Some account has now been given of the change which came over the English castle in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The life of the feudal warrior in his stronghold gradually became the life of the country gentleman in a house whose fortification, such as it was, was of a merely precautionary character. It now remains for us to say something of those domestic buildings which are the principal feature of the English castles of the later middle ages, and of those houses which, while preserving the name and to some extent the appearance of castles, were designed primarily as dwelling-houses. In these examples the main lines of the normal dwelling-house plan, which have already been described, were preserved. The hall still formed the nucleus of the buildings and the centre of the life of the household: the kitchen, buttery, and pantry still took their place at the end of the hall next the screens, while the two-storied block, with the great chamber on the first floor, was found at the other end behind the dais. But, with the increase of comfort and splendour, came the desire for more space and greater privacy. The great hall at Ludlow (96), reconstructed in the early part of the fourteenth century, had a first-floor chamber at either end of the hall; and the additions made to these domestic buildings in the fifteenth century considerably increased the number of private apartments in a house which was already of great size. At Manorbier (208) the whole dwelling-house was enlarged and the number of rooms increased by a reconstruction in the second half of the thirteenth century. The dwelling-house in the inner ward of Conway, the hall and its adjacent rooms at Caerphilly, were planned on a more liberal scale than had been thought necessary in the castles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The essentially military character, however, of the Edwardian castle cramped the free development of domestic buildings within the precinct; and it was not until the middle of the fourteenth century that the plan of the dwelling-house in the castle had reached the stage at which it began to be considered for its own sake, apart from the curtain wall which protected it.

The development of the private mansion within the castle is well illustrated at Porchester. The outer defences of the castle, the twelfth-century great tower, the curtain of the inner ward, the fourteenth-century barbican, were all kept under repair; for the French wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries made the defence of Portsmouth harbour a desirable factor in English strategy, and the considerations which prompted the building of Bodiam also demanded that the military character of Porchester castle should be preserved. The barbican, however, was the last important addition to the defences. The later work included the remodelling of the twelfth-century hall against the south curtain.356 This was in great part rebuilt, the hall on the first floor being supplied with large traceried windows towards the interior of the bailey: late in the fifteenth century, a porch with an upper floor was added at the end next the screens. Along the west side of the inner ward, between the great hall and the keep, a smaller hall was added late in the fourteenth century, the towers upon the east curtain were converted to domestic purposes, and a range of buildings was eventually added upon this side of the bailey (97).

Externally, Porchester castle is simply a fortress: internally, the domestic buildings rivet the attention, and only the imposing mass of the keep (131) reminds us of the military origin of the stronghold. Similarly, in the Cornish castle of Restormel, where the one ward is nearly circular in shape, and is surrounded by a deep ditch, the whole interior face of the curtain is covered by a series of domestic buildings, with partition walls radiating from the centre of the plan. The position of the hall, kitchen, and great chamber can easily be traced: the chapel was on the east side of the ward, separated from the hall by the great chamber, and the chancel, with a substructure, formed a rectangular projection from the curtain at this point. Here, too, as at Porchester, Ludlow, or Manorbier, the dwelling-house was masked by the fortress. But there are also castles in which the importance of the dwelling-house, as time went on, began to overshadow its military surroundings. At Tutbury the strong position of the castle, an entrenched stronghold which was probably ditched about for the first time long before the Conquest, the high mound raised by the Norman founder of the castle, and the fine fourteenth-century gatehouse357 (237), approached by an ascent which was commanded by the whole length of the eastern curtain, strike the visitor far less than the remains of the great hall and its adjacent chambers. This beautiful work, often attributed, like so much else in castles of the duchy of Lancaster, to John of Gaunt, is probably of the middle of the fifteenth century: there is a remarkable similarity between the details of the stonework here and at Wingfield, a house the date of which is well known to be somewhat later than 1441. As a whole, the castles which, like Tutbury, became merged in the possessions of the house of Lancaster, and came to the Crown on the accession of Henry IV., furnish us with some of the best examples of castle dwelling-houses on a palatial scale. At Pontefract, for example, a range of buildings, known later as John of Gaunt’s buildings, rose upon the site of the eastern mound. The drawings of Pontefract and of Melbourne in Derbyshire, preserved among the duchy records, show us castles which have utterly changed their aspect, and have become palaces. Nowhere, however, is this more noticeable to-day than at Kenilworth, where the erection of the great hall may be fairly attributed to John of Gaunt.358 The whole of the north and part of the west side of the inner ward, on the summit of the raised ground on which the castle stands, are covered by a splendid series of late fourteenth-century buildings, chief among them the hall, probably the finest apartment of its date in England, Westminster hall alone excepted (337). Later still, just as at Carew, the transformation of the stronghold was completed by the addition, in Henry VIII.’s time, of apartments, which have now disappeared, along the south side of the ward; and, in the reign of Elizabeth, the south-west angle was filled by a tall block of buildings erected by the earl of Leicester.

One may compare the growth of the domestic element at Kenilworth with that of the French château of Blois, where the military aspect of the building was obliterated by degrees. To the great hall in the north-east corner of the castle bailey359 were added, first, the buildings of Charles of Orléans (1440-65) on the west face.360 Then came the late Gothic work, on the east, of Louis XII. (1498-1502). In the sixteenth century the hall was joined to Charles of Orléans’ block by the Renaissance pile of building raised under Francis I. and Henry II. The castle by this time had become a palace, and the transformation was completed in the seventeenth century (1635) by the erection of the tall range of Palladian buildings in the north-west angle, which is the most prominent feature in the northern view of the château.361 A similar work of transformation took place at Amboise under Louis XII. and Francis I. In both these instances, however, the chief changes were made at a period when the Renaissance was exercising a powerful influence on French life and thought. As a rule, French castles of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, while increasing in splendour, preserved much of the character of the feudal stronghold. The two splendid halls and the northern range of buildings at Coucy, built by Enguerrand VII., lord of Coucy, in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, were added without detriment to the strength of the fortress; and to this same period belongs the talus covering the spring at the foot of the donjon curtain, a work of purely military character.362 In the châteaux of Méhun-sur-Yèvre (Cher), built by John, duke of Berry, between 1370 and 1385, and Pierrefonds (Oise), built by Louis, duke of Orléans, between 1390 and 1420, the splendour of the palace was equally balanced by the strength of the fortress.

In tracing the development of the castle until it is merged in the manor-house, we must not forget that the fortified dwelling-house was not merely the creation of an age which was ceasing to build castles. Many of the strongholds to which allusion has been made, especially in the north and west of England, were dwelling-houses rather than castles. Acton Burnell, Aydon, Markenfield, Haughton, or those houses which, like Mortham in Yorkshire or Yanwath in Westmorland, have pele-towers attached to them, whether as part of their original equipment or as a later addition, are all fabrics in which military precautions had to be taken, but the everyday needs of the occupants were first considered. A castle is a military post which may include one or more dwelling-houses within its walls: the house which may be turned into a castle, when occasion requires, is on a different footing. Bishops’ palaces, such as Auckland, Cawood, Wells, or Lincoln, are examples of the large manor-house in which fortification was merely a measure of precaution. The splendid houses of the bishops of St David’s are not the least remarkable of the remains of medieval architecture, half-domestic, half-military, which are common in south-west Wales. Bishop Henry Gower (1328-47) developed at Swansea castle, and at his manor-houses of Lamphey and St David’s, a type of architecture which deserves mention on account of its originality. The three houses mentioned are somewhat different from each other. Swansea castle is a large block of building, obviously military in character, and in general appearance not unlike the earlier castle which so nobly commands the town of Haverfordwest. Bishop Gower’s hall at Lamphey is a plain building, the chief architectural feature of which is the great cellar on the ground-floor: this was covered by a pointed barrel-vault, originally strengthened by heavy transverse ribs, most of which have fallen away. The vast palace of St David’s, on the other hand, displays in all its details, and especially in the ogee-headed doorway of the porch of its larger hall, a sumptuousness of decoration which is not often found in the domestic architecture of the time. The great hall on the west side of the courtyard, the smaller hall and private apartments on the south side, the vaulted cellars which occupy the whole of the basement in each range, are planned upon a scale equal to that of a castle of first-rate size. But, although these buildings differ so much in general character, they have a common feature in the parapet, pierced with a row of wide pointed arches, and corbelled out above the top of the walls. Comparatively rough and coarse at Swansea and Lamphey (341), this parapet at St David’s is treated with much delicacy, and the jambs of the arches are furnished with slender shafting. Whether there was any thought of its employment in war is a doubtful point; although it might be useful in such a case, it was probably intended in the first instance merely as an ornament. The corbelling is very slight, without machicolation. The whole design of the parapet is a curious feature which deserves special notice. There is another and later hall at Lamphey, west of the earlier building; and adjoining this on the north is the handsome chapel, built by Bishop Vaughan early in the sixteenth century. The gatehouse at Llawhaden, another manor of the bishops of St David’s, appears to be of the fifteenth century, and, with its flanking towers, rounded to the field, has a more distinctly warlike appearance than anything at Lamphey or St David’s.

We may now take a few typical examples which illustrate the change from the fortified residence to the large dwelling-house, which was accomplished by the beginning of the sixteenth century. At a comparatively early date, a divorce between military and domestic architecture is manifest in such a house as Stokesay (306). Here the hall and its adjacent buildings are those of a private house pure and simple; and the defensive portion of the plan is confined to the polygonal tower at the south end of the range of buildings, which, in time of war, could be used as a separate stronghold, and was ingeniously planned and well lighted.363 But at Stokesay (207) the tower appears to be a somewhat later addition to a thirteenth-century dwelling-house. Defensive precautions are added. Of the opposite case, in which they disappear, Haddon hall (340), the most attractive and most thoroughly preserved of English medieval houses, is the best example. In its earliest state, it appears to have been a mere pele, occupying a portion of its present site, with a tower at its north-east and highest corner. The chapel (343), in which large portions of twelfth-century work still remain, was probably built outside the palisade, as the parochial chapel of the hamlet of Nether Haddon. As time went on, the fortified enclosure enlarged its boundaries. A wall was built round it, and the chapel was taken into the line of circumference.364 In the fourteenth century the present hall was built between the upper and lower courts.365 At its north end were the screens, forming the communication between the two courts, with the pantry, buttery, and passage to the kitchen leading directly out of them. At the south end, behind the dais, was the cellar with the great chamber above. Later on, a porch with an upper chamber was built at the entry to the screens. During the fifteenth century, the upper courtyard was gradually surrounded by buildings; a new chancel and octagonal bell-turret were built to the chapel; and, at the end of this period, the old curtain wall, between the chapel and the great chamber, was covered by an outer wall on either side, and reduced to the state of a mere partition wall on which wooden upper buildings were carried. Wide windows were opened in the west walls of the cellar and the great chamber, and the cellar was turned into a private dining-room at the back of the hall. Early in the sixteenth century, the buildings round the entrance court were completed, and the timber stage east of the chapel was rebuilt in stone. Finally, in the reign of Elizabeth, came the addition which marks the last stage in this transition from pele to dwelling-house, when, on the south side of the upper courtyard, was built the long gallery, with its row of wide mullioned windows, and deep bays projecting towards the garden. While the manor-house at Wingfield, not many miles distant, is practically all of one period, and illustrates a definite compromise between war and peace, Haddon is a growth of from four to five centuries, and from an early date showed a tendency to rid itself of its military character.

Wingfield manor is probably the most striking example of a later English manor-house with certain defensive features. It was begun by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, between 1441 and 1455. Its position is naturally strong. From an almost isolated hill, with steep slopes to the east, north, and west, it commands the valley in which it stands, but is itself commanded by the much higher hills which separate it from the Derwent valley on the west.366 The buildings are arranged round two courtyards (346). The outer and larger court, which is entered by a wide gateway, with a postern on one side, at the south end of the east wall, contained store-houses and farm-buildings, with a large barn on the south side. This base-court, like the “barmkin” of a fortified house in the north of England, would be useful in time of war for the protection of tenants and their flocks and herds, who had no other means of defence. A gatehouse in the north wall gives admission to the second court, which was surrounded by buildings on all sides but the east. The whole length of the north side was covered by a magnificent block of buildings, which included the hall, kitchen, and chief private apartments (349). These buildings have not received the full attention which they deserve, but they obviously belong to two periods of work, the great kitchen block at the west end being added as an afterthought.367 The plan is curious and unusual. The hall occupies the eastern extremity of the block. Although the roof and a large part of the south wall are entirely gone, and the north wall was mutilated by the later partition of the hall into two floors and a number of rooms, the porch, with its upper chamber, and the bay-window, at opposite ends of the south wall, are still fairly perfect. The hall was the full height of the block, and had a high-pitched roof, with large window openings in the gables: it is not certain whether the fireplace was in the centre of the room, with a louvre in the roof for the smoke, or in the south wall. The porch led into screens at the west end, over which was probably a minstrels’ gallery. At the north end of the screens was a lobby, from which a vice led to the upper floor of the building dividing the hall from the kitchen; while a wide and well-moulded doorway opened upon a stair which descended into the garden behind the hall. On this side the slope of the ground is very abrupt, and the hall is built upon a very large and handsome cellar (348), divided into two longitudinal halves by a row of five columns. The aisles thus formed are vaulted in oblong compartments upon broad four-centred ribs. The bold wave-mouldings of the ribs and the carving of the bosses at their junction are carved with a masculine vigour of design which gives this cellar a place among the chief architectural masterpieces of its age. There is a short vice with broad steps at each corner of the cellar: those at the north-east and south-east corners communicated directly with the dais and sideboard of the hall, the entrance to the south-east stair being a lobby opening on the bay-window. The south-west vice was entered from the courtyard, while the north-west stair opened into a room on one side of the passage from the hall to the kitchen.

The kitchen and its offices were not entered in the usual way, directly from the screens. A block of buildings, with its main axis at right angles to that of the hall, intervenes. There are, however, three doorways, as usual, in the west wall of the hall. Of these, the middle and largest was that of a central passage leading to the kitchen. A smaller doorway, on either side of this, gave access to two ground-floor rooms, beneath which were cellars. The whole floor above these, entered by a vice from the large lobby at the garden end of the screens, was the great chamber, which had a high-pitched roof, and was lighted, towards the courtyard, by a large window-opening of four lights, with good rectilinear tracery and transoms, beneath a segmental arch. It need hardly be said that the position of the great chamber, at the entrance end of the hall, is most unusual. The best parallel example is found in connection with the hall of the thirteenth-century bishop’s palace at Lincoln. Here the slope at the north end of the hall prevented the construction of a large block of buildings on that side. At the south end the ground fell away almost vertically, and here, upon a vaulted substructure, was built a block of two stories, the lower of which contained the pantry, buttery, and passage to the kitchens, while the upper was the great chamber. The kitchen was contained in a detached tower, between which and the intermediate block was a bridge, with a covered passage on the first floor. The two-storied block has now been converted into the bishop’s chapel, of which the windows of the great chamber form the clerestory; while the passage across the kitchen bridge has been turned into a vestry.

At Wingfield the great chamber was evidently placed at the entrance end of the hall to avoid the type of construction which had been adopted as a pis aller at Lincoln, and the side of the hall was chosen where the ground was comparatively level. Nevertheless, at the dais end of the hall, where there is a fall of several feet in the ground, there are considerable remains of buildings on the lower level; and it is possible that the first kitchen buildings may have been planned at this end. The position, with easy access to the large cellar, and, by a stair which still partly remains, to the hall, would not have been inconvenient, and expense in building would have been saved by this reversal of the usual arrangement, which placed the more costly great chamber block on level foundations, although at the far end of the hall. The four stairs of the cellar made it easy, whatever the position of the kitchen might be, to serve food directly to the dais, or through the screens to the lower end of the hall. However, whether this was the original arrangement or not, the kitchen block west of the great chamber was an addition made probably a few years after the original planning of the house.368 The central passage below the great chamber was continued to the kitchen, passing between a large pantry and buttery. Its south wall, next the buttery, is pierced by two broad arched openings, forming a buttery hatch upon a magnificent scale, through which drink would be served. There were upper floors to the buttery and pantry; but the kitchen itself, which contained three fireplaces, filled the whole west end of the block. Its floor is sloped and grooved, to facilitate drainage: the floor-drains were emptied through spouts in the west wall.

The use of the buildings on the south side of the inner courtyard, on either hand of the gateway, cannot be determined with certainty; but the west side of the court is covered by an important range of buildings, between the kitchen on the north and the high tower at the south-west corner of the enclosure. Of these buildings, which belong to the original fifteenth-century work, little remains but the west and the foundations of the east wall, in which were two bay-windows. They were probably a suite of private rooms, containing a smaller hall or private dining-room, such as is found at Conway and Porchester, and in most of our castles from the later thirteenth century onwards.369 At the south end of this block stands the one distinctively military feature of the manor-house, the tall tower of four stories, which, containing comfortable apartments in time of peace, could be isolated and converted into a stronghold in time of war.370

This provisional arrangement for defence is characteristic of the age. The primary object of the house at Wingfield was comfort and pleasure; and its type is as far removed from the military perfection of Caerphilly or Harlech as it can possibly be. The need of a perpetual garrison was not felt; for, in case of war, siege would be only the last resort of an attacking force. Consequently, the defences of the house, apart from the accommodation for barracks and the safety of refugees in the base-court, and from ordinary strength of the gateways,371 were restricted to the provision of a tower as a last resource. The house, however, which the builder of Wingfield constructed at Tattershall in Lincolnshire between 1433 and 1443, on the site of an earlier stronghold, took the shape of a brick tower of four stages, with a basement half below the ground (356). There is an octagonal turret at each angle, the vice which leads from the ground-floor to the roof being contained in the south-east turret (357). The walls are of considerable thickness throughout, but are pierced above the basement with large two-light windows, two in each stage of the west wall. In the east wall are the chimneys of the fireplaces on the ground-floor and first floor; but behind these the wall is pierced by mural passages, lighted to the field. The north wall on the first and third floor also is pierced by passages. These communicated with chambers in the turrets and with garde-robes. The internal features, the vaulted stairs and passages in the thickness of the walls, and the stone fireplaces on the upper floors, with rectangular mantels ornamented with shields of arms,372 are elaborate and sumptuous; but the tower is a shell, and the floors above the vaulted basement are gone. A peculiar feature of the tower, however, is the covered gallery which is corbelled out on stone arches above each wall of the building between the turrets: the floor is machicolated between the corbels, and the gallery has rectangular windows opening to the field. Such a gallery is seen in French military architecture, as, for example, in the Pont Valentré at Cahors, but appears to be unique in England.373 In the same part of Lincolnshire, and about the same period, towers of the type of Tattershall are not uncommon. Kyme tower, in the fens north-east of Sleaford, Hussey tower, on the north-east side of Boston, and the Tower on the Moor, between Tattershall and Horncastle, are cases in point: none of these, however, can compare with Tattershall in beauty and size, or can show anything like the same union of defensive with purely domestic arrangements.

Brick-work was employed in all these Lincolnshire towers: they lie in a district where stone was not abundant, and where brick-making on the spot was a more simple process than the conveyance of building-stone from Ancaster or Lincoln. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, brick was very freely used for domestic architecture in the eastern counties; and houses like Oxburgh in Norfolk or the rectory at Hadleigh in Suffolk, with their gatehouse towers, are prominent examples of late fifteenth-century work.374 The old hall at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire is a large mansion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This again is chiefly of brick, but with a considerable amount of timber and plaster employed in the hall and one of the wings; while the bay-window of the hall is of the grey Yorkshire limestone in large blocks, which was much used in the churches of the lower Trent valley. At one corner, however, is a polygonal tower entirely of brick, with cross-loops in the walls of the ground-floor, and battlements at the top. These battlements are corbelled out, so as to give an impression of machicolation: there is, however, no machicolation at all, and the spaces between the corbels are arched and filled with simple tracery. The principle here is the same as that at Wingfield and Tattershall: the residence is provided with its strong tower, which, at Tattershall, as at Warkworth, is identical with the residence itself. But while, at Warkworth, considerations of safety and comfort were fairly balanced, with perhaps a slight inclination of the scales to safety, at Tattershall, in spite of the covered gallery with its machicolated floor, the balance is on the side of comfort. Both at Tattershall and Wingfield the splendid residence is studied in the first instance, while the defensive stronghold is a secondary idea. The tower at Gainsborough is simply an imitation of the strong towers of the past, conceived in admiration of their strength and conservative love of their beauty, but with no serious idea of practical utility.375

The fine manor-house of Compton, in a secluded Devonshire valley a few miles west of Torquay, was probably built about 1420 by one of the family of Gilbert. The main entrance, in the centre of the east front, beneath a tall archway including the ground-floor and first floor in its height, is flanked by bold rectangular projections finishing in corbels some feet above the ground. It does not lead, however, into a vaulted passage barred by portcullises and flanked by guard-rooms, but into one giving direct access to the hall. This no longer exists, and a modern building covers part of the site, but the weathering of the high-pitched roof still remains, and at its south end we can still see the entrances of the kitchen and buttery, and the stair-door of the minstrels’ gallery. The courtyard and domestic buildings are enclosed by a wall with a continuous rampart-walk, from the parapet of which are corbelled out at intervals machicolated projections which are so arranged as to be directly above doorways and windows, and thus to protect the most vulnerable points of the house, such as the large four-light east window of the chapel, north of the hall. The house was not surrounded by a ditch; but the space between it and the road probably formed a base-court, although any remains of fortification have disappeared. The whole building is a good example of the reversal of the usual process. The dwelling-house has not grown up within a castle, but has been converted by a very thorough process of walling and crenellation into a fortified post to which the name of castle may well be applied. The situation is anything but commanding, but the house lying hidden in its valley, might be a formidable obstacle, like the neighbouring castle of Berry Pomeroy, to marauders pushing their way inland from Tor Bay.

The character of house first, and castle afterwards, which is remarkable at Wingfield, is also prominent in two of the great Yorkshire residences of the house of Percy, Spofforth and Wressell, princely manor-houses dignified by the name of castle. But perhaps the best example in England of a castle which is one only in name is the brick house of Hurstmonceaux in Sussex. This splendid building was begun about 1446 by Sir Roger Fiennes. Its position, in a sheltered hollow at the head of a small valley, has no military advantages: it may be compared with the secluded site of Compton Wyniates, or with the low sites, within easy reach of water, which the builders of Elizabethan houses were fond of choosing. The house was surrounded by a wet ditch—a feature shared by Compton Wyniates, Kentwell, and other Tudor houses.376 The imposing gatehouse is in the centre of the south front, a rectangular building flanked by tall towers,377 with its portal and the room above recessed beneath a tall arch which at once recalls the machicolated archways that guard the entrance to castles like Chepstow and Tutbury. The gatehouse has certain military features: its rampart and that of the towers is machicolated, and the entrance was closed by a portcullis (323). If cannon had made the curtain of comparatively little importance, it was still advisable to defend the gatehouse. There was no base-court, like that at Wingfield, in advance of the main buildings. The castle was simply a collection of buildings arranged round a series of courtyards, none of which was of any great size, or corresponded to that distinctive feature of the military stronghold—the open ward or bailey, which served as the muster-ground for the garrison. The hall was in its usual position, on the side of the first court opposite the main entrance. Most of the private apartments were against the east wall, from which the chancel of the chapel (359) projected in a half-octagonal apse.

An unrivalled opportunity for studying the progress of the castle in England is provided by a comparison of Hurstmonceaux with its neighbours at Pevensey and Bodiam. Pevensey, taking us back, in its outer circuit, to the Roman era, is, so far as the actual castle area is concerned, a Norman mount-and-bailey stronghold, with stone fortifications chiefly of the thirteenth century. Bodiam represents one of the last and highest efforts of perfected castle building in England. Hurstmonceaux is a house designed for ease and comfort, but keeping something of the outer semblance of the stronghold of an English landowner. A further step was taken at Cowdray, near Midhurst. Here the house, nominally a castle, was built about 1530 by Sir William Fitzwilliam: the battlements of the great hall and its beautiful porch-tower are the only relic of military architecture which it retains; and these are really no more military in character than the battlements of a church tower or clerestory. The comparison and contrast between these Sussex buildings may be further extended by including in the list the early fortresses of Lewes and Hastings, and the episcopal castle of Amberley.378 In these, with what remains of the early castle of Arundel, we have as perfect an epitome of the history of the rise and decline of castle architecture in England as any county can afford.

Castle building, after the fitful examples of later Plantagenet times, ceased altogether under the powerful monarchy of the Tudors, when prominent subjects were made to feel the reality of the influence of the Crown. Only once again, during the civil wars of the seventeenth century, were castles generally resorted to as strongholds. The three sieges of Pontefract, the operations of the royal troops in the Trent valley, between the castles of Newark and Belvoir and the fortified house of Wiverton, the defence of Denbigh, Rockingham, and Scarborough, show that the private fortress could still be used on occasion; while such a mansion as Basing house proved itself capable of stubborn resistance. To this belated castle warfare we owe much destruction: it was followed by the “slighting” of defences, and the general reduction of castles to their present state of picturesque ruin. In concluding this account of military architecture, it may be useful to gather, from some of the surveys drawn up in the reign of Henry VIII., the state of some of our principal castles at a period when medieval ideas were disappearing. The coloured drawings, already mentioned, of castles among the duchy of Lancaster records, which probably belong to the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, may owe something to fancy. But of the general accuracy of these verbal surveys, apart from inadequate measurements, there can be less doubt. They all show clearly that castles, as military strongholds, were obsolete, and that not merely their defences, but even their domestic buildings, were allowed to go to decay in time of peace. A survey of Carlisle castle, returned 22nd September 1529, is eloquent of the neglect of the fortress by its constable, Lord Dacre. The wooden doors of the gatehouse of the base-court had rotted away: the lead of the roof had been cut away, probably with an eye to business, so that the rain soaked through the timber below, and had leaked through the vault into the basement, which was at this time used as the county gaol. The gatehouse of the inner ward was in a not much better state; but the gates were of iron and offered more resistance to the weather. The domestic buildings, on the east side of the inner ward, had been roofed with stone slates: the roof of the great chamber had fallen in, and the gallery or passage between the great chamber and hall was “clean gone down.” The chapel and a closet adjoining were partly unroofed: the closet chimney had fallen, and the parlour beneath was in a ruinous state. The hall itself was “like to fall”: the kitchen and some of its offices had fallen, and the bakehouse and pantry were on the point of falling, while rain had gone through the pantry floor into the buttery, which in this case was apparently on a lower level. The great tower, “called the Dungeon,” was, through the decay of the leaden roof, open to rain, and the floors of its three “houses” or stages were gradually rotting. The castle was supplied with artillery, but this was of “small effect and little value.” It included twenty-three iron serpentines or small cannon, six of which were provided with iron axletree pins or trunnions for use on gun-carriages; a small brass serpentine, a foot long; nine other serpentines; forty-five chambers; one iron sling for discharging stone shot; four “hagbushes” (arquebuses or hand-guns); and two bombards or mortar-shaped cannon. The ammunition for the serpentines and arquebuses consisted of 560 leaden bullets: there was also some stone shot and gunpowder. Some gun-stocks, bows, and arrows complete the list of artillery.379

Sheriff Hutton castle in Yorkshire, surveyed during the same year, was better off as regards its dwelling-house; for this, as we know from contemporary history, had been occupied with little intermission from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. There were three wards, the outermost being evidently a large base-court, and the middle ward probably, as at Carew, a small court in advance of the inner gatehouse. The hall, kitchen, buttery, pantry, bakehouse, chapel, and lodgings for the lord were in the inner ward. In the base-court were the brew-house and horse-mills, with stables, barns, and granaries. The lead on the roofs was in a generally bad state, and the gutters and spouts wanted mending; but the timber of the inner roofs was still fairly good. The walls and towers of the inner ward, the plan of which, as we have seen, was akin to that of the contemporary Bolton castle, were “strong and high, but must be mended with lime and sand.” Three tons of iron were required to mend the gate of the inner ward. The “mantlewall” of the middle ward was defective and partly in ruin; while the base-court was “all open,” its walls decayed, and its gates gone. In the inner ward was a well, and ponds “for baking and brewing” were near the outer walls. The artillery included “six brass falcons with their carts” and twenty-one arquebuses, for which six barrels of powder and ten score iron shots were provided, bows, bowstrings, and arrows, and two bullet moulds.380

After the attainder and execution of the third duke of Buckingham in 1521, two royal escheators took a survey of his lands and houses. Their return, contained in a book of eighty-eight pages,381 supplies details as to eleven manor-houses and castles. Of these, Caus castle, in west Shropshire, was a mere ruin. Huntingdon castle was decayed, but a tower was reserved for prisoners. The description of Oakham castle might be repeated at the present day. It was “all ruinous, being a large ground within the mantell wall.” The hall, however, was in excellent repair, “and of an old fashion”: the escheators recommended its preservation, because the courts were held there. The three towers of the castle of Newport next the Usk are mentioned, with the water-gate below the middle tower, “to receive into the said castle a good vessel”: the hall and other lodgings were decayed, especially in timber, but the stone could be renewed with a quantity of freestone and rubble stored in the castle. Here, as at Carlisle, Launceston, and elsewhere, the basement of the gatehouse was used as a prison; and its maintenance is therefore insisted upon. The hall at Brecon castle had a new and costly roof with pendants: it was “set on height,” with windows at either end, and none upon the sides. As a matter of fact, the remains of this hall stand above a twelfth-century substructure, which was vaulted from a central row of columns: the south side wall still remains, and is pierced with a row of lancet windows, so that the statement of the survey may refer to a newer hall which has disappeared. There was a new hall in the inner ward at Kimbolton, which had been built some sixty years before by the duke’s great-grandmother. The old curtain against which it stood was in a bad way, and threatened to ruin the hall. Round the inner ward was a moat: the base-court on the outer edge was overgrown with grass, but the barn and stables were in good condition.

“The strongest fortress and most like unto a castle of any other that the Duke had” was the castle of Tonbridge, a mount-and-bailey stronghold whose shell-keep is still one of the finest examples of the type. The keep or “dungeon”—no mention of the mount is made—was at this time covered with a lead roof, half of which was gone. Otherwise, the castle and its curtain were in good repair, the rampart-walk keeping its battlemented outer parapet and rear-wall. The gatehouse, on the north side of the castle, was “as strong a fortress as few be in England”: on the east curtain was a square tower called the Stafford tower, and at the south-east corner, next the Medway, was the octagonal Water tower. The river constituted the chief southern defence of the castle, and there was no south curtain: the substructure of the hall and lodgings, 26 feet high and built of ashlar, was on this side, but the buildings themselves had never been finished.

Castles of a later type were Stafford, and Maxstoke (364) in Warwickshire. Stafford castle at this time consisted of a single block of lodgings with two towers at either end and another in the middle of the south front. The hall was in the centre of the block, with the kitchen, larder, buttery, and pantry beneath it: at one end of the hall was the great chamber with a cellar below, and at the other was a “surveying chamber,” or service-room, to which dishes would be brought from the kitchen. Each of the five towers contained three rooms, in each of which was a fireplace. The towers were machicolated, “the enbatelling being trussed forth upon corbelles.” Outside the house were the chapel, gatehouse, and another kitchen; but this front court was apparently without defensive walls. Maxstoke, originally a castle of the Clintons, which was built and fortified in or after 1345,382 had been largely repaired by the duchess Anne, the builder of the hall at Kimbolton. There was a base-court with a gatehouse, stables, and barns, which were walled with stone and covered with slate. Round the castle, “a right proper thing after the old building,” was a moat. The house, with a tower at each corner, was built round a quadrangle, and in the side next the bridge over the moat was a gatehouse tower, with a vaulted entry. The hall, the chapel, the great chamber, and the lodgings generally were in good condition, although they were not entirely finished and much glazing was still necessary. The provision of fireplaces is specially mentioned, as well as a point in the planning of the house—the convenient access to the chapel, or, rather, to its gallery or galleries, from the various first-floor rooms at “the over end” of the hall and great chamber.

The moated manor-house of Writtle in Essex can hardly be counted among castles: it was a timber building round a cloistered quadrangle. There was no hall, but “a goodly and large parlour instead.” Thornbury castle in Gloucestershire, however, which was in great part of the duke’s own building, was one of those houses in which some semblance of military architecture was kept. There was no moat, but a base-court and an inner ward. The buildings of the base-court itself had been set out, but were in a very incomplete state, and little had been finished beyond the foundations of the north and west sides. The entrance to the inner ward was in the west face of the quadrangle; but of the west and north blocks only the lower story had been completed. This was of ashlar, while in the base-court ashlar had been used only for the window openings, doorways, and quoins. The hall and kitchen offices formed the east block, “all of the old building, and of a homely fashion”; but the south block, of the newer work, was “fully finished with curious works and stately lodgings,” and from it a gallery of timber cased with stone, with an upper and lower passage, crossed the south garden to the parish church and the duke’s chapel therein. A magnificent feature of this house, which became more and more characteristic of the palaces of noblemen of the age, were the great parks to the east of the castle, and the gardens on its east and south side. Between the east garden and the New park was the orchard, “in which are many alleys to walk in openly,” and round about the orchard were other alleys on a good height, with “roosting places,” covered with white thorn and hazel.

Thornbury castle had reached this degree of unfinished splendour only a few years before the survey was made. The gateway of the outer ward still bears an inscription with the date 1511, while at the base of the moulded brick chimneys of the south block is the date 1514. Remains may still be seen of most of the buildings mentioned in these surveys. Thornbury and Maxstoke are still occupied, and of Thornbury in particular the details of the survey still hold good. The great value of these descriptions is the fact that they tell us something, on the eve of the Renaissance period, of the state of a series of fortresses which represented almost every type of an architecture that had grown up under the influence of conditions rapidly becoming obsolete. At Tonbridge we see the mount-and-bailey fortress of early Norman times, built to meet needs which were purely military, and strengthened with a stone keep and walls and towers of stone as those needs became more pressing. At Carlisle we have the fortress with its compact inner ward and great tower, approached through the spacious base-court which served the needs of the garrison and might shelter flocks and herds in time of war. No castle of the most perfect type, planned in the golden age of military architecture, is represented. At Brecon, however, we can study the growing importance of the domestic buildings of the castle. At Sheriff Hutton we have the quadrangular castle of the fourteenth century with its angle-towers, and its walled base-court serving the purposes of a farm-yard. Stafford castle, the plan of which has been imitated in the modern house on the site, is a fortified residence built in a single block, to which some of the strong houses of the north of England are analogous. The moated house of Maxstoke preserves the quadrangular plan, and has its provisions for defence; but its domestic character was the first aim of its builders, and its walls and towers are without the formidable height and strength of Sheriff Hutton and Bolton. Here and at Thornbury the base-court was still retained; but at Thornbury the energy of the builders was concentrated in the beautiful mansion, and the idea of the defensive stronghold had almost departed. The day of the castle and the walled town was over, and, in the face of methods of attack of which the builders of Norman castles had never dreamed, military engineers were beginning to move along new lines to which architectural considerations were no longer a matter of great importance. An architecture which, developed from earthwork in the beginning, reproduced in stone, at its height, the disposition of the concentric earthworks of primeval times, gave place in its turn to a science in which the employment of earthwork and the natural resources of a defensive position played an increasingly prominent part.