2nd. That all officers and gentlemen should march to Oxford, or to any other garrison of the King within thirty miles, with both their horses and arms.

3rd. That all private soldiers should march away without arms, only with sticks in their hands; and that they might go to Worcester, but not to any garrison to which their commanders repaired.

4th. That all private gentlemen in the Castle should have liberty to go to their own homes, or have passes beyond the sea.

5th. That all such persons who having once served the Parliament, had afterwards gone over to the King, should be left as prisoners to the mercy of the Lieutenant-General; and that all such others as would consent to take up arms for the Parliament should be enter tained.

THE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORTIFICATIONS

OF DOVER CASTLE.

BY MAJOR G. T. PLUNKETT, R.E.

(Read August 1883.)

WITHOUT touching on archæological points more than is necessary, I propose briefly to show how this ancient Castle grew from a simple earthwork to the walls and towers of the Middle Ages, the bastions and ramparts of the times when artillery came into use, and finally to its present state as a part of the modern fortifications of Dover. I say nothing on archæology, because I speak to those who know more of the subject than myself, and I might touch on subjects which, amongst archæologists themselves, are matters of doubt. For instance, we have been told that that interesting old church from which we have come is the work of the latter days of the Roman occupation, when their power in these lands was passing away; we know that others maintain that it was built at least a century earlier; while many are equally ready to prove that it was not built till Saxon times. Similar doubts hang over the origin of many of the works of defence; so, omitting as far as possible any reference to such debatable points, I will try to describe to you briefly the defences of this position.

If you look out on this side towards the sea, you will obtain a very clear idea of the size and form of the earthen mound on which stands the ancient structure known as the Roman Pharos; whether, as certainly seems probable, these heights had been previously occupied by the Britons, and whether the works extended in this direction so as to cover the greater part of this hilltop, is uncertain; but the fort certainly appears to have originally consisted of a parallelogram, about 400 ft. long and 140 ft. wide, and from that simple beginning it has been extended to its present proportions. Without attempting to fix the date of the various enlargements, the first addition to the parallelogram seems to have been the enclosure of what is now the parade ground below us, following the line past the gate surmounted by Colton's Tower to the

south-west angle, and so on round by the old wall above the trees, up to the foot of the slope by which we ascended to the Keep Yard, and back to the road which leads up to the church. The next great line of defence, in the form of a horse-shoe, is shown pretty clearly by the walls and towers of the Keep Yard, which are built on what may have been the more ancient Saxon earthwork. Then there is the larger horse-shoe, which Mr. Lyon and others say was also originally Saxon work; its base extends towards the west down to that tower with the gateway known as Peverell's Tower, and to the east as far as Averanche's Tower, of which you still see part of the masonry above the modern earthworks. The curve of this horse-shoe is shown by the line of the so-called Norman curtain and towers, and you will see it from the opposite side of this building. The first improvement on these original earthworks, of whatever age they may have been, seems to have been the addition of detached towers standing round them, from which archers could annoy an enemy attempting to mount the slopes. These additions were probably found necessary, owing to improvements in archery. In earlier times it seems to have been considered sufficient by the Romans, as by other nations, to provide a deep ditch which would prevent their enemies from closing with them, and a rampart on the inside, from which point of vantage they could hurl down missiles on their foes if they attempted to cross the fosse. Greater skill in the use of missiles rendered it impossible, or at least very dangerous, for the defenders to expose themselves on the top of their walls; and, as I have just said, this doubtless led to the construction of towers round the earthworks, from the loop-holes of which the occupants could, in comparative safety, annoy the assailants, who were compelled to pass between them. Until comparatively modern times three of these towers existed in this Castle; one of them, known as Mortimer's Tower, stood near the entrance of those casemates under the modern rampart.

The second, or Valance's Tower, which, owing to its having been afterwards used as the garrison mill, was called the Mill Tower, was on the site now occupied by the officers' stables, and the remains of it disappeared

only in the present century. It is shown in the plans of the Castle of 1756 and 1794.

The third, or Clinton's Tower, was further round on the west side. There may have been other towers which totally disappeared during mediæval improvements, and were entirely forgotten, and possibly to these towers were attached the names of knights which were subsequently transferred to those of later construction. Then we come to the Norman system of fortifications, of which this Keep, on which we now stand, formed the principal feature. It has been assumed by most who have attempted a description of this Castle that the curtain walls and flanking towers, as you now see them from the cliff by Canon's Gate where you entered, up to Peverell's Tower and round to the Averanche's Tower, which I have just mentioned, and on to the cliff again, were the works of the early Norman conquerors.

Mr. Blashill has, however, given us his reasons for supposing that they are of later, that is to say, of Edwardian times; the knights' names having been perhaps transferred, as I have suggested; and I may point out to you presently an argument derived from the record of the Siege by the Dauphin of France in Henry II's reign, which seems strongly to support that view. These curtain walls and flanking towers formed the next step in the progress of the science of fortification. There seems little doubt but that this advance in the art was learnt by our Crusaders when they had seen at Byzantium and other cities of the later Roman Empire those scientifically constructed works which, at that time, were well known in the East. The chief point in the construction of such fortifications was to place the flanking towers at such intervals that the assailants of any one tower would at the same time be exposed to a cross-fire of arrows and stones from the towers on either side. Another characteristic of medieval fortifications was the use of sallyports and barbicans, from which to make sorties to annoy the besieging forces. At the Spur, where we shall presently go to show you some of the underground works, there was an arrangement of this nature, where a passage from the ditch branched off into three galleries, each defended by a gateway, and leading to towers which had again

their portcullises and drawbridges. The remains of these passages and gateways, although much altered by later improvements, will give you an idea of the plan on which these barbicans were constructed.

The next great step in fortification was necessitated by the introduction of artillery. It was some time after the new system had been introduced into Europe that it was brought into use at Dover by Henry VIII, who made considerable improvements in the fortifications at the foot of the Cliff, and erected batteries here, and also castles at Deal, Walmer, and Sandown. Comparatively little change, however, seems to have been made in the defences of this Castle from the time of the Edwards until the end of the last century, when Mr. Pitt seems to have obtained £50,000 to be spent in the strengthening of these fortifications. Great improvements were then made; advanced bastions and earthworks, of which you saw some in coming up from the town, and of which you see others on the eastern side of the Castle, were then added. The object with which these were constructed was in principle the same as that of the medieval towers, that is to say, that the several parts of the fortifications should afford defence and protection to each other. The most recent improvement is the adoption of caponnières and other covered galleries from which to flank and defend the ditches. In the Spur to which we are now going, you will see these well exemplified, and I will endeavour to show how the modern caponnière has grown from what was originally only a covered passage and causeway across the ditch to give access to the barbican beyond.

In addition to these modern additions to this Castle, if you will look towards the north you will see Fort Burgoyne, which was constructed about twenty-six years ago, and which is a good example of nearly the most recent phase of the art of fortification, and in which you will see that this system of defending the ditches by caponnières is a very important feature. There the building no longer extends across the ditch as a covered passage, but is double-storied, and arranged so as to give a heavy fire from artillery and rifles along the ditch, while it is so placed as to be almost safe from the fire of a besieger's guns. To return to the ancient structures, it is unfortunate