Siege of Bytham Castle 1221
Who Fought
Henry III, assisted by Hugh de Mortimer and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey,
William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, William d'Aubigny, Sir Richard Siward, Henry de Hastings and William de Hastings.
History & Significance
Castle Bytham is a village and civil parish of around 300 houses in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England. It is located 9 miles (14 km) north of Stamford and 9 miles (14 km) west of Bourne. The population was measured at 768 in 317 households at the 2011 census.
At one time the village was an important commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural communities, but it is now largely a dormitory, although a number of farming families remain with a much reduced workforce.
The name 'Bytham' is first recorded in 1067 (as a monastery that rapidly translated to Vaudey Abbey), and comes from the Old English word bythme meaning Valley bottom, broad valley. In the Domesday survey of 1086 the village was known as West Bytham as the castle had yet to be built. People have named the river that runs through the village the Tham or Am as a back-formation from the village name.
Morkery Wood housed a former bomb dump during the Second World War for the nearby airfields. In the early hours of 19 November 1942 Handley Page Halifax BB209 NP-G of 158 Sqn, from RAF Rufforth in North Yorkshire, crashed near Stocken Hall Farm (in the wood). It had been hit by flak south-east of Paris coming back from a raid on Turin, Italy. Half the aircrew were in the RCAF.
Overlooking the village is an 11th-century Norman castle mound. The site of the castle in Saxon times was owned by Morcar, also known as Morkere, who was the brother of Ealdgyth, wife of King Harold. The castle, which gave its name to the village, was built soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and was given by the Conqueror to his half brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent; it was later owned by William le Gros, 1st Earl of Albemarle, and passed to the family of Coleville. During the First Barons' War it was occupied by William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle aided by William d'Aubigny, Sir Richard Siward, Henry de Hastings and William de Hastings.. In 1221, after a siege, the castle was captured by Henry III with the help of Hugh de Mortimer and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey and restored to its lord, the former rebel William de Coleville.
In the 14th century the castle was occupied by the Earls of Hereford and in 1394 the children of John of Gaunt’s son Henry Bolingbroke (later to become King Henry IV), including his eldest son Henry who was to become Henry V the victor of Agincourt, came to live at the castle with their grandmother Joan Fitzalan, Countess of Hereford.
The castle was burnt in the 15th century during the Wars of the Roses. In the 16th century John Leland described remnants of the castle: "yet remained great walls of buildings".
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of Bytham Castle 1221 lies on Inferior Oolite Group, bedrock that formed in the Bathonian. The rock here is limestone, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone.
The siege of 1221 saw Henry III, supported by Hugh de Mortimer and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, successfully reduce Bytham Castle, which had been held by the rebel William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, together with William d'Aubigny, Sir Richard Siward, Henry de Hastings and William de Hastings, during the turbulent period following the First Barons' War.
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