ined plan of a close fortress, is
very striking." The provisions for defence became now, however, little
more than nugatory; large arched windows, like those of cathedrals,
were introduced into halls, and this change in architecture manifestly
bears witness to the cessation of baronial wars and the increasing love
of splendour in the reign of Edward III.

To these succeeded the castellated houses of the fifteenth century, such
as Herstmonceux in Sussex, Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, and the older part
of Knowle in Kent.[659] They resembled fortified castles in their strong
gateways, their turrets and battlements, to erect which a royal licence
was necessary; but their defensive strength could only have availed
against a sudden affray or attempt at forcible dispossession. They were
always built round one or two court-yards, the circumference of the
first, when they were two, being occupied by the offices and servants'
rooms, that of the second by the state-apartments. Regular quadrangular
houses, not castellated, were sometimes built during the same age, and
under Henry VII. became universal in the superior style of domestic
architecture.[660] The quadrangular form, as well from security and
convenience as from imitation of conventual houses, which were always
constructed upon that model, was generally preferred--even where the
dwelling-house, as indeed was usual, only took up one side of the
enclosure, and the remaining three contained the offices, stables, and
farm-buildings, with walls of communication. Several very old parsonages
appear to have been built in this manner.[661] It is, however, not very
easy to discover any large fragments of houses inhabited by the gentry
before the reign, at soonest, of Edward III., or even to trace them by
engravings in the older topographical works, not only from the
dilapidations of time, but because very few considerable mansions had
been erected by that class. A great part of England affords no stone fit
for building, and the vast though unfortunately not inexhaustible
resources of her oak forests were easily applied to less durable and
magnificent structures. A frame of massive timber, independent of walls
and resembling the inverted hull of a large ship, formed the skeleton,
as it were, of an ancient hall--the principal beams springing from the
ground naturally curved, and forming a Gothic arch overhead. The
intervals of these were filled up with horizontal planks; but in the
earl