identical with that of the same contrivances at Kildrummy. There is a postern with a stair leading down to the slope of the valley, just as at the Aberdeenshire castle.

The great curtains vary from 5 to 11 feet thick, and the walls of the donjon attain a thickness of 15 feet; the total internal area of the original enceinte is about 224 feet by 211 feet.2 Besides the round angle towers there are two square ones, in the middle of the south and east fronts respectively. The former tower is still tolerably perfect, but of the latter only the excavated foundations and two of the sides remain. At an early period the castle has suffered partial destruction, all the northern half being cast down; and when thereafter it was restored, the later builders, just as at Dirleton Castle, did not attempt to work out anew the grand lines of the original plan, but contented themselves with drawing a transverse screen wall right across between the broken ends of the east and west curtains. The square tower in the middle of the older east front thus became an angle tower to the new enceinte, which is oblong, lies east and west, and measures about 224 feet in length by 93 feet in greatest breadth. The castle was thus reduced to half its original size, and its thirteenth-century proportions remained unsuspected until revealed by the excavator's spade in 1888. The new north curtain is built chiefly of good well-coursed rubble, but a great deal of ashlar from the destroyed portions has been re-used in the later wall, particularly in its upper part. In the middle was the new main gate, which seems-as at Craigmillar-to have been undefended by towers. It has now disappeared, leaving only a ragged gap in the wall.

Only the inner half of the mighty donjon, the Valence Tower, remains (fig. 3). Its outer face has been destroyed, and the breached segment closed by a later square consolidation. Even ruined as it is, however, this splendid donjon is in every respect the most imposing tower in Scotland. It stands at the west corner of the courtyard, from which, like the donjon at Coucy, it is cut off by its own moat-a ditch 23 feet in breadth and still about 15 feet in depth, which has been defended, like its French archetype, by a thin chemise on the counterscarp. Although there has been nothing like the elaboration of detail found at Coucy, the resemblance in principle between the two donjons is here most striking, and indeed identical. It is quite evident that the Bothwell defences, which are unique in Britain, were directly imitated

1 Reckoned from the centre face of the donjon to the east curtain. Reckoned from the south curtain to the rear of the gatehouse.

'See my paper in Scottish Notes and Queries, 3rd ser., vol. ii. pp. 70-4.

Measured from the angle between the postern gate and the gorge wall of the Prison Tower, to the point at the north curtain opposite.

from the great French fortress. All the rooms in the interior of the donjon have been octagonal. The basement is partly sunk, its floor ranging with the bottom level of the ditch. It contains a very deep

and carefully constructed draw-well, cradled in ashlar, and opening beneath a round arch in the wall. Adjoining it is a pointed aumbry

1 Mr A. Hamilton Thomson (Military Architecture in England during the Middle Ages, p. 181) writes of the Coucy donjon: "Its isolation upon the outer face of the inner ward, protected by its own inner ditch, and covered by a strong curtain of its own, are signs of a perfection of engineering skill to which our builders did not attain." Yet here in Scotland all the essential features of this perfection of engineering skill are repeated at Bothwell.

It will be observed that at Bothwell the moat is carried round the inner or courtyard face only of the donjon, whereas at Coucy (see fig. 1) the donjon is completely encircled by its moat and chemise. This was necessary because the Coucy donjon is placed in the forefront of the castle, facing the level base-court and the approach from the town. At Bothwell, where the donjon stands in rear of the castle, with its back to the Clyde and accessible only from the courtyard, it was necessary to provide the moat on this side only: nor indeed would it have been practicable to carry the moat round the other side, on the steeply sloping bank of the river.

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, MARCH 9, 1925.

for a bucket. This well-room in the basement enters by a newel stair
down from the hall, which forms the true ground floor, being a little
above the terreplein. The hall had a wooden floor, resting upon
central octagonal pier carried up from the basement, and also apparently
on two segmental and raked bearing ribs crossing the tower from east
to west, and supported on the central pier. The springer of the bearing
rib remains on the east side of the tower. The hall and the two storeys
over it were covered in by strongly strutted floors, for which the joist-
holes, corbels, and sunk rests to receive the verticals and struts may
still be seen in the walls. The mode of construction resembles that
which was employed in the great tower of Threave Castle. Having
regard to the wide span of these floors (39 feet in the angles of the
octagon), it is probable that the central pier was carried up in stone or
wood to receive similar struts for strengthening the cross-beams. On
the hall floor is the main entrance to the donjon, by a zigzag ribbed
passage opening from a fine pointed doorway of two recessed and
splayed orders in the great beak or angular construction which springs
out from the round face of the tower. This beak is an extremely
interesting and important feature. It is quite unmistakably French in
character, and is unknown in the English castles, where the nearest
parallels are certain basal spurs, as at Goodrich: French instances may
be seen in La Tour Blanche at Issoudun, the towers of enceinte at
Loches, one of the towers at Arques, the donjon of La Roche-Guyon,
some of the towers at Carcassonne, and the great donjon of Château
Gaillard. Here at Bothwell the special purpose of the beak is to
strengthen the tower where its wall is traversed by the entrance pas-
sage, and also to turn the portal away from the open courtyard, so
that its door could not easily be battered in. As at Coucy, the entrance
had its own portcullis, worked from a neat ribbed mural chamber over-
head. A drawbridge spanning the moat was also manipulated from
this chamber. Within the portcullis a wooden door was secured by a
draw-bar. The newel stair continuing up from the basement served
all floors of the tower. It has no communication with the entrance
passage, so that anyone from outside wishing to use the stair had to
pass through the hall. In the hall is a fine pointed mural arcading of
moulded wall-ribs showing a good mid-thirteenth-century profile; and
a splendid pointed and traceried window of two flush orders, having
stone seats and filleted nook-shafts with enriched First Pointed bases
and caps, overlooks the courtyard. A mural passage opening beside

A similar contrivance for supporting a floor was inserted in 1393 in the Queen's Tower at Carnarvon Castle. See C. R. Peers, Trans. Cymmrodorion Soc., 1915-6, pp. 21, 51.

At Coucy there is no beak, and the entrance directly fronts the courtyard.

the window leads to a garderobe in the south curtain. The room above the hall seems to have been garrison quarters, and was plainly fitted up. At Coucy the corresponding storey was appointed for the same purpose. From this room access was obtained by a passage in the curtain to the mural garderobes adjoining the Prison Tower. The top storey was evidently the lord's apartment. It has a window of two trifoliated lights with unpierced tympanum beneath a pointed general arch of two flush orders. Like that in the hall, the bay of this window is furnished with stone seats. The roof of the donjon has been wooden and flat, of the construction already described. In the late western consolidation are a fireplace and loops beneath segmental reararches. As thus truncated, the tower was closed in by a pentice roof at the second floor level, above which emerged the three remaining sides of the topmost storey, which was then abandoned.

This superb tower is entirely cased with the most beautiful dressed ashlar work, low in the course and closely jointed. A number of the putlog holes may still be seen which were left for the scaffoldings used in its construction. At the wall-head level of the south curtain a pointed door led out from the donjon to the roundway, which was protected both by a battlement and a rear-wall, with a pentice roof overhead. The parapet of the donjon is now gone, but had a wooden hoarding carried by heavy moulded corbels, several of which, of an enormous size, remain just over the intaking of the beak into the tower. These huge corbels were evidently meant to carry the hoarding out clear of the beak, so as to defend the portal from above. A small postern, strongly defended by an iron grille, a wooden door, and an inner portcullis, opens in the curtain north of the donjon. It would be useful during a siege for effecting a sally against assailants mining the base of the donjon, and also as an emergency mode of escape. A similar postern exists at Coucy, and there are Scottish examples at Dirleton, Tibbers, and Coull.

The Prison Tower adjoining the donjon eastward is the smallest in the castle, being only 20 feet in diameter. It is three storeys high. The basement contains a prison, reached by steps down from a low door opening on the slope above the counterscarp of the donjon moat. The prison is lit by a single high loop, and has a garderobe. The ground floor enters from the terreplein by a door with corbelled lintel, and the first floor was reached by a mural passage from the portcullis room of the postern adjoining, the portcullis room itself being served by an outside stair carried on an arch against the curtain wall. The upper two floors of the tower contained living-rooms, and their garderobes have flues corbelled out in the west re-entrant. This tower with the prison in its basement was clearly meant to be a secure post, as

its doors towards the courtyard were protected overhead by a timber hoarding carried on large stone corbels. The postern is set in a projecting part of the curtain, and has a shouldered lintel beneath a segmental outer arch, in the soffit of which is the portcullis slot. Over the postern has been inserted a sunk quatrefoil panel with a shield bearing the Douglas arms:-goutté, a heart, on a chief three mullets. Throughout the Prison Tower and the curtain westward the same finished masonry is employed as in the donjon. In addition to the garderobes serving the Prison Tower, which are also reached along the mural passage from the first floor of the donjon, there is another garderobe midway in the wall at this level, the flue of which combines with that of the garderobe from the hall below and discharges by a single vent at the base of the curtain. This vent is carried right through the wall, so that it could be used to drain off water from the donjon moat,1 by which means also the soil from the garderobes would be effectively flushed out. But in order to avoid giving access to a foe, the flue is divided by a central post. A method essentially similar though less elaborate in construction is employed in the garderobes at Kildrummy.

It seems quite clear that the donjon, the Prison Tower with postern adjoining, and the length of curtain between these towers must all be read together as of one date and design, and that in the thirteenth century. The style of masonry, and the arrangement of the garderobes and mural passages connecting all these works together, seem both decisive on this point.

Eastward from the postern the south curtain (fig. 4) has been rebuilt in somewhat inferior masonry upon the original splayed footing, which remains in situ throughout its length. Its course is interrupted by a small square garderobe tower of three stages, crowned by a heavy machicolated parapet of late fourteenth-century type. A similar parapet is carried westward along the curtain at two levels - the higher, which adjoins the tower, being reached by a newel stair in the thickness of the wall, partly supported on internal corbelling. This part of the curtain has also had a corbelled parapet along the inner side. The Garderobe Tower served a range of buildings backing upon this curtain, the tusks of whose gable remain on the curtain just westward of the tower. These buildings were two storeys high, lit by a series of fine mullioned and transomed windows of late fourteenthcentury fashion, one of which was provided with a timber balcony overlooking the Clyde.

2

The existence of a postern gate at its north end shows that the moat was never designed to be wet, although a certain amount of rain-water would collect in it.

There were windows of very similar design in Archibald the Grim's other Castle of Threave.