Sizergh Castle: Template for Winterfell?

Sizergh Castle is a solidly-built ancient fortress that was enlarged in phases as the family fortunes improved.

The interior tells a different story.  Family fortunes reversed before the Stricklands could keep up with the overly ornate Baroque style of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Instead, the decor of Sizergh remains very masculine, with beautifully carved but rugged oak panels rather than gilded and flowery decor.

The strength of the design brought to mind the Starks of the North in Game of Thrones, an analogy that actually overlays nicely with the Strickland military history of its battles against those "Wildling" Scots north of Hadrian's Wall and later the internal war against the Red Rose Lancasters (as opposed to Lannisters in GOT) to see who would claim the united kingdom's throne.

I don't believe it to be too much of a stretch to imagine the real history of Sizergh Castle and the Stricklands factored into the storytelling of author George R. R. Martin, whose fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, was adapted into the epoch TV series watched around the world.

In fact, Martin himself as well as many critics say the basic plot is based on the War of the Roses and that characters and events were frequently lifted from history.

In my opinion, the GOT set-designer missed the boat by not patterning Winterfell Castle more exactly after Sizergh.

Back to Sizergh Castle's actual history, Sir Thomas Strickland lived the head-swelling high life in London (King's Landing?) as a Member of Parliament in the closing years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, dissipating family wealth on gambling and attempts to impress the big city elites of his day.

Nonetheless, upon the death of the wastrel Sir Thomas, the family again took up the mantle for their country, this time on behalf of King Charles I (son of King James I) against the Scots in the Second Bishop's War.

Then again, traditionally wars brought royal privilege plus plundered booty, so perhaps for the Stricklands this was basically just going back to work at the family business.

"Why would King Charles I, as the grandson of Mary Queen of Scots, take up arms against his ancestral home?" you may ask.  To some extent, his hand was forced by Scottish rebellion against his new policy to enforce Episcopal, or Bishop rule, as practiced by the Church of England --- of which he as King was the leader --- upon Scottish "kirks" that were accustomed to Presbyterian independence, but there's more to it than that.

The elitist King James I (King James VI of Scotland before assuming the combined reign) had been raised to look down on Scots as crude primitives, an attitude passed down to his son.

Feudalism was based on elitism, with royals ostensibly chosen by God to rule, and their friends granted fiefdoms in exchange for taxes and raising armies to help in the mutual defense of the kingdom.

The average serf --- and that would have been most people --- was little more than a slave, but just as the Reformation challenged Catholic rule of the soul, Parliamentarians arose intent on supplanting Royalist rule.

A full-fledged Civil War broke out in 1642.

The Stricklands sided with King Charles I and the Royalists, and once again fought valiantly on the losing side of history, culminating with King Charles I being executed in 1649.

Already struggling under the gambling debts accumulated by the wastrel Sir Thomas and fighting on the losing side of the Civil War, the massive fines levied by Parliamentarians brought the family fortunes to a low ebb just as the Baroque Era blossomed with Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, making garish gilding all the rage among European royalty.

Missing that trend makes Sizergh Castle somewhat unique, preserving for the most part a high nobleman's estate at the apex of the Medieval era, whereas most castles sustain the fashionable style of later periods or in other cases fall into ruin.