“The first barriers being won, the besiegers constructed with osiers, hides and stout planks, a cat, under cover of which picked men filled in the ditch. This done, the knights, under cover of their large shields held against the wall, covered the miners, who, with bars and picks, broke into the wall, propping it up with rough trunks of trees, and then removing the masonry above the level of the foundations. When enough was thus undermined, they set the props on fire and retired. When the props were burnt the wall fell in the midst of a dense cloud of dust and smoke. The besieged then gave way, a body of youth, sheathed in armour, ascended amidst the dust and ruin, massacred some and captured others, while the remainder, retreating, fled into the keep, which, built upon a scarped rock and protected by a double wall, offered a sure asylum. “Then a machine, contrived for various purposes, was brought to bear upon the keep; sometimes as a mangonel, such as are used by the Turks, it sent a shower of small stones into the air, sometimes a single stone of vast weight was projected with a velocity exceeding that from a sling. Fissures began to appear in the walls, shaken by the repeated blows,” &c. The history of Bôves is probably that of Amiens. It is supposed to have been thrown up in the ninth century, for defence against the aggressive Northmen, and the character of the earthwork favours this view. Some of the Sieurs de Coucy were lords also of Bôves; and Henry IV., whose wars brought him to Amiens, is said to have occasionally visited Bôves with Gabrielle d’Estrées. The lordship was, during that reign, the property of Philippe de Mornay, son of that Du Plessis Mornay whose name is so intimately associated with the career of Henry. The earthworks are seen to great advantage from the Bôves Station of the Amiens Railway. BOWES CASTLE, YORKSHIRE. The stronghold known as Bowes Castle consists at this time of a single rectangular tower, unconnected with any other buildings, and bearing no trace whatever of ever having been so connected. This is very remarkable, inasmuch as the tower is in every respect both of plan and detail, a Norman keep, and Norman keeps usually, it may be said invariably, are, as the name imports, connected with or surrounded by other buildings, of which the tower is the strength or citadel.