set him to do could be done. He had indeed been amply provided for, so far as he himself was concerned, by the Conqueror, chiefly through a marriage with a daughter of Wiggod of Wallingford, who had been cupbearer to Edward the Confessor; but money was needed for the great fortress which was now to be built to hold the town, after the fashion of the Normans, and by holding the town to secure, as we have said, the river.
“In the year 1071,” it is recorded in the Chronicle of Osney Abbey, “was built the Castle of Oxford by Robert D’Oigli.” And by the Castle we must understand not the mound which was already there, nor such a castle as was afterwards built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but at least the great tower of stone which still exists and was intended to guard the western approach to the Castle. S. George’s tower, for so it was called because it was joined to the chapel of S. George’s College within the precincts, was upon the line of the enceinte. The walls are eight feet four inches thick at the bottom, though not more than four feet at the top. The doorway, which is some twelve feet from the ground, was on the level of the vallum or wall of fortification, and gave access to the first floor. There are traces of six doorways above the lead roof, which gave access to the “hourdes.” These were wooden hoardings or galleries that could be put up outside. They had holes for the crossbows, and holes for the pouring down of stones, boiling pitch or oil on to the heads of threatening sappers. They were probably stored in the top room of the tower, which is windowless.
The construction of the staircase of the tower is very peculiar. Ascend it and you will obtain a magnificent view of Oxford, of Iffley and Sandford Lock, Shotover and the Chiltern Hills, Hincksey, Portmeadow, Godstow, Woodstock and Wytham Woods.
On the mound close at hand there was, after D’Oigli’s day, a ten-sided keep built in the style of Henry III. To reach the mound you go within the gaol, and pass by a pathetic little row of murderers’ graves, sanded heaps, distinguished by initials. Under the mound is a very deep well, covered over by a groined chamber of Transitional design.
Five towers were added later to the Castle, as Agas’ map (1568) shows us. After the Civil War, Colonel Draper, Governor of Oxford, “sleighted,” as Wood expresses it, the work about the city, but greatly strengthened the Castle. But in the following year (1651), when the Scots invaded England, he, for some reason, “sleighted” the Castle works too. The five towers, shown in Agas’ map, and other fortifications then disappeared. S. George’s tower alone survives.
Stern and grim that one remaining fragment of the old Castle stands up against the sky, a landmark that recalls the good government of the Norman kings. But the most romantic episode connected with it occurred amidst the horrors of the time when the weakness and misrule of Stephen, and the endeavours of Matilda to supplant him, had plunged the country into that chaos of pillage and bloodshed from which the Norman rule had hitherto preserved it. After the death of his son, Henry I. had forced the barons to swear to elect his daughter Matilda as his successor. But they elected Stephen of Blois, grandson of the Conqueror, whose chief claim to the Crown, from their point of view, was his weak character. In a Parliament at Oxford (1135) he granted a charter with large liberties to the Church, but his weakness and prodigality soon gave the barons opportunities of revolt. Released from the stern control of Henry they began to fortify their castles; in self-defence the great ministers of the late King followed their example. Stephen seized the Bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln at Oxford, and forced them to surrender their strongholds. The King’s misplaced violence broke up the whole system of government, turned the clergy against him and opened the way for the revolt of the adherents of Matilda. The West was for her; London and the East supported Stephen. Victory at Lincoln placed Stephen a captive in the hands of Matilda, and the