doubt connected with the ownership of the English fortress. Ælfgar,
Earl of Mercia, son of Earl Leofric, and lord of many Lincolnshire
lordships, was father of the well-known Earls Eadwine and Morkere,
and of Ealdgyth, widow of Gryffydd of Wales, and afterwards of
Harold, and of Lucia, or Lucy, the eventual heiress of the family,
and as such claiming not only the Lincolnshire lands, but, as it
seems, the hereditary constableship of the castle. Mr. Nichols, in a
very valuable paper upon the earls of Lincoln, has shown that Lucy
married Ivo Taillebois, one of the Conqueror’s barons, a hero both
of history and romance, and, in right of his wife, a great landowner
in Lincolnshire. Her name occurs in his charter in 1085 concerning
the church of Spalding. Ivo died in 1114, and their daughter, another
Lucy, an heiress or co-heiress, and who claimed the constableship of
Lincoln Castle, and fortified one of its towers, married, first, Roger
de Roumare, and second, Ranulph de Briquesard, called Le Meschines,
Earl of Chester, who died 1129. By each she had a son. (1) William
de Roumare, afterwards Earl of Lincoln; and (2) Ranulph, called
Gernons, Earl of Chester. These two half-brothers, unstable and greedy
politicians and soldiers, played considerable parts in the war of the
succession, and had much to say to Lincoln Castle.
Early in the struggle in 1140, Stephen acknowledged the claim of
De Roumare, and created him one of his earls, called in derision
“pseudo-comites,” because they had not the usual third penny from a
county. Notwithstanding this favour, however, the brothers, a few days
or weeks afterwards took the castle of Lincoln by surprise, turned out
the royal soldiers, and held it for Matilda. Stephen, highly incensed,
marched at once to Lincoln, and, supported by the citizens, laid siege
to the castle from the west front, that next the city, but on which the
ground was less steep than within the city itself. Earl Ranulph, on
this, escaped from the place, leaving it, with his wife and children,
in charge of De Roumare, while he went to persuade his brother-in-law,
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to come to their rescue. Robert accordingly
led a force of 10,000 men in that direction, and the two earls, fording
or swimming the Trent and the marsh lands on its margin, were met by
the king in person. The result was the Battle or “Joust of Lincoln,”
fought on the 2nd of February, 1141, in which Stephen was taken, to
be exchanged a short time afterwards for Earl Robert. Mr. Nichols has
pointed out that a certain Gilbert de Gant, a young Lincolnshire noble,
being taken in the battle, was married by the Earl of Chester to his
niece Rohesia, and was also created Earl of Lincoln, which title he
retained till his death, in 1156. Mr. Nichols suggests that Rohesia
was probably a sister’s daughter, and a co-heiress of Lucy Taillebois
the first, and therefore a co-heir of Earl Ælfgar.
William de Roumare left a son, who died before him, and the grandson,
though holding a large Lincolnshire estate, and in rank an earl, never
assumed the title of Lincoln. He died childless, 1198, and the title of
Lincoln seems to have been dropped for a time, Alice, Earl Gilbert’s
daughter and heiress, being styled only “Countess Alice, daughter of
Earl Gilbert.”
In 1144 also, at Christmas, Earl Ranulph was a second time besieged
in Lincoln Castle by King Stephen, and also without success; but two
years later, he, being at the king’s court, was made prisoner, and had
to give up the castle as his ransom. Once fairly in possession of it,
Stephen caused himself to be crowned at Lincoln.
In 1147 their positions were reversed, and the city was attacked by
the earl, but without success; and in 1151 he became a second time
Stephen’s prisoner, and so continued a few months, until, at the
pacification of Wallingford, in 1151, he was set free, included in the
general amnesty, and received from Stephen the grant of the city and
castle already noticed, to be held until Tickhill should be restored to
him.
During the reign of Henry II. the Crown recovered much of its power,
and Lincoln Castle seems to have been dissociated from the earldom,
although the Earl of Chester preserved a hold upon it. Richard de Hay
held the constableship in fee, and it descended to his daughter and
heiress, Nicholaa, who married Gerald de Camville, who received from
Richard I. the custody of the castle and the farm of the revenues of
the county. Gerald, however, was a partisan of Prince John, and stood a
siege in the castle from Longchamp, chancellor to the absent Richard.
The castle was relieved by John; but Gerard lost his office and farm in
1194, until John became king. His widow, Nicholaa, held the castle for
the king against the insurgent lords. After the war, King John visited
Lincoln, and Nicholaa, then of great age, received him at the east
gate of the castle, and offered him the keys, desiring to be relieved
on account of her age. John gracefully requested her to retain the
keys, and she continued in command through the reign of John, and into
that of Henry his son. Nicholaa was sheriff of the county, and a very
remarkable person. In her latter days she had an assistant assigned
to her, and a manor to support the charges of her office. She finally
retired, and died in 1231.
In 1216, towards the close of John’s reign, Gilbert de Gant, nephew to
the former Earl of Lincoln of the same name, condescended to accept
the titular rank at the hands of the invading French Prince Louis, and
took the city, but not the castle. He fought and was taken at the “Fair
of Lincoln,” in May, 1217, by Ranulph de Blondville, Earl of Chester,
a man of small stature but a great soldier, who added the title of
Lincoln to that of Chester four days after the battle, and held it
until he resigned it to his sister, Hawise de Quincy, in 1232. The
actual relief introduced into the castle before the battle was led by
the notorious Fulk de Breauté.
The descent of the constableship of the castle is at this point rather
obscure. It seems, probably during the minority of De Camville’s
daughter and heiress, Idonea, to have been administered successively
by Philip de Lascelles, Walter Evermue, and, in 1224, by William de
Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, probably as having married Idonea,
daughter and heiress of Gerard de Camville. Whether their son William,
who died 1257, held it is uncertain, but whatever rights he had were
united to those of the Earls of Lincoln by the marriage of his daughter
and heiress, Margaret Longespée, to Henry de Lacy. Henry was descended
from Hawise de Quincy, whose daughter Margaret carried the earldom to
her husband John de Lacy, who died 1240. Their son, Edmond, did not
live to inherit; but his son, Henry de Lacy, was Earl of Lincoln, and
by his marriage with Margaret Longespée, earl also of Salisbury. In the
Escheat Roll, 4 Edward II., he is entered as constable of the castle of
Lincoln.
Alice, the daughter and heiress of Henry de Lacy, married Thomas,
Earl of Lancaster, and, in her right, of Lincoln, grandson of Henry
III., and thus both the constableship and the fee of the castle became
absorbed in the Duchy of Lancaster, and so in the Crown. During the
wars of Charles and the Parliament, the castle was held as a military
post for the king. In 1644 it fell, with the city, into the hands of
the Parliament, and finally, in 1832, was sold to the county.
The Pipe and Close Rolls contain many entries in the reigns of Henry
II., Richard I., John, and Henry III., relating to the castle,
sometimes for repairs, sometimes for manacles for prisoners, sometimes
for sustentation of soldiers. There are orders for storing corn, for
“balistæ ad strumum” and “ad turnum,” the former worked by hand, the
latter by a winch. In 1225, we read of repairs to the gate of the
castle, to the “Tour de Luce,” and to the barbican. Even in Domesday,
we have Waldin, ingeniator; Heppo, balistarius; and Ody, arbalistarius.
THE TOWER OF LLANQUIAN, GLAMORGAN.
About two miles east of Cowbridge, and half a mile or so north of the
old Roman way from that town to Cardiff, a brooklet from St. Hilary
Down crosses the road, and descends a deep and narrow ravine, to fall
into the broad Aberthin valley, about two miles above its junction
with the Cowbridge Taw, near the village of Aberthin. The ground on
either bank of the ravine is very strong, and has been occupied for
the purposes of defence from an early period. On the right bank is a
large and irregular, and, therefore, probably British, enclosure or
encampment; the defences of which, on the upper or eastern side, are
two banks, each with an exterior ditch; and on the lower, or northern
and western sides, a single bank, the ground below being sufficiently
steep to render a ditch impracticable and unnecessary. This camp is
locally known as _Erw Gron_, or the round acre (unless otherwise
described, the acre would probably be a rectangular slip).
On the left or western bank, nearly opposite to the camp, is a rocky
knoll, a little raised above the ground immediately adjacent to the
west and south, but which towards the east and north slopes rapidly
towards the brook and the Aberthin valley, perhaps a hundred feet
below. Beyond the depression on the west and south, the ground expands
into a platform of moderately level but broken ground, beyond which
again is a considerable rise. Thus the knoll is both secluded from
observation, and naturally strong, at least on the northern and eastern
sides, and very defensible on the others. The approach was from the
south-west, from the Cowbridge road, in which direction are buildings
and remains of buildings, part modern, but part evidently having
belonged to the outworks and outbuildings of the Tower.
The Tower, or castle proper, was a shell of masonry, circular, or
nearly so, about 64 feet diameter, placed upon and covering the top of
the knoll, the sides of which were scarped down to a dry ditch about 30
feet diameter, and now about 8 feet deep. Of this shell the outline of
the whole foundation is to be traced, and towards the north-west are
fragments of the wall and of ruined chambers; and to the north-east a
small, low mound probably conceals the foundations of a mural tower.
There are the ruins of a rectangular building about 28 feet square,
with walls about 4 feet thick, parts of which retain their original
facing of coursed limestone (apparently lias) roughly dressed with the
hammer. The walls are about 10 feet to 12 feet high, and one forms a
part of the _enceinte_. These fragments may probably be parts of a
small gatehouse, covering a narrow doorway, which would be all that
could be needed for so small an enclosure. The masonry is evidently
original; and the tower, probably, is of the reign of Henry III.,
which seems to have been the date of a somewhat similar but superior
structure at Whitchurch. Llanquian then belonged to the powerful
family of Nerber of Castleton in St. Athan’s, under whom it was
probably held by the family of De Wintonia or De Wincestria, afterwards
Wilkins, still extant, whose occupancy is preserved in the mead below,
designated in the Ordnance Map as “Pant Wilkin.”
Across the site of both tower and camp are written in black letter, on
the same map, the words =Twr Gron=, which appears to be a new name,
compounded of those of the two very distinct remains. It is also
singular that, in a map usually so very correct, the name of Llanquian
does not appear.
About half a mile south-east of the Tower, a part of the Cowbridge
road is still known as “Pant y lladron,” that is, _via latronum_, or
the robbers’ way: a name indicative of the former bad character of the
spot, and suggesting a suspicion that the inhabitants of the strong
place either connived at the robberies or perpetrated them themselves.
THE TOWER OF LONDON.
Although Britain presents numerous examples of military works, and
her Welsh and Scottish borders are very thickly set with castles, the
circumstances of the country have not been favourable to the production
of military buildings of the first class. Our insular position has
enabled us to dispense altogether with grand frontier fortresses; and
our great nobles, although they often held their own against the Crown,
and even encroached upon its legitimate powers, drew their resources
from estates more or less scattered in position, and seldom possessed
whole provinces, or ruled over a territory sufficiently compact and
extensive to justify the construction of a great castle-palace like
those of France, for the defence of the lordship and the residence of
the baron. The keeps of Arques, Etampes, Provins, and Vez; the towers
of Coucy and Beaucaire; the walls of Avignon; and the fortresses of
Château-Gaillard, Carcassonne, Villeneuve-les-Avignon, and Pierrefonds,
the details of which are familiar to the readers of the exhaustive work
of M. Viollet-le-Duc, are due to a period when France was divided into
provinces, the rulers of which were scarcely subordinate to its Crown,
and were either actual monarchs elsewhere, or held much of the state
privilege and power of independent sovereigns.
It happens, however, that, in that particular class of fortress of
which the quadrangular Norman keep is the type, we have less to fear
comparison, seeing that castles of this description are confined, or
very nearly so, to our own country and to Normandy. Whereas, on the
continent of Europe, in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the earlier
castles appear to have sprung directly from Roman, or debased Roman
patterns, in Normandy a simpler and more original type prevailed,
unlike what is seen in other parts of France, and which there is some
reason to regard as the invention of the Normans themselves. These
keeps, so remarkable for their simple quadrangular form and the immense
solidity of their masonry, were erected in Normandy during the eleventh
century, and are well known by such examples as Arques near Dieppe,
Falaise, and Caen. By the Normans they were introduced into England.
An unaltered Norman castle is very rare, if indeed such exists at
all. It is, however, certain that the keep had an _enceinte_ defence
and ditch, the latter sometimes part of an earlier earthwork; and
in the base court thus formed were stabling and barracks, and other
subordinate accommodations. These buildings were at first often of
timber, and the _enceinte_ a stout palisade, the object having been to
afford protection to the garrison as rapidly as possible. Both at Dover
and Windsor the _enceinte_ wall, part of which is of late Norman date,
stands upon the scarp of the ditch of an earlier earthwork, the solid
chalk of which, as at Arques, is traversed by subterranean galleries.
Where, as at Cardiff and the Tower, the wall is of great strength, and
of the twelfth century, it is probable that the palisade was retained
longer than usual, and the wall now seen the first constructed. No
regular Norman wall would so soon have required reconstruction.
Where the Norman wall was of light construction or insufficient area,
it had to be removed, and in the larger works replaced by a double
and concentric ring of defences. These additions, usually due to the
reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., show that military engineering had
made great progress, and that less dependence was placed upon passive
strength, and more upon the skilful distribution of material. Having
regard to the state of the military art at that period, and to the
cross and long bows, catapults, rams, scorpions, and movable turrets
that formed the weapons of attack, it would be difficult to improve
upon these concentric works, either in general design or in detail
of construction, or to show greater skill in flanking defences than
appears at Corfe, Caerphilly, Conway, or Beaumaris, or in other of
the castles built in the reigns of Henry and his son. This science,
so successfully grafted upon the pure Norman works, was no doubt in
some considerable measure derived from the East, where Cœur de Lion
seems to have acquired the skill displayed in the construction of
Château-Gaillard, and which, in the opinion of M. Le Duc, places him at
the head of the military engineers of his day.
When, having crossed the Thames, the Conqueror marched in person to
complete the investment of London, he found that ancient city resting
upon the left bank of its river, protected on its landward side by a
strong wall, a Roman work, with mural towers and an exterior ditch.
The enclosure, of about 370 acres, was in general figure a semicircle;
the river forming the chord. The defences, commencing on the Thames at
Blackfriars, upon the east bank of the Flete, swept in an irregular
curve northward and eastward, by Ludgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and
the line of London Wall to where, trending eastward and southward,
they took the line of Houndsditch, and appear to have abutted upon the
Thames a little east of or below Billingsgate. Upon the west the Flete
formed a respectable natural defence, and upon the east the line took
the crest of the high ground just where it begins to subside into the
low lands long occupied by St. Katherine’s Hospital, and now, more
suitably, by the docks of that name. Towards the north the defence must
have been wholly artificial, and is reputed to have been by a ditch
which, in the later reign of King John, was deepened and made 204 feet
broad, but which must have been a sufficient defence even at the time
of the Conqueror. Ludgate, like the later Newgate, was placed in a
re-entering angle of the wall, so that the road approaching it from
the west ran for a short distance parallel to, and commanded by the
ramparts.
London, therefore,—
“A læva muris, dextris in flumine tuta,”
resembled in plan and mode of entrance those large half-round Celtic
earthworks sometimes found upon the banks of a watercourse; nor is
there known to have been attached to or within it anything of the
character of prætorium or citadel.
It is related that before the Conqueror entered London he directed a
fortress to be built which should command the city. This, of course,
was a temporary camp, and it was probably while he was at Westminster,
or in the camp at Barking, that he studied the ground and selected as
the site of his future citadel a point upon the eastern flank of the
city defences, displacing for that purpose, we are told, a part of
the Roman wall, including the two towers next to the Thames. Recent
excavations have actually laid bare part of this wall a very few yards
east of William’s tower.
William was crowned in 1066, and it was from Barking, immediately after
the ceremony, that he directed the actual commencement of the works,
which were no doubt at first a deep ditch and strong palisade; for the
keep, probably the earliest work in masonry, appears not to have been
begun till twelve or fourteen years later.
The new castle thus more than supplied the place of the removed works,
for it could not only protect, but overawe the city, and, if necessary,
cut off its trade and supplies by water.
Such was the origin of this grand old fortress, the chief and central
part of which gives mass and character to the group, and has from its
earliest times caused the whole to pass under the name of “The Tower.”
The new fortress was supported by two other considerable works within
the city, Baynard’s Castle upon the Thames’ strand, built about
the same time by Baynard, the castellan and standard-bearer of the
city, and Montfitchet’s Castle, near it, built by a knight of that
name. Later kings had “Tower Royal,” in Vintry Ward, where Stephen
lodged, and to which the mother of Richard II. fled from the Tower
in Wat Tyler’s rebellion. Edward II. also built a strong place near
Blackfriars.
The Tower, though all save the keep is later, and most of it
considerably later than the eleventh century, well supplements the
original design. The area enclosed and the strength of the walls and
gates are in keeping with the dimensions and impregnable character
of the keep; and the circumscribing ditch, though unusually broad and
deep, was by no means too secure a defence against a turbulent and
notoriously brave body of citizens.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE TOWER OF LONDON IN 1866.
(From Lord De Ros’s Memorials of the Tower.)]
The Tower, in its present form, is a fine example of a concentric
castle, of mixed composition, but general harmony of design, and
covering, with its circumscribing ditch, about twelve acres of ground.
Nearly in the centre, but now detached and alone, stands the keep, “La
blanche Tour” of Edward III., the oldest and most stable part of the
fortress. Around it is the inner ward, in plan generally four-sided,
but with a salient on the north front, and contained within a wall
strengthened by a gatehouse and twelve mural towers.
Encircling this is the outer ward, following the same general plan,
and contained within a wall rising from, and forming the scarp of,
the ditch. Upon it are bold drum bastions, at the angles of the north
front; and the south, or Thames front, is protected by five mural
towers, of which one covers the land and one the water gate, and two
others are connected with posterns.
The ditch, which completely girdles the fortress, is divided from the
river by a narrow strip of land used as a wharf, but also ingeniously
contrived to cut off the water of the ditch from the tidal stream.
The space outside the ditch, forming the esplanade of the fortress,
is known as Tower Hill. It was once divided by the City wall, which
extended from the north to the edge of the ditch, having a postern at
the junction, which still gives name to a row of houses, and to the
east of which is Little Tower Hill. The ground covered by the Tower
rises from the river, so that parts of the inner ward are 40 feet above
the water, and the ground north of, and outside the ditch, is 8 feet
to 10 feet higher. This disadvantage was neutralised by the breadth of
the ditch, while the descent towards the south, or entrance side, was
of material advantage in repelling an attack from that side. The object
being to command the river and fill the ditch, the keep was placed as
high as was consistent with these points.
It has been remarked by Sir F. Palgrave, that William, in settling the
jurisdiction of his new fortress, respected, as far as possible, the
limits of the City of London. Only the smaller half of the enclosure
was within the line of the old wall; and, while the Tower liberties (if
St. Katherine’s be included within them) extend some distance eastward,
or into the county of Middlesex, on the west frontier, the authority of
the constable ranges but a little way beyond the counterscarp of the
ditch. The area of the liberties proper is about 26 acres, of which the
western portion stands in Tower Ward and All-Hallows Barking parish,
and the eastern portion in the county of Middlesex.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION.
The _White_, or _Cæsar’s Tower_, is the keep of the fortress. It stands
a little to the south-east of the centre of the inner ward, upon
ground which, on the north, is 40 feet, and on the south 15 feet above
the ordnance mean water-mark, so that the basement is at the ground
level on one side, and above it on the other. It is quadrangular, 107
feet north and south by 118 feet east and west. Its two western angles
are square. That on the north-east is capped by a round stair-turret,
22 feet diameter, about one-third engaged, and having 3 feet more
projection upon the north than upon the east face. The south wall
terminates eastward in a bold, half-round bow of 42 feet diameter,
projecting on the east wall. This marks the apse of the chapel, and is
the great peculiarity of this tower.
The keep rises 90 feet from the floor to the crest of the present
battlement. It is composed of three floors, or four stages. The walls
are reinforced by the usual pilaster strips; on the east face two, on
the north three, on the west and south four each. The round turret has
four pilasters, two being at its junction with the walls, and the bow
four. They vary from 3 feet to 6 feet broad, and all are of 18 inches
projection. They lessen by two sets-off, at 50 feet and 75 feet from
the ground, and die away 8 feet below the battlement. Also upon the
flank of each front containing the two square angles is a strip 12
feet broad, two to each angle, but so placed as not quite to cover
it, so that three salient angles appear at each of the two corners.
These four pilasters rise from the plinth unbroken to 16 feet above
the battlement, forming square turrets. A third turret, also square,
is placed on the roof, where, but for the bow, would be the south-east
angle. Thus the keep is crowned by three square turrets and one round
one.