behind them.  Some coins have been found, including a silver one of Gratian and some of Constantine.  Here St. Furseus, an Irish missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in 633 A.D.  Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver, Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign foes.

In early days, ere Norman and Saxon became a united people, the castle was the sign of the supremacy of the conquerors and the subjugation of the English.  It kept watch and ward over tumultuous townsfolk and prevented any acts of rebellion and hostility to their new masters.  Thus London’s Tower arose to keep the turbulent citizens in awe as well as to protect them from foreign foes.  Thus at Norwich the castle dominated the town, and required for its erection the destruction of over a hundred houses.  At Lincoln the Conqueror destroyed 166 houses in order to construct a strong motte at the south-west corner of the old castrum in order to overawe the city.  Sometimes castles were erected to protect the land from foreign foes.  The fort at Colchester was intended to resist the Danes if ever their threatened invasion came, and Norwich Castle was erected quite as much to drive back the Scandinavian hosts as to keep in order the citizens.  Newcastle and Carlisle were of strategic importance for driving back the Scots, and Lancaster Keep, traditionally said to have been reared by Roger de Poitou, but probably of later date, bore the brunt of many a marauding invasion.  To check the incursions of the Welsh, who made frequent and powerful irruptions into Herefordshire, many castles were erected in Shropshire and Herefordshire, forming a chain of fortresses which are more numerous than in any other part of England.  They are of every shape and size, from stately piles like Wigmore and Goodrich, to the smallest fortified farm, like Urishay Castle, a house half mansion, half fortress.  Even the church towers of Herefordshire, with their walls seven or eight feet thick, such as that at Ewias Harold, look as if they were designed as strongholds in case of need.  On the western and northern borders of England we find the largest number of fortresses, erected to restrain and keep back troublesome neighbours.

The story of the English castles abounds in interest and romance.  Most of them are ruins now, but fancy pictures them in the days of their splendour, the abodes of chivalry and knightly deeds, of “fair ladies and brave men,” and each one can tell its story of siege and battle-cries, of strenuous attack and gallant defence, of prominent parts played in the drama of English history.  To some of these we shall presently refer, but it would need a very large volume to record the whole story of our English fortresses.