When King John died at Newark, and when the boy Henry was crowned at Gloucester, Louis of France and the Anglo-Norman barons were still before Dover. But Hugh de Burgh held out gallantly; and Louis, wearying of an enterprise in which there was no prospect of success, swallowed the vow he had made never to move from before the castle till he had taken it and hanged the garrison, and resolved on withdrawing from the siege, and employing his energies to consolidate the conquests he had already achieved in England. Accordingly, he returned to London, which was still devoted to his cause, and on the 6th of November took possession of the Tower, which, doubtless, he considered a stronghold which would stand him in good stead, in case of the citizens becoming refractory, and requiring to be kept down with the strong hand. So far the French prince, notwithstanding his check at Dover, saw no reason to despair of ultimate triumph over the obstacles which barred his way to the throne, and, looking upon young Henry’s coronation as a farce, he was already a conqueror in imagination. Moreover, he daily showed himself more and more indifferent to the opinions of his Anglo-Norman allies, bestowing all his confidence on the lords and knights who had accompanied him from France, and not scrupling to make Robert Fitzwalter and his confederates feel the full humiliation of their position. It is difficult to guess whether or not Fitzwalter believed the story which was current as to the death of his daughter, Maude the Fair, by the poisoned egg. But even if so, his conscience must sometimes have reproached him when he reflected that, in order to gratify his revenge for a private wrong, he had played a part similar to that of Count Julian of Spain, when, five hundred years earlier, he, in order to avenge the wrongs of his daughter, Caba, had invited the Moors to seize the kingdom of Roderick, overthrew the monarchy of the Goths, and placed his native land and its inhabitants at the mercy of foreign invaders. Probably, however, Fitzwalter seldom thought either of Count Julian’s country or of his own, but gave his whole attention to his own safety and his own interests, and troubled himself very lightly with the misery which he had been the means of bringing on England and on Englishmen.