1216

By Now, the castle has almost reached its present dimensions.

over the course of a century, it has been transformed into a royal residence, and is a favourite for English monarchs because of the excellent hunting nearby, with windsor Forest about the size of present-day East Berkshire. Because of the increasing sophistication of building works, the castle would not have purely been constructed by forced labourers, but also by skilled masons, who would have been paid.

Garrisoned by Engelard of Cigogne, windsor is only one of two castles — the other being Dover — that stay loyal to King John and successfully resist the rebel barons who try to depose him following his refusal to honour commitments he’d made in Magna Carta.

The barons offer the English throne to Louis, son of Philip II of France, and the picture shows the castle under the twomonth siege by the French army, which had landed in May 1216. The locals fled.

The weapons used are chiefly petraries and mangonels, throwing machines that hurled stones and blazing projectiles at the castle. The French fail and leave England.