Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 28 September 1883
Historical Reflection
Extract from speech by Dr Sykes
Let them take their children to Castle Hills, Mr. Stenton’s farm, for instance, & tell them how the lonely British sentinel paced those rude mounds of earth watching for the Saxon foe to cross the Don.
How the Saxon hordes came at last, and a great battle was fought on Mexboro’ Ings, and how for once victory smiled on the British arms, and the Saxon invaders were routed and driven in disarray.
Flight to Conisborough, where their leader was captured and slain, on that mound which is the site of the present castle.
How this gleam of success upon the British cause was but fleeting and temporary, and how the Saxon invaders over-spread the country and drove the natives into distant regions.
How Conisborough became the seat of a Saxon King (the King’s burg, or town), and how Nemesis came at last, the Saxons being in their turn driven out by the Normans; by whose Duke William Conisborough Castle was given to William de Warren.
Tell them, continued the Doctor, of the Crusaders, let them take the children to Bararburgh church and show them the cross-legged knight, and tell them of his deeds.
Speak of a later time, when Saxon and Norman were both united as Englishmen, but were divided in fierce fratricidal conflict in the Wars of the Roses.
Tell them how Richard, Duke of York, the arouser of that bloody struggle, was born in Conisboro’ Castle, how he was defeated and slain at Wakefield, as was also his young son, the hapless Rutland, by the butcher Clifford.
How that same Clifford, the black-faced, was likewise born at Conisboro’.
How he and the Duke of York, having the same cradle, had the same bloody resting-place—both their heads rotting on pikes over the walls of York.