turers who were rewarded for their services by the gift of
many an English manor, built castles everywhere. The wretched men of
the land were cruelly oppressed by forced labour in erecting these
strongholds, which were filled "with devils and evil men." Over a
thousand castles were built in nineteen years, and in his own castle
each earl or lord reigned as a small king, coining his own money, making
his own laws, having power of life and death over his dependants, and
often using his power most violently and oppressively.

[Illustration: OLD SARUM]

The original Norman castle consisted of a keep, "four-square to every
wind that blew," standing in a bailey court. It was a mighty place with
walls of great thickness about one hundred and fifty feet high. It
contained several rooms, one above the other. A deep well supplied the
inhabitants with water. Spiral stone steps laid in the thickness of the
wall led to the first floor where the soldiers of the garrison resided.
Above this was the hall, with a chimney and fireplace, where the lord
of the castle and his guests had their meals, and in the thickness of
the wall there were numerous chambers used as sleeping-apartments and
garderobes, and the existence of a piscina in one of these shows that it
was a small chapel or oratory. The upper story was divided by wooden
partitions into small sleeping-rooms; and unlike our modern houses, the
kitchen was at the top of the keep, and opened on the roof.

Descending some stone steps which led from the ground floor in ancient
time we should visit the dungeons, dark, gloomy, and dreadful places,
where deep silence reigns, only broken by the groans of despairing
captives in the miserable cells. In one of these toads and adders were
the companions of the captive. Another poor wretch reposed on a bed of
sharp flints, while the torture-chamber echoed with the cries of the
victims of mediaeval cruelty, who were hanged by their feet and smoked
with foul smoke, or hung up by their thumbs, while burning rings were
placed on their feet. In Peak Castle, Derbyshire, a poor, simple squire,
one Godfrey Rowland, was confined for six days without either food or
drink, and then released from the dungeon with his right hand cut off.
In order to extract a heavy ransom, to obtain lands and estates, to
learn the secrets of hidden treasure, the most ingenious and devilish
tortures were inflicted in these terrible abodes.

[Illustration: A NORMAN CASTLE