Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/278

 258 MedicEval Military Architecture. and about 9 inches long by 6 inches high, with rather open joints. This tower may have contained a small portal. From it extends a fragment of curtain, along the edge of the motte. This has one broken opening, perhaps a window, with a round head. It is difficult to form an opinion upon the age of this masonry. It is possibly late Norman. There are marks of the foundations of a shell of wall all round the edge of the motte, and of a central rectangular court. At present the summit is planted with trees, and the slopes covered with brush- wood. Boves underwent a siege from Philip Augustus of which an inte- resting account was drawn up by Guillaume le Breton. The following is extracted from it : — "The first barriers being won, the besiegers constructed with osiers, hides and stout planks, a cat, under cover of which picked men filled in the ditch. This done, the knights, under cover of their large shields held against the wall, covered the miners, who, with bars and picks, broke into the wall, propping it up with rough trunks of trees, and then removing the masonry above the level of the foun- dations. When enough was thus undermined, they set the props on fire and retired. When the props were burnt the wall fell in the midst of a dense cloud of dust and smoke. The besieged then gave way, a body of youth, sheathed in armour, ascended amidst the dust and ruin, massacred some and captured others, while the remainder, retreating, fled into the keep, which, built upon a scarped rock and protected by a double wall, offered a sure asylum. " Then a machine, contrived for various purposes, was brought to bear upon the keep ; sometimes as a mangonel, such as are used by the Turks, it sent a shower of small stones into the air, sometimes a single stone of vast weight was projected with a velocity exceeding that from a sling. Fissures began to appear in the walls, shaken by the repeated blows," &c. The history of Boves is probably that of Amiens. It is supposed to have been thrown up in the ninth century, for defence against the aggressive Northmen, and the character of the earthwork favours this view. Some of the Sieurs de Coucy were lords also of Boves ; and Henry IV., whose wars brought him to Amiens, is said to have occasionally visited Boves with Gabrielle d'Estrees. The lordship was, during that reign, the property of Philippe de Mornay, son of that Du Plessis Mornay whose name is so intimately associated with the career of Henry. The earthworks are seen to great advantage from the Boves Station of the Amiens Railway.