiful stretch of western
coastline. And to the north of the county, the borderlands of England.
Just ten miles away from the Scottish border stands the city of Carlisle,
where a single structure steeped in history has dominated the skyline for 900 years.
This is Carlisle Castle, with walls up to 12ft thick,
built from stone that has wethered its tumultuous history remarkably well.
This extraordinary building is filled with ancient chambers, narrow stairways and endless stories.
Carlisle Castle is unusual for English Heritage in so far as it's a castle that's not a ruin. Over
hundreds of years successive monarchs have added to this castle and have helped to develop it as a
defensive structure. The keep is a particularly good example. It was altered by Henry VIII
very much in the style of the other castle that he built along the coast.
It's been occupied continuously for more than 900 years since it was founded in 1092
which in itself is absolutely remarkable. And it's had a long and colourful history, perhaps
sometimes not the colour that we would want to see, and it's got the accolade of being the most
besieged castle in the country. It's often been fought over and it's been in both Scottish and
English hands in the early 13th century. And then again it was besieged in the Jacobite Uprising
of 1745 so its colourful history goes right up to the 18th century and in some cases beyond.
Carlisle has been recognised as a strategically important place over the centuries,
presiding over a much contested border. For hundreds of years,
battles have taken place in these parts as warring factions from England and Scotland squared off.
Carlisle has long been recognised as a strategically important place
over the centuries and this has been a much contested border.
There was a Roman settlement here called Lugavalio and Hadrian's Wall ran just to the north.
The border between Scotland and England made this a key site to be controlled in the medieval period
but it was not just the Anglo-Scottish border. There were the border rievers, local clans
known for their cattle raids and feuds made this area even more difficult to govern from the 13th
century right up to the 17th century. The rievers had strong clan allegiences that could sometimes
come before national ones and it meant that this area was very often under what we would now call
special measures. Cattle raids were particularly common and these often escalated as clans carried
out further raids in an attempt to regain the livestock that had been stolen from them.
This is a landscape of battles and feuds and shifting alliances.
To pair up with this site of battles, raids and feuds, we have a song that
tells a story of warring parties fighting over a woman who would have known the castle well,
the Lady of Carlisle. Sung for us by Lucy Farrell,
this song tells of a lady courting two men of war, a brave lieutenant and a bold sea captain.
In order to put her suiters to the test, she throws her fan into the middle of a lion's den,
challenging the men to retrieve per possession by facing up to a deadly beast.