They saw the siege train of Henry Bolingbroke laid against the castle, directed by Henry in person, provoked into these active measures by the open rebellion of father and son, though Northumberland had tried to make it appear that he was innocent of any treasonable act.  After capturing the castle, Bolingbroke bestowed it on his third son, John of Lancaster, and the villagers saw the young prince riding in and out among them daily so long as he made the castle his home.

Then, in the next reign, they welcomed the return of Hotspur’s son, Henry, to the home of his fathers, restored to him by Henry V.; and, within a short time, saw him bring home his bride, Eleanor Neville, daughter of his friend and neighbour, the Earl of Westmoreland.

In the Wars of the Roses, Warkworth Castle saw many changes of fortune, as the tide of victory flowed this way and that.  The Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice.  The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the “King-maker” himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at the same time.  Eventually, after the Wars of the Roses concluded, Warkworth was restored, along with the other Percy estates, to its original owners.

Finally, the inhabitants of the little village saw the church entered by the Jacobites in 1715, when Mr. Buxton, chaplain of the little force, prayed for James III. and Mary the Queen-mother; and General Forster, dressed as a trumpeter, proclaimed King James III. at the village cross.

A few miles north from the mouth of the Coquet, the little Aln spreads over the sandy flats near Alnmouth, and reaches the sea.  It has changed its course, for at one time it flowed to the south of Church Hill, instead of to the north as at present.  The town of Alnmouth, viewed from the train just before entering Alnmouth Station, looks very picturesque, especially if the rare sunshine of an English summer should be lighting up the bay, bringing out the vivid red of the tiled roofs against the grassy hills fringing the links which lie on their seaward side, and lighting up, also, the yellow sands and long lines of sparkling wavelets edged with white.

Alnmouth depends for its living on a fleet of fishing boats, and on the numbers of visitors who seek its fresh breezes and inviting shores each summer.  Golfers, indeed, find it pleasant all the year round, as there is only a scarcely appreciable interval in the winter months when their favourite pastime cannot be followed on the breezy links.  On Church Hill, now crowned by a few old stones, once stood a Norman church, dedicated to St. Valery, which, in its turn, occupied the site of an older Saxon building, supposed to have been the church which Bede refers to as being at Twyford, where a great synod of clergy was held in the year 684, and Cuthbert appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne.  It is a matter of dispute whether this Twyford was Alnmouth or Whittingham, but the two fords at Alnmouth seem to point to a decision in favour of that place.  The old Norman church, which fell into ruin at the beginning of last century, was fired at by the famous pirate Paul Jones; the cannon shot, weighing 68 pounds, missed the church, but struck a neighbouring farm house, doing great damage.