Castles have played a prominent part in the making of England. Many towns owe their existence to the protecting guard of an old fortress. They grew up beneath its sheltering walls like children holding the gown of their good mother, though the castle often proved but a harsh and cruel stepmother, and exacted heavy tribute in return for partial security from pillage and rapine. Thus Newcastle-upon-Tyne arose about the early fortress erected in 1080 by Robert Curthose to guard the passage of the river at the Pons Aelii. The poor little Saxon village of Monkchester was then its neighbour. But the castle occupying a fine strategic position soon attracted townsfolk, who built their houses ’neath its shadow. The town of Richmond owes its existence to the lordly castle which Alain Rufus, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany, erected on land granted to him by the Conqueror. An old rhyme tells how he

Came out of Brittany
With his wife Tiffany,
And his maid Manfras,
And his dog Hardigras.

He built his walls of stone. We must not imagine, however, that an early Norman castle was always a vast keep of stone. That came later. The Normans called their earliest strongholds mottes, which consisted of a mound with stockades and a deep ditch and a bailey-court also defended by a ditch and stockades. Instead of the great stone keep of later days, “foursquare to every wind that blew,” there was a wooden tower for the shelter of the garrison. You can see in the Bayeux tapestry the followers of William the Conqueror in the act of erecting some such tower of defence. Such structures were somewhat easily erected, and did not require a long period for their construction. Hence they were very useful for the holding of a conquered country. Sometimes advantage was taken of the works that the Romans had left. The Normans made use of the old stone walls built by the earliest conquerors of Britain. Thus we find at Pevensey a Norman fortress born within the ancient fortress reared by the Romans to protect that portion of the southern coast from the attacks of the northern pirates. Porchester Keep rose in the time of the first Henry at the north-west angle of the Roman fort. William I erected his castle at Colchester on the site of the Roman castrum. The old Roman wall of London was used by the Conqueror for the eastern defence of his Tower that he erected to keep in awe the citizens of the metropolis, and at Lincoln and Colchester the works of the first conquerors of Britain were eagerly utilized by him.

One of the most important Roman castles in the country is Burgh Castle, in North Suffolk, with its grand and noble walls. The late Mr. G.E. Fox thus described the ruins:

“According to the plan on the Ordnance Survey map, the walls enclose a quadrangular area roughly 640 feet long by 413 wide, the walls being 9 feet thick with a foundation 12 feet in width. The angles of the station are rounded. The eastern wall is strengthened by four solid bastions, one standing against each of the rounded angles, the other two intermediate, and the north and south sides have one each, neither of them being in the centre of the side, but rather west of it. The quaggy ground between the camp and the stream would be an excellent defence against sudden attack.”

Burgh Castle, according to the late Canon Raven, was the Roman station Gariannonum of the Notitia Imperii. Its walls are built of flint-rubble concrete, and there are lacing courses of tiles. There is no wall on the west, and Canon Raven used to contend that one existed there but has been destroyed. But this conjecture seems improbable. That side was probably defended by the sea, which has considerably receded. Two gates remain, the principal one being the east gate, commanded by towers a hundred feet high; while the north is a postern-gate about five feet wide. The Romans have not left many traces behind them. Some coins have been found, including a silver one of Gratian and some of Constantine. Here St. Furseus, an Irish missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in 633 A.D. Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver, Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign foes.

In early days, ere Norman and Saxon became a united people, the castle was the sign of the supremacy of the conquerors and the subjugation of the English. It kept watch and ward over tumultuous townsfolk and prevented any acts of rebellion and hostility to their new masters. Thus London’s Tower arose to keep the turbulent citizens in awe as well as to protect them from foreign foes. Thus at Norwich the castle dominated the town, and required for its erection the destruction of over a hundred houses. At Lincoln the Conqueror destroyed 166 houses in order to construct a strong motte at the south-west corner of the old castrum in order to overawe the city. Sometimes castles were erected to protect the land from foreign foes. The fort at Colchester was intended to resist the Danes if ever their threatened invasion came, and Norwich Castle was erected quite as much to drive back the Scandinavian hosts as to keep in order the citizens. Newcastle and Carlisle were of strategic importance for driving back the Scots, and Lancaster Keep, traditionally said to have been reared by Roger de Poitou, but probably of later date, bore the brunt of many a marauding invasion. To check the incursions of the Welsh, who made frequent and powerful irruptions into Herefordshire, many castles were erected in Shropshire and Herefordshire, forming a chain of fortresses which are more numerous than in any other part of England. They are of every shape and size, from stately piles like Wigmore and Goodrich, to the smallest fortified farm, like Urishay Castle, a house half mansion, half fortress. Even the church towers of Herefordshire, with their walls seven or eight feet thick, such as that at Ewias Harold, look as if they were designed as strongholds in case of need. On the western and northern borders of England we find the largest number of fortresses, erected to restrain and keep back troublesome neighbours.

The story of the English castles abounds in interest and romance. Most of them are ruins now, but fancy pictures them in the days of their splendour, the abodes of chivalry and knightly deeds, of “fair ladies and brave men,” and each one can tell its story of siege and battle-cries, of strenuous attack and gallant defence, of prominent parts played in the drama of English history. To some of these we shall presently refer, but it would need a very large volume to record the whole story of our English fortresses.

We have said that the earliest Norman castle was a motte fortified by a stockade, an earthwork protected with timber palings. That is the latest theory amongst antiquaries, but there are not a few who maintain that the Normans, who proved themselves such admirable builders of the stoutest of stone churches, would not long content themselves with such poor fortresses. There were stone castles before the Normans, besides the old Roman walls at Pevensey, Colchester, London, and Lincoln. And there came from Normandy a monk named Gundulf in 1070 who was a mighty builder. He was consecrated Bishop of Rochester and began to build his cathedral with wondrous architectural skill. He is credited with devising a new style of military architecture, and found much favour with the Conqueror, who at the time especially needed strong walls to guard himself and his hungry followers. He was ordered by the King to build the first beginnings of the Tower of London. He probably designed the keep at Colchester and the castle of his cathedral town, and set the fashion of building these great ramparts of stone which were so serviceable in the subjugation and overawing of the English. The fashion grew, much to the displeasure of the conquered, who deemed them “homes of wrong and badges of bondage,” hateful places filled with devils and evil men who robbed and spoiled them. And when they were ordered to set to work on castle-building their impotent wrath knew no bounds. It is difficult to ascertain how many were constructed during the Conqueror’s reign. Domesday tells of forty-nine. Another authority, Mr. Pearson, mentions ninety-nine, and Mrs. Armitage after a careful examination of documents contends for eighty-six. But there may have been many others. In Stephen’s reign castles spread like an evil sore over the land. His traitorous subjects broke their allegiance to their king and preyed upon the country. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that “every rich man built his castles and defended them against him, and they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some by their thumbs or by the head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads, and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is, into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all his limbs. There were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in many of the castles, and which two or three men had enough to do to carry. The Sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go round a man’s throat and neck, so that he might noways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron. Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot, and I may not, tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse. They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they called Tenserie, and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well mightest thou walk a whole day’s journey nor ever shouldest thou find a man seated in a town or its lands tilled.”

More than a thousand of these abodes of infamy are said to have been built. Possibly many of them were timber structures only. Countless small towns and villages boast of once possessing a fortress. The name Castle Street remains, though the actual site of the stronghold has long vanished. Sometimes we find a mound which seems to proclaim its position, but memory is silent, and the people of England, if the story of the chronicler be true, have to be grateful to Henry II, who set himself to work to root up and destroy very many of these adulterine castles which were the abodes of tyranny and oppression. However, for the protection of his kingdom, he raised other strongholds, in the south the grand fortress of Dover, which still guards the straits; in the west, Berkeley Castle, for his friend Robert FitzHarding, ancestor of Lord Berkeley, which has remained in the same family until the present day; in the north, Richmond, Scarborough, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and in the east, Orford Keep. The same stern Norman keep remains, but you can see some changes in the architecture. The projection of the buttresses is increased, and there is some attempt at ornamentation. Orford Castle, which some guide-books and directories will insist on confusing with Oxford Castle and stating that it was built by Robert D’Oiley in 1072, was erected by Henry II to defend the country against the incursions of the Flemings and to safeguard Orford Haven. Caen stone was brought for the stone dressings to windows and doors, parapets and groins, but masses of septaria found on the shore and in the neighbouring marshes were utilized with such good effect that the walls have stood the attacks of besiegers and weathered the storms of the east coast for more than seven centuries. It was built in a new fashion that was made in France, and to which our English eyes were unaccustomed, and is somewhat similar in plan to Conisborough Castle, in the valley of the Don. The plan is circular with three projecting towers, and the keep was protected by two circular ditches, one fifteen feet and the other thirty feet distant from its walls. Between the two ditches was a circular wall with parapet and battlements. The interior of the castle was divided into three floors; the towers, exclusive of the turrets, had five, two of which were entresols, and were ninety-six feet high, the central keep being seventy feet. The oven was at the top of the keep. The chapel is one of the most interesting chambers, with its original altar still in position, though much damaged, and also piscina, aumbrey, and ciborium. This castle nearly vanished with other features of vanishing England in the middle of the eighteenth century, Lord Hereford proposing to pull it down for the sake of the material; but “it being a necessary sea-mark, especially for ships coming from Holland, who by steering so as to make the castle cover or hide the church thereby avoid a dangerous sandbank called the Whiting, Government interfered and prevented the destruction of the building."

In these keeps the thickness of the walls enabled them to contain chambers, stairs, and passages. At Guildford there is an oratory with rude carvings of sacred subjects, including a crucifixion. The first and second floors were usually vaulted, and the upper ones were of timber. Fireplaces were built in most of the rooms, and some sort of domestic comfort was not altogether forgotten. In the earlier fortresses the walls of the keep enclosed an inner court, which had rooms built up to the great stone walls, the court afterwards being vaulted and floors erected. In order to protect the entrance there were heavy doors with a portcullis, and by degrees the outward defences were strengthened. There was an outer bailey or court surrounded by a strong wall, with a barbican guarding the entrance, consisting of a strong gate protected by two towers. In this lower or outer court are the stables, and the mound where the lord of the castle dispenses justice, and where criminals and traitors are executed. Another strong gateway flanked by towers protects the inner bailey, on the edge of which stands the keep, which frowns down upon us as we enter. An immense household was supported in these castles. Not only were there men-at-arms, but also cooks, bakers, brewers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, masons, and all kinds of craftsmen; and all this crowd of workers had to be provided with accommodation by the lord of the castle. Hence a building in the form of a large hall was erected, sometimes of stone, usually of wood, in the lower or upper bailey, for these soldiers and artisans, where they slept and had their meals.

Amongst other castles which arose during this late Norman and early English period of architecture we may mention Barnard Castle, a mighty stronghold, held by the royal house of Balliol, the Prince Bishops of Durham, the Earls of Warwick, the Nevilles, and other powerful families. Sir Walter Scott immortalized the Castle in Rokeby. Here is his description of the fortress:

High crowned he sits, in dawning pale,
The sovereign of the lovely vale.
What prospects from the watch-tower high
Gleam gradual on the warder’s eye?
Far sweeping to the east he sees
Down his deep woods the course of Tees,
And tracks his wanderings by the steam
Of summer vapours from the stream;
And ere he pace his destined hour
By Brackenbury’s dungeon tower,
These silver mists shall melt away
And dew the woods with glittering spray.
Then in broad lustre shall be shown
That mighty trench of living stone.
And each huge trunk that from the side,
Reclines him o’er the darksome tide,
Where Tees, full many a fathom low,
Wears with his rage no common foe;
Nor pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
Nor clay-mound checks his fierce career,
Condemned to mine a channelled way
O’er solid sheets of marble grey.

This lordly pile has seen the Balliols fighting with the Scots, of whom John Balliol became king, the fierce contests between the warlike prelates of Durham and Barnard’s lord, the triumph of the former, who were deprived of their conquest by Edward I, and then its surrender in later times to the rebels of Queen Elizabeth.

Another northern border castle is Norham, the possession of the Bishop of Durham, built during this period. It was a mighty fortress, and witnessed the gorgeous scene of the arbitration between the rival claimants to the Scottish throne, the arbiter being King Edward I of England, who forgot not to assert his own fancied rights to the overlordship of the northern kingdom. It was, however, besieged by the Scots, and valiant deeds were wrought before its walls by Sir William Marmion and Sir Thomas Grey, but the Scots captured it in 1327 and again in 1513. It is now but a battered ruin. Prudhoe, with its memories of border wars, and Castle Rising, redolent with the memories of the last years of the wicked widow of Edward II, belong to this age of castle-architecture, and also the older portions of Kenilworth.

Pontefract Castle, the last fortress that held out for King Charles in the Civil War, and in consequence slighted and ruined, can tell of many dark deeds and strange events in English history. The De Lacys built it in the early part of the thirteenth century. Its area was seven acres. The wall of the castle court was high and flanked by seven towers; a deep moat was cut on the western side, where was the barbican and drawbridge. It had terrible dungeons, one a room twenty-five feet square, without any entrance save a trap-door in the floor of a turret. The castle passed, in 1310, by marriage to Thomas Earl of Lancaster, who took part in the strife between Edward II and his nobles, was captured, and in his own hall condemned to death. The castle is always associated with the murder of Richard II, but contemporary historians, Thomas of Walsingham and Gower the poet, assert that he starved himself to death; others contend that his starvation was not voluntary; while there are not wanting those who say that he escaped to Scotland, lived there many years, and died in peace in the castle of Stirling, an honoured guest of Robert III of Scotland, in 1419. I have not seen the entries, but I am told in the accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland there are items for the maintenance of the King for eleven years. But popular tales die hard, and doubtless you will hear the groans and see the ghost of the wronged Richard some moonlight night in the ruined keep of Pontefract. He has many companion ghosts the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Duke of York, Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers and Grey his brother, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, whose feet trod the way to the block, that was worn hard by many victims. The dying days of the old castle made it illustrious. It was besieged three times, taken and retaken, and saw amazing scenes of gallantry and bravery. It held out until after the death of the martyr king; it heard the proclamation of Charles II, but at length was compelled to surrender, and “the strongest inland garrison in the kingdom,” as Oliver Cromwell termed it, was slighted and made a ruin. Its sister fortress Knaresborough shared its fate. Lord Lytton, in Eugene Aram, wrote of it:

“You will be at a loss to recognise now the truth of old Leland’s description of that once stout and gallant bulwark of the north, when ’he numbrid 11 or 12 Toures in the walles of the Castel, and one very fayre beside in the second area.’ In that castle the four knightly murderers of the haughty Becket (the Wolsey of his age) remained for a whole year, defying the weak justice of the times. There, too, the unfortunate Richard II passed some portion of his bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of Marston Moor, waved the banner of the loyalists against the soldiers of Lilburn.”

An interesting story is told of the siege. A youth, whose father was in the garrison, each night went into the deep, dry moat, climbed up the glacis, and put provisions through a hole where his father stood ready to receive them. He was seen at length, fired on by the Parliamentary soldiers, and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the besieged as a warning to others. But a good lady obtained his respite, and after the conquest of the place was released. The castle then, once the residence of Piers Gaveston, of Henry III, and of John of Gaunt, was dismantled and destroyed.

During the reign of Henry III great progress was made in the improvement and development of castle-building. The comfort and convenience of the dwellers in these fortresses were considered, and if not very luxurious places they were made more beautiful by art and more desirable as residences. During the reigns of the Edwards this progress continued, and a new type of castle was introduced. The stern, massive, and high-towering keep was abandoned, and the fortifications arranged in a concentric fashion. A fine hall with kitchens occupied the centre of the fortress; a large number of chambers were added. The stronghold itself consisted of a large square or oblong like that at Donnington, Berkshire, and the approach was carefully guarded by strong gateways, advanced works, walled galleries, and barbicans. Deep moats filled with water increased their strength and improved their beauty.

We will give some examples of these Edwardian castles, of which Leeds Castle, Kent, is a fine specimen. It stands on three islands in a sheet of water about fifteen acres in extent, these islands being connected in former times by double drawbridges. It consists of two huge piles of buildings which with a strong gate-house and barbican form four distinct forts, capable of separate defence should any one or other fall into the hands of an enemy. Three causeways, each with its drawbridge, gate, and portcullis, lead to the smallest island or inner barbican, a fortified mill contributing to the defences. A stone bridge connects this island with the main island. There stands the Constable’s Tower, and a stone wall surrounds the island and within is the modern mansion. The Maiden’s Tower and the Water Tower defend the island on the south. A two-storeyed building on arches now connects the main island with the Tower of the Gloriette, which has a curious old bell with the Virgin and Child, St. George and the Dragon, and the Crucifixion depicted on it, and an ancient clock. The castle withstood a siege in the time of Edward II because Queen Isabella was refused admission. The King hung the Governor, Thomas de Colepepper, by the chain of the drawbridge. Henry IV retired here on account of the Plague in London, and his second wife, Joan of Navarre, was imprisoned here. It was a favourite residence of the Court in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Here the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was tried for witchcraft. Dutch prisoners were confined here in 1666 and contrived to set fire to some of the buildings. It is the home of the Wykeham Martin family, and is one of the most picturesque castles in the country.

In the same neighbourhood is Allington Castle, an ivy-mantled ruin, another example of vanished glory, only two tenements occupying the princely residence of the Wyatts, famous in the history of State and Letters. Sir Henry, the father of the poet, felt the power of the Hunchback Richard, and was racked and imprisoned in Scotland, and would have died in the Tower of London but for a cat. He rose to great honour under Henry VII, and here entertained the King in great style. At Allington the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt was born, and spent his days in writing prose and verse, hunting and hawking, and occasionally dallying after Mistress Anne Boleyn at the neighbouring castle of Hever. He died here in 1542, and his son Sir Thomas led the insurrection against Queen Mary and sealed the fate of himself and his race.

Hever Castle, to which allusion has been made, is an example of the transition between the old fortress and the more comfortable mansion of a country squire or magnate. Times were less dangerous, the country more peaceful when Sir Geoffrey Boleyn transformed and rebuilt the castle built in the reign of Edward III by William de Hever, but the strong entrance-gate flanked by towers, embattled and machicolated, and defended by stout doors and three portcullises and the surrounding moat, shows that the need of defence had not quite passed away. The gates lead into a courtyard around which the hall, chapel, and domestic chambers are grouped. The long gallery Anne Boleyn so often traversed with impatience still seems to re-echo her steps, and her bedchamber, which used to contain some of the original furniture, has always a pathetic interest. The story of the courtship of Henry VIII with “the brown girl with a perthroat and an extra finger,” as Margaret More described her, is well known. Her old home, which was much in decay, has passed into the possession of a wealthy American gentleman, and has been recently greatly restored and transformed.

Sussex can boast of many a lordly castle, and in its day Bodiam must have been very magnificent. Even in its decay and ruin it is one of the most beautiful in England. It combined the palace of the feudal lord and the fortress of a knight. The founder, Sir John Dalyngrudge, was a gallant soldier in the wars of Edward III, and spent most of his best years in France, where he had doubtless learned the art of making his house comfortable as well as secure. He acquired licence to fortify his castle in 1385 “for resistance against our enemies.” There was need of strong walls, as the French often at that period ravaged the coast of Sussex, burning towns and manor-houses. Clark, the great authority on castles, says that “Bodiam is a complete and typical castle of the end of the fourteenth century, laid out entirely on a new site, and constructed after one design and at one period. It but seldom happens that a great fortress is wholly original, of one, and that a known, date, and so completely free from alterations or additions.” It is nearly square, with circular tower sixty-five feet high at the four corners, connected by embattled curtain-walls, in the centre of each of which square towers rise to an equal height with the circular. The gateway is a large structure composed of two flanking towers defended by numerous oiletts for arrows, embattled parapets, and deep machicolations. Over the gateway are three shields bearing the arms of Bodiam, Dalyngrudge, and Wardieu. A huge portcullis still frowns down upon us, and two others opposed the way, while above are openings in the vault through which melted lead, heated sand, pitch, and other disagreeable things could be poured on the heads of the foe. In the courtyard on the south stands the great hall with its oriel, buttery, and kitchen, and amidst the ruins you can discern the chapel, sacristy, ladies’ bower, presence chamber. The castle stayed not long in the family of the builder, his son John probably perishing in the wars, and passed to Sir Thomas Lewknor, who opposed Richard III, and was therefore attainted of high treason and his castle besieged and taken. It was restored to him again by Henry VII, but the Lewknors never resided there again. Waller destroyed it after the capture of Arundel, and since that time it has been left a prey to the rains and frosts and storms, but manages to preserve much of its beauty, and to tell how noble knights lived in the days of chivalry.

Caister Castle is one of the four principal castles in Norfolk. It is built of brick, and is one of the earliest edifices in England constructed of that material after its rediscovery as suitable for building purposes. It stands with its strong defences not far from the sea on the barren coast. It was built by Sir John Fastolfe, who fought with great distinction in the French wars of Henry V and Henry VI, and was the hero of the Battle of the Herrings in 1428, when he defeated the French and succeeded in convoying a load of herrings in triumph to the English camp before Orleans. It is supposed that he was the prototype of Shakespeare’s Falstaff, but beyond the resemblance in the names there is little similarity in the exploits of the two “heroes.” Sir John Fastolfe, much to the chagrin of other friends and relatives, made John Pastón his heir, who became a great and prosperous man, represented his county in Parliament, and was a favourite of Edward IV. Pastón loved Caister, his “fair jewell”; but misfortunes befell him. He had great losses, and was thrice confined in the Fleet Prison and then outlawed. Those were dangerous days, and friends often quarrelled. Hence during his troubles the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Scales tried to get possession of Caister, and after his death laid siege to it. The Pastóns lacked not courage and determination, and defended it for a year, but were then forced to surrender. However, it was restored to them, but again forcibly taken from them. However, not by the sword but by negotiations and legal efforts, Sir John again gained his own, and an embattled tower at the north-west corner, one hundred feet high, and the north and west walls remain to tell the story of this brave old Norfolk family, who by their Letters have done so much to guide us through the dark period to which they relate.

We will journey to the West Country, a region of castles. The Saxons were obliged to erect their rude earthen strongholds to keep back the turbulent Welsh, and these were succeeded by Norman keeps. Monmouthshire is famous for its castles. Out of the thousand erected in Norman times twenty-five were built in that county. There is Chepstow Castle with its Early Norman gateway spanned by a circular arch flanked by round towers. In the inner court there are gardens and ruins of a grand hall, and in the outer the remains of a chapel with evidences of beautifully groined vaulting, and also a winding staircase leading to the battlements. In the dungeon of the old keep at the south-east corner of the inner court Roger de Britolio, Earl of Hereford, was imprisoned for rebellion against the Conqueror, and in later times Henry Martin, the regicide, lingered as a prisoner for thirty years, employing his enforced leisure in writing a book in order to prove that it is not right for a man to be governed by one wife. Then there is Glosmont Castle, the fortified residence of the Earl of Lancaster; Skenfrith Castle, White Castle, the Album Castrum of the Latin records, the Landreilo of the Welsh, with its six towers, portcullis and drawbridge flanked by massive towers, barbican, and other outworks; and Raglan Castle with its splendid gateway, its Elizabethan banqueting-hall ornamented with rich stone tracery, its bowling-green, garden terraces, and spacious courts an ideal place for knightly tournaments. Raglan is associated with the gallant defence of the castle by the Marquis of Worcester in the Civil War.

Another famous siege is connected with the old castle of Taunton. Taunton was a noted place in Saxon days, and the castle is the earliest English fortress by some two hundred years of which we have any written historical record. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler states, under the date 722 A.D.: “This year Queen Ethelburge overthrew Taunton, which Ina had before built.” The buildings tell their story. We see a Norman keep built to the westward of Ina’s earthwork, probably by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, the warlike brother of King Stephen. The gatehouse with the curtain ending in drum towers, of which one only remains, was first built at the close of the thirteenth century under Edward I; but it was restored with Perpendicular additions by Bishop Thomas Langton, whose arms with the date 1495 may be seen on the escutcheon above the arch. Probably Bishop Langton also built the great hall; whilst Bishop Home, who is sometimes credited with this work, most likely only repaired the hall, but tacked on to it the southward structure on pilasters, which shows his arms with the date 1577. The hall of the castle was for a long period used as Assize Courts. The castle was purchased by the Taunton and Somerset Archaeological Society, and is now most appropriately a museum. Taunton has seen many strange sights. The town was owned by the Bishop of Winchester, and the castle had its constable, an office held by many great men. When Lord Daubeney of Barrington Court was constable in 1497 Taunton saw thousands of gaunt Cornishmen marching on to London to protest against the king’s subsidy, and they aroused the sympathy of the kind-hearted Somerset folk, who fed them, and were afterwards fined for “aiding and comforting” them. Again, crowds of Cornishmen here flocked to the standard of Perkin Warbeck. The gallant defence of Taunton by Robert Blake, aided by the townsfolk, against the whole force of the Royalists, is a matter of history, and also the rebellion of Monmouth, who made Taunton his head-quarters. This castle, like every other one in England, has much to tell us of the chief events in our national annals.

In the principality of Wales we find many noted strong holds Conway, Harlech, and many others. Carnarvon Castle, the repair of which is being undertaken by Sir John Puleston, has no rival among our medieval fortresses for the grandeur and extent of the ruins. It was commenced about 1283 by Edward I, but took forty years to complete. In 1295 a playful North Walian, named Madoc, who was an illegitimate son of Prince David, took the rising stronghold by surprise upon a fair day, massacred the entire garrison, and hanged the constable from his own half-finished walls. Sir John Puleston, the present constable, though he derives his patronymic from the “base, bloody, and brutal Saxon,” is really a warmly patriotic Welshman, and is doing a good work in preserving the ruins of the fortress of which he is the titular governor.

We should like to record the romantic stories that have woven themselves around each crumbling keep and bailey-court, to see them in the days of their glory when warders kept the gate and watching archers guarded the wall, and the lord and lady and their knights and esquires dined in the great hall, and knights practised feats of arms in the tilting-ground, and the banner of the lord waved over the battlements, and everything was ready for war or sport, hunting or hawking. But all the glories of most of the castles of England have vanished, and naught is to be seen but ruined walls and deserted halls. Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen’s mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but the fate of most of them is very similar. The old fortress aimed at being impregnable in the days of bows and arrows; but the progress of guns and artillery somewhat changed the ideas with regard to their security. In the struggle between Yorkists and Lancastrians many a noble owner lost his castle and his head. Edward IV thinned down castle-ownership, and many a fine fortress was left to die. When the Spaniards threatened our shores those who possessed castles tried to adapt them for the use of artillery, and when the Civil War began many of them were strengthened and fortified and often made gallant defences against their enemies, such as Donnington, Colchester, Scarborough, and Pontefract. When the Civil War ended the last bugle sounded the signal for their destruction. Orders were issued for their destruction, lest they should ever again be thorns in the sides of the Parliamentary army. Sometimes they were destroyed for revenge, or because of their materials, which were sold for the benefit of the Government or for the satisfaction of private greed. Lead was torn from the roofs of chapels and banqueting-halls. The massive walls were so strong that they resisted to the last and had to be demolished with the aid of gunpowder. They became convenient quarries for stone and furnished many a farm, cottage and manor-house with materials for their construction. Henceforth the old castle became a ruin. In its silent marshy moat reeds and rushes grow, and ivy covers its walls, and trees have sprung up in the quiet and deserted courts. Picnic parties encamp on the green sward, and excursionists amuse themselves in strolling along the walls and wonder why they were built so thick, and imagine that the castle was always a ruin erected for the amusement of the cheap-tripper for jest and playground. Happily care is usually bestowed upon the relics that remain, and diligent antiquaries excavate and try to rear in imagination the stately buildings. Some have been fortunate enough to become museums, and some modernized and restored are private residences. The English castle recalls some of the most eventful scenes in English history, and its bones and skeleton should be treated with respect and veneration as an important feature of vanishing England.