William ap Thomas,
responsible for earlier construction of
Raglan Castle,
married Gwladus,
daughter of Sir Dafydd Gam, and widow of
Sir Roger Vaughan, and thus began the
Herbert family line. Both these men had
been part of the Welsh contingent that
fought with King Henry V in France, and
both were killed at the battle of
Agincourt in 1415, where William ap
Thomas had also fought. He retained
Raglan as a tenant of his stepson,
James, Lord Berkeley, and in 1425 Lord
Berkeley agreed that he could continue
to hold Raglan for the duration of his
life. In 1426, ap Thomas was knighted by
Henry VI, becoming known to his
compatriots as Y marchog glas o Went
(the blue knight of Gwent). He began to
build Raglan Castle as we know it today,
probably from the 1430s.
By 1432 Sir William
was in a position to purchase Raglan
from the Berkeley family for 1,000 marks
(almost 667 pounds). He laid plans for a
castle very much in the contemporary
French style, as we know it now.
Although there is a possibility that the
wall of the hall facing the Fountain
Court may include features of the Bloet
period manorhouse, the building
programme begun by William ap Thomas
eventually swept away all the original
structures. The principal buildings
surviving from the time of Sir William
are the Great Tower, a self-contained
fortress in its own right, together with
the south gate, both equipped with
gunloops. He also raised the hall,
though later largely rebuilt, and part
of the service range beyond.
Sir Thomas Herbert of
Tintern wrote an account of Raglan
construction that still exists in the
'Herbertorum Prosapia', the family
chronicle. Sir Thomas refers to Raglan
where William ap Thomas had erected a
‘Tower of great bredth and height
proportionable of several aequilaterall
sides and angles about which was an
artificiall Graft or Trench filled with
water this was named Sr Willm Thomas his
Tower’.
Their coat-of-arms
from the ‘Herbertorum Prosapia’
shows the Herbert arms halved with those
of the Gam family. The combined
influence of the English symbols and the
French is unmistakable, and both
emphasize the Sun’s power of strategy
and foresight (prophecy) associated with
the royal family. The shield also
provides healing features imperceptible
to the aggressive army that attacked the
castle, simply focused on blasting
through the wall to destroy any loyalty
or steadfastness to the crown. It is
important for dowsers to note the Great
Tower located left off the main entry,
representing the 'KNOWLEDGE' sector of
the castle itself. This is obviously the
Deva's strongest point in the defensive
line across the front of the castle
wall. This was the
angle of the tower destined to draw the
greatest fire, suggesting the wish
to demolish higher octave consciousness
at the castle and heart of the web of
power in Wales.
Note part of text is
from tour guidebook at Raglan Castle
Taken from RAGLAN CASTLE
John R. Kenyon BA, ALA, FSA, FRHistS
Cadw: Welsh Historic Momuments
*
Ophuls’ .... pushing his lens
for sheer playful exhilaration or to keep the story on a human
scale. The traversal of space evokes a distinctively airy
quality, an amplitude akin to the billowing of curtains,
uniquely satisfying compared to the dislocations and joins of
conventional editing, no matter how seamless. As François
Truffaut noted, Ophuls’ camera sweeps the screen in tempo:
“Rhythm was his predominant preoccupation – the rhythm of a
film, of a novel, the novelty of someone’s walk, of a
performer’s acting, the rhythm of a life…. He dreamed pauses,
stops, rests.”
see François
Truffaut, The Films in My Life, trans. Leonard Mayhew,
Penguin Books
full article by Robert Keser
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