bar John’s way to the capital; and they advanced into Kent as far as Ospring. When they reached it John was at Canterbury; having only a small escort he, on hearing of his enemies’ approach, hurriedly fell back to Dover; they, however, were so scared by a report that he had set out from Canterbury to offer them battle that they beat an equally hasty retreat towards Rochester.[1101] Their great fear was lest he should gain possession of Rochester castle, which he had vainly tried to induce the archbishop to give up to him two months before.[1102] On October 11 Reginald of Cornhill, in whose charge Stephen had left it, suffered it to be occupied by a band of picked knights under William of Aubigny. But the triumph of the intruders was shortlived; two days later the king was at the gates of Rochester.[1103] “Certes, sire,” said one of John’s Flemish allies as the royal host set out for Rochester, “you make little account of your enemies if you go to fight them with so small a force!” “I know them too well,” answered John; “they are to be nothing accounted of or feared. With fewer men than we have we might safely fight them. Certes, one thing I may tell you truly, I grieve not so much for the evil which the men of my land are doing to me, as that their wickedness should be seen by strangers.”[1104] The king knew what the stranger did not know, that so long as he could keep the Medway between himself and the main body of the barons he was safe. He therefore began his operations by an attempt to destroy the bridge, and thus to cut off the communications between Rochester and London. It seems that he sent a party up the river in boats to fire the bridge from beneath, and that they succeeded in so doing, but that Robert Fitz-Walter, with a picked body of knights and men-at-arms, was guarding the bridge at the time and managed to extinguish the flames and drive off the assailants.[1105] Fitz-Walter, however, appears to have immediately returned to London;[1106] and in a second attack on the bridge John was completely successful; the bridge was destroyed, and the king proceeded to invest the castle[1107] and assault the town.