Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/457

 THE CASTLE, AND ' TUE TUOVISIOXS OF OXFORD.' 355 the precise time when it was built ; and the absence of any mention of it in Domesday, where several are enumerated, and which would undoubtedly have named this had it been in existence, proves that it is a buildino; of a lower period. The place was, however, of considerable strength and importance, since it was here that the Conqueror directed his first operations after he had heard of the alliance formed betwixt the Saxons, and Malcolm, King of Scotland. The citizens offered a vain resistance to his assaults ; and the Normans entering through a breach in the walls, avenged themselves for the opposition they had encountered by destroying four hundred houses, and cruelly treating the inhabitants. The castle must have been erected within the space of half-a-century afterwards, since we find allusion made to it in the Monkish Historians, who have written on the transactions of the period. For, as the Saxon chronicle states, — when the Empress Matilda had divided the allegiance of the English betwixt King Stephen and herself, her supporters carried her to Oxford, and put her in possession of the town. The King was then in prison ; but as soon as he was liberated and heard of her success, he took liis army and besieged her in the Tower, from which the soldiers inside let her down by ropes at night, and thus she stole away and fled on foot to Wallingford. The story of her escape is slightly varied by William of Malmesbury, who says that the townsmen being anxious for their own safety when Stephen besieged them, they allowed her, with four soldiers, to pass out through a small postern, and so reaching Abingdon on foot, she thence proceeded on horseback to Wallingford. This event, which happened in the year 1142, is therefore conclusive as to the existence of a castle at Oxford at that time. And, upon examining the earliest architectural remains of the present fortress, there is no reason to doubt that a considerable part is assignable to the same time. Kor is there anything to forbid the assump- tion, as far as its character is concerned, that the tower now standing is the tower the Empress Matilda lodged in during her short sojourn at Oxford. Judging too from the general inductions which architectural observers have laid down as a guide for determining dates, there is enough to be seen in that part of the building, erroneously