The House of Walderne | Page 3

the lords of the
castle, where all his tenants and retainers were compelled to grind their
corn. It commanded a beautiful view of sea and land; a hostelry stood
near the summit, it was called the Cross in Hand, for it was once the
rendezvous of the would-be crusaders, who, from various parts of the
Weald, took the sacred badge, and started for the distant East via
Winchelsea or Pevensey.
In the deep dark wood were many settlements and clearings; Walderne
was perhaps the wildest, as its name implies; around lay Chiddinglye,
once the abode of the Saxon offspring of Chad or Chid; Hellinglye
(Ella-inga-leah), the home of the sons of Ella, of whom we have written
before; Heathfield and Framfield on opposite sides, open heaths in the
wood, covered with heather and sparsely peopled; Mayfield to the north,
once the abode of the great Saint Dunstan, and the scene of his conflicts
with Satan; Hothly to the south, where, at the date of our tale, lived the
Hodleghs, an Anglo-Norman brood.
The Lord of Walderne was Ralph, son of Sybilla de Dene (West Dean)
and Robert of Icklesham (near Winchelsea). He was blessed, or cursed,
as the case might be, with three children; Roger, Sybil, and Mabel.
The old man came of a stern fighting stock: what wonder that his son
inherited his character in this respect. He was a wilful yet affectionate
lad of strong passions, one who might be led but never driven:

unfortunately his father did not read his character aright, and at length a
crisis arose.
Roger wooed the daughter of the neighbouring Lord of Hothly, but
found a rival in a cousin, one Waleran de Dene, a favourite of his father,
and a constant visitor at Walderne Castle. In those rude days the
solution of the difficulty seemed simple--to fight the question out. The
dead man would trouble neither lad nor lass any more, the living lead
the fair bride to church; and, sooth to say, there were many misguided
maidens who were proud to be fought for, and quite willing to give
their hand to the victor.
So Roger challenged his cousin to fight when he met him returning
from a visit to Edith de Hodlegh, and the challenge being readily
accepted, the unhappy Waleran de Dene bit the dust. The old lord,
grieving sore over the death of his sister's son, drove Roger from home
and bade him never darken his doors again, till he had made reparation
by a pilgrimage or a crusade; and Roger departed, mourned by his
sisters and all the household, and was heard of no more during his
father's lifetime.
But more grief was in store for the stern old lord of Walderne. The third
child, Mabel, the youngest daughter, fell in love with a handsome
young hunter, a Saxon outlaw of the type of Robin Hood, who
delivered her from a wild boar which would have slain or cruelly
mangled her. The old father had inspired no confidence in his children:
she met her outlaw again and again by stealth, and eventually became
the bride of Wulfstan, last representative of the old English family who
had possessed Michelham before the Conquest {3}.
The remaining child, Sybil, alone gladdened her old father's heart and
closed his eyes, weary of the world, in peace; after which she married
Sir Nicholas de Harengod, and became Lady of Icklesham, by the sea,
and Walderne up in the Weald.
The castle was originally one of those robber dens which were such a
terror to their vicinities in the days of King Stephen; it escaped the
general destruction of such holds under Henry Plantagenet, and became

the abode of law-abiding folk.
It had long ceased to be a source of terror to the neighbourhood when it
came into the possession of the Denes--to whom it was a convenient
hunting seat; fortified, as a matter of course, by royal permission,
which ran thus:
"Know that we have granted, on behalf of ourselves and our heirs, to
our beloved Ralph de Dene that he may hold and keep his houses of
Walderne fortified with moat and walls of stone and lime, and
crenellated, without any let or hindrance from ourselves or our heirs."
This permission was made necessary in the time of the great
Plantagenet, in order to prevent the multiplication of fortified places of
offence as well as defence by tyrannical barons or other oppressors of
the commonwealth; for in the days of Stephen, as we have remarked
already, many, if not most, of such holds had been little better than
dens of robbers, as the piteous lament which concludes the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" too well testifies.
The space enclosed by the moat and outer walls of Walderne Castle
was about 150 feet in diameter.
The