no castles, — at least none of sufficient strength to have survived till our times. We look therefore in vain amongst the walls of Pevensey for any trace of Saxon building.[1]
At the Norman Conquest Pevensey became the property of the Conqueror's half-brother Robert, Earl of Mortain, and as it was the head of a great barony, there can be no doubt that that potent noble soon fortified the ruinated works by extensive repairs and by the addition of a new castle at the south-eastern corner of the Roman area. To him and to his successors in the barony we may then reasonably assign the medieval fortress. That a castle of considerable strength existed here in those times is evident from the following historical data:
a. d. 1088. The Earl of Mortain and Odo, bishop of Bayeux, held the castle of Pevensey on behalf of Duke Robert. Odo surrendered after a six weeks' siege to William Rufus.
a. d. 1144. Pevensey was held by Henry Fitz-Empress afterwards King Henry II. It was entrusted to Gilbert de Clare, and besieged by Stephen in person, who finding it too strong to he taken by storm, left a body of men before it to reduce it by famine.
a. d. 1216. William 6th Earl of Warenne held Pevensey, but taking part with Louis, Dauphin of France, against King John, the latter ordered him to surrender his castle of Pevensey to Matthew Fitz-Herbert, who was commanded to demolish it. What steps Fitz-Herbert took on the occasion is not recorded.
a. d. 1264. John Earl of Warenne and other barons, basely deserting the standard of King Henry III at the battle of Lewes, took temporary shelter in Pevensey Castle.
a. d. 1265. The castle was held for Henry III by the troops of Peter de Savoy, and besieged by Simon, son of Simon de Montfort, the baronial leader.
After the final seizure of Pevensey Castle by the crown in the thirteenth century, it seems to have been less exposed to the injuries of war. It had, however, already undergone enough; and in 2 Edw. II (a. d. 1309) was reported to be in a very ruinous state. At that date an inquisition was taken at
- ↑ It is true that some of the antiquaries of the eighteenth century imagined the small arch in the fragment standing upon the mound near the south-east comer of the medieval castle (8) to hare been Saxon — I believe, however, for no better reason than that it has a semicircular head.
