Warkworth Castle history: the Percys and Henry IV's cannon

Warkworth Castle in Northumberland is a place where one family's story and one king's guns meet. Henry IV marched north in 1405 and laid siege to it with cannon, and the castle gave in quickly. This post tells the Warkworth Castle history in order, from the first record to the ruin you can walk through, using English Heritage's own history and description pages.

Warkworth Castle history in short

Warkworth sits in a loop of the river Coquet, less than a mile from the Northumberland coast. English Heritage says the castle was probably laid out in its present form in about 1200. It was the favoured home of the Percy family from the 14th to the 17th centuries. As Earls, and later Dukes, of Northumberland, the Percys were among the greatest landowners in northern England.

The castle in seven dates. The siege of 1405 is the red one.

Before the Percys: the first castle

Nobody knows exactly when or why Warkworth began. English Heritage says there was probably a home of the Anglo-Saxon Earls of Northumbria here before 1066. Henry, son of David I of Scotland, has long been credited with the mound and enclosure after he became Earl of Northumberland in 1139. The first written record is a charter of between 1157 and 1164, when Henry II gave the castle and manor to Roger fitz Eustace.

The castle you see today owes most to Roger's son, Robert fitz Roger. He was almost certainly responsible for the present castle between 1199 and 1214. The gatehouse, the Carrickfergus Tower, the postern gate and the east curtain wall can all be tied to those years. By 1323 the king ordered the defences made ready, and in 1327 the castle was besieged by the Scots.

The first Earl and the great tower

In 1332 Edward III granted the castle to Henry Percy, 2nd Lord Percy. The family was rising, but the big change came with Henry Percy (1341 to 1408), the 1st Earl of Northumberland. English Heritage says he transformed Warkworth, and that he almost certainly marked his new title by building the great tower.

The tower stands on the mound and was commissioned after he was made Earl in 1377. Its plan is a Greek cross: four many-sided wings around a central block, with a viewing tower on top. On every floor the rooms ring a central open light well. At the bottom is a warren of vaulted service and storage rooms, joined by narrow stairs to the first floor, where you find the buttery, the main kitchen, the great hall, the great chamber and the chapel. English Heritage also thinks the Earl set up the hermitage across the river, a rock-cut chapel reached by boat, in about 1400.

The siege of 1405

The Percys helped to put Henry IV on the throne by deposing Richard II in 1399. Soon the Earl and his eldest son, Harry Hotspur, quarrelled with the king. Hotspur was killed at Shrewsbury in 1403. In 1405 the Earl joined an unsuccessful conspiracy, and Henry IV marched north.

English Heritage's account of the siege is short: the king laid siege to Warkworth with cannon, and the castle surrendered quickly. That is all the page says. It gives no count of guns, no date for the surrender and no story of what the garrison did, so this post does not invent them. What the page does let us say is this: guns were used against a strong castle, and the defence did not last.

For a siege told in far more detail, with a keep that stood while the walls fell, read Rochester Castle and its three sieges.

The Wars of the Roses and the later Percys

The Percy lands passed to the Crown for a time, but Henry V restored Hotspur's son, another Henry Percy, to the earldom in 1416. In the Wars of the Roses the 2nd and 3rd Earls backed Henry VI and were killed at St Albans in 1455 and Towton in 1461. Warkworth then became the Yorkist headquarters. From there the Earl of Warwick ran the sieges of Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh, which were centres of Lancastrian resistance.

After he married in 1472, the 4th Earl, Henry, began to remodel the whole bailey. The Lion Tower, the main porch of the new home of about 1480, carries the heraldry of the Percys. He also planned a church inside the castle, but it was dropped when he was murdered in 1489. The foundations are still there.

The decline was slow. By 1550 the castle was described as rapidly falling into decay. The 7th Earl joined the Rising of the North in 1569 and was executed at York, and Sir John Forster pillaged the castle. In 1648, in the Civil War, Parliament's soldiers took a garrison in and, when they left, removed doors and iron so the castle could not be held in war.

A worked example: read the castle in layers

Warkworth is easy to read if you follow the dates. Stand at the gate and work inward:

• About 1200, the gatehouse and walls: a pair of many-sided towers and the curtain wall, built to stop an attack.
• From 1377, the great tower: a home for an earl on top of the mound, with kitchen, hall and chapel under one roof.
• About 1480, the bailey buildings: a hall range and a heraldic porch, built to show off a family rather than to keep an enemy out.

The castle changes from a defence to a display as the centuries pass. Compare the Middleham Castle history, where another great northern family turned a keep into a home, or the Conisbrough round tower.

From ruin to visit

Around 1752 the wall between the Montagu Tower and the gatehouse was pulled down and its stone used for cottages. Even so, the castle and its hermitage drew visitors, and Bishop Percy's poem The Hermit of Warkworth (1771) added to the interest. Between 1853 and 1858 the architect Anthony Salvin worked on the great tower for the 4th Duke of Northumberland. He gave two upper rooms, the Duke's Rooms, new floors and roofs. The castle became a scheduled ancient monument in 1915 and came into state guardianship in 1922.

Frequently asked questions

Did Henry IV use cannon at Warkworth?

Yes. English Heritage says that after the Earl joined an unsuccessful conspiracy in 1405, Henry IV marched north and laid siege to Warkworth with cannon, forcing a quick surrender.

Who built Warkworth Castle?

The date and the builder of the first castle are unclear. Robert fitz Roger was almost certainly responsible for the present castle between 1199 and 1214, and the 1st Earl of Northumberland almost certainly built the great tower.

When was the great tower built?

It was commissioned by Henry Percy after he became 1st Earl of Northumberland in 1377.

What is the hermitage at Warkworth?

It is a chapel carved out of the cliff rock beside the river Coquet, reached by boat. English Heritage thinks it was a private chapel, set up in about 1400 by the 1st Earl.

Get started

Warkworth's gatehouse dates from about 1200, and a gate is what you guard in Two Towers, a medieval tower defense game. The game's text says "Repair mends it, Reinforce raises its full strength". Its tips give the other half of the lesson: "Archers shoot the gate from the road: buy Range so your towers reach them before they stop", and "Mangonels throw stones from far off: a hill tower with Range reaches them". You pick two towers for the gate from four kinds and buy two more for the hills. The game does not model cannon.

Play Two Towers: it is free and plays in your browser on a computer or a phone.