Welsh Journals

is a misunderstanding of the nature of fifteenth-century polite society. Neither bastard feudalism nor chivalric fantasy had anything to do with Lord Cromwell's Tattershall, or Sir John Fastolfs Caister, or Lord Hastings's Kirby Muxloe. These were, on the one hand, bold statements by their owners about themselves and the position they had reached in society, and, on the other, buildings with a purpose: to house in comfort the owner, his family, his relatives, his friends and other visitors. The author misses the opportunity to discuss the changing relation of owner, family and household as that relationship is revealed in architecture. The impact of abbots' and priors' detached lodgings in a gatehouse, often a 'skyscraper' gatehouse, on the minds of lords and gentlemen wanting privacy for themselves is not mentioned. Private chapels and private moats are not discussed. How mistaken Dr. Thompson can be appears in his comments on the underground passage leading from the kitchen to the tower block of Lord Hasting's mansion at Ashby de la Zouch; he says this was not only to convey food from one to the other but 'probably also to allow the lord to make an imposing entry at the lower end of the hall and process to high table'. The idea of William, Lord Hastings, hurrying along underground in order to pop up in his hall to impress everyone is pure pantomime. The remaining chapters deal with the sixteenth century and the destruction of defensible buildings during and after the Civil War. I cannot see that 'the tree of knowledge and its forbidden fruit came with the Renaissance' so that 'what had been spontaneous became self-conscious imitation'. The requirements of a wealthy family (and household) changed, as did fashion in interior decoration, as did the use folk made of their leisure, as did (and do) many matters. Once Lord Cromwell had a garden on the roof of his great tower at Tattershall; once the Cavendishes had a riding- school at Bolsover; once Horace Walpole had a library at Strawberry Hill; now the well-off have swimming pools, video rooms, and fitted kitchens defended by the most sophisticated security money can buy. What this book fails to do is to anchor the study of the transformation of castle into house in the more immediate social causes of that transformation. A peaceful England after the mid-fourteenth century is the reason for the castle's early demise, but the particular shapes its successor took require a more searching examination than is offered here. COLIN RICHMOND Keele PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY HISTORY: VOLUME III. EARLY MODERN PEMBROKESHIRE. 1536-1815. Edited by Brian Howells. The Pembrokeshire Historical Society, 1987. Pp. xx, 482. £ 20.00. This eagerly-expected volume was planned in 1973 by the Pembrokeshire Local Historical Society at the instigation of the late Dr. Elwyn Davies. The intention was to publish a history of the old county before local government reorganisation made