Shrewsbury Castle

Few would describe Shrewsbury Castle as impressive or even attractive, but it has played an important part in our history. Commissioned in 1067 by the Conqueror, it was an imported Marches castle, used to defend against Welsh incursions, and, equally, to launch English invasions of Wales. During the Anarchy, those civil wars fought between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda in the 1100s, it was seized for the latter’s use. It was duly besieged by Stephen himself in 1138 and upon its submission, about a hundred of its surviving defenders were hanged from the battlements.

The ethics of war rarely interfered with medieval battles, and this today would amount to a war crime. Were those members of the garrison freely choosing to ‘rebel’ against their king, or were they required to take a side chosen for them by William Fitz Alan, the lord of Oswestry and Clun, in whose service they were?

Much of Shrewsbury Castle was damaged in the seventeenth-century civil wars as well as suffering eighteenth-century remodelling. Nevertheless, these ancient battlements, initially designed to keep defenders safe from missiles, became the very implements of execution. Like Pharaoh’s staff, our supports, shields and helps will be our undoing; only Christ is the friend, guardian and deliverer who will never fail, neglect or betray.

For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. Psalm 61:3, NKJV