Castle Wark

Castle Wark was an English fortress on a rocky outcrop above the River Tweed. In the summer of 1385, a French and Scottish army advancing through northern England halted there; after its defenses and location frustrated a quick assault, the French took the castle through repeated attacks and burned it rather than attempt to keep it. Its brief siege shows both the strength of a well-prepared stone fortress and the limits imposed on a raiding army operating far from home.

Setting and Defenses

The allied army, about five thousand strong, marched south from Edinburgh in early July, crossed the Tweed, and proceeded east, burning farms and villages as it went. Its halt at Castle Wark brought the campaign to a fortified position overlooking the river. The castle’s situation on a rocky foundation contributed to its defensive strength: attackers could not undermine its walls by digging tunnels beneath them.

The keep rose four stories. Around its entrance were massive stone vaults and five openings above the approach through which defenders could drop or shoot projectiles. Sir John Lussebourne commanded the garrison and was at the castle with his wife and children. Having been warned of the approaching army, he reinforced his men and placed heavy cannons on the walls. Crossbows and cannons covered the battlements, while deep ditches around the fortress impeded attackers and exposed them to fire from above. These preparations made Castle Wark more than a barrier on the route south: they gave a relatively contained garrison the means to resist a much larger force.

The Assault

Admiral Vienne first sent a herald to demand that Sir John surrender or face a siege. Sir John answered from the wall with insults and warned Vienne to withdraw before falling victim to the Scots’ alleged treachery. The exchange ended in an assault. Yet the allied army had arrived as a fast-moving raiding force, not as a force equipped for a prolonged siege. It lacked heavy engines such as trebuchets, and its small portable cannons could not bring down thick stone walls. The rocky base ruled out mining beneath them, while the need to keep moving left no time to starve the well-provisioned garrison into submission.

Vienne therefore ordered an escalade: his men joined long poles into ladders and tried to climb the walls. Attackers went up against defenders positioned above them, and the fighting reached the battlements. Sir John personally engaged French knights as they mounted the ladders. The defenders could throw down hazards, fire crossbows at close range, and use long poles to push ladders away from the walls. These advantages made every climb precarious, but they did not end the attack. The French renewed it repeatedly, while crossbowmen stationed around the castle steadily targeted members of the garrison who appeared above the battlements.

Capture and Destruction

The Scots refused to take part in the siege, leaving the French to press the assault. Their numbers and the repeated attacks eventually overcame the defenders. The castle was captured, and more than forty people were taken prisoner. Sir John, his wife, and their children were inside when the fortress fell. The French then burned and destroyed Castle Wark, not because it had ceased to be a formidable position, but because they judged that they could neither hold nor guard it so far inside England.

The decision followed the logic of the campaign. The allied force had crossed into England to raid rather than to establish and maintain control of captured fortresses. Castle Wark could be overcome, but retaining it would have imposed a different burden: a garrison and a continuing commitment to a position deep in hostile territory. Its destruction converted the capture into a temporary military gain while denying the English the use of the stronghold. The army continued south along the coast into lands belonging to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, where it destroyed more farms and villages. Castle Wark was thus one episode in a wider advance marked by devastation, not the beginning of a settled occupation.

Place in the Campaign

Jean de Carrouges took part in the 1385 campaign and helped capture and destroy English castles. Castle Wark’s siege belongs to that military trajectory: the narrative sets out its physical defenses and the practical obstacles facing the attackers before showing why repeated assaults, rather than a conventional siege, decided its fate. The fortress’s fall also illustrates the difference between taking a position and being able to keep it. Its stone walls and prepared garrison could delay the raiders, but neither the fortress nor the surrounding territory was retained after the French captured it. The destruction of Castle Wark records the limits of the expedition as clearly as its success in breaching the defenses.