The Device Forts

The Device Forts, also known as Henrician Castles England was left politically isolated, and a treaty between , are a series of artillery fortifications built to defend the southern coast of England by Henry VIII. After his divorce of Catherine of AragonFrance and Spain in 1538 aroused fears of invasion. This threat stimulated the beginning of the first phase of the largest defence programme since Saxon times. This first phase was known as the 1539 device programme which was followed after renewed threats from the French by a second programme; the 1544 device programme. Henry’s coastal defences ranged from earthen bulwarks to small blockhouses and artillery towers to state of the art Italianate style fortifications. Henry took a personal interest in the military engineering techniques of the time, and approved and amended the designs himself. Although they were built to defend England during Henry’s reign many of them were used in the English Civil War and were refortified various times during the Napoleonic wars and and World War I World War II.
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