I KATHARINE WILLOUGHBY 23 which still adorn the upper reaches of a few of our rivers. It is of earlier erection than the gateway, and its exterior is only interesting on account of its obvious antiquity. It ought to be a haunted house. The dark waters which lie close under its windows, and the dark copse in which it hides itself from the world, are suggestive of secret tragedies. Although dusk is approaching, not a light gleams from the windows, the birds are silent, save for a restless fluttering in the ivy; not a ripple stirs the surface of the moat, not a sound of life issues from the grim old hall. If there are no tragedies associated with the Moat Hall-and I cannot discover any-there was trouble enough in the life of Katharine Willoughby, whose father was Lord of Parham, and who, after the death of her first husband, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, married that Kentish reformer, Richard Bertie, who was one of the victims of Queen Mary's persecution of the Protestants. An Elizabethan ballad, entitled The Duchess of Suffolk's Calamity, tells of the hardships she endured when, with her husband, she was forced to flee to the Low Countries. There, if the ballad be true, they fell among thieves, and had 24 KATHARINE WILLOUGHBY CHAP. to beg their way from door to door. One night they sought refuge in the porch of St. Willebrord's church at Wesel, where the unfortunate duchess gave birth to the child who afterwards became the "brave Lord Willoughby." But even in the church they did not find sanctuary. The sexton arrived on the scene, and "The drunken knave, all void of shame, To drive then out was his desire : And spurning forth this noble dame, "And all in fury as he stood, He wrung the church keys out of his hand, His head ran down where he did stand; For help and aid aloud did cry.” But the governor of the town, hearing of the refugees' sorry plight, took compassion on them; and when informed of the Duchess's identity treated them with " reverence great" and to "princely cheer," so that they were able to live in comfort until the accession of Queen Elizabeth, when they returned to England and lived happily ever afterwards. As for Peregrine Bertie, whose advent into the world took place under such unpropitious circumstances, he lived to distinguish himself greatly at the Siege of Zutphen, and become general of the English forces in the United Provinces. His skill and courage made him a popular hero. One of his chief feats of arms is thus commemorated: "The fifteenth day of July, With glistening spear and shield, Was brave Lord Willoughbèy. THE "BRAVE LORD WILLOUGHBY" "Stand to it, noble pikemen, And look you round about ; "For seven hours, to all men's view, Until our men so feeble grew That they could fight no more; And then upon dead horses, "When they had fed so freely They kneeled on the ground, For the favour they had found; 25 At last, finding that after many hours fighting there was no lessening of the shower of arrows and bullets which the Englishmen poured upon them, nor any possibility of standing longer against the fierce charges, the Spaniards wavered, and "Then quoth the Spanish general, 'Come, let us march away; I fear we shall be spoiled all If here we longer stay; For yonder comes Lord Willoughbey, With courage fierce and fell; He will not give one inch of way For all the devils in hell!'" And that was about the end of the fight; and the rest of the ballad relates to rewards and favours and the usual 26 FRAMLINGHAM CASTLE CH. I laudations. It was all very pleasant reading to the contemporaries of the brave Lord Willoughby, and even now, after all the years which have elapsed since his death, and while Englishmen are filled with admiration for the endurance and fighting prowess of their modern horse-flesh-fed warriors, it stirs one's heart. It gives an added interest, too, to this lonely old hall, with which, however little he may have lived in it, the name of the "brave Lord Willoughby" will be associated so long as one of its bricks rests upon another. While I am lingering over old-time battles and ballads, the dusk is deepening into night, and unless I hasten on to Framlingham my desire to see its famous castle before darkness enshrouds it will not be gratified. Even now the shadows which have lurked in the sombre copses around the old hall are gathering over the moat and creeping over the Parham fields; and by the time I reach the village street again the cottage windows are lamplit and the labourers are home from their work on the land. It promises to be a dark night; there is no moon, and clouds which drifted up from the west at sunset will hide the stars; but there is still light enough in the sky to let me distinguish the outlines of the castle when I ride up close under its walls. Gloomy and forbidding they look, and though raised little above the level of the neighbouring houses the latter are dwarfed by them. And well they may be, for this is one of England's largest castles, and might well be taken for a great baronial stronghold which has withstood intact the ravages of time. True, the drawbridge is gone, and a brick bridge over a dry moat now leads up to the gate tower; but seen in the waning daylight, walls and towers seem to have preserved their original form. So, indeed, they have; and it is only when you get within them, and see what destruction has been wrought there, that you realise that after all this is nothing more than the empty shell of a huge castle. Almost the whole of the space within the walls is open to the sky, and has remained so ever since the middle of the seventeenth century, |