the posterity of Rollo, may still be entitled to credit, when the theme
is merely stone and mortar; and from him we may conclude that Arques
was a place of importance at the time of William the Conqueror, as it
gave the title of Count to his uncle, who then possessed it, and who,
confiding perhaps in the strength of his fortress, and secretly
instigated by Henry Ist, of France, usurped the title of Duke of
Normandy, but was defeated by his nephew, and finally obliged to
surrender his castle. This, however, was not till, after a long siege,
in which Arques proved itself impregnable to every thing but famine. In
the following reign, we again find mention made of Arques, as a portion
given by Robert, Duke of Normandy, to induce Helie, son of Lambert of
St. Saen, to marry his illegitimate daughter, and join him in defending
the Pays de Caux against the English. From this period, during the
reigns of the Anglo-Norman Sovereigns, it continues to be occasionally
noticed. Before the walls of Arques, according to William of Malmesbury,
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, received the wound which afterwards proved
fatal. Arques was the last castle which held out in Normandy for King
Stephen. It was taken in 1173, by our Henry IInd, and then repaired; was
seized by Philip Augustus during the captivity of Richard Coeur de Lion;
was restored to its legitimate sovereign at the peace in 1196; and was a
source of disgrace to its former captor, when in 1202 he laid siege to
it with a powerful army, and was obliged to retreat from its walls.
Under the reign of our third Edward, we find it again return to the
British crown, as one of the castles specified to be surrendered to the
English, by the treaty of Bretigny, in 1359; after which, in 1419, it
was taken by Talbot and Warwick, and was finally given up to France by
one of the articles of the capitulation of Rouen in 1449. More
recently, in 1584[19], it was captured by a party of soldiers disguised
like sailors, who, being suffered to approach without distrust, put the
sentinels to the sword, and made themselves masters of the fortress;