[Illustration:  Caister Castle 7 Aug 1908]

[Illustration:  Defaced Arms.  Taunton Castle]

We will journey to the West Country, a region of castles.  The Saxons were obliged to erect their rude earthen strongholds to keep back the turbulent Welsh, and these were succeeded by Norman keeps.  Monmouthshire is famous for its castles.  Out of the thousand erected in Norman times twenty-five were built in that county.  There is Chepstow Castle with its Early Norman gateway spanned by a circular arch flanked by round towers.  In the inner court there are gardens and ruins of a grand hall, and in the outer the remains of a chapel with evidences of beautifully groined vaulting, and also a winding staircase leading to the battlements.  In the dungeon of the old keep at the south-east corner of the inner court Roger de Britolio, Earl of Hereford, was imprisoned for rebellion against the Conqueror, and in later times Henry Martin, the regicide, lingered as a prisoner for thirty years, employing his enforced leisure in writing a book in order to prove that it is not right for a man to be governed by one wife.  Then there is Glosmont Castle, the fortified residence of the Earl of Lancaster; Skenfrith Castle, White Castle, the Album Castrum of the Latin records, the Landreilo of the Welsh, with its six towers, portcullis and drawbridge flanked by massive towers, barbican, and other outworks; and Raglan Castle with its splendid gateway, its Elizabethan banqueting-hall ornamented with rich stone tracery, its bowling-green, garden terraces, and spacious courts—­an ideal place for knightly tournaments.  Raglan is associated with the gallant defence of the castle by the Marquis of Worcester in the Civil War.

Another famous siege is connected with the old castle of Taunton.  Taunton was a noted place in Saxon days, and the castle is the earliest English fortress by some two hundred years of which we have any written historical record.[21] The Anglo-Saxon chronicler states, under the date 722 A.D.:  “This year Queen Ethelburge overthrew Taunton, which Ina had before built.”  The buildings tell their story.  We see a Norman keep built to the westward of Ina’s earthwork, probably by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, the warlike brother of King Stephen.  The gatehouse with the curtain ending in drum towers, of which one only remains, was first built at the close of the thirteenth century under Edward I; but it was restored with Perpendicular additions by Bishop Thomas Langton, whose arms with the date 1495 may be seen on the escutcheon above the arch.  Probably Bishop Langton also built the great hall; whilst Bishop Home, who is sometimes credited with this work, most likely only repaired the hall, but tacked on to it the southward structure on pilasters, which shows his arms with the date 1577.  The hall of the castle was for a long period used as Assize Courts.  The castle was purchased by the Taunton and Somerset Archaeological Society, and