Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/186

170 Mediceval Military ArcJiitecture in England. Ledes and Tonbridge. Harlech water-gate has been mentioned. The castles both of Henry and Edward combine the palace with the fortress, but the domestic are always subordinate to the military arrangements. Whether absolutely original, as Caerphilly or Beaumaris, or completions of older works, as Corfe, Dover, and the Tower, they usually present a grand appearance, and the masonry is generally excellent. Very many of our principal towns were walled in during the reigns of Henry and Edward ; some — as York, Leicester, Colchester, and Chester— took advantage of the Roman wall. Northampton was walled before 1278. At Winchester the wall was founded upon an early earth-bank. The only licences granted for town walls appear to have been to the men of Harwich and Ipswich, 26 Ed. HI.; the Mayor and prud- hommes (probi homines) of Coventry, 37 and 38 Ed. HI. ; of Salisbury, 46 Ed. III.; and of Winchelsea, 3 Hy. ; the defences of Hereford, a very exposed place, seem to have been formed of briars and thorns, placed upon very formid- able banks of earth. It sometimes happened that the gate- houses were of masonry, while the rest of the defences were banks of earth stockaded. The fourteenth century was prolific in castles, chiefly of the smaller class, upon the Scottish border and in Scotland. In England Dacre, Dunstanborough, and Spofiforth were built early in that century ; the Palace Castle of St. David's was built in 1342, Caisar's Tower at Warwick about 1360, and Guy's Tower in 1394, two magnificent works. Gradually, however, pure castles fell into disuse, and such structures as Bolton and Wressill arid Sheriff-Hutton took their place, affecting gener- ally the form of a square court, round which the buildings were ranged, and which was entered by a regular gatehouse. In these, however, the castellate character was employed more from custom than from necessity, and the external windows are large, and the walls of very moderate thickness. Many of the royal castles were left to decay, and others were em- ployed as prisons and handed over to the counties. A short Act of the 13 R. II. orders "that the King's castles and gaols should be joined to the bodies of the counties, and, where severed, should be reunited." Castle-building was from a very early time considered as a royal prerogative, though in the reigns immediately succeeding the Conquest, it was so great an object to hold the country, that the claim seems to have been allowed to slumber. The wholesale destruction of the adulterine or unlicensed castles which followed upon the death of Stephen showed the revival