Page:Old Castles.djvu/59

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Carlisle Castle.
51

On the outer wall of the ancient Chapel of the castle, close behind Queen Mary's Tower, and which seems from its architecture to have been of Tudor origin, are the arms of Queen Elizabeth, with an inscription to this effect—"Queen Elizabeth made this work at her own expense, while Lord Scrope was Warden of the Western Marches." It was originally on the old barracks, and the work in question was most likely "made" about the time that this Lady, siding with Mary in her fallen fortunes, against the Lords, charged this Lord Scrope to allow the Scotch marauders of the Borders to pursue their course unmolested, Bothwell's followers being supposed to be among them. Opposite to this Chapel, which the visitor will easily recognise, the ramparts are all hollow, having a face of stone to the inner ward in the building, of which the curious may see several stones, which still bear the diamond shaped mark of the Roman pick on their exterior, proving them to be nearly eighteen centuries old, the remains, most likely, of some more ancient and ruined part of the castle, which is now entirely non-existent. At the end of this, and by Queen Mary's Tower, there are also the remains of an ancient portcullis, the use of which seems now somewhat inexplicable, but in the olden days of the castle it doubtless had one.

In the cells also let the visitor look carefully at the locks; some of them are now detached and hanging in the armoury. Each door had four, and their weight and size is something extraordinary, some of them being of themselves a good half-hundredweight. But cumbrous and heavy as they are they will still act—