Recently it hit the news that the key to Lumley Castle’s ancient banqueting hall had been returned after it was stolen during an event 40 years ago. Lumley Castle is currently a hotel (so another one to add to the list of interesting castles you can stay in!) and the family who lived there had some interesting connections to various personages during the Wars of the Roses.
The castle, which stands at Chester-le-Street, not far from Durham, was built in 1389 by Sir Ralph Lumley, replacing an earlier manor house. Unfortunately Ralph got involved in a plot to topple Henry IV and ended up on the block, leaving his widow Eleanor Neville, a daughter of Lord Neville of Raby Castle, in an almost destitute position. The castle was handed over to the Earl of Somerset, although Ralph’s son John was permitted to live in it. In 1421, however, when John died fighting for Henry V in France, the castle was granted back to Ralph’s grandson, John’s son Thomas.
Thomas Lumley was a Yorkist, and was at the seige of Bamburgh castle in 1464, when Warwick blased the walls with cannonfire, making it the first English castle to fall to gunfire.
His son, George, became an MP and Sheriff of Northumberland. He served Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and was one of his commanders when he took the town of Berwick-on-Tweed back for England. Richard knighted him, along with many other notables, in the Scottish Campaign. He also fought for Richard at Bosworth and survived.
George managed to make the transition to the new regime and accompanied Henry VII on his first progress in the north. He also once accompanied the Princess Margaret Tudor to Scotland. He seems to have been a feisty sort and slew his own wife’s bastard brother, Giles Thornton, in a duel in a ditch at Windsor Castle.
It is said that George’s son, Thomas, who predeceased his father, married an illegitimate daughter of Edward IV , “Elizabeth”, supposedly the daughter of Elizabeth Wayte, but this is a matter of debate.
THE MISSING KEY:
murreyandblue 
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