These marauders built burhs at Reading, Quatford on the Severn, and Benfleet, but by far the best now remaining are those at Willington and Tempsford on the river Ouse. At Willington the Danes proposed to establish their winter quarters in 921, and an extensive burh was thrown up for the purpose. It consisted of a large enclosure with inner and outer wards, high ramparts, and three wide ditches filled with water from the river. The most striking features, perhaps, were the two large harbours within the fortifications, designed to protect the Danish galleys. The Saxon king Edward, however, carried the place by assault and burnt the fleet. The discomfited Danes, much lessened in numbers, retreated up the river, and near the junction of the Ivel with the main stream threw up a smaller burh which now bears the name of Gannock's Castle, near Tempsford. The fort is an oblong area enclosed within a single fosse, and, what is very significant in face of later developments, a mound of earth stands within it near a corner, where the only entrance to the fort is found. Probably this mound was protected by palisades the same as the rampart, but Edward, flushed by his former success, stormed the burh and captured it with terrible loss to the routed garrison.
Pevensey.—Pevensey Castle is associated with the earliest history of Britain. Upon its site stood the Roman Camp of Anderida, oval in shape, and obviously adapted to surface configuration. It is the reputed site of the landing of Caesar. The British occupied it when the Romans left, and here occurred the great massacre by the South Saxons under Ella in 477. In 1066 William I. landed at Pevensey and erected one of his portable wooden castles, probably within the Roman Camp. The Castle came to his half-brother Robert, Earl of Mortaign, who considerably strengthened the existing remains. The supposition that he erected a Motte and Bailey castle seems to be negatived by recent investigations. The Castle was held by Bishop Odo against the forces of Rufus for six weeks in 1088, but was surrendered, Odo promising to give up Rochester, which promise he subsequently violated. King Stephen besieged it in person in the war with the Empress Maud, when it was defended by Gilbert, Earl of Clare, and only surrendered through famine. It came to the Crown during the thirteenth century, and John of Gaunt appointed the Pelham family to be castellans. In 1399, Sir John of that name, an adherent of Bolingbroke, was absent when the Castle was besieged by the king's forces, but his wife, the Lady Jane, conducted an historical defence with such gallantry that the assailants retired. Pevensey appears to have been used as a State prison, and within it many notable persons have been incarcerated, including Edward Duke of York, James I. of Scotland, and Joan of Navarre, second queen of Henry IV.
A large proportion of the Roman wall surrounding the oval site is still in excellent preservation; it is strengthened by fifteen drum towers of great solidity. The height ranges between 20 and 30 feet, and upon the summits may still be perceived some of the strengthening Norman masonry. The inner castle is a remarkable feature of the enclosure; it is supposed to have been erected at the end of the thirteenth century, and one of the towers dates from the time of Edward II. It forms an irregular pentagon, each angle being strengthened by a massive drum tower; two semicircular towers flank the entrance, of which one only remains in good condition. The masonry of the drawbridge is still to be seen, and the entrance passage with portcullis grooves and meurtrière openings are in good condition. The great Roman wall has been utilised to form portions of the eastern and southern sides, but this suffered in the time of Elizabeth, when a part of it was blown up by gunpowder.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE MOTTE AND BAILEY CASTLE, c. 1066-c. 1100