Château Gaillard Château Gaillard is a ruined medieval castle , located 90 m above the commune of Les Andelys overlooking the River Seine , in the Eure " département " of historical Normandy , now Upper Normandy , France . It is located some north - west of Paris and from Rouen . Construction began in 1196 under the auspices of Richard the Lionheart , who was simultaneously King of England and feudal Duke of Normandy . The castle was expensive to build , but the majority of the work was done in an unusually short time . It took just two years , and at the same time the town of Petit Andely was constructed . Château Gaillard has a complex and advanced design , and uses early principles of concentric fortification ; it was also one of the earliest European castles to use machicolation s . The castle consists of three enclosures separated by dry moat s , with a keep in the inner enclosure . Château Gaillard was captured in 1204 by the French king , Philip II , after a lengthy siege . In the mid - 14th century , the castle was the residence of the exiled David II of Scotland . The castle changed hands several times in the Hundred Years ' War , but in 1449 the French captured Château Gaillard from the English for the last time , and from then on it remained in French ownership . Henry IV of France ordered the demolition of Château Gaillard in 1599 ; although it was in ruins at the time , it was felt to be a threat to the security of the local population . The castle ruins are listed as a " monument historique " by the French Ministry of Culture . The inner bailey is open to the public from March to November , and the outer baileys are open all year . History . Background . Richard the Lionheart inherited Normandy from his father , Henry II , in 1189 when he ascended to the throne of England . There was rivalry between the French king and Richard as the King of England was more powerful than the King of France , despite the fact that Richard was a vassal of the French king and paid homage for his lands in the country . From 1190 to 1192 , Richard the Lionheart was on the Third Crusade . He was joined by Philip II of France as each was wary that the other might invade his territory in his absence . Richard was captured and imprisoned on the return journey to England , and he was not released until 4 February 1194 . In Richard ' s absence , his brother John revolted with the aid of Philip ; amongst Philip ' s conquests in the period of Richard ' s imprisonment was Normandy . It took Richard until 1198 to reconquer Normandy . Construction . Perched high above the River Seine , an important transport route , the site of Château Gaillard , in the manor of " Andeli " , was identified as a naturally defensible position . In the valley below the site was the town of Grand Andely . Under the terms of the Peace of Louviers ( December 1195 ) between Richard and Philip II neither king was allowed to fortify the site ; despite this , Richard intended to build a castle at " Andeli " . Its purpose was to protect the duchy of Normandy from Philip II — it helped fill a gap in the Norman defences left by the fall of Château de Gisors and was away from Château de Gaillon , a castle which belonged to Philip — and to act as a base from which Richard could launch his campaign to take back the Norman Vexin from French control . Richard tried to obtain the manor through negotiation . Walter de Coutances , Archbishop of Rouen , was reluctant to sell the manor as it was one of the diocese ' s most profitable , and other lands belonging to the diocese had recently been damaged by war . When Philip besieged Aumale in Normandy , Richard grew tired of waiting and seized the manor , although the act was opposed by the Church . In an attempt to get Pope Celestine III to intercede , Walter de Coutances left for Rome in November 1196 . Richard sent a delegation to represent him in Rome . One of the party , Richard ' s Lord Chancellor William Longchamp ( who was also Bishop of Ely ) , died during the journey , although the rest , including the Philip of Poitou , Bishop of Durham , and Guillaume de Ruffière , Bishop of Lisieux , arrived in Rome . Walter de Coutances meanwhile issued an interdict against the duchy of Normandy which prohibited church services from being performed in the region . Roger of Howden detailed " the unburied bodies of the dead lying in the streets and square of the cities of Normandy " . Construction began with the interdict hanging over Normandy , but it was later repealed in April 1197 by Celestine , after Richard made gifts of land to the Walter de Coutances and the diocese of Rouen , including two manors and the prosperous port of Dieppe . The site of Château Gaillard had not been fortified before , and the town of Petit Andely was constructed at the same time ; together with Grand Andely , the two are known as Les Andelys . The castle sits on a high limestone promontory , 90 m above Les Andelys and overlooking a bend in the River Seine . The castle was connected with Andelys through a series of contemporary outworks . During Richard ' s reign , the Crown ' s expenditure on castles declined from the levels spent by Henry II , Richard ' s father , although this has been attributed to a concentration of resources on Richard ' s war with the king of France . However , the work at Château Gaillard cost an estimated £15 , 000 to £20 , 000 between 1196 and 1198 . This was more than double Richard ' s spending on castles in England , an estimated £7 , 000 . The Pipe rolls for the construction of Château Gaillard contain the earliest details of how work was organised in castle building and what activities were involved . Amongst those workmen mentioned in the rolls are quarrymen , masons , carpenters , smiths , soldiers to guard the workers , diggers who cut the ditch surrounding the castle , and carters who transported the raw materials to the castle . A master - mason is omitted , and military historian Allen Brown has suggested that it may be because Richard himself was the overall architect ; this is supported by the interest Richard showed in the work through his frequent presence . Not only was the castle built at considerable expense , but it was built relatively rapidly ; construction of large stone castles often took the best part of a decade ; for instance the work at Dover Castle took place between 1181 and 1191 ( at a cost of £7 , 000 ) . Richard was present during part of the construction to ensure construction proceeded at a rate he was happy with . According to William of Newburgh , in May 1198 Richard and the labourers working on the castle were drenched in a " rain of blood " . While some of his advisers thought the rain was an evil omen , Richard was undeterred : After just a year , Château Gaillard was approaching completion and Richard remarked " Behold , how fair is this year - old daughter of mine ! " Richard later boasted that he could hold the castle " were the walls made of butter " . By 1198 , the castle was largely completed . At one point , the castle was the site of the execution of three French soldiers in retaliation for a massacre of Welsh mercenaries ambushed by the French ; the three were thrown to their deaths from the castle ' s position high above the surrounding landscape . In his final years , the castle became Richard ' s favourite residence , and writs and charters were written at Château Gaillard , bearing " " apud Bellum Castrum de Rupe " " ( at the Fair Castle of the Rock ) . Richard did not enjoy the benefits of the castle for long , however , as he died in Limousin on 6 April 1199 , from an infected arrow wound to his shoulder , sustained while besieging Châlus . The Siege of Château Gaillard . After Richard ' s death , King John of England failed to effectively defend Normandy against Philip ' s ongoing campaigns between 1202 and 1204 . Château de Falaise fell to Philip ' s forces , as well as castles from Mortain to Pontorson while Philip simultaneously besieged Rouen , which capitulated to French forces on 24 June 1204 , effectively ending Norman independence . Philip laid siege to Château Gaillard , which was captured after a long siege from September 1203 to March 1204 . As Philip continued the siege throughout the winter and King John made no attempt to relieve the castle , it was only a matter of time before the castellan was forced to capitulate . The main source for the siege is " Philippidos " , a poem by William the Breton , Philip ' s chaplain . As a result , modern scholars have paid little attention to the fate of the civilians of Les Andelys during the siege . The local population sought refuge in the castle to escape the French soldiers who ravaged the town . The castle was well supplied for a siege , but the extra mouths to feed rapidly diminished them ; between 1 , 400 and 2 , 200 non - combatants were allowed inside , increasing the number of people in the castle at least fivefold . In an effort to alleviate the pressure on the castle ' s supplies , Roger de Lacy , the castellan , evicted 500 civilians ; this first group was allowed to pass through the French lines unhindered , and a second group of similar size did the same a few days later . Philip was not present , and when he learned of the safe passage of the civilians , he forbade further people being released from the castle . The idea was to keep as many people within Château Gaillard to drain its resources . Roger de Lacy evicted the remaining civilians from the castle , at least 400 people , and possibly as many as 1 , 200 . The group was not allowed through , and the French opened fire on the civilians . They turned back to the castle for safety , but found the gates locked . They sought refuge at the base of the castle walls for three months ; over the winter , more than half their number died from exposure and starvation . Philip arrived at Château Gaillard in February 1204 , and ordered that the survivors should be fed and released . Such treatment of civilians in sieges was not uncommon , and such scenes were repeated much later at the sieges of Calais in 1346 and Rouen in 1418 – 1419 , both in the Hundred Years ' War . The French gained access to the outermost ward by undermining one of the towers . Following this , Philip ordered a group of his men to look for a weak point in the castle . They gained access to the next ward when a soldier named Ralph found a latrine chute in use through which the French could clamber into the chapel . After ambushing several unsuspecting guards , and setting fire to the buildings , Philip ' s men then lowered the drawbridge and allowed the rest of their army into the castle . The Anglo - Norman troops retreated to the inner ward . After a short time the French successfully breached the gate of the inner ward , and the garrison retreated finally to the keep . With supplies running low Roger de Lacy and his garrison of 20 knight s and 120 other soldiers surrendered to the French army , bringing to an end the siege on 6 March 1204 . In drawn - out medieval sieges , contemporary writers often emphasised the importance of dwindling supplies in the capitulation of the garrison , as was the case with the Siege of Château Gaillard . With the castle under French control , the main obstacle to the French entering the Seine valley was removed ; they were able to enter the valley unmolested and take Normandy . Thus , for the first time since it had been given as a duchy to Rollo in 911 , Normandy was directly ruled by the French king . The city of Rouen surrendered to Philip II on 23 June 1204 . After that , the rest of Normandy was easily conquered by the French . Under French control . In 1314 , Château Gaillard was the prison of Margaret and Blanche of Burgundy , future queens of France ; they were locked up and had their heads shaved for committing adultery . Following the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 during the Second War of Scottish Independence , the child - king David II and certain of his court were forced to flee to France for safety . At the time , southern Scotland was occupied by the forces of King Edward III of England . David , then nine years old , and his bride Joan of the Tower , the twelve - year - old daughter of Edward II , were granted the use of Château Gaillard by Philip VI . It remained their residence until David ' s return to Scotland in 1341 . David did not stay out of English hands for long after his return ; he was captured after the Battle of Neville ' s Cross in 1346 and endured an eleven - year captivity in the Tower of London . During the Hundred Years ' War between the English and French crowns , possession of the castle switched several times . Château Gaillard — along with Château de Gisors , Château de La Roche - Guyon , Ivry - la - Bataille , and Mont Saint - Michel — was one of five castles in the Normandy which offered resistance to Henry V of England in 1419 , after the capitulation of Rouen and much of the rest of the Duchy . Château Gaillard was besieged for a year before it was surrendered to the English in December 1419 ; all the resisting castles except Mont Saint - Michel eventually fell , and Normandy was temporarily returned to English control . Étienne de Vignolles , a mercenary ( routier ) known as La Hire , then re - captured Château Gaillard for the French in 1430 . However , the English were revived by the capture and execution of Joan of Arc , and although by then the war was turning against them , a month later they captured Château Gaillard again . When the French gained ascendency again between 1449 and 1453 the English were forced out of the region , and in 1449 the castle was taken by the French for the last time . By 1573 , Château Gaillard was uninhabited and in a ruinous state , but it was still believed that the castle posed a threat to the local population if it was repaired . Therefore , at the request of the French States - General , King Henry IV ordered the demolition of Château Gaillard in 1599 . Some of the building material was reused by Capuchin monks who were granted permission to use the stone for maintaining their monasteries . In 1611 , the demolition of Château Gaillard came to an end . The site was left as a ruin , and in 1862 was classified as a " monument historique " . In 1962 , a conference on the contributions of the Normans to medieval military architecture was held at Les Andelys . Allen Brown attended the conference and remarked that the castle was " in satisfying receipt of skilful care and attention " . The journal " Château Gaillard : Études de Castellogie Médiévale " , which was published as a result of the conference , has since run to 23 volumes , based on international conferences on the subject of castles . In the 1990s , archaeological excavations were carried out at Château Gaillard . The excavations investigated the north of the fortress , searching for an entrance postulated by architect Eugène Viollet - le - Duc , but no such entrance was found . However , the excavation did reveal was that there was an addition to the north of the castle to enable the use of guns . Typologically , the structure has been dated to the 16th century . The conclusion of the excavations was that the site had " enormous archaeological potential " , but that there were still unanswered questions about the castle . After Philip II took Chateau Gaillard , he repaired the collapsed tower of the outer bailey that had been used to gain access to the castle . The archaeological investigation examined the tower generally thought to be the one collapsed by Philip , and although it did not recover any dating evidence , the consensus is that he completely rebuilt the tower . In conjunction with the archaeological work , efforts were made to preserve the remaining structures . Today , Château Gaillard ' s inner bailey is open to the public from March to November , while the outer baileys are open all year round . Layout and innovations . Château Gaillard consists of three baileys — an inner , a middle , and an outer with the main entrance to the castle — and a keep , also called a donjon , in the inner - bailey . The baileys , which were separated by rock - cut ditches , housed the castle ' s stables , workshops , and storage facilities . It is common for extant castles to be the result of several phases of construction , and were adapted and added to over the period of their use ; however Château Gaillard essentially is the result of one period of building . The division into three wards bears similarities with the design of Château de Chinon , built by Henry II in the mid - 12th century on a promontory overlooking a town . The outer bailey is the southernmost feature of the castle ; it is pentagon shaped and there are five towers spaced along the wall , three of which are at corners . North of the outer bailey is the middle bailey which is an irregular polygon ; like the outer bailey , the wall of the middle bailey is studded with towers . The towers allowed the garrison to provide enfilading fire . In the fashion of the time , most of the towers in the curtain walls of the middle and outer baileys were cylindrical . Château Gaillard was one of the first castles in Europe to use machicolations — stone projections on top of a wall with openings that allowed objects to be dropped on an enemy at the base of the wall . Machicolations were introduced to Western architecture as a result of the Crusades . Until the 13th century , the tops of towers in European castles had usually been surrounded by wooden galleries , which served the same purpose as machicolations . An Eastern innovation , they may have originated in the first half of the 8th century . Within the middle bailey was the inner bailey . The gatehouse from the middle to the inner - bailey was one of the earliest examples of towers flanking the entrance to remove the blind - spot immediately in front of the gate . This was part of a wider trend from around the late 12th or 13th century onwards for castle gateways to be strongly defended . The design of the inner bailey , with its wall studded with semi - circular projections , is unparalleled . This innovation had two advantages : firstly , the rounded wall absorbed the damage from siege engine s much better as it did not provide a perfect angle to aim at ; secondly , the arrowslit s in the curved wall allowed arrows to be fired at all angles . The inner bailey , which contained the main residential buildings , used the principles of concentric defence . This and the unusual design of the inner bailey ' s curtain wall meant that castle was advanced for its age , since it was built before concentric fortification was fully developed in Crusader castles such as Krak des Chevaliers . Concentric castles were widely copied across Europe ; for instance when Edward I of England — who had himself been on Crusade — built castles in Wales in the late 13th century , four of the eight he founded were concentric . The keep was inside the inner bailey and contained the king ' s accommodation . It had two rooms : an antechamber and an audience room . While Allen Brown interpreted the audience room as the king ' s chamber , historian Liddiard believes it is probably a throne room . A throne room emphasises the political importance of the castle . In England there is nothing similar to Château Gaillard ' s keep , but there are buildings with a similar design in France in the 12th and 13th centuries . Allen Brown described Château Gaillard as " one of the finest castles in Europe " and the military historian Sir Charles Oman wrote that : Despite Château Gaillard ' s reputation as a great fortress , Liddiard highlights the absence of a well in the keep as a peculiar weakness , and the castle was built on soft chalk , which would have allowed the walls to be undermined . This is attributed to Château Gaillard being important not solely as a military structure , but as a salient symbol of the power of Richard the Lionheart . It was a statement of dominance by Richard , having reconquered the lands Philip II had taken . Castles such as Château Gaillard in France , and Dover in England , were amongst the most advanced of their age , but were surpassed in both sophistication and cost by the works of Edward I of England in the latter half of the 13th century .