The Normans trod very closely in the footsteps of the English, and although their fortresses were of a stronger and more permanent character, they occupy, for the most part, ancient sites. The three counties, from the bordering Chepstow, the home of Strongbow, to Clun, the cradle of the house of Stewart, were bristled thick with fortresses; some, like Chepstow, Goderick, Kilpeck, Ewias, Hereford, Ludlow, Wigmore, Richard’s Castle, Cleobury, Brampton, Bishop’s Castle, and Clun, either places of great strength, or held by powerful barons; others, as St. Briavels, Wilton, Penyard, Weobly, Croft, Clifford, Whitney, Eardisley, Huntington, Lingen, Hopton, de Botwood, Stoke-Say, or Wattlesborough, either fortified houses or castles of smaller area and inferior strength. Upon the line of the Severn, in the rear of all these, there were but eight of any importance, Bristol, Berkeley, Gloucester, Hanley, Worcester, Hartlebury, Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury, and of these Berkeley was in many respects the most remarkable, and has endured the longest. [Illustration: BERKELEY CASTLE.] The other castles are either ruins or have altogether been swept away. Of Bristol there remains only a portion of a crypt. Gloucester, Hanley, and Worcester are gone. Of Bridgenorth a part of the keep is all that is seen; and of Shrewsbury a fragment of a Norman gatehouse, the much-altered walls of the hall, and, older than all, the mound that gave character to the whole. Berkeley, on the other hand, has been inhabited from its foundation to the present day. With one temporary alienation to the Crown, it has always been in one family, and it is as little altered as is consistent with modern usages and modes of life.