were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in many of the castles, and which two or three men had enough to do to carry.  The Sachentege was made thus:  it was fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go round a man’s throat and neck, so that he might noways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron.  Many thousands they exhausted with hunger.  I cannot, and I may not, tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse.  They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they called Tenserie,[18] and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well mightest thou walk a whole day’s journey nor ever shouldest thou find a man seated in a town or its lands tilled.”

  [18] A payment to the superior lord for protection.

More than a thousand of these abodes of infamy are said to have been built.  Possibly many of them were timber structures only.  Countless small towns and villages boast of once possessing a fortress.  The name Castle Street remains, though the actual site of the stronghold has long vanished.  Sometimes we find a mound which seems to proclaim its position, but memory is silent, and the people of England, if the story of the chronicler be true, have to be grateful to Henry II, who set himself to work to root up and destroy very many of these adulterine castles which were the abodes of tyranny and oppression.  However, for the protection of his kingdom, he raised other strongholds, in the south the grand fortress of Dover, which still guards the straits; in the west, Berkeley Castle, for his friend Robert FitzHarding, ancestor of Lord Berkeley, which has remained in the same family until the present day; in the north, Richmond, Scarborough, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and in the east, Orford Keep.  The same stern Norman keep remains, but you can see some changes in the architecture.  The projection of the buttresses is increased, and there is some attempt at ornamentation.  Orford Castle, which some guide-books and directories will insist on confusing with Oxford Castle and stating that it was built by Robert D’Oiley in 1072, was erected by Henry II to defend the country against the incursions of the Flemings and to safeguard Orford Haven.  Caen stone was brought for the stone dressings to windows and doors, parapets and groins, but masses of septaria found on the shore and in the neighbouring marshes were utilized with such good effect that the walls have stood the attacks of besiegers and weathered the storms of the east coast for more than seven centuries.  It was built in a new fashion that was made in France, and to which our English eyes were unaccustomed, and is somewhat similar in plan to Conisborough Castle, in the valley of the Don.  The plan is circular with three projecting towers, and the keep was protected