by Eustace of Boulogne, rose against William, their first object was to gain Dover Castle, to which they laid siege. Its defences, whether English or Norman, were strong, but the attack was sharp. Bishop Odo and Hugh de Montfort, who had the castle in charge, were absent, but they exerted themselves in the county, and the castle was relieved. Towards the end of the reign the town is said to have been walled, and to have had ten gates. Its position, as the most important of the Cinque Ports, seems to have been established, to which its castle largely contributed. The five ports were Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich. Winchelsea and Rye were among the members. Their service was to provide fifty-seven ships annually, of which number Dover furnished twenty-one. Important as the castle continued to be under the reigns of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, its history does not possess any very particular interest. It was not the scene of any very remarkable event, and, though accounted the key of the kingdom, was not in any very intimate manner bound up with its history. It has always been held by the Crown and governed by a constable, usually a man of eminence, of which officials Lyon gives a list of 138. Three barons of the house of Fiennes held the office under the Conqueror, Rufus, and Henry I., and in their time seem to have been built the outer curtain and many of its towers. Walchelin Magminot, placed in office by Stephen, held the place against him in 1137, and in 1138 surrendered it to the queen, just before the battle of the Standard. Stephen died at Dover, probably in the castle, and Mr. Puckle has fought gallantly for the recent discovery of his remains. Henry II. is supposed to have built the keep and the wall of the inner ward in 1154, soon after his accession to the crown, and, if so, it was probably the actual work of one of the Barons Fiennes, who held the office of constable in that reign. Of these lords, the last, James Fiennes, was constable at the accession of Richard I., and in 1191 received, as a prisoner in the castle, Geoffrey, Henry II.’s natural son, on his way to take up the archbishopric of York. He was taken from the sanctuary of St. Martin’s church, and imprisoned by order of the Bishop of Ely, the chancellor. For this outrage Fiennes was suspended, and eventually the chancellor was excommunicated and banished. In 1198 the constable was one of the five officers appointed to inspect the treasures of the church of Canterbury. In the reign of John, the constable was Hubert de Burgh, to whom it fell to defend the castle against Prince Louis and the French invaders. Louis made great attempts to win over De Burgh to his party, but without success, and upon his final refusal he laid siege to the castle. _Trebuchets_ and _petraria_, and much siege artillery were brought over from France, and a covered way was run along the slope outside the castle ditch on the north-west quarter. Wooden towers