Pevensey, under the Normans, became once more a place of consequence, and one of the havens through which the sovereigns kept up their communications with Normandy. It was hence that the king embarked on his return to Normandy in 1067. William granted it to his half-brother of Moretaine, who is said to have built a castle there. What he actually built is unknown, and the only existing masonry that can possibly be of his date is the broken superstructure of one, or perhaps two, Roman towers, and some rude repairs executed on the face of one of them. But whatever he did he held, and continued to hold the Roman castle till his death, and he so held it against William Rufus, in 1088, being supported and encouraged by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and by the hope that Duke Robert would come to their relief from beyond the sea. This hope was fallacious. Rufus having stormed the mound of Tonbridge, laid siege to Pevensey. The garrison was brave, the earl-bishop and his brother count were skilful generals, the walls were high and strong, and for six weeks the king, at the head of a numerous army, assailed the place in vain. A tardy force sent, not led, by Duke Robert, strove to land beneath the castle wall, but, though the king’s English soldiers were thus placed between the double attack from the castle and the ships, they overcame and, for the most part, slew the invaders. The castle was surrendered, and Odo, transmitted under a guard to Rochester, contrived to enter that castle, and to encourage its garrison to hold out.
Pevensey next comes under notice in 1101 as the muster-place of the army led by Henry I. to repel the expected invasion of Duke Robert. He was so far successful that the invaders were driven to land at Porchester. Either under Earl William of Moretaine, who was taken at Tenchbrai and lost his lands, or under his successor, Gilbert de l’Aigle, the lordship or Lewy of Pevensey was erected into an Honour, and finally became the Honour of the Eagle, “Honor de Aquila.” In 1144, the castle was attacked by Stephen, and defended by Gilbert de Clare, then holding it for the Empress, to whose son, Henry, it had been granted by Henry I. It next came to King Stephen, and about 1216 became the property, under the Crown, of William de Warren, and after various confiscations and restorations was finally lost to the De Aquila family in the reign of Henry III. John, Earl Warren, took refuge here in 1264, after the Mise of Lewes, and in the following year it was held by Peter of Savoy for the king against the younger De Montfort. Very little of the present mediæval masonry could have been standing during these various sieges. The strength of the place must have then mainly depended upon the Roman exterior wall, furnished, no doubt, with a mediæval parapet, and dominated by the early English mound, with probably a shell keep of timber or masonry upon it.
About 1269 it fell into the hands of Prince Edward, and remained awhile in the Crown. In 1309 it was in a ruinous condition, “Confractum et male custoditum,” Edward I. having declined to repair it. It must have been soon after this, judging from the evidence of the existing masonry, that the present additions were made, that is, either at the close of the thirteenth or very early in the fourteenth century. The towers are attributed to Edward II., in 1309.
Pevensey, “La Ville et la Lewee de Peuense,” was included in the extensive grants made by Edward III. to John of Gaunt, under whom and the Duchy of Lancaster the Pelhams became hereditary constables. In 1399, Lady Pelham distinguished herself by holding the castle for Richard II. against the combined posse of the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. After this event it was mainly used as a state prison. Edmund, Duke of York, was confined here in 1405, and in his will bears testimony to his good treatment; and here also were imprisoned James I. of Scotland in 1414, and in 1419 Joan of Navarre, the last queen of Henry IV. In 1650, the castle had a narrow escape from the claws of the Parliament, the materials having been actually sold for building purposes.
The history of the building, though aided by passages in the public records, is mainly to be established by the study of the material remains. Those of the Roman period have fallen under the searching and very accurate notice of Mr. Roach Smith; the present paper deals mainly with the mediæval additions both in earthworks and masonry.
DESCRIPTION.
The Roman fortress is in plan a rounded oblong, 220 yards north-east and south-west by 115 yards, and contains from 8½ acres to 9 acres. It is included within a wall strengthened by towers, and here, as at Lyme, the outline of the plan was evidently governed by that of the ground on which the castle stands, and which rises 8 feet to 10 feet above the sea level and that of the surrounding marsh or meadow. The wall is from 10 feet to 11 feet thick throughout, and at this time from 20 feet to 30 feet high. The length in circuit is about 580 yards. At the bend of the enclosure, towards the south-west, is the main entrance, preserving very nearly its original form. Two half-round towers, 28 feet apart, and 20 feet diameter, with produced flat sides, giving them a depth of 30 feet, and 30 feet high, project 20 feet from the curtain, and were connected by a cross wall, of which only the foundation remains, and in which was the outer gateway. These towers are not quite parallel, but their longer axes radiate slightly outwards. They are solid and have no internal projection, but from each of them a wall ran backwards 18 feet, terminating in a cross wall, in which was the second gateway, the foundations of which show that the base had an opening of 9 feet. This rectangular gatehouse must have resembled those of Porchester, and, like those, had evidently been altered to suit the Norman entrance, of which there remains one jamb of the outer gateway.
Besides the towers flanking the entrance are eleven others upon the curtain wall. These also are solid, of the height and age of the curtain, and without internal projection. They vary from 14 feet to 20 feet in breadth, and from 14 feet to 16 feet projection from the wall. They stand at irregular distances of from 14 yards to 35 yards. Besides the thirteen standing towers, there are two displaced and broken down, and the fragments of two others, making seventeen in all. They are closest along the north-west and north fronts, where the ground outside is highest. Towards the south and east there are but few, the shallow, muddy sea and the marsh being found a sufficient protection. Besides the main entrance there were three posterns, of which that to the north-east is still in use. That to the north is broken down, but its remains show it to have passed obliquely, on a slight curve, through the wall. The southern postern was probably a water-gate. In the south wall the mouth of a drain, about 18 inches square, and opening towards the sea, has been laid open. Although the wall is for the most part thickly covered with ivy, it is pretty evident that in parts it is still capped by a later battlement, and one of the northern towers, originally 32 feet high, bears a superstructure of 18 feet, which, from a window in its side, appears to be of the Norman period.
The wall has been breached on the north front for 65 yards, and its mass, thrown forwards, still encumbers the ground outside. To the south is a much longer breach, at least of 200 yards. This seems to have been produced by a slip of the soil, by which the foundations have been moved forward bodily for several feet. At the east end also the wall has been broken down, but here its fragments, which are of considerable bulk, are mixed up with others of later date in wild, but not absolutely inextricable, confusion. Most of the north wall has been picked into to a considerable depth, at the ground level, but the foundation remains uninjured. This is said to be the work of the purchaser of the ruins in 1650, but may possibly be the work of some early assailants, though these are more likely to have worked below the surface of the earth, and to have inserted props of wood beneath the base of the masonry, which, when set on fire, would have caused the destruction of the whole superincumbent mass. No gunpowder has here been employed.
It is evident that there was formerly a ditch at the foot of the wall on the south front, full of water, where, indeed, it may still be traced. Along the north, west, and east fronts, the wall is bordered by a road, to make which the ditch, probably never very wide or deep, has been filled up. There can be no question as to the authors of the exterior enceinte, both wall and towers. They are all of one, or very nearly one, date, and distinctly Roman, and, which is not always the case, the towers are bonded into the walls. The substance of the masonry is very rudely-coursed flint-rubble, chiefly composed of flints and pebbles from the adjacent sea-beach, mixed with angular fragments of stone, the whole held together by mortar very freely employed. This mortar is remarkably white in colour, and contains numerous small pebbles, little if any broken tile, and a preponderance of sand. On the whole the mortar has set firmly, and holds well together the rather heterogeneous mass of materials. The face of the work, both inside and outside, is composed mainly of squared stones from Eastbourne or Beachy Head. They are generally about 6 inches by 4 inches on the face, but sometimes as large as 12 inches by 6 inches. The lowest courses at the ground-level are composed of darker and far larger stones, and in the wall above are occasional double bands of tile, and sometimes of stone nearly of the colour of tile. A good deal of the facing at the lower part of the wall has been stripped off, but inside this stripping is confined to the part of the wall just above the ground-level, which is raised artificially higher than the level of the natural soil. In some places this addition is high enough to convert the lower part of the masonry into a retaining wall. It has been thought that the earth thus employed was derived from the inner ditch, an early English work. It may be so, but more probably the contents of this ditch went to form the mound, and it is possible that the raised soil may be derived from the ditches of a British camp preceding the Roman occupation.