<g>Among</g> the Anglo-Norman fortresses which so long upheld the feudal power, and maintained the independence of the British Islands, that of Carisbrooke holds a distinguished place. Crowning an elevated position near the centre of the island,--of which it has been for ages the ornament and safeguard,--and from its keep and battlements commanding every approach, it had all the advantages which the necessities and warlike spirit of the times could demand. It appears to have been selected as a post of defence from the remotest period of the Saxon monarchy, of which it still retains many substantial vestiges; and although nothing has been discovered that connects it by positive evidence with the Roman epoch, there can be no reasonable doubt of its having been one of the numerous military stations occupied by that people for the vigorous maintenance of its power. At last, after the lapse of four centuries, the sway of the Cæsars began to wax faint; and when the victorious legions were finally withdrawn from the British shores, the natives, taking advantage of the strong places which had previously kept them in awe, seized them to their own use, and over the Roman substruction erected, after their own manner, the bulwarks of native strength and independence. Of this the keep, or donjon, hereafter to be noticed, presents clear and distinct evidence; but whether comprised in the fifty castles reconstructed by Alfred--under the circumstances already stated in this work--remains uncertain. From the localities, however, and other particulars which distinguished the castles so built or repaired on Roman foundations, it appears highly probable that Carisbrooke owes its preservation to that wise and patriotic monarch. Continually harassed by foreign marauders who infested these narrow seas, he found no measure so effectual as that of erecting castles and garrisoned forts on all those points of the coast most exposed to their piratical fury. But after the death of this monarch, and the conflicting policy which, during a century and a half, prepared the way for Norman supremacy, the national bulwarks had suffered from neglect; they were mostly ungarrisoned, and nearly all so much dilapidated that they could offer no effectual resistance against an invading enemy--a fact which readily accounts for the easy conquest which awaited the Norman army on its first landing on the coast of Sussex.