Category
📚
LearningTranscript
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, treachery,
00:40intrigue, passion and murder.
00:45Join me, Dan Jones,
00:47as I uncover the secrets behind six great British castles.
00:53This time I'm in Arundel, near Britain's south coast,
00:56a classic English castle whose comfort, elegance and grandeur
01:00was enjoyed and admired by Queen Victoria.
01:04But Arundel was originally built for war,
01:07and it survived more than its fair share of battles, brutality and bloodshed.
01:13The story of Arundel Castle spans almost 1,000 years,
01:17and throughout it all, the lesson for its owners has been the same.
01:21Choose the right side and you get to keep all this.
01:24Choose the wrong one and you die.
01:40Arundel Castle dominates a hillside
01:43where the Sussex Downs roll towards the English Channel.
01:47It's half medieval fortress, half stately home,
01:50a place that has its own gatehouse and its own cricket ground.
01:54It even has a duke, the extremely prestigious Duke of Norfolk.
01:58It may seem odd, but his family line have owned this castle
02:02for more than 800 years, even though it's not actually in Norfolk.
02:07But, you see, he's not any old duke. He's also an earl.
02:13Although we're in Sussex, Arundel Castle is the seat of the Duke of Norfolk,
02:17who's the first, or the most important, peer in the land.
02:21He also happens to be Earl of Arundel, the oldest earldom in the kingdom,
02:25so he's doubly important.
02:28In a few moments, Her Majesty would arrive at the Palace of Westminster,
02:32awaited by the Earl-Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Lord Great Chamberlain.
02:36Traditionally, the Duke of Norfolk was one of those
02:39who walked backwards in front of the Queen
02:41when she opened a new session of Parliament.
02:45He faced her to show loyalty and respect,
02:49but he had to watch his back to avoid tripping over a dozing lord.
02:55And, actually, that pretty much sums up the history of this castle
02:59and of its owners.
03:01Loyalty. Who's on your side? Who's plotting against you?
03:05You need to watch your back because you never know who to trust.
03:10Today, the Duke's own team is playing.
03:13This used to be his private cricket ground until the 1970s,
03:17when the Sussex County side started playing here too.
03:21It regularly hosts big charity and celebrity games.
03:25Even Prince Philip captained a side here in the 1950s.
03:29Arundel has always attracted people of power and influence.
03:33But don't let all this English reserve fool you,
03:37because underneath its serene exterior,
03:40Arundel Castle has one of the bloodiest and most dramatic histories
03:44of any castle in Britain.
03:46And it all begins more than 900 years ago,
03:49when England was conquered by a bunch of men
03:52who'd sooner have chopped your arm off than enjoyed a nice game of cricket.
03:56They were the Normans.
04:02The Normans were a powerful and warlike French aristocratic dynasty
04:06descended from Scandinavian pirates,
04:08and they loved a bit of fighting, pillaging and conquering.
04:14In 1066, the Norman Lord William the Conqueror,
04:17also known as William the Bastard,
04:19landed his boats on the south coast of England,
04:22about 50 miles east of Arundel.
04:25He defeated the Saxon king, Harold Godwinson,
04:28at the Battle of Hastings and took the English crown.
04:31Then he set about conquering the whole realm.
04:34Arundel was right at the top of his list, and it's easy to see why.
04:41The town of Arundel was perfectly situated.
04:44Fertile land, fresh water and easy to reach from the coast.
04:48A real jewel.
04:51And in 1067, the year after the Normans arrived,
04:55William the Conqueror gave this entire area
04:58to his friend and ally, Roger de Montgomery,
05:01one of the greatest lords in Normandy.
05:04And what had Montgomery done to deserve all this?
05:07Well, he'd stayed behind in Normandy, keeping the show running,
05:11while William was over here conquering.
05:14Even so, this was a spectacularly good reward.
05:18In fact, by the end of William the Conqueror's reign,
05:21Montgomery's fortune amounted to about 3% of the entire country's wealth.
05:27He was, if you like, a medieval Bill Gates.
05:31Montgomery needed to protect all of his valuable new land,
05:35so he did what the Normans did so very well.
05:39He built a castle,
05:41originally out of timber and surrounded by a huge defensive ditch.
05:47When the ditch was dug, the spoil was piled up
05:50to make this huge 100-foot mound, or motte.
05:54Then you stick your secure central building right on the top.
05:58That's what today we call the keep.
06:04A wooden castle on top of a hill may not sound impenetrable to us today,
06:09but back in the days before gunpowder, it was pretty formidable.
06:13Historian Mark Morris is a leading expert in Norman castles.
06:19Why wooden? In the first instance, they're interested in speed.
06:22Remember, there's a few thousand Normans
06:24and two million disgruntled Anglo-Saxons.
06:27So you are in the midst of a hostile environment
06:30and you want to rivet your power into place, so you build quickly.
06:34In the months that follow,
06:35start creating that great mound of earth behind us, the motte,
06:38with, again, a wooden tower on top.
06:40And this is a castle on a big scale, on the same kind of scale as Windsor.
06:44Is there any part of the castle that still survives
06:47from Roger of Montgomery's time?
06:49Roger of Montgomery is very, very powerful.
06:51He has several castles across England and into the Welsh Marches.
06:55But as time wears on, he clearly decides that Arundel,
06:59being right on the south coast near to Normandy,
07:02is one that he wants to invest in heavily.
07:04And what he does here is he starts to invest in stone.
07:08And the gatehouse behind you there, the bottom part of it,
07:11the lower storeys, that is late 11th-century masonry.
07:15So people were laying that masonry in the time of Roger of Montgomery,
07:19in the time of William the Conqueror himself.
07:24Norman castles like the one Roger of Montgomery was building here at Arundel
07:29were partly for protection, partly for intimidation.
07:34But the Normans were also very good at falling out with each other,
07:38and the real problems came when they had to defend against other Normans.
07:43For almost two decades after the death of William the Conqueror,
07:47his sons had fought and squabbled over the English throne.
07:52In 1135, when his youngest son, King Henry I,
07:56died without a legitimate male heir, the problems got even worse.
08:01Soon, the entire country was on the brink of utter chaos.
08:08Before he died, Henry I commanded his barons
08:11to support the claim of his daughter Matilda to be England's first real queen,
08:17a monarch in her own right, and not just the wife of a king.
08:21But with Henry dead, the barons looked at each other
08:25and had a collective change of heart.
08:28Instead of supporting the claim of a woman,
08:30most changed their allegiance to Henry's nephew, Stephen of Blois.
08:42In a scramble for the throne, Stephen managed to have himself crowned first.
08:46It was a power grab that would lead to a civil war that lasted for nearly 20 years.
08:51The country was ripped apart by two cousins battling for the crown, Stephen and Matilda,
08:58and one of the most important showdowns in that whole conflict
09:02took place here at Arundel Castle.
09:06The castle was owned by Matilda's stepmother,
09:09so it was a natural safe haven and the perfect place for Matilda to base her forces.
09:15All those English barons who'd decided that England ought to be ruled by a man
09:20had no idea who they were dealing with.
09:23With Stephen and his army on the march towards Arundel,
09:27the fate and future of England would be sealed right here at the castle.
09:33Today, it's hard to imagine how somewhere as pretty as Arundel Castle
09:38could have such a dark and turbulent past.
09:44But nearly nine centuries ago, in 1139, it was a Norman fortress
09:49at the heart of a bitter power struggle between England and England.
09:54But nearly nine centuries ago, in 1139, it was a Norman fortress
09:59at the heart of a bitter power struggle between two cousins
10:03battling for the crown of England, Matilda and Stephen.
10:10This castle was protecting Matilda, the daughter of King Henry I
10:14and the heir to the English crown.
10:17Outside was the man who'd claimed that crown, Matilda's cousin, King Stephen,
10:22and he had with him enough men and firepower to besiege
10:26and maybe even to destroy the castle and everything inside it.
10:33As military tactics went, the art of the medieval siege was pretty simple.
10:38One side goes into their castle, closes the portcullis,
10:42lifts the drawbridge and bolts the door.
10:46The other side, armed to the teeth, camps up outside
10:50in the hope that those in the castle will succumb to thirst, starvation or disease.
10:58Actual attacks were rare.
11:00You risked losing too many men and those inside the castle
11:04had the advantage of height, solid battlements
11:07and, later, arrow loops and murder holes
11:10to pour boiling oil down on those trying to get in.
11:14But here's the thing.
11:16So far as we know, a siege never actually began.
11:20So what did happen?
11:28Put yourself in Matilda's position.
11:32Outside is her cousin Stephen, with a large army and a bad attitude.
11:38He has more men than you and your castle is mainly made of wood and not stone.
11:43So do you resist or do you negotiate?
11:49Matilda's fate was uncertain, to say the least.
11:54And history is equally uncertain.
11:56All we do know is that there was a very bizarre conclusion.
12:00Stephen agreed to something completely unexpected
12:03and, frankly, quite hard to explain.
12:06He decided to let her go.
12:11Stephen basically allowed Matilda to escape
12:14and he gave her a guaranteed safe passage to Bristol
12:18where she could meet up with her allies.
12:20It's really hard to work out what happened,
12:23but it's a bit of a mystery.
12:25Stephen's leniency had dire consequences.
12:28Having been let go,
12:30Matilda wasn't just going to let her cousin keep the crown.
12:34She fought back.
12:41Stephen was a man of his word.
12:43He was a man of his word.
12:45He was a man of his word.
12:47He was a man of his word.
12:49He was a man of his word.
12:51He was a man of his word.
12:53He was a man of his word.
13:00For almost two decades, the cousins battled it out
13:03in a vicious, bloody and drawn-out war known as the Anarchy.
13:08It left England a smouldering wreck.
13:11It devastated the countryside, destroyed communities and ruined lives.
13:16One chronicler said it was as if Christ and his saints were asleep.
13:20Matilda never became queen,
13:23but in 1153, the conflict was finally resolved
13:27when Stephen agreed to make Matilda's son his heir.
13:31He would become King Henry II,
13:34but it would take England and Arundel decades to recover from the war.
13:44The man who'd brokered the peace settlement
13:47between Stephen and Matilda was William Dorbini,
13:50and he was rewarded by being made the very first Earl of Arundel,
13:54and later by being given Arundel Castle to keep.
13:58The Dorbini family held the castle for over 100 years
14:02until the fifth Earl of Arundel died without children.
14:06In 1243, the title and the castle passed to his nephew, John FitzAlan.
14:12The FitzAlans were the family who would make Arundel what it is today.
14:16In fact, they've occupied it continuously ever since,
14:19give or take the occasional disagreement with the crown.
14:24This powerful family added the massive Barbican and its towers,
14:28a moat, drawbridge and portcullis.
14:31These heavy-duty walls and gates were not only for defence,
14:35but also allowed advertisement of the FitzAlans' wealth and status.
14:40No-one showed that better
14:42than the great 14th-century Earl of Arundel, Richard FitzAlan.
14:48During his lifetime, Richard FitzAlan would be a soldier,
14:52a counsellor to the king, a clever financier
14:55and one of the wealthiest men of the 14th century.
14:58He used his riches to transform Arundel Castle
15:02into one of the most spectacular buildings in England.
15:07And where did his money come from?
15:09Friendship and fighting.
15:12As a teenager, Richard FitzAlan became firm friends with a 14-year-old
15:17who just happened to be King Edward III of England.
15:21For 45 years, they embarked on a truly incredible adventure together.
15:26At the heart of it was a war with England's greatest enemy, France.
15:32Edward III was one of England's greatest warrior kings.
15:36However, Edward and Richard devoted almost their whole lives
15:40to the Hundred Years' War,
15:42a conflict with France that really summed up the golden age of knighthood.
15:46When kings and earls didn't just sit around in tents,
15:49directing things from afar, they fought in the thick of battle.
15:56The Hundred Years' War epitomised an era of loyalty and brotherhood
16:00on the battlefield,
16:02between men who had each other's backs when it mattered.
16:06Tobias Capwell is an expert on medieval arms and armour.
16:14Toby, in the 14th century, were kings like Edward III
16:18and nobles like Richard FitzAlan really fighting in the middle of battle?
16:22The whole foundation of medieval warrior culture
16:26was that the leaders had to lead from the front.
16:30It was all about the personal loyalty of warriors to their master.
16:35So if your leader isn't there, there's no point in anybody else going.
16:41It was expected that a king would fight in the front ranks with his men.
16:45You can't stay behind, you can't stay at home.
16:48You cannot send young men to their deaths without going with them.
16:55The reality for the noblemen, for the knights,
16:58is that they don't do anything until the armies are this close.
17:06I really don't like being that close to that sword. It's pretty sharp.
17:09It sort of resonates with a kind of power, doesn't it,
17:12when you know it's something that can make your arms fall off?
17:25That's how male bonding happens.
17:29It's about going through strenuous, traumatic experiences together
17:34where you think you might die,
17:36and then you all come home forever bonded closer together.
17:39And that's what the whole fabric of medieval society,
17:43knightly culture, is based on.
17:49All of Richard FitzAlan's loyal service to his king in the mid-1300s
17:54was spectacularly rewarded.
17:56He was even left in charge of England for two years
17:59while Edward III was abroad.
18:01And combined with the riches he gathered from victorious battles in France,
18:06FitzAlan, the Earl of Arundel, became almost unimaginably wealthy.
18:16In the 1370s, when he was an old man,
18:19Richard FitzAlan was said to have £30,000 in cash
18:24stored in a single tower, probably the keep here at Arundel Castle.
18:28Now, today, that would be like having £10 million
18:32stuffed under your mattress.
18:34Obviously, all of that cold, hard cash is gone,
18:37but the signs of FitzAlan's war booty
18:40are still everywhere in the castle buildings.
18:47Just take a look at this private chapel in the castle grounds.
18:52Medieval nobles were obsessed with legacy and immortality.
18:56What's the use of having all that money, power and respect
19:00if you can't set it in stone to remind people that you were here?
19:05This stunning FitzAlan chapel was founded after Richard's death,
19:10using the wealth that he'd built up during a lifetime of royal service.
19:22Beginning with FitzAlan's grandson,
19:25virtually every one of the Earl's successors is buried here in this chapel,
19:30and you're left in no doubt about how important they were,
19:33or at least how important they thought they were.
19:36It's almost an overwhelming space.
19:39It's not very different from the tombs of the great medieval kings
19:43at Westminster Abbey,
19:45but it's still incredible to think that all of this
19:48was built on the spoils of war.
19:53None of the grandeur brought to Arundel Castle
19:56would have been possible without the war booty
19:59plundered on foreign battlefields.
20:02But the biggest war was yet to come for the Earls of Arundel,
20:06because they were Catholic in an England
20:08that was about to become violently Protestant.
20:11They would have to fight for their very existence
20:14under the reign of Britain's most famous king,
20:17Henry VIII.
20:28Arundel Castle had been a seat of great wealth and power
20:31since the time of William the Conqueror.
20:34But in the 16th century,
20:36every ounce of that wealth and power came under threat
20:39because of King Henry VIII.
20:42In 1534, Henry set up the Protestant Church of England
20:46with himself as its head
20:48and separated from the Catholic Church of Rome.
20:51Anyone who failed to pledge allegiance to the new Church of England
20:55was in danger of incurring the king's wrath.
20:58Hundreds of Catholics were killed for defying Henry.
21:02But the FitzAlan Earls of Arundel remained true to the Catholic faith.
21:08Even given their high status, they were treading a very fine line.
21:13And today, the chapel at Arundel Castle
21:16still shows how the FitzAlens brazenly challenged
21:20the authority of the king and his new Protestant religion.
21:27This glass door looks pretty ordinary.
21:30In fact, it's anything but,
21:32because it marks the division
21:34between a Church of England parish church on that side
21:37and the Catholic chapel,
21:40within Arundel Castle on this side.
21:43But it's not just rare, although it is rare,
21:46it's also very symbolic,
21:48because in a way this tells you the whole story of the English Reformation,
21:52the time when Henry VIII ripped the English church
21:55away from the Church of Rome
21:57and ushered in a period of repression and persecution
22:01when your loyalty to your god and to your king
22:04was constantly under question.
22:07If either was found wanting, you would meet your maker.
22:14In 1555, the FitzAlens joined forces
22:17with another of England's most powerful Catholic families.
22:21Lady Mary FitzAlen of Arundel married Thomas Howard,
22:25the fourth Duke of Norfolk.
22:27From then on, this new Catholic dynasty
22:30would be known as the FitzAlen-Howards,
22:32or sometimes simply the Howards.
22:38These statues represent the two families.
22:41On the one side we have the horse of the FitzAlens,
22:44and then over here is the lion representing the Howards.
22:48It's the Earls of Arundel and the Dukes of Norfolk.
22:51This was a marriage of title, of wealth and of power.
22:57This combined family now had two titles.
23:00They were the Earls of Arundel and the Dukes of Norfolk.
23:04But all that power and wealth was in jeopardy,
23:07as long as their Catholic beliefs
23:09were at odds with England's official Protestant faith.
23:13Henry VIII's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I,
23:16had the fourth Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard,
23:19executed in 1572 for plotting against her.
23:23Then she had his son, Philip, locked up in the Tower of London
23:27for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith.
23:30The dynasty was suffering a disastrous fall from grace.
23:39Jessie, after the turmoil of Henry VIII's reformation,
23:42this was a very dangerous time
23:44to be a big Catholic aristocratic family, wasn't it?
23:47Yeah, it definitely was, and especially for the Howards,
23:50who were the pre-eminent Catholic family in the country.
23:53The Howards had a very, very turbulent 16th century.
23:56They really did, actually.
23:58And for four generations,
24:00you see them just being knocked over like skittles.
24:02You have Thomas, the fourth Duke of Norfolk,
24:04he was caught up in a plot
24:06to replace Protestant Elizabeth I, now,
24:09on the throne of England
24:11with Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, her cousin.
24:14And then his son, Philip, Earl of Arundel,
24:16sent to the Tower of London for ten years,
24:18and he died there of dysentery.
24:20Why didn't they just keep their heads down?
24:22You'd think they would, wouldn't you?
24:24But the fourth Duke of Norfolk, Thomas,
24:26wrote this desperately, desperately sad last letter
24:28to his son, Philip, saying,
24:30beware of blind papistry, as he put it,
24:32and beware of high degree.
24:34In other words, yeah, keep your head down, watch your back.
24:37In a way, it's a miracle that this family actually survived
24:40and that Arundel Castle is still here today.
24:43Yeah, it is. Their motto is,
24:45sola virtus in victa, only virtue unconquered.
24:48There's that amazing self-belief,
24:50but there's also that Icarus quality.
24:52They always would say, a little bit too close to the sun,
24:55which is why you get these disgraces,
24:57but they would always rise up.
25:01The union between the Howards and the Fitzallans of Arundel,
25:04which had promised so much,
25:06had instead been marred by calamity.
25:09In the space of four generations,
25:11four family members had been imprisoned for treason,
25:14with two of them beheaded.
25:16And, of course, they lost everything,
25:19their titles and their castle,
25:21which reverted to Queen Elizabeth I.
25:26It all leads you to wonder,
25:28how on earth are the Fitzallan Howards still at Arundel Castle today?
25:33How did they retain all their power and royal favour?
25:37They certainly didn't roll over and convert.
25:40They remain staunch Catholics to this day.
25:49The fate of the Fitzallan Howard dynasty rested on the next in line.
25:54Thomas was named after his grandfather,
25:57the recently beheaded fourth Duke of Norfolk.
26:00But he wasn't born in a castle,
26:02he was born in the shame and relative poverty
26:05of a humble village in Essex.
26:07You'd have to say that this young Thomas' prospects didn't look good.
26:12But when Queen Elizabeth died
26:14and James I came to the English throne in 1603,
26:18the Fitzallan Howard family's fortunes changed dramatically.
26:23The new king, James I, was pretty well disposed towards the family.
26:28They'd supported his mother, Mary Queen of Scots,
26:31and they'd supported his own claim to the English throne.
26:34Now the king repaid their faith.
26:39Thomas was reinstated as earl in 1604,
26:42and the Fitzallan Howards were back in Arundel Castle.
26:47Young Thomas was smart enough to know he needed to start from scratch,
26:52to keep his head down, steer clear of politics
26:55and try to restore the family name and fortune.
26:59And he started in the very best way possible.
27:02He married an incredibly wealthy woman.
27:05This is Thomas' wife, Alethea Talbot.
27:08She was the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury
27:11and she inherited huge estates across the north of England.
27:15Her wealth meant her husband could indulge his single great passion,
27:20which was art collecting.
27:22With the family back in the money and back in royal favour,
27:25under Charles I, Thomas acted as a government envoy,
27:29travelling across Europe.
27:31He spent a lot of time in Antwerp and in Padua in Italy,
27:34and he liked what he saw.
27:36The art he collected came back here to Arundel Castle.
27:46Thomas the Collector Earl was obviously very cultured, very sophisticated.
27:51I think he was very politically savvy as well.
27:54The reign of Charles I was a very turbulent time.
27:57It would end in the English Civil War.
27:59Actually, this wasn't a bad moment to be getting out of England
28:03on long art-collecting tours.
28:05But I think there was more to it even than that.
28:09Considering what had happened to generation after generation
28:13of this family,
28:15amassing all of this art, this cultural splendour,
28:19was a way of restoring family pride.
28:22It was a way of saying,
28:24we're back and we're back greater than ever.
28:30By the time he died in 1646,
28:33Thomas Howard had amassed a vast array of art, literature,
28:37gems and jewellery.
28:39His library included priceless sketchbooks
28:42by the great Leonardo da Vinci.
28:45In his will, he stated he wanted the whole collection kept together.
28:49Sadly, that didn't happen.
28:51But the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford houses the Arundel marbles,
28:55Thomas's personal horde of ancient European statues and carvings.
29:04Where in Europe did he go to get these?
29:07Where in Europe did he go to get all these wonderful antiquities?
29:11He travels to Rome and undertakes what are called excavations,
29:15but what we actually think was that they weren't true excavations,
29:19but there were some statues planted for his benefit to find,
29:23which he then had to purchase and then bring back to England.
29:27Could you give us an idea of the contribution of the collector Earl
29:31to British art and British heritage in general?
29:34Well, he inspired all the future collectors.
29:38So when you travel around Britain today
29:40and you see these country houses full of these beautiful objects,
29:44really, we've got Arundel to thank for them.
29:50Although much of his collection is now elsewhere,
29:53recently the castle decided to commemorate Thomas, the collector Earl,
29:57with a specially designed garden
29:59to recognise his artistic taste and his legacy.
30:04This used to be a car park.
30:07His body is in the family tomb in the chapel,
30:10but his spirit is in this garden,
30:12which is a recreation of the formal gardens of the 17th century.
30:19Thomas Howard defined how this period in British history
30:22would be seen and remembered.
30:25The artists he encouraged went on to paint an entire generation
30:29of Britain's ruling class,
30:31most notably the Flemish master Antony van Dyck,
30:35whose work is all over the castle.
30:39But there's an irony there,
30:41because van Dyck's probably most famous work
30:44is a portrait of King Charles I,
30:47the monarch who helped bring about the downfall of Arundel Castle.
30:55In 1642, civil war broke out, dividing Britain.
30:59The royalists supported Charles I
31:02and his right to rule his country as he pleased.
31:05The parliamentarians, known as roundheads,
31:08challenged the authority of the king.
31:10Arundel Castle, which had become more of an art gallery than a fortress,
31:14was suddenly called back into action.
31:18But at the outbreak of the civil war,
31:20the collector Earl Thomas Howard was abroad, his health failing.
31:24He would never see his beloved castle again.
31:27Thomas died in Italy as civil war raged across England
31:31and engulfed Arundel.
31:34In December 1643, Arundel Castle was held by royalist forces
31:38loyal to Charles I,
31:40but outside the walls, a huge parliamentarian army was gathering,
31:45maybe 10,000 strong.
31:47They battered the castle for more than two weeks,
31:50until eventually, on 6th January 1644,
31:55it surrendered.
31:57The castle and the chapel were badly damaged,
32:00but ultimately the reason the siege had succeeded
32:03was that they'd run out of water.
32:05The men inside were dying of thirst.
32:10But there was worse to come.
32:12After the roundheads won the war and chopped Charles I's head off,
32:17they set about slighting British castles,
32:20tearing down or dynamiting their walls and towers
32:23so they could never be used for military defence again.
32:28Some of the greatest castles in Britain were ruined,
32:31and Arundel was no exception.
32:36Arundel was a shadow of the palatial fortress
32:39it had been for so many centuries,
32:42but its enemies had failed to destroy this place for good.
32:46In fact, they'd left the foundations
32:49for another golden age in the castle's history.
32:52Arundel was about to be reborn in the image of the perfect castle.
33:02A castle fit for a queen, or at least for a queen's visit,
33:06and that was just as well,
33:08because Queen Victoria was coming to stay.
33:12By the end of the 17th century,
33:15the once-mighty Arundel Castle lay in ruins,
33:19but it was about to be returned to its former grandeur.
33:23The rich and powerful family who owned it, the FitzAlan Howards,
33:27held two titles.
33:29They were Earls of Arundel and Dukes of Norfolk.
33:32In 1786, Charles Howard became the Earl of Arundel
33:37and set about making some changes.
33:40An extravagant socialite,
33:42he saw Arundel as a potential pleasure palace
33:45and he began making major renovations before taking up residence.
33:50Along with Arundel,
33:52Charles also inherited the title of 11th Duke of Norfolk.
33:56The castle, like the Duke, was going to be big, brash and impressive.
34:05The 11th Duke was a rambunctious character.
34:08He loved to entertain and to hold parties here at the castle.
34:12He was also a member of London's infamous Beefsteak Club,
34:16dedicated to the principles of liberal prosperity.
34:19Their motto was Beef and Liberty,
34:22but there was a fair amount of wine involved as well.
34:25He was nicknamed the Drunken Duke or the Dirty Duke.
34:29He had such an aversion to soap and water
34:31that his servants had to wait until he'd passed out in a stupor
34:36before stripping him off and giving him a wash.
34:39His personal life was predictably chaotic and unconventional.
34:44His first wife died in childbirth and his second was certified insane
34:49and had to be confined for almost 50 years,
34:52leaving the Duke to make his way through a succession of mistresses
34:56and father at least six illegitimate children.
35:01Charles wasn't just flamboyant,
35:03he was fashionable too,
35:05and he began remodelling and rebuilding Arundel Castle
35:09according to the tastes of the day.
35:11This picture gallery was totally redesigned,
35:14so were rooms across the castle,
35:16and ornate new wings were added in the Gothic Revival style.
35:21Today you'd call that retro.
35:23It was harking back to an earlier, greater period in time,
35:27in this case the imagined Romantic English Middle Ages.
35:32But at the turn of the 19th century, that was the height of hipster cool.
35:38Charles' ambition was to make his castle a place to be seen.
35:42By 1797, he was estimated to have spent £200,000 on the castle,
35:48and by the time he died, that had risen to £600,000,
35:52or about £40 million in today's terms.
35:55Perhaps because of those costs,
35:58he also decided to do something incredibly modern for the time.
36:02He started letting in paying tourists.
36:06Social historian Ruth Goodman explains how Arundel Castle
36:10was at the forefront of the 19th-century obsession with the past.
36:14So, Ruth, in the 19th century,
36:16that was really the birth of tourism at the castle, wasn't it?
36:19Absolutely. I mean, I think when you look around this place,
36:22it's like a film set, isn't it?
36:24And that was very much the purpose.
36:26People were rediscovering the past again.
36:28There was a certain fantasy element to enjoying the past.
36:32When you look around the castle today, you see a lot of tourists.
36:35Arundel is right at the forefront of that.
36:37Starting to collect tickets, thank you very much,
36:40for coming to see our marvellous, recreated Gothic home.
36:47Ruth, I love the story of the Dirty Duke,
36:50who was so filthy that his staff waited
36:53until he was blind drunk and passed out before they washed him.
36:57He was a bit extreme,
36:59but it was an age in which it was really quite difficult to be clean.
37:02So what would you use to get rid of the stench of the age?
37:05This is the perfume of the Victorian age,
37:08which is a mixture of lemon and bergamot.
37:11Very simple ingredients. Very simple ingredients.
37:14But the two mix together. But very fresh.
37:17This scent was the scent of Victoria and her court.
37:20I feel like I don't need to wash this hand today.
37:23And it carries. There's no doubt it carries.
37:26This one here, this is a gentleman's hair product.
37:30Quite a light one, this. Hardly any scent to that at all.
37:33Have a go? Go for it.
37:35Don't need very much. Just a little tiny bit on your fingers.
37:39OK. There we go.
37:41Quite light. Bit of, sort of, shine to it, I imagine.
37:45Yeah, it's fine. What's in it?
37:47Well, all sorts of things.
37:48If you were the king, then it might actually be based upon bear fat.
37:52Oh, Jesus Christ. If I'd just put bear fat in my hair.
37:55No, you haven't. Most people couldn't afford bear fat.
37:57You'd be glad you'd just got lard.
38:02Lard, almond oil, a little bit of rose water, a bit of vodka.
38:06I mean, that's genuinely amazing, because it sounds disgusting,
38:09but it is really effective.
38:11Yeah, I mean, modern products are not so dissimilar.
38:15It all goes back to the Victorian times.
38:17And it all goes back to the Victorian times.
38:19Those clever Victorians.
38:21The restoration work at Arundel, started by Charles the Dirty Duke,
38:25was completed by the 13th Duke, Henry, during the reign of Queen Victoria.
38:30And in 1844, Arundel was given two years' notice
38:34that the Queen and her husband Prince Albert were coming to stay.
38:38So, Ruth, we're living in Arundel Castle, let's say,
38:41and we get word that Queen Victoria is coming to stay.
38:45Presumably, this panic station.
38:47This vast army, this huge machine has to sort of ratchet up into action.
38:52Because you need everything to be utterly ready.
38:55I mean, you've got to produce food fit for a queen,
38:58and you've got to be able to entertain night after night after night.
39:02All the flowers to decorate the rooms, to produce a beautiful smell.
39:06And then you're going to have to have stacks of clean linen.
39:09It's this vast effort.
39:11The castle has to be looking its absolute best. Absolute best.
39:14No matter what the reality is, actually.
39:17Shove it all under the carpet and get it looking good.
39:19And it takes a huge number of people to do that.
39:21All these things are very labour-intensive.
39:23There aren't any sort of mechanised quick cheats.
39:25It's all about people.
39:27So you'd be pulling in extra labour from the towns and villages around
39:30to just get it going.
39:32Victoria's visit was a great success.
39:34She stayed for three days.
39:36There were fireworks, conjurers, Ethiopian singers and lots of dancing.
39:41She said Arundel reminded her of her own castle at Windsor.
39:45This ringing royal endorsement
39:47encouraged successive generations of dukes to keep the process going
39:51and drag Arundel right into the 20th century.
39:55It would go on to become one of the very first houses in England
39:59to have electric lights, service lifts and central heating.
40:04The roof is quite light and even airy
40:06and certainly comfortable here today,
40:08but it wouldn't have been like this in the 19th century, would it?
40:11No, no, it wouldn't.
40:12To be fair to Arundel, they were one of the first castles
40:15to install electricity and central heating
40:17and gives us this feeling that we've got today.
40:19But for most of the Victorian period and in most castles,
40:22you've got to think of it without the lights.
40:24You've got to think of it without the heating.
40:26They're built of stone, huge spaces.
40:28Fundamentally, life in a castle would be pretty uncomfortable.
40:31Cold, dark, even if it looks nice in pictures.
40:37So, Ruth, this room is pretty dazzling.
40:39We've got the bed Queen Victoria slept in.
40:41This is the actual one?
40:43This is the actual bed that she and Albert slept in.
40:45Lovely crest above it.
40:47It looks dazzling and beautiful and all this.
40:50Another thing the castle didn't have,
40:52even in the rooms prepared for the Queen,
40:55was running water.
40:58So this looks like rather a smart drinks table.
41:01Yeah, except this is the bathroom.
41:04It's not even a separate room.
41:08The chamber pot. The famous chamber pot.
41:11And this is the toilet.
41:13Never mind the flush or a cistern or anything.
41:15This is it. That's it.
41:17And everywhere you went, I mean, Buckingham Palace the same,
41:20there was no running water at this date within people's houses.
41:24Even at the very top of society,
41:26even the Queen is busily having to cope with a chamber pot.
41:31In some ways, I find this chamber pot quite reassuring
41:34and even quite comforting,
41:36because even if you're the Queen, even if you're Queen Victoria...
41:39Even Queen Victoria. ..you know, greatest monarch in the world,
41:42when it comes down to it,
41:44you still need one of these just like everybody else.
41:47Yeah.
41:49Today the castle is very much a home as well as a tourist attraction,
41:53and it does have running water.
41:55The present Duke, Edward FitzAlan Howard,
41:58is the 18th Duke of Norfolk and the 29th Earl of Arundel,
42:02but he doesn't walk backwards any more at the state opening of Parliament.
42:07It was the tradition in order to show respect,
42:10but the Queen herself asked for tradition to change,
42:13because she worried the Duke might trip over and hurt himself.
42:18Arundel Castle is still home to the most prestigious peer in the land,
42:23who holds the oldest earldom in the entire country
42:26and even has his own cricket team.
42:30Arundel Castle really is about as English as it gets,
42:34from William the Conqueror to the Queen,
42:36from invasion to reformation to revolution.
42:40Now, it's all hidden beneath this perfectly civilised genteel veneer,
42:45but scratch the surface and you find a story of loyalty, tenacity and single-mindedness
42:51which has placed Arundel Castle at the heart of Britain's stormy history.
43:44Subs by www.zeoranger.co.uk