standing in the middle of the toune, faire and large. The toune standeth
on a main rokki hill, rising from est to west. The beauty and glory of it
is yn two streetes, whereof the hye street goes from est to west, having
a righte goodely crosse in the middle of it, making a quadrivium, and
goeth from north to south." Its present name is derived, according to
Matthew Paris, from Warmund, the father of Offa, king of the Mercians,
who rebuilt it, and called it after his own name, Warwick.[3]

[3] "Inter _Occidentalium Anglorum_ Reges illustrissimos,
præcipua commendationis laude celebratur, rex _Warmundus_, ab his
qui Historias _Anglorum_ non solum relatu proferre, sed etiam
scriptis inserere, consueverant. Is fundator cujusdam urbis a
seipso denominatæ; quæ lingua _Anglicana Warwick_, id est, _Curia
Warmundi_ nuncupatur."--Matthæi Paris "Historia Major," à Watts,
edit. 1640.

The castle, which is one of the most magnificent specimens of the ancient
baronial splendour of our ancestors now remaining in this kingdom, rears
its proud and lofty turrets, gray with age, in the immediate vicinity of
the town. It stands on a rocky eminence, forty feet in perpendicular
height, and overhanging the river, which laves its base. The first
fortified building on this spot was erected by the before-mentioned lady
Ethelfleda, who built the donjon upon an artificial mound of earth. No
part of that edifice, however, is now supposed to remain, except the
mound, which is still to be traced in the western part of the grounds
surrounding the castle. The present structure is evidently the work of
different ages, the most ancient part being erected, as appears from the
"Domesday Book," in the reign of Edward the Confessor; which document
also informs us, that it was "a special strong hold for the midland part
of the kingdom." In the reign of William the Norman it received