164-555: Queenborough Castle , also known as Sheppey Castle , is a 14th-century castle , the remnants of which are in the town of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey , Kent in England . The castle and the associated planned town were built on the orders of King Edward III from 1361 and named in honour his wife, Queen Philippa . It was the first concentric castle to be built in England, and
328-606: A drawbridge , although these were often replaced by stone bridges. The site of the 13th-century Caerphilly Castle in Wales covers over 30 acres (12 ha) and the water defences, created by flooding the valley to the south of the castle, are some of the largest in Western Europe. Battlements were most often found surmounting curtain walls and the tops of gatehouses, and comprised several elements: crenellations , hoardings , machicolations , and loopholes . Crenellation
492-467: A French jeton datable to the 15th century, and two musket balls . Castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders . Scholars usually consider a castle to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion , palace , and villa , whose main purpose
656-471: A Roman fort or Byzantine tetrapyrgia which were square in plan and had square towers at each corner that did not project much beyond the curtain wall. The keep of these Crusader castles would have had a square plan and generally be undecorated. While castles were used to hold a site and control movement of armies, in the Holy Land some key strategic positions were left unfortified. Castle architecture in
820-462: A barbican was not just to provide another line of defence but also to dictate the only approach to the gate. A moat was a ditch surrounding a castle – or dividing one part of a castle from another – and could be either dry or filled with water. Its purpose often had a defensive purpose, preventing siege towers from reaching walls making mining harder, but could also be ornamental. Water moats were found in low-lying areas and were usually crossed by
984-438: A central keep . In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire . Many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric defence – several stages of defence within each other that could all function at the same time to maximise the castle's firepower. These changes in defence have been attributed to
1148-574: A common origin, dealt with a particular mode of warfare, and exchanged influences. In different areas of the world, analogous structures shared features of fortification and other defining characteristics associated with the concept of a castle, though they originated in different periods and circumstances and experienced differing evolutions and influences. For example, shiro in Japan, described as castles by historian Stephen Turnbull , underwent "a completely different developmental history, were built in
1312-480: A completely different way and were designed to withstand attacks of a completely different nature". While European castles built from the late 12th and early 13th century onwards were generally stone, shiro were predominantly timber buildings into the 16th century. By the 16th century, when Japanese and European cultures met, fortification in Europe had moved beyond castles and relied on innovations such as
1476-648: A confined space and unable to retaliate. It is a popular myth that murder holes – openings in the ceiling of the gateway passage – were used to pour boiling oil or molten lead on attackers; the price of oil and lead and the distance of the gatehouse from fires meant that this was impractical. This method was, however, a common practice in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean castles and fortifications, where such resources were abundant. They were most likely used to drop objects on attackers, or to allow water to be poured on fires to extinguish them. Provision
1640-466: A contractor spent sixty weeks digging a deep well in the centre of the courtyard. The first constable of the castle was appointed in 1365 before its completion, with instructions to arm it and make it defensible. In the same year, "two great guns and nine small ones" were sent from the cannon foundry at the Tower of London to Queenborough, taking priority before even Dover Castle . Upon the completion of
1804-413: A fortification such as a city wall . The great hall was a large, decorated room where a lord received his guests. The hall represented the prestige, authority, and richness of the lord. Events such as feasts, banquets, social or ceremonial gatherings, meetings of the military council, and judicial trials were held in the great hall. Sometimes the great hall existed as a separate building, in that case, it
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#17327757477501968-609: A long time in a constant state of alert"; elsewhere the lord's wife presided over a separate residence ( domus , aula or mansio in Latin) close to the keep, and the donjon was a barracks and headquarters. Gradually, the two functions merged into the same building, and the highest residential storeys had large windows; as a result for many structures, it is difficult to find an appropriate term. The massive internal spaces seen in many surviving donjons can be misleading; they would have been divided into several rooms by light partitions, as in
2132-435: A lord's home or hall was fire as it was usually a wooden structure. To protect against this, and keep other threats at bay, there were several courses of action available: create encircling earthworks to keep an enemy at a distance; build the hall in stone; or raise it up on an artificial mound, known as a motte, to present an obstacle to attackers. While the concept of ditches , ramparts , and stone walls as defensive measures
2296-542: A massive scale, utilising stone, wood, iron and earth in their construction. The Romans encountered fortified settlements such as hill forts and oppida when expanding their territory into northern Europe. Their defences were often effective, and were only overcome by the extensive use of siege engines and other siege warfare techniques, such as at the Battle of Alesia . The Romans' own fortifications ( castra ) varied from simple temporary earthworks thrown up by armies on
2460-494: A mixture of castle technology from the Crusades , such as concentric fortification , and inspiration from earlier defences, such as Roman forts . Not all the elements of castle architecture were military in nature, so that devices such as moats evolved from their original purpose of defence into symbols of power. Some grand castles had long winding approaches intended to impress and dominate their landscape. Although gunpowder
2624-642: A modern office building. Even in some large castles the great hall was separated only by a partition from the lord's chamber, his bedroom and to some extent his office. Curtain walls were defensive walls enclosing a bailey. They had to be high enough to make scaling the walls with ladders difficult and thick enough to withstand bombardment from siege engines which, from the 15th century onwards, included gunpowder artillery . A typical wall could be 3 m (10 ft) thick and 12 m (39 ft) tall, although sizes varied greatly between castles. To protect them from undermining , curtain walls were sometimes given
2788-400: A monarch. He owned land in almost every county in England, a patrimony that produced a net income of between £8,000 and £10,000 a year, equivalent in 2023 to c.£170 – 213 million in income value, or £3.5 – 4.4 billion in relation to gdp. Because of his rank, John of Gaunt was one of England's principal military commanders in the 1370s and 1380s, though his enterprises were never rewarded with
2952-539: A number of words in other languages also derive from castellum . The word castle was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest of 1066 to denote this type of building, which was then new to England. In its simplest terms, the definition of a castle accepted amongst academics is "a private fortified residence". This contrasts with earlier fortifications, such as Anglo-Saxon burhs and walled cities such as Constantinople and Antioch in
3116-588: A part of the efforts of Edward III to arrange matches for his sons with wealthy heiresses. Upon the death of his father-in-law, the Duke of Lancaster , in 1361, John received half his lands, the title "Earl of Lancaster", and distinction as the greatest landowner in Northern England as heir of the Palatinate of Lancaster. He also became the 14th Baron of Halton and 11th Lord of Bowland . John inherited
3280-622: A place in the line of succession. Through his daughter Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland , he was an ancestor of the Yorkist kings Edward IV , Edward V and Richard III . Through his great-granddaughter Lady Margaret Beaufort he was also an ancestor of Henry VII , who married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York , and all subsequent monarchs are descendants of their marriage. Two of John's daughters married into continental royal houses (those of Portugal and Castile). Through them, many royal families of Europe can trace lineage to him. John
3444-440: A pump house was built over the well, as the water was needed for the locomotives . A school was built over the western side of the site. Our knowledge of the appearance of Queenborough Castle comes from a plan in an Elizabethan manuscript preserved at Hatfield House , also from a view by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) which is now lost but is known from some 18th-century copies and impressions. There are also written descriptions,
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#17327757477503608-498: A range of purposes, the most important of which were military, administrative, and domestic. As well as defensive structures, castles were also offensive tools which could be used as a base of operations in enemy territory. Castles were established by Norman invaders of England for both defensive purposes and to pacify the country's inhabitants. As William the Conqueror advanced through England, he fortified key positions to secure
3772-454: A result of these failures, and those of other English commanders at this period, John was one of the first important figures in England to conclude that the war with France was unwinnable because of France's greater resources of wealth and manpower. He began to advocate peace negotiations; indeed, as early as 1373, during his great raid through France, he made contact with Guillaume Roger , brother and political adviser of Pope Gregory XI , to let
3936-627: A result there were 4,000 in the country. There are very few castles dated with certainty from the mid-9th century. Converted into a donjon around 950, Château de Doué-la-Fontaine in France is the oldest standing castle in Europe . From 1000 onwards, references to castles in texts such as charters increased greatly. Historians have interpreted this as evidence of a sudden increase in the number of castles in Europe around this time; this has been supported by archaeological investigation which has dated
4100-607: A rudimentary court and chancery at Ourense and received the submission of the Galician nobility and most of the towns of Galicia, though they made their homage to him conditional on his being recognised as king by the rest of Castile. While John of Gaunt had gambled on an early decisive battle, the Castilians were in no hurry to join battle, and he began to experience difficulties keeping his army together and paying it. In November, he met King John I of Portugal at Ponte do Mouro on
4264-476: A scientific design. An example of this approach is Kerak . Although there were no scientific elements to its design, it was almost impregnable, and in 1187 Saladin chose to lay siege to the castle and starve out its garrison rather than risk an assault. During the late 11th and 12th centuries in what is now south-central Turkey the Hospitallers , Teutonic Knights and Templars established themselves in
4428-420: A stone skirt around their bases. Walkways along the tops of the curtain walls allowed defenders to rain missiles on enemies below, and battlements gave them further protection. Curtain walls were studded with towers to allow enfilading fire along the wall. Arrowslits in the walls did not become common in Europe until the 13th century, for fear that they might compromise the wall's strength. The entrance
4592-497: A stronghold and prison but was also a place where a knight or lord could entertain his peers. Over time the aesthetics of the design became more important, as the castle's appearance and size began to reflect the prestige and power of its occupant. Comfortable homes were often fashioned within their fortified walls. Although castles still provided protection from low levels of violence in later periods, eventually they were succeeded by country houses as high-status residences. Castle
4756-649: A superior force and the two armies faced each other across a marsh for several weeks until the English were reinforced by the Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick , at which the French withdrew without offering battle. John and Warwick then decided to strike Harfleur , the base of the French fleet on the Seine . Further reinforced by German mercenaries, they marched on Harfleur, but were delayed by French guerilla operations while
4920-534: A time styled himself as King of Castile. When Edward the Black Prince , Gaunt's elder brother and heir-apparent to the ageing Edward III, became incapacitated owing to poor health, Gaunt assumed control of many government functions, and rose to become one of the most powerful political figures in England. He was faced with military difficulties abroad and political divisions at home, and disagreements as to how to deal with these crises led to tensions between Gaunt,
5084-424: A wall with openings that allowed objects to be dropped on an enemy at the base of the wall in a similar fashion to hoardings. Arrowslits , also commonly called loopholes, were narrow vertical openings in defensive walls which allowed arrows or crossbow bolts to be fired on attackers. The narrow slits were intended to protect the defender by providing a very small target, but the size of the opening could also impede
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5248-400: A wooden door. This led to the elevation of windows to the second storey – to make it harder to throw objects in – and to move the entrance from ground level to the second storey. These features are seen in many surviving castle keeps, which were the more sophisticated version of halls. Castles were not just defensive sites but also enhanced a lord's control over his lands. They allowed
5412-488: Is a corrupted form of "donjon" and means a dark, unwelcoming prison. Although often the strongest part of a castle and a last place of refuge if the outer defences fell, the keep was not left empty in case of attack but was used as a residence by the lord who owned the castle, or his guests or representatives. At first, this was usual only in England, when after the Norman Conquest of 1066 the "conquerors lived for
5576-436: Is also inferred to directly reference Lancaster. "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies Fortune , proclaiming he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce" (15) and that "over himself hath the maystrye" (14). Fortune , in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh words to her for she believes she has been kind to him, claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in
5740-433: Is ancient, raising a motte is a medieval innovation. A bank and ditch enclosure was a simple form of defence, and when found without an associated motte is called a ringwork; when the site was in use for a prolonged period, it was sometimes replaced by a more complex structure or enhanced by the addition of a stone curtain wall. Building the hall in stone did not necessarily make it immune to fire as it still had windows and
5904-574: Is possible that the design was influenced by that of Bellver Castle , which had been built in Majorca between 1300 and 1311 for King James II of Majorca . Queenborough was one of the first English castles built to withstand siege artillery and to mount guns itself, and the last royal castle to be built in England during the Late Middle Ages. Originally, water was channelled from the roofs through lead piping into storage cisterns, but in 1393
6068-527: Is sometimes used as a catch-all term for all kinds of fortifications , and as a result has been misapplied in the technical sense. An example of this is Maiden Castle which, despite the name, is an Iron Age hill fort which had a very different origin and purpose. Although castle has not become a generic term for a manor house (like château in French and Schloss in German), many manor houses contain castle in their name while having few if any of
6232-407: Is the collective name for alternating crenels and merlons : gaps and solid blocks on top of a wall. Hoardings were wooden constructs that projected beyond the wall, allowing defenders to shoot at, or drop objects on, attackers at the base of the wall without having to lean perilously over the crenellations, thereby exposing themselves to retaliatory fire. Machicolations were stone projections on top of
6396-603: Is the founder of the royal House of Lancaster , whose members would ascend the throne after his death. His birthplace, Ghent in Flanders, then known in English as Gaunt , was the origin of his name. John's early career was spent in France and Spain fighting in the Hundred Years' War . He made an abortive attempt to enforce a claim to the Crown of Castile that came through his second wife, Constance of Castile , and for
6560-564: Is thought to have located the castle's moat. The Channel 4 documentary series Time Team Series 13, Episode 150: "Castle in the Round" broadcast 12 March 2006 covered a later investigation, undertaken in September 2005. The work was recorded and interpreted by Wessex Archaeology . A geophysical survey was hampered by the presence of a 1970s concrete slab which caps the well, by the clay soil which had been deposited during landscaping, by
6724-909: The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , where they discovered an extensive network of sophisticated fortifications which had a profound impact on the architecture of Crusader castles . Most of the Armenian military sites in Cilicia are characterized by: multiple bailey walls laid with irregular plans to follow the sinuosities of the outcrops; rounded and especially horseshoe-shaped towers; finely-cut often rusticated ashlar facing stones with intricate poured cores; concealed postern gates and complex bent entrances with slot machicolations; embrasured loopholes for archers; barrel, pointed or groined vaults over undercrofts, gates and chapels; and cisterns with elaborate scarped drains. Civilian settlement are often found in
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6888-513: The Battle of Nájera (1367), for example, his later military projects proved unsuccessful. When Edward III died in 1377 and John's ten-year-old nephew succeeded as Richard II of England , John's influence strengthened. However, mistrust remained, and some suspected him of wanting to seize the throne himself. John took pains to ensure that he never became associated with the opposition to Richard's kingship. As de facto ruler during Richard's minority, he made unwise decisions on taxation that led to
7052-492: The Bayeux Tapestry 's depiction of Château de Dinan . Sometimes a motte covered an older castle or hall, whose rooms became underground storage areas and prisons beneath a new keep. A bailey, also called a ward, was a fortified enclosure. It was a common feature of castles, and most had at least one. The keep on top of the motte was the domicile of the lord in charge of the castle and a bastion of last defence, while
7216-798: The Black Prince's , "shield for peace" (on which the ostrich feathers were white), and may have been used in jousting . The ostrich feather arms appeared in stained glass above Gaunt's chantry chapel in St Paul's Cathedral. John of Gaunt is a character in William Shakespeare 's play Richard II . Shortly before he dies, he makes a speech that includes the lines (in Act 2, scene i, around line 40) "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars ... This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England". He
7380-603: The House of Lancaster , would rule England from 1399 until the time of the Wars of the Roses . Gaunt is also generally believed to have fathered five children outside marriage: one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to his mother ; the others, surnamed Beaufort , by Katherine Swynford , his long-term mistress and third wife. They were later legitimised by royal and papal decrees, but this did not affect Henry IV's bar to their having
7544-682: The Hundred Years' War , brought about by the Treaty of Brétigny in May 1360. It has been suggested that the new castle was more of a palace-fortress , intended as a refuge for the royal family from the Black Death which had arrived in England in the middle of the previous decade. However Queenborough's location commanding the confluence of the Swale and the River Medway, then an important route into
7708-512: The Iron Age . Hillforts in Britain typically used earthworks rather than stone as a building material. Many earthworks survive today, along with evidence of palisades to accompany the ditches. In central and western Europe, oppida emerged in the 2nd century BC; these were densely inhabited fortified settlements, such as the oppidum of Manching . Some oppida walls were built on
7872-665: The Massif Central , and finally down into Dordogne . Unable to attack any strongly fortified forts and cities, the raiders plundered the countryside, which weakened the French infrastructure, but the military value of the damage was only temporary. Marching in winter across the Limousin plateau, with stragglers being picked off by the French, huge numbers of the army, and even larger numbers of horses, died of cold, disease or starvation. The army reached English-occupied Bordeaux on 24 December 1373, severely weakened in numbers with
8036-695: The Peasants' Revolt in 1381, when the rebels destroyed his home in London, the Savoy Palace . Unlike some of Richard's unpopular advisors, John was away from London at the time of the uprising and thus avoided the direct wrath of the rebels. In 1386 John left England to seek the throne of Castile , claimed in jure uxoris by right of his second wife, Constance of Castile , whom he had married in 1371. However, crisis ensued almost immediately in his absence, and in 1387 King Richard's misrule brought England to
8200-480: The Romans . The gatehouse contained a series of defences to make a direct assault more difficult than battering down a simple gate. Typically, there were one or more portcullises – a wooden grille reinforced with metal to block a passage – and arrowslits to allow defenders to harry the enemy. The passage through the gatehouse was lengthened to increase the amount of time an assailant had to spend under fire in
8364-506: The Siege of Limoges (September 1370). He took charge of the siege operations and at one point engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in the undermining tunnels. After this event, the Black Prince gave John the lieutenancy of Aquitaine and sailed for England, leaving John in charge. Though he attempted to defend the duchy against French encroachment for nearly a year, lack of resources and money meant he could do little but husband what small territory
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#17327757477508528-667: The Thames Estuary , together with the contemporary refurbishment of Hadleigh Castle on the opposite side of the Thames demonstrate that there was a strategic consideration. Moreover, there had been destructive French raids on the south coast ports of Rye and Winchelsea in March 1360. Oversight of the construction has been credited by various sources to either master masons John Box or Henry Yevele , or to William of Wykeham . The work required some 1,600 craftsmen and labourers, and
8692-707: The coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth I on the wall of the castle's great hall accompanied by a laudatory verse in Latin , exhorting her to "live a virgin and a lion reign". During the English Civil War , Queenborough Castle was held by the Royalists, but after the execution of King Charles I in 1648, the castle came into the possession of the Commonwealth and trustees were appointed to look after it. In 1650, Parliament appointed commissioners to survey
8856-487: The 18th century onwards, there was a renewed interest in castles with the construction of mock castles, part of a Romantic revival of Gothic architecture , but they had no military purpose. The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum , which is a diminutive of the word castrum , meaning "fortified place". The Old English castel , Occitan castel or chastel , French château , Spanish castillo , Portuguese castelo , Italian castello , and
9020-533: The 9th and 10th centuries after the fall of the Carolingian Empire , which resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. These nobles built castles to control the area immediately surrounding them and they were both offensive and defensive structures: they provided a base from which raids could be launched as well as offered protection from enemies. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies,
9184-613: The Christians were victorious in the First Crusade (1096–1099), rather than nearly 100 years later. Remains of Roman structures in Western Europe were still standing in many places, some of which had flanking round-towers and entrances between two flanking towers. The castle builders of Western Europe were aware of and influenced by Roman design; late Roman coastal forts on the English " Saxon Shore " were reused and in Spain
9348-576: The Commons then refused to authorise any funds for the war, losing the sympathy of the Lords as a result. The death of the Black Prince on 8 June 1376 and the onset of Edward III's last illness at the closing of Parliament on 10 July left John with all the reins of power. He immediately had the ailing king grant pardons to all the officials impeached by the Parliament; Alice Perrers too was reinstated at
9512-513: The Crown , and his son Bolingbroke, now disinherited, was branded a traitor and exiled. Henry returned from exile shortly after to reclaim his inheritance, and deposed Richard. He reigned as King Henry IV of England (1399–1413), the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the English throne . All English monarchs from Henry IV onwards are descended from John of Gaunt. His direct male line,
9676-628: The East became more complex around the late 12th and early 13th centuries after the stalemate of the Third Crusade (1189–1192). Both Christians and Muslims created fortifications, and the character of each was different. Saphadin , the 13th-century ruler of the Saracens, created structures with large rectangular towers that influenced Muslim architecture and were copied again and again, however they had little influence on Crusader castles. In
9840-558: The English Parliament, and the ruling class, making him an extremely unpopular figure for a time. John exercised great influence over the English throne during the minority of King Richard II (Edward the Black Prince's son) and the ensuing periods of political strife. He mediated between the king and a group of rebellious nobles, which included Gaunt's own son and heir-apparent, Henry Bolingbroke. Following Gaunt's death in 1399, his estates and titles were declared forfeit to
10004-665: The English still controlled, and he resigned the command in September 1371 and returned to England. Just before leaving Aquitaine, he married the Infanta Constance of Castile in September 1371 at Roquefort , near Bordeaux , Guyenne . The following year he took part with his father, Edward III, in an abortive attempt to invade France with a large army, which was frustrated by three months of unfavourable winds. Probably John's most notable feat of arms occurred in August–December 1373, when he attempted to relieve Aquitaine by
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#173277574775010168-528: The Iberian Peninsula was the use of detached towers, called Albarrana towers , around the perimeter as can be seen at the Alcazaba of Badajoz . Probably developed in the 12th century, the towers provided flanking fire. They were connected to the castle by removable wooden bridges, so if the towers were captured the rest of the castle was not accessible. When seeking to explain this change in
10332-475: The Italian trace italienne and star forts . A motte was an earthen mound with a flat top. It was often artificial, although sometimes it incorporated a pre-existing feature of the landscape. The excavation of earth to make the mound left a ditch around the motte, called a moat (which could be either wet or dry). Although the motte is commonly associated with the bailey to form a motte-and-bailey castle, this
10496-621: The Lords Appellant, from Richard's wrath; but, in 1398, Richard had Bolingbroke exiled, and on John of Gaunt's death the next year he disinherited Bolingbroke completely, seizing John's vast estates for the Crown. John of Gaunt was a patron and close friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer , best known for his work The Canterbury Tales . Near the end of their lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law. Chaucer married Philippa (Pan) de Roet in 1366, and Lancaster took his mistress of nearly 30 years, Katherine Swynford (de Roet), who
10660-473: The Middle East; castles were not communal defences but were built and owned by the local feudal lords, either for themselves or for their monarch. Feudalism was the link between a lord and his vassal where, in return for military service and the expectation of loyalty, the lord would grant the vassal land. In the late 20th century, there was a trend to refine the definition of a castle by including
10824-630: The Spanish kingdom. From 1372, John gathered around himself a small court of refugee Castilian knights and ladies and set up a Castilian chancery that prepared documents in his name according to the style of Peter of Castile , dated by the Castilian era and signed by himself with the Spanish formula "Yo El Rey" ("I, the King"). He hatched several schemes to make good his claim with an army, but for many years these were still-born owing to lack of finance or
10988-469: The age of three. When he became unpopular later in life, a scurrilous rumour circulated, along with lampoons , claiming that he was actually the son of a Ghent butcher . This rumour, which infuriated him, might have been inspired by the fact that Edward III had not been present at his birth. John's first wife, Blanche of Lancaster , was also his third cousin; both were great-great-grandchildren of King Henry III . They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey as
11152-404: The architectural characteristics, usually as their owners liked to maintain a link to the past and felt the term castle was a masculine expression of their power. In scholarship the castle, as defined above, is generally accepted as a coherent concept, originating in Europe and later spreading to parts of the Middle East, where they were introduced by European Crusaders. This coherent group shared
11316-551: The army to ride north under French safe conducts. Shortly after the army returned to Portugal, John of Gaunt concluded a secret treaty with John of Trastámara under which he and his wife renounced all claim to the Castilian throne in return for a large annual payment and the marriage of their daughter Catherine to John of Trastámara's son, Henry. John left Portugal for Aquitaine, and he remained in that province until he returned to England in November 1389. This effectively kept him off
11480-407: The attempts to make peace added to his unpopularity at a period when the majority of Englishmen believed victory would be in their grasp if only the French could be defeated decisively as they had been in the 1350s. Another motive was John's conviction that it was only by making peace with France would it be possible to release sufficient manpower to enforce his claim to the throne of Castile . After
11644-426: The bailey was the home of the rest of the lord's household and gave them protection. The barracks for the garrison, stables, workshops, and storage facilities were often found in the bailey. Water was supplied by a well or cistern . Over time the focus of high status accommodation shifted from the keep to the bailey; this resulted in the creation of another bailey that separated the high status buildings – such as
11808-513: The brink of civil war. John had to give up on his ambitions in Spain and hurry back to England in 1389. Only John's intervention in the political crisis succeeded in persuading the Lords Appellant and King Richard to compromise to usher in a period of relative stability. During the 1390s, John's reputation of devotion to the well-being of the kingdom was largely restored. John was married three times. His first wife, Blanche of Lancaster,
11972-467: The castle begins in 1361, when King Edward III bought land on the Isle of Sheppey from the manor of Rushenden at the little fishing hamlet of Bynne (or Bynnee); two houses which stood on the site had to be demolished and their occupants rehoused. The stated role of the castle was "for the defence of the realm and for the refuge of the inhabitants of the island". The 1360s were an uneasy peaceful interlude in
12136-606: The castle had a fish pond and a garden. The whole building was estimated by the Commissioners to "upwards of three acres of land". The first archaeological investigation of the site was in September 1991, commissioned by Swale Borough Council prior to the enlargement of the car park towards one side. It was carried out by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust ; four slot trenches were dug, much hindered by groundwater and rainwater runoff. The dig
12300-604: The castle, it was visited by Edward III who created a royal charter for the town which was being laid out close by, naming it Queenborough in honour of his queen consort , Philippa of Hainault. The office of Constable of Queenborough Castle was evidently a prestigious one and those appointed held high rank, notable constables included John of Gaunt , Duke of Lancaster (from 1377) (King Edward's third surviving son), Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland (from 1385), Thomas Arundel , Archbishop of Canterbury (from 1409) and George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (from 1461). Queenborough
12464-578: The complexity and style of castles, antiquarians found their answer in the Crusades. It seemed that the Crusaders had learned much about fortification from their conflicts with the Saracens and exposure to Byzantine architecture . There were legends such as that of Lalys – an architect from Palestine who reputedly went to Wales after the Crusades and greatly enhanced the castles in the south of
12628-486: The conflicting claims of war in France or with Scotland. It was only in 1386, after Portugal under its new King John I had entered into a full alliance with England, that he was actually able to land with an army in Spain and mount a campaign for the throne of Castile (that ultimately failed). John sailed from England on 9 July 1386 with a huge Anglo-Portuguese fleet carrying an army of about 5,000 men plus an extensive "royal" household and his wife and daughters. Pausing on
12792-454: The construction of castle sites through the examination of ceramics. The increase in Italy began in the 950s, with numbers of castles increasing by a factor of three to five every 50 years, whereas in other parts of Europe such as France and Spain the growth was slower. In 950, Provence was home to 12 castles; by 1000, this figure had risen to 30, and by 1030 it was over 100. Although
12956-474: The country – and it was assumed that great architects such as James of Saint George originated in the East. In the mid-20th century this view was cast into doubt. Legends were discredited, and in the case of James of Saint George it was proven that he came from Saint-Georges-d'Espéranche , in France. If the innovations in fortification had derived from the East, it would have been expected for their influence to be seen from 1100 onwards, immediately after
13120-463: The criterion of feudal ownership, thus tying castles to the medieval period; however, this does not necessarily reflect the terminology used in the medieval period. During the First Crusade (1096–1099), the Frankish armies encountered walled settlements and forts that they indiscriminately referred to as castles, but which would not be considered as such under the modern definition. Castles served
13284-525: The daughter of an ordinary knight (Sir Paon de Roet ), which would produce four children for the couple. All of them were born out of wedlock, but were legitimised upon their parents' eventual marriage. The adulterous relationship endured until 1381, when it was ended out of political necessity. On 13 January 1396, two years after the death of Constance of Castile, Katherine and John of Gaunt married in Lincoln Cathedral . Their children were given
13448-454: The death in 1376 of his older brother Edward of Woodstock (also known as the "Black Prince"), John of Gaunt contrived to protect the religious reformer John Wycliffe , possibly to counteract the growing secular power of the church. However, John's ascendancy to political power coincided with widespread resentment of his influence. At a time when English forces encountered setbacks in the Hundred Years' War against France, and Edward III's rule
13612-427: The defender if it was too small. A smaller horizontal opening could be added to give an archer a better view for aiming. Sometimes a sally port was included; this could allow the garrison to leave the castle and engage besieging forces. It was usual for the latrines to empty down the external walls of a castle and into the surrounding ditch. A postern is a secondary door or gate in a concealed location, usually in
13776-428: The dexter, and those of Castile and León on the sinister. He thus continued to signal his alliance with the Castilian royal house, while abandoning any claim to the throne. There is, however, evidence that he may occasionally have used this second marshalling at earlier dates. In addition to his royal arms, Gaunt bore an alternative coat of Sable, three ostrich feathers ermine . This was the counterpart to his brother,
13940-479: The direction of English foreign policy. From then until 1377, he was effectively the head of the English government owing to the illness of his father and elder brother, who were unable to exercise authority. His vast estates made him the richest man in England, and his great wealth, ostentatious display of it, autocratic manner and attitudes, enormous London mansion (the Savoy Palace on the Strand) and association with
14104-552: The dominant form of castle in England, Wales, and Ireland well into the 12th century. At the same time, castle architecture in mainland Europe became more sophisticated. The donjon was at the centre of this change in castle architecture in the 12th century. Central towers proliferated, and typically had a square plan, with walls 3 to 4 m (9.8 to 13.1 ft) thick. Their decoration emulated Romanesque architecture , and sometimes incorporated double windows similar to those found in church bell towers. Donjons, which were
14268-510: The dukes of Lancaster, York , and Gloucester , and a portion of line 76, "as three of you or tweyne," to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes. Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's "beste frend". Fortune states three times in her response to the plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive" (32, 40, 48); she also references his "beste frend" in
14432-594: The early 13th century, Crusader castles were mostly built by Military Orders including the Knights Hospitaller , Knights Templar , and Teutonic Knights . The orders were responsible for the foundation of sites such as Krak des Chevaliers , Margat , and Belvoir . Design varied not just between orders, but between individual castles, though it was common for those founded in this period to have concentric defences. John of Gaunt John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (6 March 1340 – 3 February 1399)
14596-413: The economy and justice. However, while castles proliferated in the 9th and 10th centuries the link between periods of insecurity and building fortifications is not always straightforward. Some high concentrations of castles occur in secure places, while some border regions had relatively few castles. It is likely that the castle evolved from the practice of fortifying a lordly home. The greatest threat to
14760-481: The enterprise and sailed for home. John's final campaign in France took place in 1378. He planned a 'great expedition' of mounted men in a large armada of ships to land at Brest and take control of Brittany. Not enough ships could be found to transport the horses, and the expedition was tasked with the more limited objective of capturing St. Malo . The English destroyed the shipping in St. Malo harbour and began to assault
14924-538: The envoy when appealing to his "noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. A fifth reference is made by "Chaucer as narrator" who rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend from him. While the envoy playfully hints to Lancaster that Chaucer would certainly appreciate a boost to his status or income, the poem Fortune distinctively shows his deep appreciation and affection for John of Gaunt. John of Gaunt died of natural causes on 3 February 1399 at Leicester Castle , with his third wife Katherine by his side. He
15088-612: The failed peace process at Bruges combined to make him the most visible target of social resentments. His time at the head of government was marked by the so-called Good Parliament of 1376 and the Bad Parliament of 1377. The first, called to grant massive war taxation to the Crown, turned into a parliamentary revolution, with the Commons (supported to some extent by the Lords) venting their grievances at decades of crippling taxation, misgovernment, and suspected endemic corruption among
15252-549: The failure of his expedition to Saint-Malo in 1378 did nothing for his reputation. By this time, too, some of his possessions were taken from him by the Crown. For example, his ship, the Dieulagarde , was seized and bundled with other royal ships to be sold to pay off the debts of Sir Robert de Crull , who during the latter part of King Edward III 's reign had been the Clerk of the King's Ships , and had advanced monies to pay for
15416-452: The first poll tax in English history—a viciously regressive measure that bore hardest on the poorest members of society. There was organised opposition to his measures and rioting in London; John of Gaunt's arms were reversed or defaced wherever they were displayed, and protestors pasted up lampoons on his supposedly dubious birth. At one point he was forced to take refuge across the Thames, while his Savoy Palace only just escaped looting. It
15580-414: The first story upwards". About 30 yards (27 metres) out from the rotunda was a plain circular curtain wall enclosing a bailey our outer court. The curtain had only two towers which formed a gatehouse for the main entrance at the western side, meaning that any attackers who forced this gate would have had to make their way around to the other side of the bailey to find the rotunda entrance. The curtain wall
15744-466: The future, but most importantly, "And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve" (32, 40, 48). Chaucer retorts that "My frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse" (50) and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends. Fortune turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter estat he may atteyne" (78–79). The three princes are believed to represent
15908-541: The garrison to control the surrounding area, and formed a centre of administration, providing the lord with a place to hold court . Building a castle sometimes required the permission of the king or other high authority. In 864 the King of West Francia, Charles the Bald , prohibited the construction of castella without his permission and ordered them all to be destroyed. This is perhaps the earliest reference to castles, though military historian R. Allen Brown points out that
16072-404: The heart of the king's household. John impeached William of Wykeham and other leaders of the reform movement, and secured their conviction on old or trumped-up charges. The parliament of 1377 was John's counter-coup: crucially, the Lords no longer supported the Commons and John was able to have most of the acts of 1376 annulled. He also succeeded in forcing the Commons to agree to the imposition of
16236-703: The immediate proximity of these fortifications. After the First Crusade, Crusaders who did not return to their homes in Europe helped found the Crusader states of the Principality of Antioch , the County of Edessa , the Kingdom of Jerusalem , and the County of Tripoli . The castles they founded to secure their acquisitions were designed mostly by Syrian master-masons. Their design was very similar to that of
16400-417: The important lost monuments. Dukes (except Aquitaine ) and Princes of Wales are noted, as are the monarchs' reigns. † =Killed in action; [REDACTED] =Executed See also Family tree of English monarchs As a son of the sovereign, John bore the royal arms of the kingdom ( Quarterly, France Ancient and England ), differenced by a label of three points ermine. As claimant to
16564-428: The increase was slower in Spain, the 1020s saw a particular growth in the number of castles in the region, particularly in contested border areas between Christian and Muslim lands. Despite the common period in which castles rose to prominence in Europe, their form and design varied from region to region. In the early 11th century, the motte and keep – an artificial mound with a palisade and tower on top –
16728-563: The journey to use his army to drive off the French forces who were then besieging Brest , he landed at Corunna in northern Spain on 29 July. The Castilian king, John of Trastámara , had expected John would land in Portugal and had concentrated his forces on the Portuguese border. He was wrong-footed by John's decision to invade Galicia , the most distant and disaffected of Castile's kingdoms. From August to October, John of Gaunt set up
16892-512: The kind of dazzling success that had made his elder brother Edward the Black Prince such a charismatic war leader. On the resumption of war with France in 1369, John was sent to Calais with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and a small English army with which he raided into northern France. On 23 August, he was confronted by a much larger French army under Philip the Bold , Duke of Burgundy. Exercising his first command, John dared not attack such
17056-458: The king's ships. During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, John of Gaunt was far from the centre of events, on the March of Scotland, but he was among those named by the rebels as a traitor to be beheaded as soon as he could be found. The Savoy Palace was systematically destroyed by the mob and burned to the ground. Nominally friendly lords and even his own fortresses closed their gates to him, and John
17220-571: The land he had taken. Between 1066 and 1087, he established 36 castles such as Warwick Castle , which he used to guard against rebellion in the English Midlands . Towards the end of the Middle Ages, castles tended to lose their military significance due to the advent of powerful cannons and permanent artillery fortifications; as a result, castles became more important as residences and statements of power. A castle could act as
17384-506: The landward route, leading an army of some 9,000 mounted men from Calais on a great chevauchée from north-eastern to south-western France on a 900-kilometre raid. This four-month ride through enemy territory, evading French armies on the way, was a bold stroke that impressed contemporaries but achieved virtually nothing. Beset on all sides by French ambushes and plagued by disease and starvation, John of Gaunt and his raiders battled their way through Champagne, east of Paris, into Burgundy, across
17548-414: The lay of the land (the result was often irregular or curvilinear structures). The design of castles was not uniform, but these were features that could be found in a typical castle in the mid-12th century. By the end of the 12th century or the early 13th century, a newly constructed castle could be expected to be polygonal in shape, with towers at the corners to provide enfilading fire for
17712-499: The lord's chambers and the chapel – from the everyday structures such as the workshops and barracks. From the late 12th century there was a trend for knights to move out of the small houses they had previously occupied within the bailey to live in fortified houses in the countryside. Although often associated with the motte-and-bailey type of castle, baileys could also be found as independent defensive structures. These simple fortifications were called ringworks . The enceinte
17876-530: The loss of at least one-third of their force in action and another third to disease. Upon arrival in Bordeaux, many more succumbed to the bubonic plague that was raging in the city. Sick, demoralised and mutinous, the army was in no shape to defend Aquitaine, and soldiers began to desert. John had no funds with which to pay them, and despite his entreaties, none were sent from England, so in April 1374, he abandoned
18040-420: The loss of the donjon. Where keeps did exist, they were no longer square but polygonal or cylindrical. Gateways were more strongly defended, with the entrance to the castle usually between two half-round towers which were connected by a passage above the gateway – although there was great variety in the styles of gateway and entrances – and one or more portcullis. A peculiar feature of Muslim castles in
18204-467: The main living quarters of the castle and usually the most strongly defended point of a castle before the introduction of concentric defence . "Keep" was not a term used in the medieval period – the term was applied from the 16th century onwards – instead " donjon " was used to refer to great towers, or turris in Latin. In motte-and-bailey castles, the keep was on top of the motte. "Dungeon"
18368-513: The materials. In 1723, the Royal Navy surveyed the well which had survived the demolition and found it to be 200 feet (61 metres) deep and lined with Portland stone . After further deepening, they were able to extract “good, soft, sweet and fine” water for the dockyard at Sheerness . In 1860, the Sheerness branch line railway opened, having cut through the eastern part of the site and
18532-495: The most detailed being the 1650 report of the Parliamentary Commissioners. The circular rotunda enclosed a central paved courtyard with a "great well" in the middle. The exterior wall of the rotunda had six circular towers regularly spaced, apart from the two which protected the main, eastern entrance. The Commissioners reported that the rotunda contained twelve rooms "downstairs" and "about forty rooms from
18696-444: The move, to elaborate permanent stone constructions, notably the milecastles of Hadrian's Wall . Roman forts were generally rectangular with rounded corners – a "playing-card shape". In the medieval period, castles were influenced by earlier forms of elite architecture, contributing to regional variations. Importantly, while castles had military aspects, they contained a recognisable household structure within their walls, reflecting
18860-438: The multi-functional use of these buildings. The subject of the emergence of castles in Europe is a complex matter which has led to considerable debate. Discussions have typically attributed the rise of the castle to a reaction to attacks by Magyars , Muslims , and Vikings and a need for private defence. The breakdown of the Carolingian Empire led to the privatisation of government, and local lords assumed responsibility for
19024-420: The narrator relates the tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love, "And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949). The phrase "long castel" is a reference to Lancaster (also called "Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is thought to likely be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan"
19188-573: The number of castles being built went into decline. This has been partly attributed to the higher cost of stone-built fortifications, and the obsolescence of timber and earthwork sites, which meant it was preferable to build in more durable stone. Although superseded by their stone successors, timber and earthwork castles were by no means useless. This is evidenced by the continual maintenance of timber castles over long periods, sometimes several centuries; Owain Glyndŵr 's 11th-century timber castle at Sycharth
19352-567: The only royal castle to be new-built in England during the Late Middle Ages . Overlooking the Swale , then an important waterway approaching the River Medway , Queenborough Castle formed part of the country's coastal defences until 1650 when it was declared to be unfit for use and was almost completely demolished shortly afterwards. The site is now a public park and the only visible remains are some low earthworks. The history of
19516-489: The political problems in Gascony and England. For the remainder of his life, John of Gaunt occupied the role of valued counsellor of the king and loyal supporter of the Crown. He did not even protest, it seems, when his younger brother Thomas was murdered at Richard's behest. It may be that he felt he had to maintain this posture of loyalty to protect his son Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV ), who had also been one of
19680-523: The pope know he would be interested in a diplomatic conference under papal auspices. This approach led indirectly to the Anglo-French Congress of Bruges in 1374–77, which resulted in the short-lived Truce of Bruges between the two sides. John was himself a delegate to the various conferences that eventually resulted in the Truce of Leulinghem in 1389. The fact that he became identified with
19844-502: The presence of pipes and by an air raid shelter . Excavation trenches were able to locate remnants of the outer curtain wall in a robber trench and demolition rubble which had been pushed into the moat, also fragments of walls inside the bailey thought to be from the walled passageways leading from the gate. One trench yielded fragments of moulded stone and Flemish brick, likely from the main castle building. Finds included sixteen small sherds of medieval pottery, five coins and tokens, one
20008-405: The properties which they had acquired from the crown. The report on the condition of Queenborough Castle described it as "much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth" and judged that it was "not fit to be kept, but demolished". The castle was sold to one John Wilkinson for £1,792, twelve shillings and one halfpenny ; he demolished the entire castle down to the foundations and sold
20172-466: The province, but remained in England and mainly ruled through seneschals as an absentee duke. His administration of the province was a disappointment, and his appointment as duke was much resented by the Gascons, since Aquitaine had previously always been held directly by the king of England or his heir; it was not felt to be a fief that a king could bestow on a subordinate. From 1394 through 1395, he
20336-554: The reformation when other stonework in the cathedral was taken down in 1552, the tomb was spared by an command of the council , but was stripped plain. During the period of the Interregnum (1649–1660) it was severely damaged, and perhaps destroyed; anything that survived was lost (with the rest of the cathedral) in the Great Fire of London of 1666. A wall memorial in the crypt of the present cathedral lists Gaunt's as among
20500-424: The residence of the lord of the castle, evolved to become more spacious. The design emphasis of donjons changed to reflect a shift from functional to decorative requirements, imposing a symbol of lordly power upon the landscape. This sometimes led to compromising defence for the sake of display. Until the 12th century, stone-built and earth and timber castles were contemporary, but by the late 12th century
20664-481: The rest of the Lancaster property when Blanche's sister Maud, Countess of Leicester (married to William V, Count of Hainaut ), died without issue on 10 April 1362. John received the title "Duke of Lancaster" from his father on 13 November 1362. By then well established, he owned at least thirty castles and estates across England and France and maintained a household comparable in scale and organisation to that of
20828-403: The ruling classes. John was left isolated (even the Black Prince supported the need for reform) and the Commons refused to grant money for the war unless most of the great officers of state were dismissed and the king's mistress Alice Perrers , another focus of popular resentment, was barred from any further association with him. But even after the government acceded to virtually all their demands,
20992-498: The scene while England endured the major political crisis of the conflict between Richard II and the Lords Appellant , who were led by John of Gaunt's younger brother Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester . Only four months after his return to England, in March 1390, Richard II formally invested Gaunt with the Duchy of Aquitaine, thus providing him with the overseas territory he had long desired. However, he did not immediately return to
21156-482: The south side of the Minho river and concluded an agreement with him to make a joint Anglo-Portuguese invasion of central Castile early in 1387. The treaty was sealed by the marriage of John's eldest daughter Philippa to the Portuguese king. A large part of John's army had succumbed to sickness, however, and when the invasion was mounted, they were far outnumbered by their Portuguese allies. The campaign of April–June 1387
21320-542: The structures also served as centres of administration and symbols of power. Urban castles were used to control the local populace and important travel routes, and rural castles were often situated near features that were integral to life in the community, such as mills, fertile land, or a water source. Many northern European castles were originally built from earth and timber but had their defences replaced later by stone . Early castles often exploited natural defences, lacking features such as towers and arrowslits and relying on
21484-472: The surname " Beaufort " after a former French possession of the duke. The Beaufort children, three sons and a daughter, were legitimised by royal and papal decrees after John and Katherine married. A later proviso that they were specifically barred from inheriting the throne—the phrase excepta regali dignitate ("except royal status")—was inserted with dubious authority by their half-brother Henry IV. However as historian and author Nathen Amin points out there
21648-544: The survivors of the sickly army returned to Calais, where the Earl of Warwick died of the plague. Though it seemed an inglorious conclusion to the campaign, John had forced the French king, Charles V , to abandon his plans to invade England that autumn. In the summer of 1370, John was sent with a small army to Aquitaine to reinforce his ailing elder brother, the Black Prince, and his younger brother Edmund of Langley, Duke of York , Earl of Cambridge. With them, he participated in
21812-418: The throne of Castile and León from 1372, he impaled the arms of that kingdom ( Gules, a castle or, quartering Argent, a lion rampant purpure ) with his own. The arms of Castile and León appeared on the dexter side of the shield (the left-hand side as viewed), and the differenced English royal arms on the sinister; but in 1388, when he surrendered his claim, he reversed this marshalling, placing his own arms on
21976-419: The town by land on 14 August, but John was soon hampered by the size of his army, which was unable to forage because French armies under Olivier de Clisson and Bertrand du Guesclin occupied the surrounding countryside, harrying the edges of his force. In September, the siege was simply abandoned and the army returned ingloriously to England. John of Gaunt received most of the blame for the debâcle. Partly as
22140-524: The town prepared for a siege. John invested the town for four days in October, but he was losing so many men to dysentery and bubonic plague that he decided to abandon the siege and return to Calais. During this retreat, the army had to fight its way across the Somme at the ford of Blanchetaque against a French army led by Hugh de Châtillon, who was captured and sold to Edward III. By the middle of November,
22304-571: The wall around the city of Ávila imitated Roman architecture when it was built in 1091. Historian Smail in Crusading warfare argued that the case for the influence of Eastern fortification on the West has been overstated, and that Crusaders of the 12th century in fact learned very little about scientific design from Byzantine and Saracen defences. A well-sited castle that made use of natural defences and had strong ditches and walls had no need for
22468-413: The walls. The towers would have protruded from the walls and featured arrowslits on each level to allow archers to target anyone nearing or at the curtain wall. These later castles did not always have a keep, but this may have been because the more complex design of the castle as a whole drove up costs and the keep was sacrificed to save money. The larger towers provided space for habitation to make up for
22632-460: The word castella may have applied to any fortification at the time. In some countries the monarch had little control over lords, or required the construction of new castles to aid in securing the land so was unconcerned about granting permission – as was the case in England in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest and the Holy Land during the Crusades . Switzerland is an extreme case of there being no state control over who built castles, and as
22796-424: Was John of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond; these thinly veiled references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is the English translation of the French word "blanche", implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster. Believed to have been written in the 1390s, Chaucer's short poem Fortune ,
22960-637: Was Philippa Chaucer's sister, as his third wife in 1396. Although Philippa died c. 1387 , the men were bound as brothers and Lancaster's children by Katherine—John, Henry, Thomas and Joan Beaufort —were Chaucer's nephews and niece. Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess , also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse , was written in commemoration of Blanche of Lancaster , John of Gaunt's first wife. The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as
23124-648: Was also his third cousin; both were great-great-grandchildren of King Henry III. They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey. They had seven children; only three survived to adulthood. After Blanche's death in 1368, shortly after the birth of her last child, John married, in 1371, Infanta Constance of Castile, daughter of King Peter of Castile, giving him a claim to the Crown of Castile. They had one daughter. Constance died in 1394. During his second marriage, some time around 1373 (the approximate birth year of their eldest son, John Beaufort ) John of Gaunt entered into an extra-marital love affair with Katherine Swynford (born de Roet),
23288-422: Was an English royal prince, military leader, and statesman. He was the fourth son (third surviving) of King Edward III of England , and the father of King Henry IV . Because of Gaunt's royal origin, advantageous marriages, and some generous land grants, he was one of the richest men of his era, and was an influential figure during the reigns of both his father and his nephew, Richard II . As Duke of Lancaster, he
23452-513: Was an ignominious failure. The Castilians refused to offer battle and the Galician-Anglo-Portuguese troops, apart from time-wasting sieges of fortified towns, were reduced to foraging for food in the arid Spanish landscape. They were harried mainly by French mercenaries of the Castilian king. Many hundreds of English, including close friends and retainers of John of Gaunt, died of disease or exhaustion. Many deserted or abandoned
23616-526: Was becoming unpopular owing to high taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers , political opinion closely associated the Duke of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s. Furthermore, while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes because of their successes on the battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation. Although he fought in
23780-431: Was buried beside his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster , in the choir of St Paul's Cathedral , adjacent to the high altar. Their magnificent tomb had been designed and executed between 1374 and 1380 by Henry Yevele with the assistance of Thomas Wrek, at a total cost of £592. The two alabaster effigies were notable for having their right hands joined. An adjacent chantry chapel was added between 1399 and 1403. During
23944-625: Was called a hall-house. Historian Charles Coulson states that the accumulation of wealth and resources, such as food, led to the need for defensive structures. The earliest fortifications originated in the Fertile Crescent , the Indus Valley , Europe, Egypt, and China where settlements were protected by large walls. In Northern Europe , hill forts were first developed in the Bronze Age , which then proliferated across Europe in
24108-477: Was common, and usually between local lords. Castles were introduced into England shortly before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Before the 12th century castles were as uncommon in Denmark as they had been in England before the Norman Conquest. The introduction of castles to Denmark was a reaction to attacks from Wendish pirates, and they were usually intended as coastal defences. The motte and bailey remained
24272-404: Was completed by about 1367 at a cost of some £20,000. The castle was built to a radical concentric design, the first of its type to be built in England. It consisted of a large circular building, described as a rotunda or shell keep , buttressed by six projecting towers and having a central circular courtyard. This main building was surrounded by an outer circular curtain wall and a moat . It
24436-505: Was exclusively for pleasance and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls , arrowslits , and portcullises , were commonplace. European-style castles originated in
24600-439: Was forced to flee into Scotland with a handful of retainers and throw himself on the charity of King Robert II of Scotland until the crisis was over. Upon his marriage to Constance of Castile in 1371, John assumed (officially from 29 January 1372) the title of King of Castile and León in right of his wife , and insisted his fellow English nobles henceforth address him as "my lord of Spain". He impaled his arms with those of
24764-530: Was forced to spend nearly a year in Gascony to shore up his position in the face of threats of secession by the Gascon nobles. He was one of England's principal negotiators in the diplomatic exchanges with France that led to the Truce of Leulinghem in 1396, and he initially agreed to join the French-led Crusade that ended in the disastrous Battle of Nicopolis , but withdrew because of ill-health and
24928-430: Was in short supply. Although stone construction would later become common elsewhere, from the 11th century onwards it was the primary building material for Christian castles in Spain, while at the same time timber was still the dominant building material in north-west Europe. Historians have interpreted the widespread presence of castles across Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries as evidence that warfare
25092-556: Was introduced to Europe in the 14th century, it did not significantly affect castle building until the 15th century, when artillery became powerful enough to break through stone walls. While castles continued to be built well into the 16th century, new techniques to deal with improved cannon fire made them uncomfortable and undesirable places to live. As a result, true castles went into decline and were replaced by artillery star forts with no role in civil administration, and château or country houses that were indefensible. From
25256-420: Was made in the upper storey of the gatehouse for accommodation so the gate was never left undefended, although this arrangement later evolved to become more comfortable at the expense of defence. During the 13th and 14th centuries the barbican was developed. This consisted of a rampart , ditch, and possibly a tower, in front of the gatehouse which could be used to further protect the entrance. The purpose of
25420-468: Was no parliamentary ratification of this scribbled in amendment. Further testing and analysis on these three words is required to determine when exactly they were added. There is every possibility they were added as a later proviso during the height of the Wars of the Roses as a means to discredit any heirs of Margaret Beaufort. On his return from France in 1374, John took a more decisive and persistent role in
25584-419: Was not always the case and there are instances where a motte existed on its own. "Motte" refers to the mound alone, but it was often surmounted by a fortified structure, such as a keep, and the flat top would be surrounded by a palisade . It was common for the motte to be reached over a flying bridge (a bridge over the ditch from the counterscarp of the ditch to the edge of the top of the mound), as shown in
25748-417: Was often the weakest part in a circuit of defences. To overcome this, the gatehouse was developed, allowing those inside the castle to control the flow of traffic. In earth and timber castles, the gateway was usually the first feature to be rebuilt in stone. The front of the gateway was a blind spot and to overcome this, projecting towers were added on each side of the gate in a style similar to that developed by
25912-458: Was one of the residences which Edward III visited frequently during the latter part of his reign. On 21 April 1450, Queenborough Castle was attacked by a French force in a coastal raid, and in July of the same year, easily repelled an attack by Jack Cade and his rebels, during which Cade himself was wounded. King Henry VIII repaired the castle in 1536, and an account written in 1629 describes seeing
26076-446: Was rumoured (and believed by many people in England and France) that he intended to seize the throne for himself and supplant the rightful heir, his nephew Richard, the son of the Black Prince, but there seems to have been no truth in this and on the death of Edward III and the accession of the child Richard II, John sought no position of regency for himself and withdrew to his estates. John's personal unpopularity persisted, however, and
26240-422: Was still in use by the start of the 15th century, its structure having been maintained for four centuries. At the same time there was a change in castle architecture. Until the late 12th century castles generally had few towers; a gateway with few defensive features such as arrowslits or a portcullis; a great keep or donjon, usually square and without arrowslits; and the shape would have been dictated by
26404-406: Was surrounded by a large circular moat. Opposite the rotunda entrance was a postern , a small secondary gate for pedestrians. The postern and the main gate were linked to the rotunda by walled passages which divided the bailey. It is known from the castle records that two stone buildings were built in the bailey from 1369 to 1377, although their form and function are unknown. Records also suggest that
26568-425: Was the castle's main defensive enclosure, and the terms "bailey" and "enceinte" are linked. A castle could have several baileys but only one enceinte. Castles with no keep, which relied on their outer defences for protection, are sometimes called enceinte castles; these were the earliest form of castles, before the keep was introduced in the 10th century. A keep was a great tower or other building that served as
26732-516: Was the most common form of castle in Europe, everywhere except Scandinavia. While Britain, France, and Italy shared a tradition of timber construction that was continued in castle architecture, Spain more commonly used stone or mud-brick as the main building material. The Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century introduced a style of building developed in North Africa reliant on tapial , pebbles in cement, where timber
26896-522: Was the son of Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault , and was born in Ghent in Flanders , most likely at Saint Bavo's Abbey , in March 1340. The name by which he has become best known, of Gaunt , was derived from an anglicised form of his birthplace, Ghent. Its use was popularised by Shakespeare in his play Richard II . However, during John's lifetime, he was not referred to as this after
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