King Edgar is credited with the first fortified building; this was
used as a hunting lodge by his second wife Elfrida, who perpetrated
the cruel murder of her stepson Edward while he was drinking a cup of
wine at her door. The horse he was riding, no doubt spurred
involuntarily by the dying king, galloped away, dragging the body
along the ground, until it stopped from exhaustion. The dead monarch
was, as already related, buried at Wareham, but the real ruler of
England, Archbishop Dunstan, had it exhumed and reburied with much
solemn pomp at Shaftesbury Abbey.

During the Conqueror's reign, that great era of castle building, the
keep was first erected; by the reign of Stephen it was so strong that
he failed to take it from Baldwin de Redvers, who held it for Matilda.
John kept the crown jewels here, good evidence of its solidity, also a
few Frenchmen of high rank, of whom twenty-two were starved to death,
or so tradition says. The Princess Eleanor, captive for forty years,
was imprisoned here for a great part of that time by the same "Good
King John" who, as a punishment for prophesying the king's downfall,
had bold Peter, the hermit of Pontefract, incarcerated in the deepest
dungeon and subsequently hanged.

During the de Montfort rebellion the castle was held against the king.
Edward was kept here for a time by Isabella before his murder at
Berkley. The castle then passed through several hands until the time
of Elizabeth, when it was sold to Sir Christopher Hatton. During this
long period, the fabric was added to and improved until little of the
Norman structure remained. All the new buildings seem to have been
constructed with but one purpose, that of making an impregnable
fortress. The widow of Sir Christopher sold the castle to