Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Castle building, after the fitful examples of later Plantagenet times, ceased altogether under the powerful monarchy of the Tudors, when prominent subjects were made to feel the reality of the influence of the Crown. Only once again, during the civil wars of the seventeenth century, were castles generally resorted to as strongholds. The three sieges of Pontefract, the operations of the royal troops in the Trent valley, between the castles of Newark and Belvoir and the fortified house of Wiverton, the defence of Denbigh, Rockingham, and Scarborough, show that the private fortress could still be used on occasion; while such a mansion as Basing house proved itself capable of stubborn resistance. To this belated castle warfare we owe much destruction: it was followed by the “slighting” of defences, and the general reduction of castles to their present state of picturesque ruin. In concluding this account of military architecture, it may be useful to gather, from some of the surveys drawn up in the reign of Henry VIII., the state of some of our principal castles at a period when medieval ideas were disappearing. The coloured drawings, already mentioned, of castles among the duchy of Lancaster records, which probably belong to the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, may owe something to fancy. But of the general accuracy of these verbal surveys, apart from inadequate measurements, there can be less doubt. They all show clearly that castles, as military strongholds, were obsolete, and that not merely their defences, but even their domestic buildings, were allowed to go to decay in time of peace. A survey of Carlisle castle, returned 22nd September 1529, is eloquent of the neglect of the fortress by its constable, Lord Dacre. The wooden doors of the gatehouse of the base-court had rotted away: the lead of the roof had been cut away, probably with an eye to business, so that the rain soaked through the timber below, and had leaked through the vault into the basement, which was at this time used as the county gaol. The gatehouse of the inner ward was in a not much better state; but the gates were of iron and offered more resistance to the weather. The domestic buildings, on the east side of the inner ward, had been roofed with stone slates: the roof of the great chamber had fallen in, and the gallery or passage between the great chamber and hall was “clean gone down.” The chapel and a closet adjoining were partly unroofed: the closet chimney had fallen, and the parlour beneath was in a ruinous state. The hall itself was “like to fall”: the kitchen and some of its offices had fallen, and the bakehouse and pantry were on the point of falling, while rain had gone through the pantry floor into the buttery, which in this case was apparently on a lower level. The great tower, “called the Dungeon,” was, through the decay of the leaden roof, open to rain, and the floors of its three “houses” or stages were gradually rotting. The castle was supplied with artillery, but this was of “small effect and little value.” It included twenty-three iron serpentines or small cannon, six of which were provided with iron axletree pins or trunnions for use on gun-carriages; a small brass serpentine, a foot long; nine other serpentines; forty-five chambers; one iron sling for discharging stone shot; four “hagbushes” (arquebuses or hand-guns); and two bombards or mortar-shaped cannon. The ammunition for the serpentines and arquebuses consisted of 560 leaden bullets: there was also some stone shot and gunpowder. Some gun-stocks, bows, and arrows complete the list of artillery.[379]

Sheriff Hutton castle in Yorkshire, surveyed during the same year, was better off as regards its dwelling-house; for this, as we know from contemporary history, had been occupied with little intermission from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. There were three wards, the outermost being evidently a large base-court, and the middle ward probably, as at Carew, a small court in advance of the inner gatehouse. The hall, kitchen, buttery, pantry, bakehouse, chapel, and lodgings for the lord were in the inner ward. In the base-court were the brew-house and horse-mills, with stables, barns, and granaries. The lead on the roofs was in a generally bad state, and the gutters and spouts wanted mending; but the timber of the inner roofs was still fairly good. The walls and towers of the inner ward, the plan of which, as we have seen, was akin to that of the contemporary Bolton castle, were “strong and high, but must be mended with lime and sand.” Three tons of iron were required to mend the gate of the inner ward. The “mantlewall” of the middle ward was defective and partly in ruin; while the base-court was “all open,” its walls decayed, and its gates gone. In the inner ward was a well, and ponds “for baking and brewing” were near the outer walls. The artillery included “six brass falcons with their carts” and twenty-one arquebuses, for which six barrels of powder and ten score iron shots were provided, bows, bowstrings, and arrows, and two bullet moulds.[380]

CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE

MAXSTOKE CASTLE

After the attainder and execution of the third duke of Buckingham in 1521, two royal escheators took a survey of his lands and houses. Their return, contained in a book of eighty-eight pages,[381] supplies details as to eleven manor-houses and castles. Of these, Caus castle, in west Shropshire, was a mere ruin. Huntingdon castle was decayed, but a tower was reserved for prisoners. The description of Oakham castle might be repeated at the present day. It was “all ruinous, being a large ground within the mantell wall.” The hall, however, was in excellent repair, “and of an old fashion”: the escheators recommended its preservation, because the courts were held there. The three towers of the castle of Newport next the Usk are mentioned, with the water-gate below the middle tower, “to receive into the said castle a good vessel”: the hall and other lodgings were decayed, especially in timber, but the stone could be renewed with a quantity of freestone and rubble stored in the castle. Here, as at Carlisle, Launceston, and elsewhere, the basement of the gatehouse was used as a prison; and its maintenance is therefore insisted upon. The hall at Brecon castle had a new and costly roof with pendants: it was “set on height,” with windows at either end, and none upon the sides. As a matter of fact, the remains of this hall stand above a twelfth-century substructure, which was vaulted from a central row of columns: the south side wall still remains, and is pierced with a row of lancet windows, so that the statement of the survey may refer to a newer hall which has disappeared. There was a new hall in the inner ward at Kimbolton, which had been built some sixty years before by the duke’s great-grandmother. The old curtain against which it stood was in a bad way, and threatened to ruin the hall. Round the inner ward was a moat: the base-court on the outer edge was overgrown with grass, but the barn and stables were in good condition.

“The strongest fortress and most like unto a castle of any other that the Duke had” was the castle of Tonbridge, a mount-and-bailey stronghold whose shell-keep is still one of the finest examples of the type. The keep or “dungeon”—no mention of the mount is made—was at this time covered with a lead roof, half of which was gone. Otherwise, the castle and its curtain were in good repair, the rampart-walk keeping its battlemented outer parapet and rear-wall. The gatehouse, on the north side of the castle, was “as strong a fortress as few be in England”: on the east curtain was a square tower called the Stafford tower, and at the south-east corner, next the Medway, was the octagonal Water tower. The river constituted the chief southern defence of the castle, and there was no south curtain: the substructure of the hall and lodgings, 26 feet high and built of ashlar, was on this side, but the buildings themselves had never been finished.