Richard’s historical connexion with the “rock of Andely” has its ill-omened beginning in a ghastly story of the fate of three French prisoners whom he flung from its summit into the ravine below, in vengeance for the slaughter of some Welsh auxiliaries who had been surprised and cut to pieces by the French king’s troops in the neighbouring valley.[1882] By the opening of 1196, however, he had devised for it a more honourable use. In a treaty with Philip, drawn up in January of that year, the fief of Andely was made the subject of special provisions whereby it was reserved as a sort of neutral zone between the territories of the two kings, and a significant clause was added: “Andely shall not be fortified.”[1883] As by the same treaty the older bulwarks of Normandy—Nonancourt, Ivry, Pacy, Vernon, Gaillon, Neufmarché, Gisors—were resigned into Philip’s hands, this clause, if strictly fulfilled, would have left the Seine without a barrier and Rouen at the mercy of the French king. The agreement in short, like all those which bore the signatures of Philip and Richard, was made only to be broken; both parties broke it without delay; and while Philip was forming his league with the Bretons for the ruin of Anjou, Richard was tracing out in the valley of the Gambon and on the rock of Andely the plan of a line of fortifications which were to interpose an insurmountable barrier between his Norman capital and the French invader. His first act was to seize the Isle of Andely.[1884] Here he built a lofty octagonal tower, encircled by a ditch and rampart, and threw a bridge over the river from each side of the island, linking it thus to either shore.[1885] On the right, beyond the eastern bridge, he traced out the walls of a new town, which took the name of the New or the Lesser Andely,[1886] a secure stronghold whose artificial defences of ramparts and towers were surrounded by the further protection of the lake on its eastern side, the Seine on the west, and the two lesser rivers to north and south, a bridge spanning each of these two little streams forming the sole means of access from the mainland.[1887] The southern bridge, that over the Gambon, linked this New Andely with the foot of the rock which was to be crowned with the mightiest work of all. Richard began by digging out to a yet greater depth the ravines which parted this rock from the surrounding heights, so as to make it wholly inaccessible save by the one connecting isthmus at its south-eastern extremity. On its summit, which formed a plateau some six hundred feet in length and two hundred in breadth at the widest part, he reared a triple fortress. The outer ward consisted of a triangular enclosure; its apex, facing the isthmus already mentioned, was crowned by a large round tower,[1888] with walls ten feet in thickness; the extremities of its base were strengthened by similar towers, and two smaller ones broke the line of the connecting curtain-wall. This was surrounded by a ditch dug in the rock to a depth of more than forty feet, and having a perpendicular counterscarp. Fronting the base of this outer fortress across the ditch on its north-western side was a rampart surmounted by a wall ninety feet long and eight feet thick, also flanked by two round towers; from these a similar wall ran all round the edges of the plateau, where the steep sides of the rock itself took the place of rampart and ditch. The wall on the south-west side—the river-front—was broken by another tower, cylindrical without, octagonal within; and its northern extremity was protected by two mighty rectangular bastions. Close against one of these stood a round tower, which served as the base of a third enclosure, the heart and citadel of the whole fortress. Two-thirds of its elliptical outline, on the east and south, were formed by a succession of semicircular bastions, or segments of towers, seventeen in number, each parted from its neighbour by scarcely more than two feet of curtain-wall—an arrangement apparently imitated from the fortress of Cherbourg, which was accounted the greatest marvel of military architecture in Normandy, until its fame was eclipsed by that of Richard’s work.[1889] This portion of the enclosure was built upon a rampart formed by the excavation of a ditch about fifteen to twenty feet in width; the counterscarp, like that of the outer ditches, was perpendicular; and a series of casemates cut in the rock ran along on this side for a distance of about eighty feet. On the western side of the citadel stood the keep, a mighty circular tower, with walls of the thickness of twelve feet, terminating at an angle of twenty feet in depth where it projected into the enclosure; it had two or perhaps three stages,[1890] and was lighted by two great arched windows, whence the eye could range at will over the wooded hills and dales of the Vexin, or the winding course of the river broadening onward to Rouen. Behind the keep was placed the principal dwelling-house, and under this a staircase cut out of the rock gave access to an underground passage leading to some outworks and a tower near the foot of the hill, whence a wall was carried down to the river-bank, just beyond the northern extremity of a long narrow island known as the “isle of the Three Kings”—doubtless from some one of the many meetings held in this district by Louis VII. or Philip Augustus and the two Henrys.[1891] The river itself was barred by a double stockade, crossing its bed from shore to shore.[1892]

Plan VIII.

Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.

London, Macmillan & Co.

All this work was accomplished within a single year.[1893] Richard, who had watched over its progress with unremitting care, broke into an ecstasy of delight at its completion; he called his barons to see “how fair a child was his, this child but a twelvemonth old”;[1894] he called it his “saucy castle,” “Château-Gaillard,”[1895] and the name which he thus gave it in jest soon replaced in popular speech its more formal title of “the Castle on the Rock of Andely.”[1896] The hardness of the rock out of which the fortifications were hewn was not the sole obstacle against which the royal builder had had to contend. Richard had no more thought than Fulk Nerra would have had of asking the primate’s leave before beginning to build upon his land; the work therefore was no sooner begun than Archbishop Walter lifted up his protest against it; obtaining no redress, he laid Normandy under interdict and carried his complaint in person to the Pope.[1897] Richard at once sent envoys to appeal against the interdict and make arrangements for the settlement of the dispute.[1898] Meanwhile, however, he pushed on the building without delay. Like Fulk of old, the seeming wrath of Heaven moved him as little as that of its earthly representatives; a rain of blood which fell upon the workmen and the king himself, though it scared all beside, failed to shake his determination; “if an angel had come down out of the sky to bid him stay his hand, he would have got no answer but a curse.”[1899] He had now, however, made his peace with the Church; in the spring of 1197 he offered to the archbishop an exchange of land on terms highly advantageous to the metropolitan see; and on this condition the Pope raised the interdict in May of the same year.[1900] The exchange was carried through on October 16,[1901] and ratified by John in a separate charter, a step which seems to indicate that John was now recognized as his brother’s heir.[1902]