238 



It is remarkahlo that a coin of the time of EdAvarcl III., a 

 counter made in imitation of the coins of France of the time, 

 should have heen found in the moat of the Castle a few years since. 

 On the ohverse it has a shield charged with three keys on a bend 

 surrounded with crowns and lions, and round it edwardus rex 

 REGNAT. On the reverse an arrangement of " Fleurs-de-lis " at the 

 ends of a cross with equal arms, in a kind of square with the words 

 around garde robe regis. These counters were not the current 

 coin of the realm, Irat were used by the King's Chamberlains for 

 counting the expenses of his privy purse. Hereby possibly hangs 

 a tale ! 



The Castle. 



The moated mound on which the Castle is built has no doubt 

 been a stronghold from very early times, just such a mound as any 

 people in bygone times Avould have fortified; with a deep impassable 

 morass on the North, forests all round, and the land falling away 

 from it on all sides, it was naturally a strong position. Its history 

 is buried in oblivion in the remote past ; at present it has to the 

 East very considerable earthworks and trenches extending over 

 certainly 50 acres or more, and the difficulty is to assign any date 

 to them or to be certain that they all belong to one period. We 

 know the Jsormans built on moated mounds of this description in 

 Normandy where the mounds are still to be seen (known as 

 Mottes in Norman French), as the sites for wooden or stone 

 castles having courts outside surrounded with earthworks. Three 

 such courts can be traced to the E. and S.E. of Wliorlton Castle 

 and there is also an outer moat quite straight going North and South 

 about 100 yards from the inner moat. This appears to have been 

 the Anglo-Norman type as Avell, and it was by a system of small 

 fortified forts or castles — really on the block-house system of Lord 

 Kitchener — extended all over the country, that the Normans over- 

 awed and held the land. AYe should perhaps not be far from the 

 truth if we took it for granted that a Norman castle of the usual type 

 was built here shortly after the Conquest, possibly on a Danish moated 

 mound, very likely by the Count of Mortain, or by the Meinells. 

 The Norman Conqueror laid it upon his more fortunate followers 

 as their first duty to secure their lands by building castles which 

 should dominate the surrounding country. Be this as it may, we 

 have seen there was a castle here in Edwardian times. Are we to 

 imagine that Edward III. was actually here, from the finding of the 

 coin I have already mentioned? Did one of the King's Chamber- 

 lains actually drop this particular counter into the moat on one of 

 the King's visits 1 It must not be forgotten that monarchs in those 



