ilitary and perhaps a
naval fortress, built not earlier than the fourth century here at the
western extremity of what the Romans called the Litus Saxonicum, and
for the purpose of defending southern Britain from the raids of these
barbarous and pagan rogues. If so, it might seem to be of one piece
with that presumably purely military Way the Stane Street, and to give
it its meaning.

At any rate, the mediaeval builder of Porchester Castle used, with the
help of rebuildings and patchings, the Roman fortifications, which did
not perhaps differ very much, and not at all in form, from those we
see. Roman Porchester was just what mediaeval Porchester was, a great
fortress, not a "city," nor a village, but a port similar to the others
that lined the Saxon shore from the Wash to Beachey Head.

Of what became of the place in Saxon times we are entirely ignorant.
The Domesday Survey speaks of it as a "halla," but in the first half of
the twelfth century the Normans built a castle in the north-west corner
of the Roman enclosure, which in 1153 Henry II. granted to Henry
Manduit, and from that time it appears as the military port, as it
were, of the capital, Winchester; Henry II. Richard I. John and Henry
III. not only frequently taking up their residence at Porchester, and
there as in a strong place, transacting the most important business,
but they all of them most frequently set out thence for the Continent
in days when a king of England was as often abroad as at home. Except
Edward I. there is scarcely an English king from Henry II. to Henry
VIII. who did not use Porchester, and Elizabeth, the last royal
visitor, held her court in the Castle.

As we see it to-day the keep of Porchester Castle resembles that of
Rochester, not only in its appearance, though there it comes short, but
in its arrangement. It is, however, surrounded by some later ruins of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the use of which has, I think,
never been ascertained.

The whole place is extraordinarily impressive, and not less so on
account of its containing a church within the Roman walls, possibly
occupying the site of a Roman sanctuary. The church of Our Lady of
Porchester, however, as we see it, was, of course, a Norman building,
built not later than 1133 when Henry I. gave it to the Austin Canons as
their priory church, but about 1145 the canons were removed to
Southwick, where a house was built for them. They must, indeed, have
been very muc