The siege of Rochester.
Straits of the besieged. William's muster, and, in the course of May, a vast host beset the fortress of Rochester. According to a practice of which we have often heard already, two temporary forts, no doubt of wood, were raised, so as to hem in the besieged and to cut off their communications from without.[1] The site of one at least of these may be looked for on the high ground to the south of the castle, said to be itself partly artificial, and known as Boley Hill.[2] The besieged soon found that all resistance was useless. They were absolutely alone. Pevensey and Tunbridge were now in the King's hands; since the overthrow of Duke Robert's fleet, they could look for no help from Normandy; they could look for none from yet more distant Bristol or Durham. Till the siege began, they had lived at the cost of the loyal inhabitants of Kent and London. For not only the Archbishop, but most of the chief land-owners of Kent were on the King's side.[3] This is a point to be noticed amid the general falling away of the Normans. For the land-owners of Kent, a land where no Englishman was a tenant-in-chief, were a class preeminently Norman. But we can well believe that the rule of Odo, who spared neither French nor English who stood in his way,[4] may have been little more to the liking of his own countrymen than it was to that of
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 667 B. "Animosus rex . . . oppidum Maio mense cum grandi exercitu potenter obsedit, firmatisque duobus castellis omnem exeundi facultatem hostibus abstulit." It must have been late in May, as six weeks had been spent before Pevensey. Indeed, if the siege did begin in the Easter week, it must have been June.
- ↑ See Mr. Clark in the Archæological Journal, vol. xxxii. p. 205.
- ↑ This appears from the words of Florence; "Hrofenses Cantwariensibus et Lundoniensibus cædes inferunt et incendia. Landfrancus enim archiepiscopus et pene omnes optimates ejusdem provinciæ erant cum rege." Orderic too (u. s.) points out the advantageous position of Rochester for such purposes; "In medio positi laxis habenis Lundoniam et Cantuariam devastarent."
- ↑ See N. C. vol. v. p. 748.
