Chilham's Mediaeval Castle

The early records are sparse but it is known that in 699 Wihtred, King of Kent, signed a charter at a place called Cilling, where there was probably a wooden fort. “Cilleham” was mentioned in the Domesday Book – “Sired held it from King Edward“. At its greatest, the mediaeval castle covered eight acres including three baileys and a barbican gate. Today, of all that stonework, only the octagonal keep with its rectangular extension remain. This great grey block, once the core of a fortress, garrisoned throughout the Middle Ages, has never witnessed military conflict though it was surrendered to the Crown many a time and was once commandeered by a prince of France.

The history of the medieval castle centres on two families: with a few interruptions it was held for nearly 260 years by the family of Fulbert and the de Lucys and then for over a couple of centuries by the line of Bartholomew de Badlesmere.

FULBERT DE DOVER & THE DE LUCY FAMILY

King William the Conqueror granted the holding to his half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. The under-tenant was Fulbert who retained possession after Odo fell foul of the King. Fulbert, as part of his feudal duty, built a keep at Chilham (probably of wood) and provided some of the garrison at Dover Castle, where he built the Chilham Tower. Fulbert’s family adopted the name de Dover (being more important than Chilham).

In the 1170s, his descendant Fulbert de Dover built the stone keep and fortifications, employing Ralph, master-mason to Henry II. When some three decades later, Fulbert died, his heiress Roese was too young to marry and the castle reverted to the Crown under King John who granted it in quick succession to Fulk de Bréant (of Vauxhall) and then to Thomas Peverell. Whilst “in possession”, King John is known to have stayed at the castle, in discussion with Archbishop Stephen Langton about the governance of the kingdom and spending time at his hunting lodge in nearby Molash.

Meanwhile, Fulbert's orphaned heiress, Roese 1207–65, (great-great-grand-daughter of the first Fulbert) a ward of the Crown, was married to King John's son, Richard fitzJohn, c1186–c1248, who thereupon was granted the Barony of Chilham and his wife’s family name of Dover.

In 1216, the castle was occupied briefly by the Dauphin, heir to the French throne. Having captured Canterbury, he was on his way to London to claim the English throne which had been offered to him by rebellious barons. He was forestalled by the death of King John, the barons changed their minds and, favouring John's infant son Henry, they sent the foreign prince back home.

The authorities differ as to the next stage of the history. Some say that, after Richard fitzjohn died, Roese was married again to another Richard, who adopted successively the names de Dover and then de Chilham. Others say that Richard de Dover and Richard de Chilham were two people - Roese's son and grandson. all agree that the next in line was Isabel de Chilham, who, brought up in the King's court, was married to David de Strathbolgi, Earl of Atholl c1240-70, a Scottish aristocrat and a leading ally of England in the Scottish wars.

In 1270, Isabel, now châtelaine of Chilham, having lost father and husband in that same year, was married to an even more powerful Scot, Alexander de Baliol, Lord of Cavers, Grand Constable of Scotland under Edward I of England and cousin to John Baliol, Scotland's puppet king. In 1280, a document known as the Kirkby Inquest gives the earliest written mention of the famous heronry at Chilham castle. The heronry (at one time perhaps England's largest) existed for 7 centuries at least. 100 years ago there were 100 nests, but 50 years ago only half that number. Despite good stocks of fish in the lake and river, nowadays only a handful are seen here.

Most of Kent's herons now gather on the Hoo peninsula at Northwood Hill - portending ill for Chilham's owners. According to ancient legend, doom will befall the castle if no herons return to nest on St Valentine's day (14th February). Whether, since 1752, like everyone else in England, the herons have adopted the Gregorian calendar, of they still adhere to the previous Julian system, is not known. However perhaps the owners of the Jacobean hosue need not worry; this ancient legend more likely applied to the mediaeval keep, which is now in separate ownership.

After Alexander Balliol's death, the castle reverted to Isabel's child, John de Strathbolgi, 9th Earl of Atholl. A contemporary of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, Earl John played a leading part in the Scottish Wars of Independence but, unlike his father, he fought against England.

Since he held lands in England and had sworn allegiance to King Edward I of England as Lord Paramount of Scotland, Earl John was regarded in England as a traitor. Captured at the castle of Kildrummy in Scotland, he was brought back to his Kentish territories for execution. To the pleadings of the Queen and English nobles for mercy for this high-born prisoner, the response of King Edwardwas to promise that, “his only privilege shall be to hang on a higher gallows than the rest, as his treasons have been more flagrant and numerous”. So at Canterbury, in 1307, where his mother Isabel lay buried in the cathedral, Earl John was hanged, drawn and quartered – his severed head being taken for display upon a pole at London Bridge, beside that of William Wallace.

Chilham reverted once again to the Crown but within months King Edward I followed Earl John to the grave. In 1312 his son King Edward II granted Chilham with several additional holdings to a famous man of Kent and a sworn enemy of the Scots, Bartholomew “the rich Lord de Badlesmere.”

When Badlesmere's lands were forfeited, as described below, possession of Chilham was restored briefly to the line of de Lucy in 1322 when King Edward II passed Chilham back to David de Strathbolgi, 10th Earl of Atholl, son of John, the unhappy 9^th Earl, mentioned above. David too fell victim to Scotland's uncertain loyalties. Because his father-in-law, Red John de Comyn had been murdered by Robert the Bruce, Earl David allied himself with the English. Doubtless the lordship of Chilham was his reward. Four years later in 1326, he was killed on the field of battle. Thus came to an end Chilham's longest connection with one family which had lasted over two centuries stretching back to the Conquest.

BADLESMERE FAMILY

Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere was born at Chilham in 1275. He was at times Governor of the castles at Bristol, Tonbridge, Leeds and Dover and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Eventually, however, Kent's “over-mighty subject” became, like his Scottish predecessor at Chilham, an enemy of the Crown. Queen Isabella, wife of King Edward II, determined upon Badlesmere's downfall, after being refused entry to Leeds Castle by Margaret, Lady Badlesmere. The Queen demanded redress and, following the surrender of the castle at Leeds, Henry de Valoynes, who held Chilham on behalf of Badlesmere, surrendered the castle on 1st November 1321 to two knights from the King's army. This was the second military incident in the castle's recorded history.

After a brief rebellion, allied with other rebellious barons and his former enemies the Scots, Badlesmere was captured in 1322. Taken back to the gibbet in his own manor of Blean, near Canterbury, Badlesmere suffered the same gruesome death as his predecessor, John de Strathbolgi, 9^th Earl of Atholl, 14 years before. Of lower rank than Earl John, his head was displayed, not on London Bridge, but locally on the Burgate at Canterbury. Then, completing her revenge, the vindictive Queen had Margaret, Lady Badlesmere. and her children imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Having imprisoned and murdered her husband, Isabella ruled the realm in the name of her son, Edward III. Some years later, after wresting power from his mother, the new King overturned much of what his parents had done. Making amends to the de Badlesmere family, he bestowed Chilham upon Giles de Badlesmere, 2nd Baron, whose family then held it, with just one interruption, for the following 200 years.

On the death of Giles in 1364, possession passed to his sister Margery, wife of William Lord Roos of Hamlake (Helmsley in Yorkshire).

Of all the occupants of the castle throughout the middle ages, this is the only family commemorated on site: in the north aisle of the church, the central window contains two heraldic shields: a black one with 3 swords – the arms of Ensing – a family whose name (in corrupted form) survives at two farms to the north of the parish & on a red field, 3 water bougets (twin vessels of leather for carrying liquid, suspended from a yoke) – the ancient arms of the Roos or Ros family. According to expert opinion this window dates from the 14^th century when William Lord Roos took possession of Chilham with his wife Marjorie de Badlesmere – hence, surely, the letters B surrounding the shield – B for Badlesmere.

In 1381 during the Peasants' Revolt, the castle's third and last military incident occurred - the so-called Battle of Chilham. Some local peasants made a futile attack upon the castle before joining the march to London led by Wat Tyler of Dartford. After Tyler's death the revolt collapsed and peace returned.

The Roos family kept possession until, during the Wars of the Roses, Thomas Lord Roos forsook his Yorkshire roots and espoused the cause of Lancaster. After the Battle of Towton, near Tadcaster, he was executed by order of the Yorkist King Edward IV who passed Chilham to the Controller of his Royal Household, Sir John Scott of Scotts Hall, Smeeth, near Ashford. Sir John was six-times great-nephew of Sir Alexander Baliol, Lord Cavers, Lord of Chilham 200 years earlier. As their grand monuments in Brabourne church make clear, the Scotts of Scotts Hall were once a family of considerable status and renown, now remembered only by scholars.

In 1485 Sir John Scott died. King Henry VIII restored Chilham in 1525 to Thomas Manners, Lord Roos, great-grandson of that other Thomas who, at the cost of his life and possessions, had joined the Lancastrians.

Fourteen years later King Henry, with coffers replete from despoiled church property, offered cash to buy back the estate. Thomas (now Earl of Rutland, well advanced in years and with large holdings in the Midlands) took the money. This was the first of many sales over the centuries, but the only one to a monarch.

Thus once again (for the tenth time since the Conquest), the castle became Crown property, severing the Badlesmere connection for good.

THE END OF THE MEDIEVAL CASTLE

Three years later, in 1542, Sir Thomas Cheney, Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Treasurer to the King's Household acquired the castle by a formal grant from the King. A decade earlier, Cheney had made Shurland, his great house tucked away on the Isle of Sheppey, available for the King to pass a few stolen days with his paramour Anne Boleyn. Shurland was Cheney's pride; for him the old castle at Chilham was no more than a new source of building material for refashioning his ancestral home. He slowly dismantled the fortifications at Chilham and ferried the stones away to the seven courtyards of his island refuge.

Perhaps the laden convoys of carts and barges went down the Swale to Sandwich and round Thanet to the Swale. Where possible in those days, water transport was preferred to the hazards of badly maintained roads. In this case, however, a possible alternative was the route favoured by Chilham's herons – over the Selling Hills to Faversham creek and the fishing grounds on the Swale at Harty Ferry. At Faversham's quay, Cheney was shipping stone from the demolished abbey nearby – a joint venture with the mayor, Thomas Arden, whose friendship with Cheney features in the 16^th century drama “Arden of Faversham”, sometimes attributed to Shakespeare.

Thomas’s extravagant son Henry, Baron Cheney sold the ruin to his neighbour and kinsman by marriage Sir Thomas Kempe of Olantigh. Kempe’s son, another Thomas, had married Cheney's half-sister Katherine, but dying without male heirs, he left the almost empty site to his four daughters. One of them, Mary, married Sir Dudley Digges of the City of London and Barham near Canterbury. Having bought out his brothers-in-law, Digges built the present house, to which the ruined keep has served in turn as outhouse, brewery and water-tower.

In the twentieth century, the Keep became, once again, a separate dwelling, and in 1987 it was sold by the then owner of the house, Lord Massereene and Ferrard,