It was commenced
about 1283 by Edward I, but took forty years to complete. In 1295 a
playful North Walian, named Madoc, who was an illegitimate son of
Prince David, took the rising stronghold by surprise upon a fair day,
massacred the entire garrison, and hanged the constable from his own
half-finished walls. Sir John Puleston, the present constable, though
he derives his patronymic from the "base, bloody, and brutal Saxon,"
is really a warmly patriotic Welshman, and is doing a good work in
preserving the ruins of the fortress of which he is the titular
governor.
We should like to record the romantic stories that have woven
themselves around each crumbling keep and bailey-court, to see them in
the days of their glory when warders kept the gate and watching
archers guarded the wall, and the lord and lady and their knights and
esquires dined in the great hall, and knights practised feats of arms
in the tilting-ground, and the banner of the lord waved over the
battlements, and everything was ready for war or sport, hunting or
hawking. But all the glories of most of the castles of England have
vanished, and naught is to be seen but ruined walls and deserted
halls. Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen's
mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but
the fate of most of them is very similar.
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