Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/62

 46 Mediceval Military Architechire in England. his own milch cow, tenderly. But the castle of stone was held by a stranger whose language, arms, and armour were strange to the people, and by them feared and hated. The Norman castle was a purely military building. It was not only strong when well garrisoned, but its passive strength was also great ; and when the bridge was up and the gates closed it was at all times safe against an enemy unprovided with military engines. Fire, the ordinary and ready weapon of the populace, against such a wall, for example, as Cardiff (40 feet high and 11 feet thick), or against such a Tower as London, could do nothing. The garrison also, composed in the English times of the tenants of the lord, under the Normans were not unfrequently mercenaries,— rhen without ruth or conscience, distrusted even by their employers, whose trade was war and whose gain was plunder, and of whom Maurice de Bracy was a very favourable specimen. " Quot domini castellorum," it was said "tot tyranni." No wonder, then, that the Norman castles came to be regarded as the symbol of rebellion on the one hand, and of tyranny on the other. Although the personal attention of the Conqueror was necessarily confined to the chief cities and central towns of England, to Exeter, Gloucester, Nottingham, Lincoln, York, or Durham, his western frontier was not neglected, although he was obliged to depute its ordinary defence to others. The Welsh, hardened by centuries of constant warfare, held with tenacity their strip of mountain land between Offa's Dyke and the sea, and were ever on the watch to ^ spoil that other more fertile tract which lay between the Dyke and the Severn and the Dee, known as the March. Foremost among the barons of the March were Roger of Montgomery and Hugh D'Avranches, Earl of Chester, to whom later generations gave the surname of the " Wolf" The caput of this latter earldom, protected by the deep and rapid Dee, was posted at one angle of the old Roman enclosure ; and the castle of Earl Roger, girdled by the convolutions of the Severn, was an almost impreg- nable citadel. From these fortresses these great earls exercised more than regal power over the counties of Salop and Hereford, composing the Middle March. The border barons, their feudatories, succeeded to no peaceful heritage ; but by degrees they possessed themselves of the older English possessions upon the border, and along with them of the fortresses by which in Mercian times the Welsh had been held so long at bay. That these were numerous is evident from the remains of their earthworks ; and that they