[285] The inner ward at Kenilworth lay at all points within an outer line of defence. The outer ward, narrow on the south and west, was very broad on the east and north, and its western half was cut up into sections by cross-walls: it was also crossed by a ditch in front of the inner ward. The lake did not surround the castle, and on the north its outer defence was a very deep dry ditch.
[286] The partisans of the Despensers held Caerphilly against Queen Isabel in 1326: its defenders were granted a general pardon, from which Hugh, son of Hugh le Despenser the younger, was excepted, 15th February 1326-7 (Pat. 1 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 29). One of the defenders, John Cole, received a special pardon on 20th February (ibid., m. 32). There is no record of a definite siege.
[287] The earthwork or redoubt on the north-west side of the castle is probably of this period: no definite details of the destruction of the castle are preserved.
[288] The inner buildings at Rhuddlan have entirely disappeared: traces of one or two fireplaces are left in the curtain.
[289] At Rhuddlan a passage, protected by an outer wall ending in a square tower, descended the river-bank to the water-gate.
[290] Clark (i. 217) places the date of foundation about 1295.
[291] The outer drum towers are large and imposing, though low: the inner angles are capped by smaller towers, which bear much the same relation to the gatehouses as the outer round towers to Traitors’ gate in the Tower of London.
[292] Of these towers, that on the west has an outer salient or spur, on the sides of which two bartizans are corbelled out: these are united into one, so that the outer face of the upper stage of the tower is rounded into a semicircle. The eastern tower is smaller, with a solid base: the western part of the upper portion is corbelled off in the angle between the tower and a rectangular southern projection. The upper stages of the towers completely command the approach, while the projection just mentioned would conceal a small body of defenders posted between the gateway and the spur-wall ([236]).
[293] This was not founded by the Crown, like the great castles of North Wales, but, like Caerphilly, was a private foundation. It passed by marriage, early in the fourteenth century, into the possession of the house of Lancaster. Some of the most important English castles—e.g., Kenilworth, Knaresborough, Lancaster, Lincoln, Pontefract, and Pickering—came at various times into the possession of this royal house, and, at the accession of Henry IV., became castles of the Crown as seized of the duchy of Lancaster.
[294] The stair to the rampart-walk, built against the curtain, was, however, normal in the defences of towns ([241]).