The upper
windows have Saxon arches, but are apparently of a later date than any
other part of the building west of the keep, the stones of which being
placed _herring-bone fashion_ prove it to be of the earliest style.
The Chapel is of a very late date, as appears from its obtuse Gothic
arches; and I have really an idea that almost all the changes of
architecture, from the reign of Edgar to that of Henry the Seventh, may be
traced in this extensive and stupendous ruin.
"We could not view without horror the dungeons which remain in some of the
towers: they recalled to our memory the truly diabolical cruelty of King
John, by whose order twenty-two prisoners, confined in them were starved
to death. Matthew of Paris, the historian, says, that many of those
unfortunate men were among the first of the Poitevin nobility. Another
instance of John's barbarous disposition was his treatment of Peter of
Pontefract, a poor hermit, who was imprisoned in Corfe Castle for
prophesying the deposition of that prince. Though the prophecy was in some
measure fulfilled by the surrender which John made of his crown to the
Pope's Legate, the year following, yet the imprudent prophet was sentenced
to be dragged through the streets of Wareham, tied to horses' tails."[2]
[2] Maton's Observations, vol. i. p. 12.
The exact period when this fortress was erected is unknown; though some
circumstances render it probable that it was built by King Edgar. That it
did not exist previously to the year 887, or 888, the time when the
Nunnery at Shaftesbury was founded, is certain, from an inquisition taken
in the fifty-fourth of Henry the Third; wherein the jurors returned, "that
the Abbess and Nuns at Shaston (Shaftesbury) had without molestation,
_before the foundation of the Castle at Corfe_, all wrecks within
their manor of Kingston, in the Isle of Purbeck.
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