Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/340

316 MedicBval Military Architecture. is singular that silence concerning so immense a structure should have been preserved by Lloyd, and his commentator Powel, and transmitted almost unbroken by the indefatigable, though credulous, author of the " Munimenta." It is not, however, difficult to divine the causes of the obscurity in which the early history of Caerphilly is involved, and the absence of any historical associations may perhaps be permitted to account for the continued silence of modern writers. A castle of considerable magnitude had been erected soon after the Norman invasion of Wales, at Cardiff ; a position which, from its proximity to the estuary of the Severn, and the mouth of the Taff, from the fertility of its subjacent meadows, from the protection which it reciprocally afforded to, and received from, the people of the town, and from its greater distance from the mountains, and consequent diminished liability to be surprised by their crafty and warlike inhabitants, was invariably the chief residence of the feudal Lords of Glamorgan ; and from hence it followed, as a necessary consequence, that Caerphilly, which, from its dangerous proximity, they were obliged to retain in their immediate possession, fell into comparative neglect, and, although very superior in magnitude to Cardiff, was considered only as its dependency in importance. It was to the Lord of Cardiff that the feudatories of Glamorgan owed suit and service, and it was to the castle court of that place that they were bound annually to repair. The castle of Cardiff is mentioned as the residence of great Norman barons ; it was more than once honoured by a royal guest, and, even at the far later period of the Parliamentary wars, its acquisition was considered of great importance. Caerphilly, on the contrary, is rarely mentioned by the chroniclers, and as a military post ceased to be of importance upon the death of Llewelyn and the reduction and settlement of the Principality by Edward. These considerations will explain the little notice taken by contemporaries of this magnificent fortress, and the consequent dearth of information respecting its fortunes. Caerphilly stands upon that wide tract of debateable ground between England and Wales, which was so long contested by both nations under the title of " The Marches," and which, beneath the Normans, had its own customs and its governors, known as the Lords Marchers. The castle, though in the Marches, is within the Welsh border, being about a mile from the river Rhymny, the boundary between Monmouth and Glamorgan, and, since the reign of Henry VIII., between England and the Principality, in this direction. The Lordship of Senghenydd, within which the castle is placed, was granted at the conquest of Glamorgan to Einon of Collwyn, a Welsh lord, whose granddaughter, Nest, "verch Madoc ap Cradoc ap Einon," married Cadivor ap Cydrich, a grandson of Gwaethvoed, and the father of Ivor Bach, who is described as [mesne] Lord of Senghenydd. Griffith, the son of Ivor, married a sister of Rhys,