MACHICOULIS SUPPORTING AN ALUR.
It was during this period that machicoulis and alurs reached their highest efficiency and development, and in every castle built after 1250 they may be found wherever extra strengthening of the defence was desirable. In some illustrated medieval romances of the second part of the thirteenth century the castle is depicted with these additions, although at times the perspective indulged in by the artist is somewhat disconcerting. Where machicolation was not adopted, probably by reason of the expense, the walls were generally corbelled outwards at the upper parts of towers and walls, thus giving a more effective control over the bases of these structures where mining or battering might be attempted. Battlementing was almost universal, and the system of piercing the merlons with arbalestraria may be assigned to this early date, although not reaching the full development it subsequently met with in the Edwardian Castles of Wales. It may be seen in illustrated manuscripts in the form of simple circular openings in the merlons. The protection of loopholes and windows by a hanging shield is likewise illustrated; it prevented the admission of arrows and bolts discharged with a high trajectory.
The maximum development of the art of castle-building in the British Isles occurred in the reign of Edward I. and is exhibited in its best form in those magnificent buildings which he erected in Wales to consolidate the conquest of that country. With the great Snowdonian range as the centre he placed a ring of fortresses at those strategic points, chosen with remarkable military perspicacity, where they would be of the utmost advantage in commanding the widest stretch of country. Criccieth and Harlech, standing upon the sites of previous strongholds, and Conway and Carnarvon upon entirely new ground, are the most prominent and famous of this encircling ring. The term "Edwardian," however, for a Concentric Castle so frequently used, is a misnomer, because some of the grandest examples of the style date from the time of Henry III.; the outer ward of the Tower of London, for example, rendered it concentric in 1240 to 1258.
The Castle of Harlech approaches the concentric form so far as its position will permit, but the bold rocky promontory upon which it stands was too irregular for the complete ideal, and consequently the Castle was adapted to the site. It is practically an oblong with massive circular buttress towers at the four angles; two others defend the gateway and two smaller ones are on either side of the barbican entrance. Small watch-towers, corbelled at the summits upon false machicolations, are adjacent to the larger. The barbican lies upon the eastern side of the fortress, and was only accessible by a steep and narrow entrance after a dry ditch had been crossed. Harlech and Kidwelly are similar in not being purely concentric; each have short fronts of wall and the defences of two of the baileys are united, thus only two lines of resistance are interposed. Neither possess a donjon, the two inner wards being the last resort of the garrison.
The inaccessibility of this massive pile, perched 200 feet above the adjacent sea and producing a strangely impressive effect by reason of its grim vastness, has been repeatedly tested since its walls were first raised. Owen Glendower beat in vain against its impregnable strength and lost Mortimer, his son-in-law, before its walls. In the Wars of the Roses, when the soul-stirring "March of the Men of Harlech" was penned, the Castle was summoned to surrender by the Yorkists, but the Constable of the time, a doughty Welshman, held out for the Lancastrian cause and made a most protracted resistance in the campaign of 1474, Harlech being the last fortress to surrender in that great struggle. In the Civil War it maintained its reputation, but was finally delivered up to Cromwell's brother-in-law.
Conway Castle, one of the most impressive and majestic of medieval fortresses in Britain, is situated in a romantic and picturesque spot at the mouth of the river Conway. It presents a perfect ideal of a fortress and a fortified town, the massive accompanying walls of the latter forming an integral portion of the defence as a whole. The town walls are over a mile in length and are in a singularly good state of preservation; there are twenty-one towers, arranged at regular intervals along this enceinte, and four gates, over one of which is a row of machicoulis, twelve in number, projecting from the upper part of the wall. It was also protected by a dry ditch and with drawbridges placed before the gateways.
LEEDS CASTLE, KENT.