Six wives of One King day 5

Day 5 Arundel Castle
We head south from Warwickshire on the longest single journey of the tour to the town of Arundel in West Sussex.
Arundel castle dominates the skyline and all approaches to the town with it’s Norman Keep and massive towers. It is the very epitome of what a castle should look like, High towers, a large keep and battlements along all the high walls.

Arundel is the home of the Dukes of Norfolk and we now have the 18th Duke but it his forbears the 3rd and 4th Dukes we have come to see. The 3rd Duke was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard both executed Queens of England. Such was the nature of the greasy pole of Tudor court life the 3rd Duke was also to be executed on the orders of Henry VIII, but Henry died the day before the Dukes appointment with the block so he survived. The 4th Duke was not so lucky, he was executed on the orders of Elizabeth for plotting to marry Mary Queen of Scots.

There is the rosary that belonged to Mary that she handed to her lady in waiting on the scaffold as she was about to be executed in 1587 on display in the castle along with many painted miniatures of famous figures form the Tudor such as the poet Earl, more of him when we get to Penshurst.

Whilst waking the ground of the castle we discovered two large white Rhea's, a large flightless bird and not what you expect to find in a medieval castle

The Fitzalan chapel is worth noting as it is unique with two denominations, catholic and protestant sharing the same building but separated by a glass and iron gate that has only been opened 4 times in the last 400 years.


We set off at the end of the day along the south coast to the East Sussex county town of Lewes on the next stage of our Tudor journey.