And this policy is particularly evident in the sites of the castles. Where circumstances absolutely required it, an entirely new position was selected; but this was extremely rare, and probably did not occur in half a dozen instances, if indeed in more than London and Richmond. Usually it was found that the English lord had attached to his estate an earthwork upon which he and his ancestors had lived for centuries, which was identified with the estate or district, and regarded with respect and confidence by the surrounding tenantry. It is surprising to find how completely the leading positions in the country had thus been occupied. The upland passes; the margins of the rivers; the summits, where readily accessible, of the detached hills; the spots rendered strong by cliffs or ravines, or extended or impracticable marshes. Each had its aula, where a succession of lords had identified themselves with their people, afforded them protection, and received in return their support. Such were Guildford, Farnham, and Berkhampstede, in the clefts of the belt of chalk by which London is girdled; Hertford, Bedford, Wallingford, Tamworth, Worcester, Shrewsbury, Durham, and York, upon the banks of deep or rapid streams; Windsor, Belvoir, Lincoln, Corfe, and Montacute, placed on the summit of more or less detached hills, commanding a broad sweep of country; Dover, Scarborough, and Bamborough, upon rugged and lofty sea-cliffs, isolated by deep and formidable ravines; Huntingdon, Cambridge, Ely, and Oxford, more or less covered by marshy fens at that time almost impassable; while attached to and so placed as to overawe their adjacent cities or towns were such fortresses as Exeter, Leicester, Winchester, Chester, Chichester, Taunton, York, Norwich, and Nottingham. Each, including many that belonged to the Crown, represented an English estate. To many of them military service had long been paid; and now into them the knights and barons from Normandy and the lieutenants and governors for the Crown were inserted.
So far, the policy was sound and promised to be successful; but when the new lords began to build castles of stone they became obnoxious to both sovereign and people. The possessor of a strong castle was ever ready for rebellion, and was not uncommonly a tyrant even to his own people, of whom this made him independent: hence, castles properly so called,—buildings in masonry,—were hated by both king and people. The old-fashioned residence, half mansion, half fortress, formed of earth and timber or at best of a rude kind of masonry, such as Scott more by intuition than inquiry attributes to the Saxon Cedric, was strong when held by brave men in sufficient numbers for a short time; but under ordinary circumstances it could easily be attacked, and set on fire. These fortified residences were out of fashion with the Normans, and fell into disuse. The English lords were of the same immediate lineage with their tenants; and if they occasionally squeezed them, they did it as a man squeezes his own milch cow, tenderly. But the castle of stone was held by a stranger whose language, arms, and armour were strange to the people, and by them feared and hated. The Norman castle was a purely military building. It was not only strong when well garrisoned, but its passive strength was also great; and when the bridge was up and the gates closed it was at all times safe against an enemy unprovided with military engines. Fire, the ordinary and ready weapon of the populace, against such a wall, for example, as Cardiff (40 feet high and 11 feet thick), or against such a Tower as London, could do nothing. The garrison also, composed in the English times of the tenants of the lord, under the Normans were not unfrequently mercenaries,—men without ruth or conscience, distrusted even by their employers, whose trade was war and whose gain was plunder, and of whom Maurice de Bracy was a very favourable specimen. “Quot domini castellorum,” it was said “tot tyranni.” No wonder, then, that the Norman castles came to be regarded as the symbol of rebellion on the one hand, and of tyranny on the other.
Although the personal attention of the Conqueror was necessarily confined to the chief cities and central towns of England, to Exeter, Gloucester, Nottingham, Lincoln, York, or Durham, his western frontier was not neglected, although he was obliged to depute its ordinary defence to others. The Welsh, hardened by centuries of constant warfare, held with tenacity their strip of mountain land between Offa’s Dyke and the sea, and were ever on the watch to spoil that other more fertile tract which lay between the Dyke and the Severn and the Dee, known as the March. Foremost among the barons of the March were Roger of Montgomery and Hugh D’Avranches, Earl of Chester, to whom later generations gave the surname of the “Wolf.” The caput of this latter earldom, protected by the deep and rapid Dee, was posted at one angle of the old Roman enclosure; and the castle of Earl Roger, girdled by the convolutions of the Severn, was an almost impregnable citadel. From these fortresses these great earls exercised more than regal power over the counties of Salop and Hereford, composing the Middle March. The border barons, their feudatories, succeeded to no peaceful heritage; but by degrees they possessed themselves of the older English possessions upon the border, and along with them of the fortresses by which in Mercian times the Welsh had been held so long at bay. That these were numerous is evident from the remains of their earthworks; and that they were strong and well held against the Welsh is evident from the English names along and beyond the frontier. “Domesday,” however, though compiled after Earl Roger had held the Earldom of Shrewsbury about twelve years, only mentions four castles upon his border,—Oswestry, Montgomery, Shrewsbury, and Stanton or Castle Holgate, and the Earl’s house at Quatford. Bridgenorth and Carreghova were built a few years later, in the reign of Rufus; but Bridgenorth represented the burgh of Æthelflæda, the remains of which are possibly seen at Oldbury, as are earthworks of still stronger type, actually employed by Earl Roger at Quatford. Besides these, Wattlesborough and Clun exhibit rectangular Norman keeps; and eleven or twelve more castles in those districts are mentioned in records as early as the reign of Henry I. Altogether, by the close of the twelfth century there were from fifty to sixty castles in the county of Salop alone. Now, although the masonry of these castles, or of such of them as remain, can very rarely indeed be attributed to the Norman period, the earthworks show that they existed as fortresses long before that time; and it seems, therefore, certain that here, as in other parts of England, Earl Roger and his barons made the most of such works as they found ready to their hands; and this applies equally to the Palatinate of Chester and to the southern Marches, where also Norman castles took the place, with more or less of interval, of strongholds of the English type.
CHAPTER IV.
OF THE POLITICAL VALUE OF CASTLES UNDER THE SUCCESSORS OF THE CONQUEROR.
IT is rather remarkable that castles should not occupy, even incidentally, a more prominent place in the “Domesday Survey,” as they formed a very important feature in the country; were closely, for the most part, attached to landed property; and were of great political importance. No great baron was without a castle upon each of his principal estates, nor was any bishop secure of his personal safety unless so provided. At the death of the Conqueror, it was the possession of Winchester Castle that gave to William Rufus the royal treasure, and enabled his adherents to acquire the castles of Dover and Hastings, and thus, at the commencement of his reign, to secure a safe communication with Normandy. The king, it is true, had the people on his side and owed his eventual success to their support, but the barons of his party depended largely upon their fortresses. Archbishop Lanfranc held Saltwood, which the earthworks show even then to have been strong; Willam de Warren held Lewes and Ryegate and the strong hill of Coningsburgh in Yorkshire; Chester belonged to Earl Hugh, who was supported by his fifteen barons, each of whom had his castle; and in North Wales the Earl held Diganwy, which, covered in front by the Conwy water, closed the seaward pass from that aggressive district. With the Earl and on the side of Rufus were Robert de Tilliol, who held Flint and Rhuddlan, and Scaleby and other castles on the Scottish border; while Bishop Wolstan, representing the English feeling, held his episcopal castle of Worcester against Urso d’Abitot and a swarm of Marcher barons who crossed the Severn to assail him.
Nevertheless, the lords of the castles were mostly on the side of Duke Robert. Such were Alan the Black and Ribald his brother, the lords of Richmond and Middleham; Stephen of Holderness, strong in his sea-girt rock of Scarborough; the Mowbrays, Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutance, Justiciary to the Conqueror, and a great soldier; and Robert Mowbray, his brother’s son, who held the impregnable rock of Bamburgh and the great castle of Axholm in the fens of Lincolnshire; both strong, though in a different kind of strength. With them was the powerful Earl Roger of Shrewsbury with his border following; and at a later period Robert de Belesme, his successor, builder of Bridgenorth and Carreghova, and superior lord of many border castles. In the west, Duke Robert was supported by Bernard Newmarch, who held the castles of Brecknock and Builth, and a large and fortified tract of Monmouthshire; with whom were William of Breteuil, son of William Fitz-Osborn, and lord of Hereford; Roger de Lacy of Ewias; and William Earl of Eu, the owner of the strong rock of Hastings, who at that time held the castle and walled city of Gloucester. Besides these great leaders were, on the same side, Ralph Mortimer of Wigmore; Walter Giffard, whose castle on one bank of the Buckinghamshire Ouse, combined with a similar moated mound on the other, commanded that town and its river; Ralph Guader, who held Norwich; and Hugh Bigot, his successor there, lord of Framlingham, after Norwich the strongest place, both in earthworks and masonry, in East Anglia. Between Bristol and Bath the Mowbrays ravaged the country up to the tower of Berkeleyness, the present castle being then but an earthwork; and with them were Hugh de Graintmaisnel, who held Hinckley and Leicester castles; and William de Carileph, at first one of William’s prime councillors; but who afterwards changed sides, and was enabled to do so with safety from his possession of the keep of Durham. Bishop Odo, who held Rochester Castle (even then a place of great strength), and with it the passage of the Medway, placed there Eustace of Boulogne; and himself, with his brother Earl Robert and five hundred knights, held the Roman Pevensey, strengthened by a mound and some other English additions in earth.
Rufus, however, with far more energy than his brother Robert, had also the popular feeling on his side, which enabled him to make head even against this powerful combination. He laid siege to Pevensey, and took it after a seven weeks’ siege. He then assailed and took Rochester, and finally Tonbridge, held by Gilbert Fitz-Richard, the consequence of which success was the banishment of Bishop Odo. Robert Mowbray was beaten back from before the walls of Ilchester Castle, now utterly destroyed; and Bishop William was forced to surrender Durham. Carlisle, wasted by the Danes in 877, received from Rufus a castle and a keep, now standing; and Newcastle, similarly provided in 1080, also retains its keep, and a gatehouse with some traces of the exterior wall. In 1098 Malcolm of Scotland, the husband of St. Margaret, was slain before Alnwick, then better known as Murielden; and Mowbray was driven from Tynewald Castle back upon Bamburgh, which seems to have been finally taken by means of a “malvoisin,” which in this instance was evidently an entrenched camp thrown up to the west of the castle, and employed probably as the headquarters of a blockade. In this reign also the conquest of South Wales was completed, and the foundations laid of a chain of castles from Gloucester and Hereford to Pembroke, the main links of which were Chepstow and Abergavenny, Caerleon and Cardiff, Builth and Brecknock, Caerkennen, Caermarthen, Cardigan, Tenby, and Carew. How far these Welsh castles were at once constructed of masonry is uncertain. Besides Chepstow, two only, or at most three, and those subordinate, Ogmore, Penlline, and Newcastle, exhibit decided Norman features; but however this may be, neither Fitz-Hamon, Newmarch, nor Arnulph of Montgomery were likely, in the face of foes so formidable, to be satisfied with defences in any way inferior to the strongest of that day.
The reign of Henry I. was prolific in castles. It is probable that to him is due the greater number of our extant rectangular keeps, by the construction of which he carried to completion the plans sketched out by his father, which his brother had been too busy and too much pressed to take in hand. In this reign, especially between 1114 and 1121, most of the Welsh castles were completed. Bristol and Cardiff castles were the work of Robert Earl of Gloucester. Bishop Roger of Salisbury built Sherborne, Salisbury, the Devizes, and Malmesbury; and his brother, Alexander of Lincoln, Sleaford and Newark. “Castella erant crebra per totam Angliam.” Most of these were great and strong, very different from the hasty and unlicensed structures of the succeeding reign.