Longchamp’s reign was so short that it is difficult to understand how he managed to execute as much as he undoubtedly did. The rolls of the early years of Richard I. do not indeed show above one or two hundred pounds of outlay, but the chancellor had the command of other funds; and one cause of his excessive unpopularity with the citizens was the avidity with which he took upon himself to tax them. Prince John, when he succeeded to the throne in 1199, was not inattentive to the wants of the Tower. In his two first years, Elias, the engineer, was employed upon the king’s houses and works, and similar entries appear in the fifth, tenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth years. In the sixteenth the sum was considerable—£117. 15s. 8d.; and in the seventeenth the charge, £12, is for building the mud or “clay wall between the Tower [precinct] and city,” which wall is often referred to in later surveys. On the whole, the Pipe Rolls of the reign are scanty as regards the Tower, but they are in some degree replaced by entries upon the Mise, Close, and Patent Rolls, which show that it was kept up as a royal residence, and that the king occasionally stayed there. In 1209 and 1210, 9s. 4d. were given in alms to one hundred poor there; and in the latter year Osmund, a knight bound for Poictou, received a gift of ten marcs, and, to buy a horse, a hundred shillings from the king. This was given in the “Church of St. Peter at the Tower of London”; and is the earliest known mention of that building. Here also, on Sunday, the morrow of St. Philip and Jacob, Steffan, the messenger of the emperor, received half a marc on his return to his lord, and other payments were made here. In 1212 the Archdeacon of Durham and Philip de Ulecote are ordered to send in all haste to London thirty carratas (cartloads) of lead for covering the Tower; and, in 1213, among orders for repairs for the castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Guildford, is mention of carriage of timber and “busca” (faggots), for the works of the Castle of Dover and the Tower of London. It was about this time that the city ditch was deepened, and widened to a breadth of 200 feet. In 1215, Henry de Nevill was to supply ten oaks for the works at the Tower, five from within Havering Park and five from outside it. It was also in 1215 that the barons seized upon London, and that the Tower was given over to be held by the Archbishop of Canterbury until Assumption Day as a pledge for the king’s performance of certain engagements. The rights of either party to the Tower were suspended, and the king was not to reinforce the garrison. The great charter was signed 15th June. The barons, however, continued virtually in possession until the arrival of the Dauphin, to whom it was given up in 1216, and by him held until he left the kingdom.