The Domesday Survey speaks of it as a "halla," but in the first half of
the twelfth century the Normans built a castle in the north-west corner
of the Roman enclosure, which in 1153 Henry II. granted to Henry
Manduit, and from that time it appears as the military port, as it
were, of the capital, Winchester; Henry II. Richard I. John and Henry
III. not only frequently taking up their residence at Porchester, and
there as in a strong place, transacting the most important business,
but they all of them most frequently set out thence for the Continent
in days when a king of England was as often abroad as at home. Except
Edward I. there is scarcely an English king from Henry II. to Henry
VIII. who did not use Porchester, and Elizabeth, the last royal
visitor, held her court in the Castle.
As we see it to-day the keep of Porchester Castle resembles that of
Rochester, not only in its appearance, though there it comes short, but
in its arrangement. It is, however, surrounded by some later ruins of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the use of which has, I think,
never been ascertained.
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