he same plan as the old Tower of
Rouen, now destroyed."

The advantages of the site selected for the Tower were considerable, the
utilization of the existing Roman wall to form two sides of its bailey,
its ditch isolating it from the city, while it was so placed on the
river as to command the approach to the Saxon trade harbour at the mouth
of the Wallbrook, then literally the port of London, and with easy
access to the open country should a retreat become necessary.

It is much to be regretted that London was omitted from the Domesday
Survey, for that invaluable record might have furnished us with some
information as to the building of the Tower, and perhaps revealed in one
of those brief but pithy sentences, pregnant with suggestion, some such
ruthless destruction of houses as took place in Oxford and elsewhere[8]
in order to clear a site for the King's new castle. Unless the site were
then vacant, or perhaps only occupied by a vineyard (for these are
mentioned in _Domesday Book_ as existing at Holborn and Westminster),[9]
some such clearance must obviously have been made for even the first
temporary fortifications of the Conqueror, although contemporary history
is silent as to this. The _Saxon Chronicle_ tells us that "upon the
night of August the 15th, 1077, was London burned so extensively as it
never was before since it was founded,"[10] which may have determined
William to replace the temporary eastern fortification by an enlarged
and permanent castle, he having then completed the conquest of England
and crushed the rebellions of his turbulent baronage.

[Illustration: PLAN OF THE TOWER OF LONDON ABOUT 1597.]

Although the art of the military engineer was then in its infancy, the
Conqueror seems to have selected as his architect one already famous for
his skill. Gundulf, then just appointed Bishop of Rochester, was no
ordinary man. The friend and _protege_ of Archbishop Lanfranc, by whom
he had been brought to England in 1070, he had as a young man been on
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and doubtless profited by his travels and
the opportunity afforded of inspecting some of the architectural marvels
of the Romano-Byzantine engineers. Although Gundulf had rebuilt the
cathedral of Rochester, to which he added the large detached belfry
tower that still bears his name, built other church towers at Dartford,
and St. Leonard's, West Malling (long erroneously supposed to have been
an early Norman castle keep),[11] and