Charles Francis Atkinson and John Horace Round

“ In the Annals of a Fortress the site of the feudal castle is occupied by the citadel of the walled town, for once again, with the development of the middle class and of commerce and industry, the art of the engineer came to be displayed chiefly in the fortification of cities. The baronial “castle” assumes pari passu the form of a mansion, retaining indeed for long some capacity for defence, but in the end losing all military characteristics save a few which survived as ornaments. ”

“ Against the relatively feeble siege artillery of the 13th century a well-built fortress was almost proof, but the mines and the battering ram of the attack were more formidable, and it was realized that corners in the stonework of the fortress were more vulnerable than a uniform curved surface. Château Gaillard fell to Philip Augustus in 1204 after a strenuous defence, and the success of the assailants was largely due to the wise and skilful employment of mines. An angle of the noble keep of Rochester was undermined and brought down by John in 1215. ”

“ The barons, who had begun their revolt by besieging that of Northampton, now assailed that of Oxford as well and seized that of Rochester. The king recovered Rochester after a severe struggle and captured Tonbridge, but thenceforth there was a war of sieges between John with his mercenaries and Louis of France with his Frenchmen and the barons, which was specially notable for the great defence of Dover Castle by Hubert de Burgh against Louis. ”

“ Caerphilly Castle) became for the first time more formidable than strongholds perched upon rocks and hills such as Château Gaillard, where the more exposed parts indeed possessed many successive lines of defence, but at other points, for want of room, it was impossible to build more than one or, at most, two walls. In these cases, the fall of the inner ward by surprise, escalade, vive force, or even by regular siege (as was sometimes feasible) , entailed the fall of the whole castle. ”

“ At this stage the crusades, and the consequent opportunities afforded to western engineers of studying the solid fortresses of the Byzantine empire, revolutionized the art of castle-building, which henceforward follows recognized principles. ”

“ In 1223 Hubert de Burgh, as regent, demanded the surrender to the crown of all royal castles not in official custody, and though he succeeded in this, Falkes de Breauté, John’s mercenary, burst into revolt next year, and it cost a great national effort and a siege of nearly two months to reduce Bedford Castle, which he had held. ”

“ The idea of the flanking towers (which were of a type very different from the slight projections of the shell-keep and rectangular tower) soon penetrated to Europe, and Alnwick Castle (1140–1150) shows the influence of the new system.
But the finest of all castles of the middle ages was Richard Cœur de Lion’s fortress of Château Gaillard (1197) on the Seine near Les Andelys. Here the innermost ward was protected by an elaborate system of strong appended defences, which included a strong tête-de-pont covering the Seine bridge (see Clark, i. 384, and Oman, p. 533) . ”

“ Besides, as he had parcelled out the lands of the English amongst his followers, they, to protect themselves from the resentment of the despoiled natives, built strongholds and castles on their estates, and these were multiplied so rapidly during the troubled reign of King Stephen that the “adulterine” (i.e. unauthorized) castles are said by one writer to have amounted to 1115. ”