button to main menu   Ford's Description of the Lakes, 1839/1843

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Page 113:-
  Belted Will
[court]yard, and those who have visited Cambridge or Oxford will be struck with its resemblance to some of the college quadrangles. On one side a flight of steps leads to the long ancient hall, in which are a succession of portraits of the English kings, and some rude wooden armorial emblems brought from Kirkoswald Castle, besides figures clad in plate armour, one in that belonging to Lord William Howard. The chapel is in another angle; its ceiling is adorned with the genealogical tree of the Dacres and Howards. Both the hall and chapel are lighted with perpendicular windows, whose mullions are embattled. The state drawing-room and bed-room, with their tapestried walls and decaying furniture, show the poor comfort that the nobles of old times enjoyed, compared with what even poor people possess at present. The gallery is enriched with a few portraits, and several good specimens of ancient armour. But the chief objects of curiosity are the apartments of Lord William Howard, which are entered through a small door-way, strongly barred by a massy iron door, having the pannels filled with oak, and strengthened with a couple of bolts of corresponding dimensions. One person at a time only can enter; then the stair-case winds spirally up to the oratory and study, similarly protected, and thus rendering the access still more difficult. His bed is still preserved, but sadly tattered and torn by persons anxious to possess some memorial of Belted Will, the severe but salutary scourge of a race of bold, reckless, murderous
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