A good, quite easy to read history study (over 260 pages), not dry but very informative and interesting. Most of the ruins of Castles today in Britain stem from this particular agenda, to stop any sort of rebellion against the Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell.

The book ends at this point, and after the defeat of Charles Ist, then a program of rendering the Castles useless was implemented, to some degree of success. We can see this starting essentially from the English Civil War of the 1640s and afterwards. The book is both a general, quite easy going history of Britains Castle heritage as well as an architectural discussion as well.Īs the Medieval years progressed, then slowly with the invention of gunpowder and cannon, then the Castles became less and less useful. From King Henry II and Edward 1st and his particular conquest and defeat of Prince Llewellyn of Wales, then stone Castle building was a prosperous industry (costly and it took at least a decade to build them), and as I stated they were both an intimidating and a residence for Lords of the Manor and so on. This book Marc Morris has written is both a chronological history of the Castles uses as well as giving a little bit of history of the period, right up to the English Civil War of the 1640's, along with an architectural aspect describing the particular designs certain Castles had. Their purpose it seems was both meant to be intimidating towards the local population as well as a place of residence for the Lords that King William the First had created after the conquest. Carrying on from that (the first stone Castle was the Tower of London and Dover Castle), under the reign of King Henry II then the stone Castles started to appear. They were meant as a defense against a hostile population after the 1066 invasion. after William of Normandy's conquest, then they sprang up over the whole of the UK. Prior to the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, there were already a few of these in Britain.

We start from the 11th Century, with the formation of the Norman Motte and Baily, basically earthen works surrounded by timber defenses. This is an informative subject about the rise of the Castle in the UK.

The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris