Bygone Berkshire. Various

      Whatever fortress existed in Edward's day was held by Wigod, the kinsman and cupbearer to the King; and the fact that Wigod favoured the cause of the Norman Duke, coupled with the circumstance of an advantageous position on an important ford of the river, caused Wallingford and its Castle to become what they were in history.

      Hither, in consequence of the welcome offered by the English Thane, William came after the Battle of Hastings, when London was fortified against him; and here he received the homage of Archbishop Stigand and the English nobles. Before moving back towards London he made the Norman influence secure at Wallingford by the marriage of his favourite chieftain, Robert D'Oilgi, with Wigod's daughter, who became eventually, if she was not already, heiress of the castle; for her only brother fell in battle, fighting by William's side against his son Robert. The King remained to take part in the festivities of the marriage, and ordered D'Oilgi to build a castle upon his new inheritance. In five years the castle was completed. D'Oilgi had an only daughter, Maud, who was married to another Norman chieftain, Milo Crispin, and after his death she became the wife of Brien Fitz-Count.

      Tradition and history point to each of these lords in turn as having made additions to the castle which their father-in-law erected; for Crispin is said to have been the founder of the Collegiate Church in the southern precinct, and Fitz-Count is recorded as the builder of the famous dungeon called Cloere Brien, or Brien's Close, in the north-western precinct. Further additions and renovations were made in later times; but under these Norman owners the Castle must have extended itself to the dimensions which it retained to the last, and of which we can still trace the relics.

      RUINS, WALLINGFORD CASTLE.

      From the river bank a few yards above the bridge it is easy to form an idea of what the great Norman fortress was. The lofty mound upon which the Keep was built, perhaps a prehistoric tumulus in its origin, is still the most prominent object, though all vestiges of the tower and its outworks have now disappeared, giving place to a luxuriant growth of forest trees. Close beside this mound, traces of the southern moat are to be seen, opening out upon the ditch which still separates the castle grounds from the meadow beside the river. The broken ground rising within the ditch shows the line of the eastern front of the castle with its projecting bastions overlooking the river, though all that now remains is an ivy-covered ruin with the opening of a large window, known as the Queen's Tower. In the background, and more to the right, is another fragmentary ruin, forming a central portion of the north wall; while a modern boat-house marks the outflow of the moat at its north-eastern angle. From this point along the northern front a triple entrenchment is clearly shown by the undulations of the ground; the innermost ditch, close beneath the wall, being the moat of the Castle itself, while the second is the moat of the Castle precincts enclosing a space of intermediate ground on the west and south, and the outermost is the moat which enclosed the whole town; the three being brought close together in parallel lines along this side of the Castle. It must have been from this point of view, that Leland, in Henry the Eighth's reign, described the Castle as having "three dikes, large, deep, and well watered; about each of the two first dikes are embattled walls, sore in ruin and for the most part defaced; all the goodly buildings, with the towers and dungeon, be within the three dikes." Camden, who tells that "the size and magnificence of the Castle used to strike me with amazement when I came hither, a lad, from Oxford," describes it more accurately as "environed with a double wall and a double ditch."

      South of the great mound and its protecting moat is the ruined tower and south wall of the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, now surmounted by a modern turret; and adjoining it are some fragments of the other buildings of the college, with a good doorway and some windows of perpendicular character. Beyond these ruins a large portion of the second moat is to be seen. The south-western angle of the precincts, with the banks of the moat well preserved before it and behind it, is occupied by the modern dwelling-house. Lastly, near the north-western angle, where this outer precinct ends, the site of Brien Fitzcount's dungeon is shown; and the remains of it, with massive rings fixed to the stonework, existed here within the present century.

      If the Norman Conqueror himself gained no direct advantage from the castle which he required D'Oilgi to build, his policy certainly bore its fruit in the days of his grandchildren. In the civil wars of Stephen's reign Brien Fitzcount was a leading supporter of Maud, the daughter of Henry Beauclerk and widow of the Emperor Henry IV. of Germany. The escape of the Empress from Oxford Castle, her flight in white garments through snow and ice by night to Abingdon, and her safe arrival at Wallingford Castle, are a familiar tale, perhaps embellished through the ages, but well grounded in history. Stephen set up opposing forts across the river at Crowmarsh, and traces of them may still be seen on either side of the road near the eastern end of the bridge, while the meadow on the north is still called the Barbican.