In 1314 Marguerite of Burgundy, wife of Louis X., was imprisoned in the castle and strangled with her own hair by order of her husband, who wished for another consort, and later on Blanche, wife of Charles le Bel, also accused of adultery, was kept there until removed to the Abbey of Maubisson for imprisonment for the remainder of her life.
In 1334 David Bruce, the son of Robert the Bruce, spent the seven years of his exile in France in Château Gaillard, while Edward Balliol had made himself King in Scotland.
Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, was another famous prisoner, in 1355. He was sent to the castle by King Jean of France for having had designs on the throne, and escaped when the King was captured by the English at Poitiers, in 1356.
The vivid story of the castle told in full, with a detailed account of its defences, would keep one at Château Gaillard much longer, and it is with the keenest regret that one leaves the steep hill, with its strange ruins standing out in front of the widespread view over a great horseshoe bend of the Seine.
The road by the river is followed for two kilometres, with the white, castle-like chalk cliffs on the right, to a few houses called La Vacherie, where one goes to the right and zigzags up the steep ascent that leads to the villages of Heuqueville and Amfreville les Champs.
From Amfreville the road winds steeply down to the charming valley of the Andelle, and crosses the river at the village of St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre, where there is a fine fifteenth-century château, approached by an avenue of evergreen trees. There is an imposing façade flanked by two towers, and close by are the ruins of an older castle.
After a steep, winding ascent through the forest of Longboël the plateau of Caux is reached, the River Andelle dividing it from that of Vexin.
At Boos the route nationale is joined, and one may stop to see the remarkable ruins of a thirteenth-century manor-house of the Abbesses of St. Armand de Rouen. The beautiful octagonal pigeon-house of the sixteenth century is decorated with inlaid tiles.
Just before descending the steep hill down to Rouen, from whence there is a remarkable panorama of the city, the village of Blosseville Bonsecours is passed through. An important Benedictine abbey was founded there in 1030. It was fortified in the fourteenth century, but in 1597, after the wars of the League, it was destroyed at the demand of the people of Rouen, who had always been apprehensive that the cannons would be turned upon them.
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