Secrets Of Great British Castles - Season 2, Episode 3 York Castle
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00:00For me, a great British castle is a fortress, a palace, a home.
00:11And a symbol of power, majesty and fear.
00:16For nearly 1,000 years,
00:18castles have shaped Britain's famous landscape.
00:24These magnificent buildings have been home
00:27to some of the greatest heroes and villains in our national history.
00:32And many of them still stand proudly today,
00:35bursting with incredible stories of warfare,
00:39treachery, intrigue, passion and murder.
00:45Join me, Dan Jones,
00:47as I uncover the secrets behind six great British castles.
00:53This time, I'm at York Castle,
00:56the heart of one of Britain's most ancient cities.
00:59In its long history, it's witnessed all sorts of malice and mayhem.
01:04It's where kings like Henry VIII made a bloody example of their enemies,
01:09where one of the worst religious massacres ever seen in Britain took place,
01:13and where the most notorious highwayman in history met his end.
01:18It's a castle packed with thrilling stories that go back nearly 2,000 years.
01:26Let's go.
01:42This strange stone tower, built in the shape of a four-leaf clover...
01:50..on top of a steep mound of earth in the middle of an ancient walled city,
01:55is one of the most unusual fortresses in Britain.
02:02York Castle, together with its 19th-century jails and courthouse,
02:07has been a centre of royal power in the north of England
02:11for almost 1,000 years.
02:13In fact, its significance goes back even further.
02:16For almost 2,000 years, the Romans, Vikings, Normans,
02:21and the rest of England have all seized upon the strategic importance of this site.
02:29All of them left their mark,
02:31which is why the castle and the city, surrounded by two miles of stone walls,
02:38is one of Britain's most famous historical sites.
02:43The first people to fortify York were the Romans in 71 AD.
02:48That's why there's a statue of a Roman emperor in the city today.
02:53Constantine the Great converted the Roman Empire to Christianity,
02:58and he was proclaimed emperor here in York.
03:03The Romans called the town Aberarcum.
03:06They built walls around it
03:08and made it the official capital of the north of England.
03:12But in the 5th century AD, with their empire crumbling,
03:16the Romans left Britain and Aberarcum for good.
03:21Four centuries later, in 867 AD,
03:25a new set of invaders arrived from across the sea, the Vikings.
03:30They called the area Jorvik.
03:33Over time, it became known as York.
03:37With York as their capital,
03:39the Vikings imposed their laws and customs in the north of England for 200 years.
03:46All rape and pillage.
03:48The Vikings were busy traders, and under them, York became a boontown.
03:55But soon, a new conqueror arrived on the scene.
04:00In 1066, a band of ruthless warriors invaded England,
04:05slaughtering anyone who stood in their way,
04:08and they would bring the art of castle building to York.
04:13When William the Conqueror's invading army from Normandy
04:17met the army of Harold, King of England, near Hastings,
04:21a day-long battle saw Harold killed and William's army victorious.
04:28Mark Morris is a leading expert on this period.
04:33So, Mark, 1066, one of the most famous dates in British history.
04:37William the Conqueror crosses the English Channel,
04:40seeing Harold at the Battle of Hastings.
04:43That's usually where the story ends, but what happens next?
04:46Just because the English have submitted to him
04:48doesn't mean they're happy about it, and in the years that follow,
04:51there are constant uprisings and rebellions against his rule.
04:55And what they're doing as they move into each region of England
04:59is cementing their rule by building castles.
05:02I see.
05:03So there is a big rebellion early in 1068 in the West Country,
05:06and they put a castle at Exeter.
05:08Later that year, in the summer,
05:10there is a much bigger rebellion in the Midlands and the North,
05:14so we get a large castle established at Warwick.
05:17He then moves on to Nottingham, which surrenders without a fight.
05:21And then he gets to York, where he plants a castle in 1068.
05:26So William's put a castle at York. Does that solve his problems?
05:30No.
05:31William thinks his problems are solved by the end of 1068.
05:35He indeed returns to Normandy,
05:37but in his absence, the North rebels again.
05:40There's a major rising at the start of 1069,
05:43which prompts William to come back, and it gets worse,
05:46because in the late summer of 1069, the North rises for a third time,
05:51and this time they have Vikings supporting them.
05:56The Viking and English forces that rose up against the Normans
06:00in the summer of 1069 destroyed the first wooden castle
06:04that William the Conqueror had erected at York.
06:11William was furious, and there would be hell to pay.
06:17Eventually, William paid the Vikings to go home,
06:20but then he unleashed a campaign of terror
06:23known as the Harrying of the North.
06:28His troops swept across the nearby countryside,
06:32killing people, slaughtering animals, burning crops and homes.
06:38Their aim was to make this area totally unfit to support human life,
06:43and they were dreadfully successful.
06:46As many as 100,000 people either died during the Harrying
06:51or of starvation in the famine that followed.
06:56Not surprisingly, after the Harrying of the North,
07:00the men at York met with little further resistance.
07:04Norman rule in the north was here to stay,
07:07but entire communities were devastated.
07:13According to the Doomsday Book,
07:15the great land survey ordered by William the Conqueror,
07:18large areas of Yorkshire were still lying desolate
07:2217 years after the Harrying.
07:27It took decades for them to recover.
07:31The results were so appalling
07:33that even William is said to have repented on his deathbed,
07:37lamenting that,
07:38"'I have persecuted the native inhabitants of England beyond all reason,
07:43"'especially in that county of York.
07:46"'Innumerable multitudes have perished through me,
07:50"'by famine and by sword.
07:53"'I am stained by the rivers of blood that I have shed.'"
07:57The rebellion against the Normans was over,
08:00but the population of York felt its devastating effects for years to come.
08:06The castle was rebuilt as a permanent reminder
08:09of the dominance of the Normans.
08:11But this was not the last time York Castle
08:14would be associated with death and destruction.
08:18In the centuries to come,
08:20it would be the scene of persecution, torture, gruesome executions
08:24and one of Britain's worst ever religious massacres.
08:31The brutality of the Harrying of the North
08:34had vividly demonstrated
08:36William the Conqueror's ruthlessness in the face of rebellion.
08:41York Castle was now recognised as his power base in the north of England.
08:50But in the 11th century,
08:52there was one thing considered more important than the might of the king.
08:57The power of God.
09:00Nothing said more about the importance of York Castle
09:04than the building of a huge cathedral close by.
09:09Cathedrals were the only medieval buildings
09:12that could ever rival the scale and grandeur of castles.
09:16In fact, they were usually built by the same craftsmen
09:20because they required the same materials
09:23and the same intricate precision and workmanship to construct.
09:29This is York Minster, and it's been a holy site for 1,400 years
09:33since the first Christian church was recorded here in 627 AD.
09:38That one was destroyed when William the Conqueror
09:41laid York waste in 1070,
09:43but it was rebuilt by the first Norman bishop of York,
09:47Thomas of Bayeux.
09:49It's no coincidence that York Minster
09:51stands just down the road from York Castle.
09:54The one represents the power of the church,
09:56the other the power of the crown,
09:58and they've always been closely connected.
10:04Just as the castle protected the city,
10:07so the cathedral protected the castle.
10:10It was a visible reminder of the belief
10:13that kings ruled by the will of God,
10:16and anyone thinking of attacking York Castle
10:19would do well to remember that.
10:25But just because York was God-fearing,
10:27that didn't mean it was peaceful.
10:30Much of the mayhem the castle faced over the centuries
10:33centred around religion,
10:36and in 1190, the castle would be the scene of a hideous massacre
10:41carried out in the name of Christianity.
10:47After William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066,
10:52he brought a small but influential community of Jews
10:56over from Normandy.
10:58100 years later,
11:00York had one of the largest Jewish communities in England,
11:04but anti-Semitic feeling was rife.
11:07In the early spring of 1190,
11:10rioting against Jews broke out in London,
11:13and very soon it spread north to York.
11:16In March, a crowd gathered in the city
11:19and began burning Jewish homes.
11:22The attacks unleashed on York's Jews had several causes.
11:26For a start, the medieval church was basically intolerant of other faiths,
11:31branding non-Christians as infidels or unbelievers.
11:35And then there was money.
11:37In the Middle Ages, Jews were heavily involved in finance
11:42because Christians were forbidden to lend money and charge interest.
11:46The people of York who'd run up large debts to the Jews
11:50needed very little encouragement to join in violence against them.
11:56On March 16th, fearing for their lives,
11:59York's 150 Jews fled into the castle,
12:03seeking safety and protection from the sheriff.
12:07Under medieval law,
12:09the king's representative in the castle, in this case the sheriff,
12:13was duty-bound to offer royal protection to anyone who sought it here.
12:18But as the mob surrounded the castle,
12:20the sheriff's officers lost control of the situation
12:23and they found themselves on the outside with the Jews on the inside.
12:30So the Jews of York came to the castle seeking royal protection.
12:33What happened next?
12:35At some point the Jews inside the castle realised
12:38that actually they wouldn't be able to hold out any longer,
12:41that the attackers would be able to get in
12:43and they feared that they would be killed.
12:45It was on the counsel of someone among their community
12:48advised them that actually the sacred and important duty of all of them
12:52was to take their own lives.
12:54And so a horrible spectacle took place
12:57in which the heads of all the different households
13:00first of all slit the throats of their dependent women and children
13:04and then killed one another
13:06and then finally those that were left took their own lives.
13:09Those that had chosen not to take their own lives,
13:12they were brought down out of the tower,
13:14they were set upon by the mob and murdered every one of them.
13:17In total, all 150 Jews died,
13:21the entire Jewish population of the city.
13:24To this day, it remains the worst Jewish pogrom in this country's history.
13:30During the pogrom of 1190, the castle,
13:33at this stage still a wooden tower, was burnt and badly damaged.
13:38It wasn't fully repaired for more than half a century.
13:45It was only in 1244 that the castle was brought up
13:49to the building standards of the day.
13:53King Henry III visited York
13:55and he was appalled at the state he found the castle in,
13:58so he ordered it to be rebuilt, only this time in stone.
14:03Now, Henry III was one of the most renowned builder kings
14:07of the whole English Middle Ages
14:09and he sent one of his best craftsmen to oversee the job,
14:13Master Henry the Mason.
14:17The budget would eventually come to more than £2,500.
14:22In today's terms, that would be more than £2 million.
14:25What emerged was pretty impressive.
14:28The main castle was completely reconstructed in stone
14:32and a hall, a chapel, a prison and offices were added.
14:36At the heart was a very unusual defensive tower
14:40designed as four overlapping circles.
14:43It looks a bit like a four-leafed clover.
14:46Obviously, we only have the tower now.
14:48What would the rest of the castle have looked like?
14:51Well, a bit like this.
14:53Where we are currently standing in
14:55is the area of the bailey of the medieval castle,
14:58which is the enclosure that stands at the foot of the castle mound,
15:01separated from it, actually, by a ditch that was filled with water.
15:04And if we'd been here in the Middle Ages,
15:06what we would have seen here are lots of different buildings.
15:09The hall, the chamber, workshops, stables,
15:12and I think it would look very busy and a hive of activity.
15:16So here we are round the back of the castle
15:18and there's a very strange bit of architecture here, isn't there?
15:21This is the king's toilet.
15:23In fact, specifically, two levels of toilet,
15:25the king's toilet up above and the toilet for the ground floor.
15:28In fact, there are two, one on that side and one on that side.
15:31So this is actually quite an elaborate piece of plumbing, I suppose.
15:34Plumbing is exactly the right word
15:36because in the guardrobe at the higher level,
15:38which I think must have been for the king,
15:40actually, it flushed and, you know, in the 13th century,
15:43you don't get many that do that.
15:45The water came in from the gutters and the roof level
15:47and it poured all down this pipe behind us.
15:49Very necessary and also very elegant at the same time.
15:52Yeah, that's Henry III for you. Yeah.
15:57In the 13th century, the castle's importance grew even further
16:01when Henry III was succeeded by his son, Edward I.
16:06Edward was one of England's greatest warrior kings.
16:10In 1283, he marched a conquering army into Wales.
16:14The next decade, he turned his sights on Scotland.
16:19While he was fighting the Scots,
16:21Edward didn't want to keep returning to London to govern his kingdom.
16:26So in 1298, he moved part of the government from London to York
16:31to be closer to the battlefront.
16:34As the king's entourage moved north,
16:37York became the temporary capital of England.
16:42Along with York's status as a centre of government
16:45became a greater responsibility for enforcing law and order.
16:50From about 1300, the courts for the whole of Yorkshire
16:54were held here every spring and summer.
16:57The prisoners awaiting trial were held in the castle's dungeons,
17:01sometimes for months on end, and often in terrible conditions.
17:08And few inmates attracted more attention
17:11than a group of men locked up here in 1308.
17:14They were called the Knights Templar.
17:18A knighthood today is just a nice title you get from the queen,
17:22but in the Middle Ages, it really meant something.
17:28Knights were privileged warriors
17:30whose titles were bestowed upon them in return for loyal service.
17:35They pledged to fight in the front line for the king or the church
17:39any time, any place, anywhere.
17:45Tobias Capwell is an expert on their arms and weapons.
17:49He's going to help me find out
17:51what it was really like to be a medieval knight.
17:55And what have we got here? Tell me piece by piece.
17:58This is basically the kit of the medieval knight.
18:03I mean, you'd be my sort of squire, right?
18:05A knight would have someone to help him do all this.
18:08Yeah, you have to have assistance.
18:10So it doesn't feel that heavy when it's on, does it?
18:12It felt heavy at first, but actually the weight is kind of distributed,
18:15so it's not like it's really weighing on your shoulders.
18:18This is the male hood or coif.
18:20OK, so now it's getting quite hot.
18:24If you're going to have one piece of good iron or steel armour,
18:28it's always going to be the helmet.
18:30That's the power of a knight right there,
18:33the ability to wield three feet of steel
18:37with deadly ability and accuracy.
18:40You know, playing it like a virtuoso musician.
18:43Now, there's one group of knights
18:45particularly associated with York Castle,
18:47and I want to ask you about them, the Knights Templar.
18:50Well, the Templars were one of a number of military orders
18:54that were founded to defend the territory of Christian Palestine.
18:58And a Templar would have been dressed and armed more or less like this?
19:02The only major visual difference is that they wore the white mantles
19:06that you would have worn over the armour.
19:09But technologically and practically, this is what they were wearing.
19:15Today, this house, Temple Newsome,
19:18is an incredible mansion dating from the late Tudor period.
19:22But in the Middle Ages, this was the Yorkshire headquarters
19:26of the most famous international order of knights,
19:29the Knights Templar, whose members came from all over Europe.
19:34The Templars were a religious order of knights
19:37that was founded in the 12th century in Jerusalem
19:40as part of the Crusades,
19:43the medieval wars between Christian and Muslim armies
19:47which raged for centuries right across the Mediterranean.
19:53They were pious and fearsome warriors,
19:56famous throughout the Christian world
19:58for their distinctive uniform of a white mantle
20:01emblazoned with a red cross.
20:04They also owned vast amounts of property and land
20:07in France and Germany, Spain, Portugal and in England,
20:12where their presence was particularly strong, here in Yorkshire.
20:19The Templars also built an unlikely reputation as international bankers.
20:25With their profits, they built castles and churches.
20:28They had their own fleet of ships
20:31and at one point even owned the entire island of Cyprus.
20:35But their extraordinary success would also be their downfall.
20:41The Templars' power, privilege and wealth
20:44made them some very powerful enemies.
20:47Among them was King Philip IV of France.
20:51When Philip found himself owing large amounts of money to the order,
20:55he took drastic action.
20:57In 1307, he ordered mass arrests of the Templars in France.
21:02They were tortured and forced to confess to immorality and heresy.
21:07It wasn't long before other kings across Europe took similar action.
21:11In 1308, Edward II issued orders
21:14for all the Templars in England to be rounded up.
21:1725 were arrested in Yorkshire, some of them here at Temple Newsome.
21:23They were taken to York Castle,
21:25where they were thrown in the dungeons to await trial.
21:31In 1310, legal proceedings finally began.
21:36The Templars were accused of religious crimes,
21:39so they were tried by a panel of bishops and other churchmen.
21:44Dominic Selwood is an expert on the Templars.
21:48So the trial of the Templars in Yorkshire
21:51took place here in the chapter house at York Minster.
21:54What were the Templars accused of?
21:56The crimes were framed by Philip of France
21:58and he wanted to shock people as much as he could,
22:01and he did a very good job.
22:03He said that they were guilty of urinating and spitting on crucifixes
22:06on the image of Christ.
22:08He said that they worshipped idols in the form of cats, calves, human heads.
22:12It was a black magic charge, in effect,
22:14because the idols were said to give them magical powers.
22:17And he said that they engaged in shocking,
22:19sordid, secret sexual ceremonies.
22:21So as a smear tactic, it really worked.
22:23What happened at the trial?
22:25The outcome was that they were all found innocent.
22:27The charges didn't stick.
22:29Why do you think people are so fascinated with the Templars, even today?
22:33It's an amazingly cinematic story.
22:35They were supermen. They were superheroes.
22:38For 200 years, they defended Christendom.
22:40They hammered their enemies.
22:42They also were not prepared to let the Order be dishonoured.
22:45They would rather face death and prison
22:47than admit these false charges against them.
22:52Although the individual knights were found not guilty,
22:55the trial was a disaster for the Order,
22:58which was stripped of its possessions and disbanded.
23:01But it could have been far worse.
23:04In France, many of the Templars were burned to death.
23:08In the future, however,
23:10York Castle would be the scene of its own horrific executions.
23:14And none was more gruesome than the hideous punishment dished out
23:19by the most famous British monarch of all, King Henry VIII.
23:27York's medieval castle saw invasions, uprisings,
23:31show trials and religious slaughter.
23:34By the 16th century, the fortifications beyond the castle
23:38had been thoroughly extended and updated.
23:42A high stone wall over two miles long
23:45now totally encircled the entire medieval city.
23:50It was studded with gates known as bars.
23:54Manned by the king's men,
23:56these kept strict control of the traffic in and out of York.
24:00This is Micklegate Bar,
24:02one of six gates in York's old defensive walls,
24:05which once controlled access to the city and to the castle.
24:09This is where kings and queens would enter York.
24:12It was also where the heads of traitors would be stuck on spikes
24:16and left to rot as a warning to anyone
24:19who was thinking of rebelling against the crown.
24:24And no-one ever left the castle.
24:28And no-one ever used these gates
24:31to more dramatic effect than King Henry VIII.
24:36During his reign, York Castle was swept up
24:39in a violent rebellion against the crown
24:42and the dreadful retribution that followed.
24:49In 1534, Henry VIII declared himself
24:52supreme head of the church in England
24:55and across the country,
24:57all references to the Pope and the Catholic Church in Rome were removed.
25:02To some people, this was long-overdue religious reform,
25:06but to others, it was little more than state-sponsored vandalism.
25:13Henry VIII's Protestant Reformation
25:16was a direct attack on the Roman Catholic faith.
25:20Some of the biggest symbols of Catholicism were England's monasteries,
25:24like St Mary's Abbey just across the road from York Castle.
25:29In 1536, Henry's men came here and tried to shut the abbey down.
25:36Monasteries like this one were big employers
25:39and people relied on them for work, education and medical care.
25:43But Henry closed this abbey and dozens of others like it,
25:47stripped it of its assets and seized them for the crown.
25:52Eventually, for the conservative, Catholic people of northern England,
25:56this was all too much and they rose up in rebellion against their king.
26:03This rebellion was led by Robert Aske from Selby,
26:07just 14 miles from York,
26:09who gave his uprising a stirring and very deliberately Catholic name,
26:15the Pilgrimage of Grace.
26:18It was the worst revolt of the whole of Henry VIII's reign,
26:22turning the north upside down for three months,
26:26as up to 35,000 people rose up against him.
26:34Robert Aske was a lawyer from a well-to-do local family.
26:38He was also a gifted public speaker and a disciplined organiser.
26:43In October 1536, Aske led a procession of 5,000 men
26:48through the streets of York here to the Minster
26:51and he posted on the door a petition calling for the monks and nuns
26:55to be returned to their religious houses.
26:58He also wanted a Parliament of the North held here at York
27:02and a pardon for all those involved in the rebellion.
27:07Henry VIII's representative in the north, the Duke of Norfolk,
27:11presented the rebel's petition to the king,
27:14who then asked to meet with Aske.
27:17Naively trusting the king's good intentions,
27:20Aske left Yorkshire and headed to London.
27:23But by the time he arrived, King Henry had changed his mind.
27:29He had Aske arrested and thrown into the Tower of London,
27:33where he was charged and convicted of high treason.
27:37Then, to further drive home the point,
27:40Henry had Aske taken from London back to York Castle
27:45and paraded in chains in every town he passed through.
27:51When he arrived at York, Aske was taken to the castle
27:54for the final stage of his ghastly punishment.
27:57His sentence read,
28:00You are to be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution,
28:04and there you are to be hanged by the neck,
28:07and, being alive, cut down,
28:09and your privy members to be cut off,
28:12and your bowels to be taken out of your belly and there burned,
28:16you still being alive, and your head to be cut off,
28:19and your body to be divided into four quarters,
28:22and that your head and quarters to be disposed of
28:26where his majesty shall think fit.
28:29When they were finished with him,
28:31what was left of Aske's body was hung in chains from the walls of the castle
28:35so the people of the city could see just what happened
28:38to those who rose up against their king.
28:43Aske's uprising was the bloodiest chapter of Henry VIII's entire reign.
28:49Over 200 of the rebels across Yorkshire received similar punishment.
28:54It was intended, Henry said himself,
28:57as a fearful warning to anyone who dared defy the king.
29:03And Aske wasn't the last Catholic dissenter to be imprisoned in York Castle.
29:0950 years later, during the reign of Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I,
29:14a woman called Margaret Clitheroe also defied the monarch's ruling on religion.
29:20The fate she suffered after coming to the castle was arguably even worse.
29:29This is the Shambles, one of the oldest streets in York,
29:32and in Tudor times there were as many as 20 butcher's shops here.
29:36And this is where, in 1571, a woman called Margaret Clitheroe moved
29:41when she married her husband John, a wealthy butcher.
29:45Three years later, Margaret converted to Catholicism
29:48and soon she was one of the leading figures
29:51in York's underground Catholic community.
29:55Margaret was determined to cling on to her old faith.
30:00Not only did she hold illegal masses in her house,
30:03she was also suspected of hiding outlawed Catholic priests.
30:08In this chapel in York,
30:10I found evidence of just how dangerous that sort of thing could be.
30:18This is a priest hole built to hide Catholic priests from the authorities.
30:23You can imagine just how scary it would be to be the person inside there.
30:27It's small, it's dark, I imagine it's pretty cold as well,
30:31but if you were hidden away in this hole,
30:33you'd know that it was better down there than up here,
30:36because if the authorities caught you,
30:39then your fate would be very grisly indeed.
30:43Eventually, in 1586, Margaret's home was raided and a priest hole was found.
30:50She was arrested and taken to York Castle to prepare herself for trial.
30:58When Margaret was brought before the court,
31:00she wouldn't say whether or not she was guilty.
31:03She knew that under English law, that meant a trial couldn't go ahead
31:07and that, crucially, her children wouldn't be called to testify
31:11against her.
31:12Unfortunately, English law had a way of dealing with people who refused to plead.
31:17It was called pain forte dure, better known as crushing.
31:21Margaret was taken from the court,
31:23she was laying on the floor with a stone the size of a man's fist beneath her back.
31:28Then a door was placed on top of her,
31:31and onto that was piled about 700 pounds of other stones.
31:38Margaret was literally squashed,
31:40and the stone beneath her back snapped her spine in half.
31:44It took her about 15 minutes to die,
31:47and even Queen Elizabeth I was shocked when she heard about it.
31:53What was the point of pressing someone like Margaret Clitheroe to death?
31:57It's so horrendous, so exquisitely savage,
32:02that no-one would dream of not entering a plea,
32:05that they would all accept trial by jury.
32:07That's the theory, but Margaret didn't.
32:10Why?
32:11Well, there are many reasons.
32:12She said that she wanted to preserve the consciences of her jurors
32:16so they wouldn't have to make her, you know, find her guilty.
32:19She also wanted to protect her children and her servants
32:21from testifying against her.
32:23That's what she said.
32:24Some people think, though, really, that she was seeking martyrdom.
32:27People were trying to get her off.
32:29That ten-day period or so between her trial and her pressing,
32:33everyone was going into her cell trying to get her to plead,
32:36and there was even one stage when a jury of women examined her
32:39to see if she might be pregnant,
32:41and they came out and said she probably was pregnant.
32:43So there is a sense that she's accepted her fate already
32:46and she's going in as a willing martyr.
32:50It's believed that her body was eventually dug up
32:53and given a secret burial, or at least most of it was.
32:59So, James, show me what's inside here.
33:01OK, Dan, I'll just open the cupboard.
33:09The hand of Margaret Clitheroe. Wow!
33:11So this is the hand that was taken from Margaret Clitheroe
33:16just after she'd been pressed to death?
33:18That's right. I understood that, basically, after her execution,
33:23friends of hers recovered the hand from the body,
33:28which, in all honesty, probably was one of the few items left.
33:31You can sort of feel it, actually, can't you?
33:33Because if this is the hand of this woman
33:35who endured such terrible hardship and brutality,
33:39and here it is right in front of us,
33:41then it becomes much more than just a story, doesn't it?
33:44You can't but be in awe by looking at something like this, you know.
33:47It's amazing.
33:50By the start of the 17th century,
33:53York Castle was being referred to as Clifford's Tower,
33:56named after the powerful Clifford family
33:59who were Lord Lieutenants of the North of England
34:02and hereditary constables of the castle.
34:05Like all families of the time, they would take sides in a civil war
34:09that was about to tear the country in two.
34:12In 1642, Charles I fell out violently with his Parliament
34:17and civil war erupted in England.
34:20On one side were the Royalists, known as Cavaliers,
34:24who supported the king
34:26with what he considered his God-given right to rule.
34:29On the other side were the Roundheads,
34:32who felt Parliament should be the ultimate power in the country.
34:36The Cliffords were loyal to Charles I,
34:39and in April 1642, the city of York and its castle
34:44became the refuge for a king who was in danger of losing his crown,
34:48his kingdom and his head.
34:51Fearing for his crown as well as for his safety,
34:54Charles I moved his family and the entire royal court
34:58north to what he thought was the security of York.
35:02To bolster the city's defences, the castle was re-roofed,
35:05its walls were repaired and sentry boxes were set up.
35:09York was now the effective capital of England,
35:12but it was also in the firing line.
35:16In April 1644, York was besieged by Roundhead forces.
35:21The siege went on for more than two months.
35:24But on the 1st of July, the Royalists inside York
35:28thought their luck had changed
35:30with the arrival of reinforcement troops
35:33led by Charles' glamorous nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
35:38But the Royalists were wrong.
35:40The following day, just west of York,
35:43they suffered a bloody defeat
35:45at what's thought to be the biggest battle ever fought on English soil.
35:50The Battle of Marston Moor.
35:54After the battle, York Castle held out for a further two weeks.
35:58But finally, on the 16th of July,
36:01the king's remaining supporters, who were holed up inside, surrendered.
36:06The north was now firmly within Parliament's and the Roundhead's control
36:11and York became their capital of the north.
36:14After being controversially tried for treason,
36:17King Charles I was executed in London in January 1649.
36:24Charles' son, Charles II, was restored to the throne in 1660
36:29and York Castle entered a new phase in its history.
36:34The castle's warring days were over.
36:38But its importance as a site of justice and punishment would continue.
36:43At the beginning of the 18th century,
36:46a state-of-the-art new prison was built in the castle grounds.
36:50And it was here that the most notorious highwayman in history,
36:55Dick Turpin, would meet his end.
36:59York Castle has witnessed religious persecution,
37:03torture, execution and all-out war.
37:08But the English Civil War in the 17th century
37:12was the last military action the castle saw.
37:15By the end of the conflict, its fighting days were over
37:19and its main use was now as a jail.
37:22Criminals were held in cells within the wall,
37:25which once encircled the broad area of the castle
37:28in front of the central tower.
37:30They were waiting for travelling judges to come and hear their cases,
37:34but that only happened twice a year.
37:36Terrible prison conditions, no heat, poor food, dirty cells,
37:41meant that many of them died here still alive.
37:44And the prison was the only place in the castle
37:48Terrible prison conditions, no heat, poor food, dirty cells,
37:52meant that many of them died here still waiting for justice.
37:56But plans were in place to bring the whole complex up to date.
38:02The old medieval buildings in front of the castle were demolished
38:07and a new purpose-built prison was opened in 1705.
38:11This prison was one of the first in Britain
38:15to imprison female prisoners.
38:18Its most famous inmate was one of the most celebrated outlaws
38:23in English history.
38:30In 1738, Dick Turpin, a notorious gangster and highwayman,
38:35shot and killed a man in London
38:38and fled to Yorkshire to escape the law.
38:41But later that year he was arrested, rather bizarrely,
38:44for shooting someone's chickens.
38:47Inquiries soon connected him to a string of local horse thefts
38:51and he was imprisoned at York Castle.
38:54This is the cell that Richard Turpin was held in
38:58before his trial for horse theft in 1739.
39:02Now, at first, the authorities at York Castle
39:05didn't know that he was Turpin.
39:07They thought he was a man called John Parmen
39:10and they only realised their mistake
39:12when Turpin's old schoolteacher back in Essex
39:15recognised his handwriting on a letter he'd sent to his brother-in-law
39:20and the schoolteacher travelled north to York
39:24to identify Turpin and claim a £200 reward.
39:30Over the years, many myths have grown up around him,
39:33but who was the real Dick Turpin?
39:36In the popular fiction of the day,
39:38Turpin was described as a brave, heroic and chivalrous character,
39:43a knight of the road with a spirit of devotion to the fair sex,
39:47a sort of Robin Hood character.
39:49But was this really true?
39:53Historian Catherine Pryor has studied the man behind the legend.
40:00Turpin's crimes were pretty unpleasant, I mean, highly unpleasant.
40:05You'd get headlines screaming in the sun about today.
40:09Torture, murder, point-blank murder.
40:13There's absolutely no evidence that Turpin gave anything to anybody else.
40:18As far as we can establish, he lived for himself,
40:21so the idea that he gave to the poor is pretty nonsensical.
40:25So having Richard Turpin as a prisoner,
40:27this was a real boon for York Castle.
40:29It was a real boon for the jailer
40:31because in those days, jails were commercial enterprises.
40:34They weren't run by the state,
40:36and you got your money back from the fees
40:39that you levied on the people who were in the jail.
40:42It was a form of accommodation.
40:44It was like you paid for your accommodation
40:46while you waited to be tried or waited to be executed.
40:49And Richard Turpin lived it up rather grandly while he was here.
40:55And there was a lot of bribery,
40:58and he paid to have a lot of things brought him,
41:01a lot of wine, fine food.
41:03And people paid to come and see him.
41:05I mean, it was sort of like a zoo, really.
41:07In the 18th century, horse theft was a capital crime,
41:11so when Turpin was found guilty,
41:13there was only one sentence.
41:16Death.
41:18A couple of days before he died,
41:20he shelled out some money and got a new frock coat and new shoes,
41:24and he paid five men to be his mourners or pallbearers.
41:29He was seen to be quite calm going up.
41:32There's an account saying that his right leg wobbled a bit
41:35and he slapped it down very firmly
41:37and climbed the ladder in a manly fashion.
41:40And then he stayed talking with the chap
41:43who was going to pull the ladder away for about half an hour.
41:48Everyone, it's described now as bravado,
41:50but you sort of think he was probably hoping
41:52maybe, maybe there'll be a last-minute reprieve, but there wasn't.
41:56And so the ladder was pulled away and he died.
42:06By the 19th century, most of this once-great fortress
42:10had either crumbled away or been demolished
42:13to make way for new buildings such as this.
42:16New buildings such as the prison.
42:19Eventually, all that was left were the outer walls of the city
42:23and this one structure, still standing proudly on the hill,
42:28York Castle, known locally as Clifford's Tower.
42:32York's famous for its cathedral and its city walls,
42:36but I love this curious castle,
42:4055 steps up on top of its hill.
42:44From Viking raiders and Norman conquerors
42:49to a Tudor saint and a notorious highwayman,
42:53it's the stories of York Castle
42:56that really put this historic northern city on the map.