Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/84

 68 Mediceval Military Architecture in England. CHAPTER VI. THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. HOWEVER numerous may have been the castles de- stroyed under the Convention of Wallingford, or during the subsequent reign of Henry II., they seem to have been almost entirely fortresses of recent date, in private hands, and of little importance as regarded the general defence or the orderly administration of the kingdom. Among those that played at all an important part in the internal wars of the sons or grandsons of Henry, there are missing but very few known to have been built or restored by his predecessors or by himself ; and the names that occur in the chronicles of the period, or are entered from time to time in the records of the realm, show that the country con- tinued to be amply provided with castles, and that almost all of the first class were occasionally repaired at the cost of the Crown, and were governed by castellans holding office during the king's pleasure, whom moreover it was the custom fre- quently to change. It is here proposed, at some length, to enumerate the fortresses of England and in the Marches of Wales, as they stood at the close of the reign of Henry II., so far at least as their names and positions or any account of them can be recovered. Taking London as the centre, military and political, of the kingdom, we have, upon the Thames, the Tower, the first and chief fortress founded by the Conqueror, and which he considered sufficient to protect and overawe the city. In the city itself, also upon the banks of the Thames, near the outlet of the Flete, was Baynard's Castle, the stronghold of the Barons Fitz-Walter, standard-bearers to the City of London, and an important branch of the House of Clare. At various distances from this centre, according to the disposition of the ground, were posted within the northern and southern passes of the chalk ridge, Berkhampstead, an appanage of the earl- dom of Cornwall, and Guildford, the early keep of which stands in part upon an artificial mound. Also, to the imme- diate south of London, were the episcopal castle, still