Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/351

Rh and maintained in an efficient state. In 1323 another survey of the castle of Northampton was taken, from which we learn some most interesting particulars as to its condition and extent in the early part of the fourteenth century. It appears that some time before the date of this document, the great hall, the two principal chambers, and the lower chapel had been destroyed by fire, and the jurors estimated the cost of their restoration at 702l. They found also that the chambers of the "new tower" in the said castle, and also six turrets on the circuit of the wall, were for the most part destroyed by Nicholas de Segrave, keeper of the castle, in 1307: among other dilapidations are enumerated ruined walls, a crazy garden-gate, a ruinous barbican, and a certain "old tower called Faukestour, which was begun in the time of King Henry the Elder." This passage seems to indicate that popular opinion attributed the erection of this "old tower" to the celebrated Fulke de Breaute, the terrible "Falkesius" of the monks of St. Alban's, who, as we have seen, was warden of the castle in 1216. Although the times of Fulke and of King Henry the Elder (Henry II.) were not the same, yet some accidental circumstance now unknown, may have led to the association of the name of that redoubted foreign mercenary with a work constructed before his arrival in England. The jurors found that it would require the sum of 395l. 6s. 8d. to repair the defects last named: thus it is evident the castle was in a most decayed state; the estimated outlay necessary for its restoration would have exceeded 12,000l. of the present currency.

Edward III. was too deeply intent on securing the precarious advantages obtained by his father, and the fairer territories won by his own valour in France, to bestow much of his attention on this quarter of his dominions. The castle remained as a prison until nearly the commencement of the last century, when it fell into private hands. Hitherto we have only mentioned it as a place of defence, as one of those unhappy spots where the wretched felon and suspected violator of the forest laws lay famishing amid the palatial profusencss of the proud Plantagenets, and the Christmas luxuries of de Breaute, or as the occasional abode of the English kings; but henceforth it opens upon the attention with more agreeable as well as more universal interest. We shall now observe it as a place where laws