(_Malvoisins_) also were erected on the edge of the ditch to quell the fire from the walls, which were actually shaken by strokes of the ram. Also a small colony was established in temporary huts, so as to give the siege the aspect of a blockade. Hubert, however, was a true and loyal subject of England. He regarded his charge as held under his sovereign, whoever that sovereign might be, and his castle as the “clavis Angliæ et repagulum.” He returned attack for attack, stone for stone, until the death of John, by removing much of the cause of dissatisfaction, led to the retirement of the French from the country. The great spur-work in advance of the northern gateway, and which still, though much altered, remains, is probably the work of De Burgh, no doubt suggested to him by the direction of the French attack. Henry III. was here in state in 1255, on his way from Spain, and in 1259 the castle was in the hands of the barons, who refused to allow his brother Richard, King of the Romans, to enter the place until he had sworn to adopt their cause. Henry recovered the castle in 1261 from Hugh le Bigot, but was unable to hold it, and was refused admission when, with his brother and the Earl Mareschal, he presented himself before the gate in 1263. In the great struggle, Henry held the Tower of London, and the barons the castle of Dover. After Lewes, the Princes Edward and Henry were for a time held in durance in Dover. In 1265, when the prince had the upper hand, and Kenilworth had fallen, fourteen nobles of the royal party were imprisoned in the keep of Dover. Here they defended themselves, turning the tables upon their captors, who, attacked from without by Prince Edward, and thus placed between two fires, surrendered the castle. The Countess of Leicester, who was within it, was allowed to retire to France. On his return from Palestine, after his father’s death, in the summer of 1274, Edward I. landed at Dover. He again visited the castle in 1278, 1296, and 1299. Dover was his usual port when he visited or returned from the Continent, and in his time the castle was maintained and strengthened, and some of its most considerable parts, such as the Constable’s Gate and St. John’s Postern, are of the conclusion of the reign of Henry or early in that of Edward, and most probably the latter. Edward II. was here in the January following his father’s death, and here he embarked for Boulogne on the occasion of his marriage in 1308, and here he received the queen. Edward III. was not infrequently at Dover, but is more likely to have lodged in the Maison Dieu than in the castle. He probably drew troops from hence when he sailed from the port on his celebrated secret expedition to Calais in 1348. In the reign of Henry V. the Emperor Sigismond was received at the castle as a visitor, and from hence the king embarked his army for France in 1421, as did Henry VII. in 1491.