This magnificent structure has always been a Crown possession, and at the present time is preserved with a care deserving of all praise. It narrowly escaped demolition at that period which proved so fatal to all castles in Britain, but, although the order was issued, the carrying out was delayed, and the accession of Charles II. in 1660 nullified it. The chief architectural beauty is perhaps the Eagle Tower, crowned with its three graceful turrets and boasting of the birth within its walls of the first Prince of Wales, but the traditional apartment is still problematical. Although as we have seen the Concentric Castle is usually associated with the reign of Edward I., and the formidable strongholds in North Wales are generally cited as the perfection of the type, yet earlier attempts at the ideal had been made in Britain, and in no greater perfection than at the well-known Castle of Caerphilly in Glamorganshire, completed a year before the King came to the throne. From a military point of view it is the grandest example of the concentric ideal in our islands, and it is perhaps to be deplored that this embodiment of a medieval fortress has never been subjected to the stern arbitrament of war, and that no great military renown is associated with its history. It was only assailed once, in 1648, when the Parliamentarians wreaked their traditional destructive tendencies upon it. [Illustration: CAERPHILLY CASTLE. (_From an old print._)] It was erected and completed in 1271 by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and stands upon a mound of gravel in the middle of an artificial lake, produced by damming up two water-courses and turning the contents of a marsh into the catchment basin thus formed. The curtain of the middle ward is of no great height, that of the inner ward being thus able to dominate it. The outer ward is essentially divided into two, each forming a _tête-du-pont_. The eastern portion, and the smaller, has a curtain 15 feet in height and a moat of its own, the island thus formed being approached through two gatehouses from the land side, and joined to the inner ward by drawbridges. The western and outer ward is much more important than the eastern. It acts as a _tête-du-pont_ the same as its companion, but contains also the chief approach to the Castle, two conspicuous towers standing on either side of a narrow entrance, thus forming a strong gatehouse. From it curtain walls of great height branch off on either side, washed by the waters of the lake, and sundry half-drum towers, and other buildings have been built abutting upon the defensive wall. Thus any assailants would have most formidable obstacles to encounter on attacking either the eastern or western faces, two moats and three successive lines of walling being opposed to their efforts.