Subterranean chambers were not more frequent in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth than in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and if we have nothing like the magnificent tiers of vaulting in the tower of Coucy, neither have we anything like the wretched cells and oubliettes found in German castles, and of which those of Baden-Baden are examples. The basement chambers of mural towers are, indeed, often below the level of the court-yard, but they are above that of the ditch outside. At Castel Coch, near Cardiff, is about the worst dungeon in Britain, but even this is not underground.
The posterns in these castles are often very elaborate. There is a very fine one at Windsor, opening in the castle ditch, and intended for the passage of cavalry. This is probably of the age of Henry III. At Caerphilly are two with regular gatehouses and drawbridges. Sometimes the postern is a small door with a grate. That at Goderich was worked in the floor above, so that it required two men in two several places to open or close the postern. At Caerphilly are two water-posterns; one out of which a boat could be lowered into the lake, the other at the water-level, as at Ledes and Tonbridge. Harlech water-gate has been mentioned.
The castles both of Henry and Edward combine the palace with the fortress, but the domestic are always subordinate to the military arrangements. Whether absolutely original, as Caerphilly or Beaumaris, or completions of older works, as Corfe, Dover, and the Tower, they usually present a grand appearance, and the masonry is generally excellent.
Very many of our principal towns were walled in during the reigns of Henry and Edward; some—as York, Leicester, Colchester, and Chester—took advantage of the Roman wall. Northampton was walled before 1278. At Winchester the wall was founded upon an early earth-bank. The only licences granted for town walls appear to have been to the men of Harwich and Ipswich, 26 Ed. III.; the Mayor and prud-hommes (probi homines) of Coventry, 37 and 38 Ed. III.; of Salisbury, 46 Ed. III.; and of Winchelsea, 3 Hy.; the defences of Hereford, a very exposed place, seem to have been formed of briars and thorns, placed upon very formidable banks of earth. It sometimes happened that the gatehouses were of masonry, while the rest of the defences were banks of earth stockaded.
The fourteenth century was prolific in castles, chiefly of the smaller class, upon the Scottish border and in Scotland. In England Dacre, Dunstanborough, and Spofforth were built early in that century; the Palace Castle of St. David’s was built in 1342, Caesar’s Tower at Warwick about 1360, and Guy’s Tower in 1394, two magnificent works. Gradually, however, pure castles fell into disuse, and such structures as Bolton and Wressill and Sheriff-Hutton took their place, affecting generally the form of a square court, round which the buildings were ranged, and which was entered by a regular gatehouse. In these, however, the castellate character was employed more from custom than from necessity, and the external windows are large, and the walls of very moderate thickness. Many of the royal castles were left to decay, and others were employed as prisons and handed over to the counties. A short Act of the 13 R. II. orders “that the King’s castles and gaols should be joined to the bodies of the counties, and, where severed, should be reunited.”
Castle-building was from a very early time considered as a royal prerogative, though in the reigns immediately succeeding the Conquest, it was so great an object to hold the country, that the claim seems to have been allowed to slumber. The wholesale destruction of the adulterine or unlicensed castles which followed upon the death of Stephen showed the revival of the prerogative, and, in the reign of Henry III., a regular form of licence, “licentia crenellare,” had to be granted before a house could lawfully be fortified. The earliest known of these licences was granted by Henry III. to the Bishop of Winchester in 1257–8, to enable him to fortify the Isle of Portland. Henry granted 20 of these licences; Edward I., 44; Edward II., 60; Edward III., 181; Richard II., 60; Henry IV., 8; Henry V., 1; Henry VI., 5; and Edward IV., 3. A very complete list of these licences, prepared by Sir J. Duffus Hardy, has been printed by Mr. Parker. Of the 382 given by him, only four relate to castles of importance; Belvoir, Bungay, Dudley, and Whitchurch, all of which had been fortified before legal memory. Most of the others relate to manor-houses, some to bishops’ palaces and cathedral closes, some to monasteries, some to houses in cities, and some to castles probably then first built, or perhaps rebuilt on a larger scale. Such were Apley, Aldworth, Amberley, Bodiam, Bolton, Bothal, Cowling, Dunstanborough, Ford, Harewood, Naworth, Penrith, Rose Castle, Stokesay, Shirburne, Tanfield, Tongue, and Wardour, most of which are still standing, and two or three inhabited.
The following, from the Patent Roll, 15 Hen. VI., 1437, is a part of the licence granted to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and his Duchess, who proposed to build a strong house upon the hill now occupied by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich: “Muris petra et calce includere et firmare, et muros illos kernellare, batellare, et turrellare, ac quandam turrim infra parcum prædictum similiter petra et calce de novo construere, edificare, ac tam turrim illam sic de novo constructam et edificatam quam dictum manerium sive mansionem ut præmittitur inclusum, firmatum, kernellatum, imbattellatum, et turrellatum, tenere possint sibi et hæredibus suis prædictis in perpetuum.”
Innis (“Sketches,” 444) gives a corresponding licence from the Earl of Ross, in 1406, for the building of Kilravock.
“Johne of Yle, Erle of Ross ande Lord of the Ilis, to all ande sundry to quhais knawlage thir our present letteris sall come, greeting. Witte us to have gevyn ande grantit, and be thir present letteris gevis ande grantis, our full power ande licence till our luffid cosing, man ande tennand, Huchone de Roos, Baron of Kylravok, to fund, big, ande upmak a toure of fens, with barmkin and bataling, upon quhat place of strynth him best likes, within the barony of Kilrawok, without any contradictioun or demaund, questioun, or any obiection to put in contrar of him or his ayris, be us or our ayris, for the said toure ande barmkyn making, with the bataling, now or in tyme to cum. In witnes hereof, ye haf gert our sele to ther letteris be affixt at Inuernys, the achtend day of Februar, the yer of Godd a thousand four hundreth sixte yer.”
Mr. Innis points out that one of James’s first acts on returning from his English captivity was to order the owners of all castles and manor-places to make them habitable and to live in them; and he adds that it is remarkable “How many Scotch castles date from the half century following the above enactment, and all of one design—a stern, square keep, rudely kernellated, and surmounted with a cap-house, partially surrounded by a barbican or barmkin, affording protection to the inhabitants and their cattle from the hurried inroads of rough-handed neighbours.”