Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/351

 CAERNARVON CASTLE. 251 opinions which have long prevailed, but however unacceptable they may be in correcting generally established notions respecting the age of the chief feature of the building, it is better at once to combat the erroneous conjectures that have been received, than suffer ourselves to remain longer under their agreeable delusion. The tradition of Edward II. having been born in the Eagle Tower has obtained such universal credit, that the assertion has usurped the value of historical truth. Though, when we examine the small and highly inconvenient cham- ber where this event is said to have happened, it will appear perplexing why so incommodious a room should have been selected, when there w^ere others also in the same tower, and on the same level, more suitable for the Queen's reception. This chamber, both shapeless and low, is a passage to the Vaw^mer, and is also a thoroughfare to two others of a better kind, as well as contiguous to one of the grand central rooms of the tower. These circumstances certainly bespeak improbability of themselves, but tlie matter is placed out of controversy by the entries on the present account, strengthened too, as they are, by some upon a later document, which are preserved in a different depository of the national archives ; these indisputably prove that, though the Eagle Tower might have been commenced by Edw^ard I., it was far from being completed when he died ; and there is evidence to show, that that portion of the building where his son is reputed to have been born was actually not built until the present or the following year, wdien he was thirty- three years of age, and had sat ten upon the throne. In the present record we have, in corroboration of these remarks, the following notices of the Eagle Tower. Amongst the items of the smith's weekly bill of particulars, there is a charge for " one lock bought for the Eagle Tower {pro turre aqiiile) and in the repair of one lock for a certain postern, 1*. 3o?." On the fifth rotulet occurs a charge of 32*. 5d. for cutting down, barking, and sawing G oaks, and for making 30 planks out of the same for covering the Eagle Tower. Also 14.9. Qd. for 160 boards bought for the said tower. On the eighteenth rotulet Robert, the smith, charges 2s. id. for working " spykyngnayles " for the flooring of the Eagle Tower {turris aquile) and other necessai'y iron works of six dozen of the king's iron ; and for 18,000 of" spykyngs "