DOVER CASTLE 253 



the rear. The Castle was then made the seat of 

 government for Kent, and one of those fierce fighting 

 Bishops, Odo, half-brotlier of the Conqueror, installed. 

 The Kentish people, revolting in 1074, endeavoured in 

 vain to seize it ; it was held against Stephen, and 

 eventually surrendered to him ; and here within the 

 gloomy walls of the Saxon stronghold he died in 1154. 

 No sooner was Henry the Second crowned than his 

 advisers urged the rebuilding of the Castle, and to this 

 period belong the Keep and the Inner Ward. Sixty 

 years later the fortifications of Henry's reign received 

 their first shock of war when, England having been 

 given by the Pope to Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, 

 King of France, that Prince endeavoured to take the 

 gift. But hateful though John, King of England, 

 might be. Englishmen were neither content that their 

 allegiance should be transferred Avithout reference to 

 themselves, nor willing to become again the prey of 

 invaders. Therefore, thej^ bade Prince Louis to take 

 the Pope's j^resent if he could, and held Dover Castle 

 against his forces. England, divided against itself, 

 had permitted Louis to land, and even to be crowned 

 in London, but the Constable of Dover Castle at that 

 time, Hubert de Burgh, was a patriot to be won over 

 neither by threats nor promises, and he held the Castle 

 against all comers. The siege was undertaken in 

 earnest. Louis sent over to France for all the artillery 

 that the time could produce. It consisted of battering- 

 rams and stone-throwing machines, and in this way it 

 was sought to breach the walls. A wooden shelter for 

 the attacking force was constructed and built up to 

 the outer walls of the inland face of the Castle, and 

 under cover of this device the soldiers worked the 

 battering-rams until the defences shook again. The 

 garrison retorted by flinging heavy stones and fire-balls 

 on the shelter, and would either have demolished or 

 burnt it had it not been for an ingenious invention 

 which the French had imported. This consisted of a 

 series of tall wooden towers called malvoisins, and 



