We have been favoured by Sir Llewelyn Turner, whose study and conservation of this superb castle has been for many years a labour of love, with some notes on its history and

erection, which we now incorporate in our account. It will be seen that the writer rather inclines to the old belief that the young prince was born in the Eagle Tower, shown in our

engraving, against the theory set up of late that it could not have been so, although he suspends decided judgment until further research has been made. The great rooms in the

upper story of that tower were built after the birth of Edward II., but that fact furnishes no disproof that he was born in the lower part already built.

"This magnificent castle has been described by high authorities as the finest specimen of castle architecture in Great Britain. It combines the elegances of a royal residence with the frowning grandeur of a majestic fortress. Its erection was commenced by King Edward the First in the year 1283, the eleventh year of his reign, and public records show that the works were carried on for a period of thirty-eight years, ending in the fifteenth year of the reign of Edward the Second. With the castle are connected the town walls, which are in most places in a state of great perfection. During the early years of its erection the castle was frequently visited by King Edward the First, who attached the highest importance to the position as a military post. Having sent his consort Queen Eleanor to Carnarvon for the purpose, she was confined there on the 25th of April, in the year 1284. Tradition points to a small room in the Eagle Tower as the room in which the prince was born-a proposition controverted by a gentleman of considerable research, who argues that because a large portion of the Eagle Tower was built by the second Edward, he could not have been born in it, and that had the queen's confinement taken place in that tower, it would have been in one of the handsome apartments it contains. To this it is replied, that as the evidence produced proves the large rooms to have been completed in the time of Edward the Second, and as only a small portion of the castle could have been ready when the prince was born, the evidence affords a very good reason against the large rooms, but none for or against the truth of tradition as to the use of the small rooms, which it is fairly argued may have been the only part ready. We abstain from any expression of opinion on the subject, as the authorities of the castle are engaged in a very careful examination of all documents bearing on the subject, with no motive but the elucidation of the truth. At the time of Queen Eleanor's confinement at Carnarvon the king was at Rhuddlan Castle, whence the news of the birth of a prince was conveyed to Carnarvon by a Welsh gentleman, Gruffydd Llwyd of Tregarnedd, in Anglesey, who received the honour of knighthood for the welcome message he bore.

"In the year 1295 a rising of the Welsh took place under the command of Madoc, an illegitimate son of Prince David. The attack on Carnarvon Castle took place during a fair, the constable was hanged, all the English put to the sword, and the castle, the walls of which had not attained anything approaching their full height, was set on fire. The revolt was soon suppressed, and the damage repaired. King Richard II., after his defeat in South Wales, passed some time in this castle. In the year 1402 it was besieged by Owen Glendower, who failed to make any impression upon it, and had to withdraw. The following spring he again attacked it with better ordnance, but no better result. The castle was besieged by the parliamentary forces in Cromwell's day, and was surrendered to them, after which it was dismantled; but it remains one of the most perfect, if not the most perfect ruin in the kingdom."

The castle is the property of the Crown, and is under the control of the Constable, the Earl of Carnarvon, and the Deputy Constable, Sir Llewelyn Turner: the latter lives in the neighbourhood, and has just completed the restoration of parts for a museum, the removal of many thousands of tons of rubbish from the interior, and the reopening of the moat for a length of nearly 500 feet, and an average depth of 23 feet. The west gate of the town was a few years ago restored by the same gentleman, and converted into a Royal

Welsh Yacht Clubhouse.

The fine old walls of the town are almost entirely free from obstruction on the sea front; and were they cleared on the land side, Carnarvon would form one of the most striking and beautiful specimens of an old walled town to be found in Great Britain. The first Marquis of Anglesey was for many years Constable of this castle and Mayor of Carnarvon, in which offices he succeeded his father, the Earl of Uxbridge.

Under Conway Castle we shall give some particulars respecting the artificers employed, and their wages, which would equally apply to this castle—the erection of both having been begun in the same year. It is said that the excellent stone used in building Carnarvon Castle was brought from the old Roman Segontium, in part from Anglesey, and in part from Faenol, between Carnarvon and Bangor. The walls present courses of darker, perhaps slaty stones. If the name of the designer, or architect, of this castle were known, it would be mentioned with perpetual admiration. It is said that Henry Ellerton, or De Elreton, was the master builder, which probably meant in those times the architect; and the artificers were probably, as we shall see was the case at Conway, English workmen.

From whatever point of view this great pile is surveyed it presents an air of grandeur which infallibly wins admiration, while its dilapidation and decay excite a sense of sadness and regret. It is unquestionably beautiful beyond any other fortress of the Middle Ages in the United Kingdom. Even Rhaglan Castle, built much later, and a palace castle more than a warlike fortress, is not to be compared with it. And we much question whether any of the famous "castles of the Rhine" make a near approach to its sublimity. That of Heidelberg, on the Neckar, like Rhaglan, is too palatial in style, too limited, and too modern, to form any parallel. Carnarvon Castle, in a word, stands alone, and its nearest competitors are found in its own land of castles, at Harlech, Conway, Cydweli, and Caerphili.

Conway Castle, the next great monument of antiquity in Carnarvonshire to be mentioned, is of identical origin and of equal age with that of Carnarvon. Taken along with the unbroken investiture of town walls with which it is accompanied, this castle is, perhaps, the most interesting in its completeness of any in the kingdom, and renders Conway the finest example we possess of a walled town of the thirteenth century.

This fortress was commenced and nearly completed in the year 1283, the next year after the death of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales recognised as such by the English kings. It was, therefore, like its companion fortress at Carnarvon, built not for the purpose of aiding in the conquest so much as aiding in the retention of the conquest of Wales, already virtually accomplished. It was the heavy iron put upon the already captured foe, meant to tame his spirit and render him quiet through sickness of heart and despair. Defiant, proud, and contemptuous as was the Welsh nation towards its stronger and steadier rival, the English, it found in Edward a foe whose will was of iron, hard and tenacious enough to meet and curb it; and these great fortresses are a measure of the force and steadfastness of that will, as much as of the resistance which a small but brave and hardy nation offered to it. That people had been schooled in adversity. They had almost an affection for adversity; for if no foreign foe offered it as a gift, they forthwith created it by quarrels amongst themselves. But for nearly 800 years they had sustained an almost uninterrupted conflict with aggressors of Saxon, Danish, and Norman nationality, interpolating many bloody conflicts of a more domestic nature; and yet they are now found by Edward I., after the greatest armies that England could raise from all quarters had invaded Snowdonia itself

more than seven times, and after the last of their princely race had fallen, stubborn, sullen, contemptuous, dangerous. The fierce sallies from the mountains were distressing. The real conquest of Wales threatened to be a long achievement; but to Edward's mind an achievement it was to be; and he built his castles, made his roads, issued his edicts, like a man who had counted the cost and made up his mind.

Conway Castle was planted on a projecting rock of no great height hanging over the estuary of the river Conwy, a spot selected by the far-seeing mind of Edward as superior to the site of the great castle of Diganwy, the other side of the estuary, which Llewelyn had some time ago demolished. On this Conway site there used to stand the monastery or abbey of Aber Conwy, the inmates and priests of which had experienced a hard fortune during the recent wars, being frequently robbed and ill-treated, sometimes murdered by Normans or Welsh, as accident ordained. From Matthew Paris we learn that in A.D. 1245 the place had been sacked and partly burned by the English soldiery, who had crossed over from the castle of Diganwy; and it is possible it had been abandoned by the peace-loving Cistercian monks before Edward chose to claim it as ground for a military fortress. Be that as it may, in A.D. 1283 he laid there the foundations of a castle on a magnificent scale, and pushed on its building with all possible speed. He was determined to guard the two keys to the Snowdon district-the Conwy river here, and the Seiont at Carnarvon, and with strong garrisons at these places to hunt out of their rocky retreats such of the patriot bands as might I still have life in them.

It is curious to notice his method of proceeding-the men he employed, the wages he paid, and the total cost of certain parts of these great works. In the Bag of Wales, No. 46,