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The exact origin of Berkhamsted Castle is unclear. It was almost certainly built by Robert, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall, who was the half-brother of King William I. Robert prospered from the Norman Conquest in 1066 and grew even more rich during the following years.

However, his son made a big slip-up by backing Robert of Normandy against King Henry I. Henry confiscated the castle and its grounds and put it up for rent. Various wealthy families rented it from time to time, one of whom was Thomas Becket.

Berkhamsted Castle is of the classic style for its age in that it is a motte and bailey castle. The motte is a tall conical rise of earth on which would stand the last line of defence, the keep. Two ditches surround the bailey with a rampart in between. The ditches may or may not have been full of water.

The motte and bailey and its keep were the ancient equivalent of a contemporary strong or safe room. If the outer concentric walls of the castle were breached, the family occupying the castle and their most loyal soldiers would flee into the keep and lift up the drawbridge. Any would-be attackers now had to advance across open ground, in effect a killing field.

Then the invaders would have to cross a ditch or a moat under heavy fire, climb over a rampart and swim another moat. If they got that far they would face a sheer keep wall with no windows doors or toe-holds whilst a withering shower of rocks and arrows poured down upon them from a great height.

The keep at Berkhamsted Castle has been taken away quite some time ago. It has to be remembered that castles were symbols of foreign oppression and were fiercely hated by the indigenous locals. The first castles or forts really were Roman; then came, Saxon forts and castles and finally Norman castles – all owned by marauding foreigners.

So once a castle was destroyed or badly damaged, it was not unusual for the locals to pillage the ruins in order to build a new cottage for their family or a new cowshed for their livestock. It was easier to steal the rocks from the rundown castle than quarry them themselves. So, the original rocks that made up Berkhamsted Castle are almost certainly to be discovered under centuries of plaster in the near-by local farmhouses.

Having said that, there are still sections of the original flint wall from the era of Thomas Becket’s occupancy of the castle. The bits of stone were almost certainly too small to be worth pinching.

The remains of three semi-circular towers flank this wall which ran from the motte to the bailey. They too lie in ruins although the foundations show what they were. There are also the ruins of a barbican at the north end of the bailey.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of castles in the United Kingdom. Most of them are in ruins but some are very well conserved and some are even still occupied, like Windsor Castle for example.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with the bouncy castles for sale. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Bouncy House Rentals

Mark A Cella What is a Black Op? Was 9/11 a Black Op Which Served a Dual Purpose? Elites Gained Endless War and Destruction of Most of the Constitution When They Felled the Twin Towers Using Controlled Demolition.

A black op is a covert operation involving activities which are highly secretive and can be associated with political, military, intelligence, scientific, medical or business agendas.

They’re used to manipulate sensitive or controversial issues. It is sometimes helpful to hide behind a smoke-screen to hide the real intention of the action. Black op missions are commonly denied if or when a leak does occur and public knowledge of the coup is made known, as most times the actions of the group are questionable and draw attention to illegal government or corporate activities.

Typically in black ops, a decoy operation is used to present the appearance that responsibility lies with a certain individual or group when a completely different entity is responsible for the carnage.

Mark A Cella Info About Black Ops

In looking back and seeing that 9/11 was the catalyst for Bush to declare a state of emergency, which allowed him to establish constitutional dictatorship, it is obviously black op that paved the way for America’s entry into the war on Iraq.

It is also the black op that is used to disguise the restriction of civil rights, and it is the justification for the development of the Department of Homeland Security, which has endangered more of the people’s rights than any single act of legislation in the history of American government.

A covert operation is traditionally associated with such activities as assassinations, sabotage, spying, military coups, extortion, fraud, supporting resistance movements, weapons testing, torture, trafficking in contraband and other such illegal and questionable government and corporate activities.

Technically, any government operation that is considered classified and to which access to the information is denied is considered a black op, and we all know that our American government has plenty of operations they do not disclose to the voting public.

Mark A Cella Info About Black Ops

Covert operations go on all the time in government as demonstrated by the assassination of President Kennedy, the Iran-Contra Affair and Watergate, as well as all the spying that has gone on in the two world wars, Korea, Vietnam and the two gulf wars.

Many times government intelligence agencies are involved in a black op and if that information were made public, it would endanger lives and possibly national security which can be either a good thing or a bad thing.

Because the covertness of the operations can be justified by a need for safety or national security, it leaves a margin of error for those who would seek to defraud the system by using secrecy as a tool for deception rather than a device for protection.

Mark A Cella – Black Op?

Many times one covert operation is linked closely with another covert operation and involves many persons or agencies; so it is very difficult to get to discover the whole truth, even if the operation itself is exposed.

To determine who is involved, establish a motive for the crime and prosecute and punish the guilty parties is extremely difficult, as the smoke screen of secrecy is rarely penetrated, and the entire truth is rarely told.

Learn more about Mark A Cella. Stop by Mark A Cella’s site where you can find out all about Mark A Cella and his work.