further adds, that the said “Earl had after the 18th of July, £720 in money, and that one Thomas Harlyng, late Receiver-General of the said Earl, took and carried away the same, whereof he is answerable to the King.” A great number of articles, with monies, cattle, &c., are stated to have been taken away by various persons named, who are made answerable to the King for the same.—This document is curious, inasmuch as it throws some light upon the military weapons in use at the period, on the plain and scanty domestic articles in the Castle, and on the low value of farming stock, &c. The record presents no account of the Earl’s apartments, or those of his servants, or of the furniture there used. Probably all the valuable property which he possessed in the fortress was carried away and disposed of before the Earl was attainted. The entire record furnishes evidence of nothing polished or luxurious; on the contrary, it is a catalogue of mere rudeness, discomfort, and barbarity; giving no marks whatever of vice-regal grandeur or princely state. As an additional fact it is proper to mention, that the _Bailey-Head_ was the original _ballium_, or quadrangle of the Castle; that the mount in the Castle-field, known by the name of the _Cripple-bank_, or _gathe_, was also the site of the ancient _Barbican_, or outer gate, at which the poor and diseased received relief. Of the free chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas, _infra Castrum de Oswaldestre_, the advowson of which belonged to the Arundel family, there is not a trace left to mark its situation. The sketch of Oswestry Castle which forms one of our illustrations shows that, in its pristine state, it was a formidable structure, of great strength and stateliness. The architecture seems to be of the Saxon order. THE WALLS. The ancient Walls of the town were the work of Edward I., and no doubt were well and firmly built; but scarcely a vestige of them remains. Their circumvallation is, however, correctly marked in most of the old books, and old inhabitants of the present day point out various sites on which portions of the walls stood. Edward was generally successful in giving strength and endurance to his military buildings. Caernarvon, Conway, and Rhuddlan Castles, all designed and erected under his superintendence, are noble fortresses in the present age, notwithstanding the dilapidations they have suffered from military attack and “Time’s effacing fingers.” The Walls of Oswestry must have suffered much injury during the period of the Commonwealth; and perhaps private encroachments since that time have been the principal cause of their entire disappearance. ANCIENT HOUSES.