158 NOTES ON ANCIENT DEFENSIVE EARTHWORKS.
Rayleigh Castle soon abandoned after the Norman Conquest ?
Two influences both tended to produce this result. In the first place,
though Rayleigh was the best place in the district as a camp of
refuge, it became a less convenient place for a Castle than
Hadleigh, overlooking the. Thames, under a stronger and more
settled government than that of the Saxon and Danish Kings ;
just as to the Romans, Lymne was a better spot for a station
than "Caesar's Camp," Folkestone. Secondly, comes an event
in family history. Henry de Essex, the grandson of Suene
(who held the manor before and after the Conquest), was heredi-
tary standard bearer to King Henry II. But during a battle
with the Welsh, in Flintshire, in that King's reign, he threw
Plan of Old Sarum. From the Ordnance Map. (Six
inches=one mile).
down his standard and ran away, his conduct tending largely to
the utter rout of the English army which followed. He lived
to fight another day, for Morant says :—"For which high mis-
demeanour being charged with treason by Robert de Montford,
and in a solemn tryal by battle clearly vanquished, be ought to
have suffered death by the law, but the King spared his life and
caused him to be shorn a Monk in the Abbey of Reading, the
combat having been performed in that town."
The manor of Rayleigh was then annexed to the Crown for
centuries. And thus Suene's wooden buildings were never
replaced by Norman masonry.