MOTTE-CASTLES IN NORTH WALES
Motte-castles are as common in Wales as they are in England, and in
certain districts much more common. It is now our task to show how they
got there. They were certainly not built (in the first instance at any
rate) by the native inhabitants, for they do not correspond to what we
know to have been the state of society in Wales during the Anglo-Saxon
period.[823] The Welsh were then in the tribal condition, a condition,
as we have shown, inconsistent with the existence of the private
castle. The residence of the king or chieftain, as we know from the
Welsh Laws, was a great hall, such as seems to have been the type of
chieftains' residence among all the northern nations at that time. "It
was adapted for the joint occupation of a number of tribesmen living
together."[824]
Pennant describes the residence of Ednowen, a Welsh chieftain of the
12th century, as follows: "The remains are about 30 yards square; the
entrance about 7 feet wide, with a large upright stone on each side
for a doorcase; the walls were formed of large stones uncemented by
any mortar; in short the structure shows the very low state of Welsh
architecture at this time; it may be paralleled only by the artless
fabric of a cattle-house."[825] This certainly is a hall and not a
castle.
The so-called Dimetian Code indeed tells us that the king is to have
a man and a horse from every hamlet, with hatchets for constructing
his castles (gestyll) at the king's cost; but the Venedotian Code,
which is the older MS., says that these hatchet-men are to form
encampments (uuesten); that is, they are to cut down trees and form
either stockades on banks or rude _zerebas_ for the protection of
the host.[826] It is clearly laid down in the Codes what buildings
the king's villeins are to erect for him at his residences: a hall,
buttery, kitchen, dormitory, stable, dog-house, and little house.[827]
In none of these lists is anything mentioned which has the smallest
resemblance to a castle, not even a tower. We can imagine that these
buildings were enclosed in an earthwork or stockade, but it is not
mentioned.[828]
Wales was never one state, except for very short periods. Normally
it was divided into three states, Gwynedd or North Wales, Powys or
Mid-Wales, and Deheubarth, all almost incessantly at war with each
other.[829] Other subdivisions asserted themselves as opportunity
offered, so that the above rough division into provinces must not be
regarded as always accurate. A Wales thus divided, and perpetually
rent by internal conflicts, invited the aggression of the Saxons, and
it is probable that the complete subjugation of Britain would have
been accomplished by the descendants of Alfred, if it had not been
for the Danish invasions. The position of the Welsh kings after the
time of Athelstan seems to have been that of tributaries, who threw
off their allegiance whenever it was possible to do so. But still
the Anglo-Saxon frontier continued to advance. Professor Lloyd has
shown, from a careful examination of Domesday Book, that even before
the Norman Conquest the English held the greater part of what is now
Flintshire and East Denbighshire, and were advancing into the vale of
Montgomery and the Radnor district.[830] The victories of Griffith ap
Llywelyn, an able prince who succeeded in bringing all Wales under
his sway, devastated these English colonies; but his defeat by Earl
Harold in 1063 restored the English ascendancy over these regions.
The unimpeachable evidence of Domesday Book shows that a considerable
district in North Wales and a portion of Radnor were held respectively
by Earl Edwin and Earl Harold before the Norman Conquest. Moreover, the
fact mentioned by the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ in 1065, that Harold was
building a hunting-seat for King Edward at Portskewet, _after he had
subdued it_, suggests that the land between Wye and Usk, which Domesday
Book reckons under Gloucestershire, was a conquest of Harold's.[831]
The Norman Conqueror was not the man to slacken his hold on any
territory which had been won by the Saxons. But there is no succinct
history of his conquests in Wales; we have to make it out, in most
cases, from notices that are scarcely more than allusive, and from
the surer, though scanty, ground of documents. It is noteworthy that
the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is so hostile to the Norman kings that it
discounts their successes in Wales. Thus we have only the briefest
notice of William I.'s invasion of South Wales, which was very probably
the beginning of the conquest of that region; and several expeditions
of William II. are spoken of as entirely futile, though as we are
told that the existing castles were still held by the Normans, or new
ones were built, it is clear that this summing-up is not strictly
correct.[832] Our Welsh authorities, the _Annales Cambriæ_ and the
_Brut y Tywysogion_,[833] seem to give a fairly candid account of the
period, although the dates in the _Brut_ are for the most part wrong
(sometimes by three years), and they hardly ever give us a view of the
situation as a whole. They tell us when the Welsh rushed down and burnt
the castles built by the Normans in the conquered districts, but do
not always tell when the Normans recovered and rebuilt them.
Fortunately we are not called upon here to trace the history of the
cruel and barbarous warfare between Normans and Welsh. No one can turn
that bloodstained page without wishing that the final conquest had come
two hundred years earlier, to put an end to the tragedy of suffering
which must have been so largely the portion of the dwellers in Wales
and the Marches after the coming of the Normans.[834] Our business
with both Welsh and Normans is purely archæological. We hold no brief
for the Normans, nor does it matter to us whether they kept their
hold on Wales or were driven out by the Welsh; our concern is with
facts, and the solid facts with which we have to deal are the castles
whose remains still exist in Wales, and whose significance we have to
interpret.
"Wales was under his sway, and he built castles therein," says the
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, in summing up the reign of the Conqueror; a
passage which is scarcely consistent with its previous almost complete
silence about events in Wales. There can be little doubt that William
aimed at a complete conquest of Wales, and that the policy he adopted
was the creation of great earldoms along the Welsh border, endowed with
special privileges, one of which was the right of conquering whatever
they could from the Welsh.[835] To these earldoms he appointed some
of his strongest men, men little troubled by scruples of justice or
mercy, but capable leaders in war or diplomacy. It was an essential
part of the plan that every conquest should be secured by the building
of castles, just as had been done in England. And we have now to trace
very briefly the outline of Norman conquest in Wales by the castles
which they have left behind them.
We shall confine ourselves to those castles which are mentioned in the
_Brut y Tywysogion_, the _Pipe Rolls_, or other trustworthy documents
between 1066 and 1216, the end of King John's reign. Of many of these
castles only the earthworks remain; of many others the original plan,
exactly similar to that of the early castles of Normandy and France, is
still to be traced, though masked by the masonry of a later age. Grose
remarked but could not explain the fact that we continually read of the
castles of the Marches being burnt and utterly destroyed, and a few
months later we find them again standing and in working order. This can
only, but easily, be explained when we understand that they were wooden
castles built on mottes, quickly restored after a complete destruction
of the wooden buildings.
North Wales appears to have been the earliest conquest of the Normans,
though not the most lasting. North Wales comprised the Welsh kingdoms
of Gwynedd and Powys. Gwynedd covered the present shires of Anglesea,
Carnarvon, and Merioneth, and the mountainous districts round
Snowdon.[836] Powys stretched from the estuary of the Dee to the upper
course of the Wye, and roughly included Flint, Denbigh, Montgomery,
and Radnor shires. Hugh of Avranches, Earl of Chester, was the great
instrument of Norman conquest in Gwynedd, and in the northern part
of Powys, which lay so near his own dominions. He was evidently a man
in whose ability William had great confidence, as he removed him from
Tutbury to the more difficult and dangerous position of Chester, and
gave his earldom palatine privileges; all the land in Cheshire was held
under the earl, and he was a sort of little king in his county.
Hugh appears to have at once commenced the conquest of North Wales. As
Professor Lloyd remarks, Domesday Book shows us Deganwy as the most
advanced Norman post on the North Welsh coast, while on the Bristol
Channel they had got no further than Caerleon.[837] In advancing to the
valley of the Clwyd and building a castle at Rhuddlan, the Normans were
only securing the district which had already been conquered by Harold
in 1063, when he burnt the hall of King Griffith at Rhuddlan. Nearly
the whole of Flintshire (its manors are enumerated by Domesday Book
under Cheshire) was held by Earl Hugh in 1086, so that he commanded
the entire road from Chester to Rhuddlan. His powerful vassal, Robert
of Rhuddlan, who became the terror of North Wales, besides the lands
which he held of Earl Hugh, held also directly of the King Rhos and
Rhufeniog, districts which roughly correspond to the modern shire of
Denbigh, and "Nort Wales" which Professor Lloyd takes to mean the
remainder of the principality of Gwynedd, from which the rightful
ruler, Griffith ap Cynan, had been driven as an exile to Ireland.
It does not appear that there was any fortification at RHUDDLAN[838]
before the "castle newly erected" by Earl Hugh and his vassal Robert.
They shared between them the castle and the _new borough_ which was
built near it.[839] One word about this new borough, which will apply
to the other boroughs planted by Norman castles. There were no towns in
Wales of any importance before the Norman Conquest, and this civilising
institution of the borough is the one great set-off to the cruelty and
unrighteousness of the conquest. Mills, markets, and trade arose where
castles were seated, and civilisation followed in their train.
The castle of Hugh and Robert was not the magnificent building which
still stands at Rhuddlan, for that is entirely the work of Edward I.,
and there is documentary evidence that Edward made a purchase of new
land for the site of his castle.[840] More probably Robert and Hugh had
a wooden castle on the now reduced motte which may be seen to the south
of Edward's castle. In Gough's time this motte was still "surrounded
with a very deep ditch, including the abbey." Nothing can be seen of
this ditch now, except on the south side of the motte, where a deep
ravine runs up from the river. As from Gough's description the hillock
(called Tut Hill)[841] was within the precincts of the priory of Black
Friars, founded in the 13th century, it is extremely probable that
Edward gave the site of the old castle to the Dominicans when he built
his new one.[842]
Another of the castles of Robert of Rhuddlan was DEGANWY, or Gannoc,
which defended the mouth of the Conway.[843] Here it is said that there
was an ancient seat of the kings of Gwynedd.[844] The two conical hills
which rise here offer an excellent site for fortification, one of them
being large enough on top for a considerable camp. The Norman Conqueror
treated them as two mottes, and connected them by walls so as to form
a bailey below them. The stone fortifications are probably the remains
of the castle built by the Earl of Chester in 1211.[845] This castle
was naturally a sorely contested point, and often passed from hand to
hand; but it was in English possession in the reign of Henry III. It
was abandoned when Edward I. built his great castle at Conway.
With its usual indifference, the Survey mentions no castle in
Flintshire, but we may be sure that the castle of MOLD, or Montalto
(Fig. 40), was one of the earliest by which the Norman acquisitions in
that region were defended,[846] though it is not mentioned in authentic
history until 1147. The tradition that it was built by Robert de Monte
Alto, one of the barons of the Earl of Chester, is no doubt correct,
though the assumption of Welsh legend-makers that the _Gwydd Grug_, or
great tumulus, from which this castle derives its Welsh name, existed
before the castle, may be dismissed as baseless. The motte of Robert de
Monte Alto still exists, and is uncommonly high and perfect; it has two
baileys, separated by great ditches, and appears to have had a shell on
top. [D. H. M.] The castle was regarded as specially strong, and its
reduction by Owen Gwynedd in 1147 was one of the sweetest triumphs that
the Welsh ever won.[847]
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--MOTTE-CASTLES OF NORTH WALES. Mold. Welshpool.
Wrexham. Mathraval.]
It is clear from the _Life of Griffith ap Cynan_[848] that the Earl of
Chester had conquered and incastellated Gwynedd before the accession
of William Rufus. This valuable document unfortunately gives no dates,
but it mentions in particular the castle at Aberlleinog,[849] one
at Carnarvon, one at Bangor, and one in Merioneth. The motte at
ABERLLEINOG, near Beaumaris, still exists, and the half-moon bailey
is traceable, but the curious little round towers and revetting wall
in masonry on the motte were probably built to carry guns at the time
of the Civil War, when this castle was besieged by the Royalists.
At CARNARVON the magnificent castle of Edward I. has displaced all
former erections, yet some evidence for a motte-and-bailey plan may
be found in the fact that the northern portion of the castle has
evidently been once separated by a ditch from the southern, and is
also much higher.[850] On the hills above BANGOR, Pennant thought he
had discovered the remains of Earl Hugh's castle, but having carefully
examined these walls, we are convinced that they never formed part of
a castle at all, as they are much too thin; nor are there any vestiges
of earthworks.[851] We are disposed to think that instead of at Bangor,
the castle of Earl Hugh was at ABER, often spoken of as ABERMENAI in
the _Chronicles_, and evidently the most important port on the Straits.
At Aber there still remains a motte which must have belonged to an
important castle, as it was afterwards one of the seats of Llywelyn
ap Jorwerth, Prince of Gwynedd. The castle in Merioneth cannot be
certainly identified.
In one of the invasions of William Rufus, which both the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_ and the _Brut_ describe as so unsuccessful, we hear that he
encamped at MUR CASTELL, a place undoubtedly the same as what is now
called TOMEN-Y-MUR, a motte standing just inside a Roman camp, on the
Roman road leading from Shropshire into Merioneth and Carnarvon. This
motte is surrounded by a ditch; there are traces of the usual earthen
rampart round the top, now mutilated by landslips.[852] We may, with
great probability, assume that this motte was thrown up by William
Rufus, and that the Roman camp served as a bailey for his invading
host. Whether it was garrisoned for the Normans we cannot say, but it
evidently formed an important post on a route often followed by their
invading armies, as Henry I. is said to have encamped there twice.[853]
It is one of the few mottes which stand in a wild and mountainous
situation, and its purpose no doubt was purely military.[854]
* * * * *
The earls of Chester did not retain the sovereignty of Gwynedd; on the
death of Rufus, Griffith ap Cynan returned, and obtained possession
of Anglesea. He was favourably received at the court of Henry I., and
gradually recovered possession of the whole of Gwynedd. In 1114 Henry
had to undertake a great expedition against him to enforce the payment
of tribute;[855] from which, and from the peaceful manner in which
Griffith seems to have acquired his principality, we may infer that
this tribute was the bargain of his possession. It very likely suited
Henry's policy better to have a tributary Welsh prince than a too
powerful earl of Chester.
The reigns of the three first Norman kings were the time in which
Norman supremacy in Wales made its greatest advances. With the
accession of Stephen and the civil war which followed it came the
great opportunity for the Welsh of throwing off the Norman yoke. Powys
appears to have been the only province which remained faithful to the
English allegiance, under Madoc ap Meredith.[856] The history of Norman
conquest in Powys is more confused than that of Gwynedd, but Domesday
shows us that Rainald, the Sheriff of Shropshire, a vassal of Earl
Roger of Shrewsbury, was seated at Edeyrnion and Cynlle, two districts
along the upper valley of the Dee.[857] Robert of Rhuddlan held part of
his grant of "Nort Wales," namely the hundred of Arwystli, in the very
centre of Wales, under Earl Roger. Professor Lloyd remarks, "Earl Roger
claimed the same authority over Powys as Earl Hugh over Gwynedd, and
the theory that the princes of this region were subject to the lords of
Salop survived the fall of the House of Montgomery."[858]
We have already spoken of Earl Roger de Montgomeri and his brood of
able and unscrupulous sons.[859] The palatine earldom of Shrewsbury
lay along the eastern border of central Powys, and must soon have
proved a menace to that Welsh kingdom. Domesday Book shows us that
Earl Roger had already planted his castle of Montgomery well within
the Welsh border at that date. But the ambition of Earl Roger and his
sons stretched beyond their immediate borders. It is probable that
they used the upper Severn valley, which they fortified by the castle
of Montgomery, and possibly by the castle of Welshpool, as their road
into Ceredigion, for we find Earl Roger named by the _Brut_ as the
builder of the castle of Cilgerran,[860] and some say of Cardigan also.
Possibly he was helping his son Arnolf in the conquest of Pembroke. In
1098 we find his successor, Earl Hugh, allied with the Earl of Chester
in the invasion of Anglesea.
MONTGOMERY.--This castle is named from the ancestral seat of its
founder.[861] The motte-and-bailey plan is still very apparent in the
ruins, though the motte is represented by a precipitous rock, only a
few feet higher than the baileys attached, and separated from them
by a ditch cut through the headland. The masonry, the chief part of
which is the shell wall and towers on this isolated rock, is none of
it older than the reign of Henry III., when large sums were spent
on this castle, and it is spoken of in a writ as "the new Castle of
Montgomery."[862] Yet even then the whole of the defences were not
remade in stone, as bretasches of timber are ordered in a _mandamus_ of
1223.[863] The four wards are all roughly rectilateral. The castle was
never recovered permanently by the Welsh, and after the forfeiture of
Robert Belesme, the third Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1101, the Crown kept
this important border fortress in its own hands throughout the Middle
Ages.
Although Montgomery Castle is the only one mentioned in that region
at the same date, there must have been many others, for in 1225 Henry
III. ordered all who had mottes in the valley of Montgomery to fortify
them with good bretasches without delay;[864] and the remains of these
mottes are still numerous in the valley. It is quite possible that the
mottes at Moat Lane and Llandinam were thrown up to defend the road
into Arwystli; but this is conjecture.[865]
WELSHPOOL, _alias_ Pol or Pool (Fig. 40), is also called the Castle of
Trallung.--In Powell's _History of Wales_ (p. 137) it is stated that
Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, when Henry I. took Cardigan from him, retired to
Powys, and began to build a castle here. Powell's statements, however,
have no authority when unconfirmed, and we are unable to find any
confirmation of this statement in the more trustworthy version of the
_Brut_. And as the House of Montgomeri was firmly established in the
valley of Montgomery as early as 1086, it seems more probable that
the two motte-and-bailey castles at Welshpool, lower down the Severn
valley, are relics of the early progress of that family, especially
as one of these castles is only about a mile east of Offa's Dyke, the
ancient border. This latter motte is partly cut into by the railway,
and diminished in size, but the bailey is nearly perfect. The other
one is in the park of Powys Castle, and is an admirable specimen of
its class. The breastwork round the top of the motte remains. [H. W.]
It seems probable that this was the precursor of Powys Castle, and was
abandoned at an early period, as the newer castle was known by the name
of Castell Coch, or the Red Castle, as early as 1233.[866] Leland
states that there were formerly two castles of two different Lords
Marchers at Welshpool;[867] possibly this throws some light on the
existence of these two motte-castles.
* * * * *
When Henry II. came to the throne in 1154, one of the many questions
which he had to settle was the Welsh question. His first expedition
against North Wales was in 1157. Here he was one day placed in grave
difficulties, and fortune was only restored by his personal courage.
But in spite of this we learn even from the Welsh chronicler that
he continued his advance to Rhuddlan, and that the object of the
expedition, which was the restoration of Cadwalader, one of the sons
of Griffith ap Cynan, to his lands, was accomplished. The English
chronicler Roger of Wendover says that Henry recovered all the
fortresses which had been taken from his predecessors, and rebuilt
Basingwerk Castle; and when he had reduced the Welsh to submission,
returned in triumph to England. The undoubted facts of the _Pipe Rolls_
show us that in the year 1159 Henry had in his hands the castles of
Overton, Hodesley, Wrexham, Dernio, Ruthin, and Rhuddlan, castles
which would give him command of the whole of Flintshire and of East
Denbigh and the valley of the Clwyd. Similarly, after the expedition
of 1165, sometimes stated to have been only disastrous, we find him in
possession of the castles of Rhuddlan, Basingwerk, Prestatyn, Mold,
Overton, and Chirk;[868] so that after the battle of Crogen, or Chirk,
he actually held the battlefield.
We are thus introduced to an entirely new group of castles, Rhuddlan
being the only one which we have heard of before. But it is highly
probable that most of these castles were originally raised by the earls
of Chester or Shrewsbury, and were in Henry's hands by escheat.
*BASINGWERK.--The _werk_ referred to in this name has probably nothing
to do with the castle, but refers to Wat's Dyke, which reaches the
Dee at this point. The abbey at this place was founded by an earl
of Chester,[869] which makes it probable that the castle also was
originally his work, especially as Wendover says that Henry _rebuilt_
it. There is no trace of a castle near the abbey,[870] but less than
a mile off, near Holywell Church, there is a headland called Bryn
y Castell, with a small mound at the farther end, which has far
more claim to be the site of Basingwerk Castle, especially as it is
mentioned in John's reign (when it was retaken from the Welsh) as the
castle of Haliwell.[871]
OVERTON, in East Denbigh, on the middle course of the Dee. In custody
of Roger de Powys for the king in 1159-1160. As Leland speaks of the
ditches and hill of the castle, it was probably a motte-castle of the
usual type. "One parte of the ditches and Hille of the castel yet
remaynith; the residew is in the botom of Dee."[872] It is probably all
there now, as not a vestige can be traced. [B. T. S.]
DERNIO, or Dernant.--There can be no question that Dernio is
Edeyrnion, the valley stretching from Bala Lake to Corwen. Domesday
Book tells us that Rainald the Sheriff, a "man" of Earl Roger of
Shrewsbury, held two "fines" in Wales, Chenlei and Dernio, that is,
Cynllaith and Edeyrnion.[873] Towards the end of the 11th century there
must have been a Norman castle at Rug in Edeyrnion, as it was to this
place that the earls of Chester and Shrewsbury enticed Griffith ap
Cynan, the rightful ruler of Gwynedd; they then sent him prisoner to
Chester for twelve years.[874] Very likely the castle of Dernio, which
Henry II. was putting into a state of defence in 1159,[875] was at RUG,
1-1/2 miles from Corwen, where there is still a motte in some private
grounds, and there was formerly a bailey also.[876] The place was the
seat of an important family in later times. At any rate, the castle was
in Edeyrnion, and shows that Henry was holding the northern part of
Merionethshire.
HODESLEY; undoubtedly "The Rofts" near Gresford, a motte with remains
of a bailey, on a headland above the river Alyn. It is in the former
lordship of Hoseley.[877]
WREXHAM, the Wristlesham of the _Pipe Rolls_ (Fig. 40).--Henry was
paying for the custody of this castle and that of Hoseley in 1160 and
1161. Both castles are in the district of Bromfield, which was one of
the early acquisitions of the earls of Chester. Mr Palmer remarks that
this district was probably ceded to the princes of Powys, in return for
the help which they often rendered to the English king against other
Welsh princes, as it is found as part of Powys at a later period.[878]
There are no remains of any castle at Wrexham itself, but about a mile
off, in Erddig Park, there is a motte and bailey of considerable size
(though the motte is reduced) showing that a castle of some importance
once stood there. There were formerly some remains of masonry.[879]
Wat's Dyke has been utilised to form one side of the bailey. It is
probable that the importance of the two Bromfield castles, Wrexham and
Hoseley, was lost when the princes of Powys built their castle on Dinas
Bran.
*RUTHIN.--This important castle, defending the upper valley of the
Clwyd, was probably in existence long before Henry II. repaired it in
1160, and may perhaps be attributed to Earl Hugh of Chester. The plan
shows distinctly that it was once a motte and bailey, though the castle
is now transformed into a modern house.[880]
CHIRK, or Crogen, in the valley of the Ceiriog.--Henry was paying
for the custody of this castle in 1164, and was provisioning it in
1167.[881] King John paid for the erection of a bretasche there,
possibly after some destruction by the Welsh.[882] Probably the first
castle of Chirk did not stand in the commanding situation now occupied
by the castle of Edward I.'s reign, but is represented by a small
motte in a garden near the Ceiriog stream, and close to the church. An
Anglo-Norman poem of the 13th century attributes the first building of
this castle to William Peverel, Lord of Whittington and Ellesmere, and
says he placed it "on the water of Ceiriog."[883] No doubt it defended
the passage of the stream, and an important road into Shropshire.
PRESTATYN.--This castle defended the coast road from Chester to
Rhuddlan. Henry II. granted it to Robert Banaster for his services
in 1165.[884] It was destroyed by Owen Gwynedd in 1167, and does not
appear to have been rebuilt. A low motte with a half-moon bailey, and a
larger square enclosure, still remain. [B. T. S.]
* * * * *
Mr Davis has remarked that John was more successful in extending his
authority over the British Isles than in anything else.[885] In 1211 he
led an expedition into the heart of Wales, and reduced his son-in-law
Llywelyn ap Jorwerth to complete submission. As usual, the expedition
was marked by the building or repair of castles. The Earl of Chester
restored Deganwy, which shows that the English frontier was again
advanced to the Conway; he also repaired the castle of Holywell, which
the _Pipe Roll_ shows to have been recovered from the Welsh about this
time.[886] These _Rolls_ also show that in 1212-1213 John was paying
for works at the castles of Carreghova, Ruthin, and Chirk, as well as
at the following castles, which have not been mentioned before.
MATHRAVAL, Madrael in the _Pipe Rolls_ (Fig. 40), near Meifod in
Montgomeryshire, defending the valley of the Vyrnwy.--Here was the
chief royal residence of Powys;[887] but the castle was built in John's
reign by Roger de Vipont. It occupied 2-1/4 acres, and the motte is
in one corner of the area, which is square,[888] and surrounded only
by banks; though ruined foundations are found in parts of the castle.
John himself burned the castle in 1211, when the Welsh were besieging
it,[889] but the _Pipe Roll_ (1212-1213) shows that he afterwards
repaired it. [D. H. M.]
EGLOE, or Eulo, called by Leland Castle Yollo.--On the Chester and
Holywell road, about 8 miles from Holywell. The mention in the _Pipe
Roll_ of pikes and ammunition provided for this castle in 1212-1213 is
the first ancient allusion to it with which we are acquainted. It is a
motte-and-bailey castle, with additions in masonry which are probably
of the reign of Henry III. The keep is of the "thimble" plan, a rare
instance.[890] [B. T. S.]
*YALE.--The _Brut_ tells us that in 1148 (read 1150) Owen Gwynedd built
a castle in Yale. Powell identified this with Tomen y Rhodwydd, a motte
and bailey on the road between Llangollen and Ruthin. Yale, however, is
the name of a district, and there can be little doubt that the castle
of Yale was the motte and bailey at Llanarmon, which for a long period
was the _caput_ of Yale.[891] Yale undoubtedly belonged to the Normans
when Domesday Book was compiled,[892] and it is therefore not unlikely
that these earthworks were first thrown up by the Earl of Chester. The
castle was burnt by Jorwerth Goch in 1158, but restored by John in
1212. One of the expenses entered for that year is "for iron mallets
for breaking the rocks in the ditch of the castle of Yale."[893] This
ditch cut in the rock still remains, as well as some foundations on
the motte,[894] which is known as Tomen y Vardra, or the Mount of the
demesne.[895]
* * * * *
How long the two last-mentioned groups of castles continued in
Anglo-Norman hands we do not attempt to say. North Wales, as is well
known, reaped a harvest of new power and prosperity through the
civil war of the end of John's reign, and the ability of Llywelyn ap
Jorwerth. Our task ends with the reign of John. We have only to remark
that until the _Pipe Rolls_ of Henry III.'s reign have been carefully
searched, it is impossible to say with certainty what castles of North
Wales, or if any, were still held by the English king.