that never ends: a game of General Post of which the sea, at least, never tires. [Illustration: DOVER CASTLE, FROM THE FOLKESTONE ROAD: SUNRISE.] XLIII Dover Castle possesses the longest and most continuous, if not quite the most stirring, military history of any fortress within these narrow seas. Described picturesquely by ancient chroniclers as "the very front door of England," or, as "clavis Angliae et repagulum," it is, and in very truth has ever been, since its foundation, the main bulwark of Britain against foreign foes. At what precise period a Castle was first raised here is a question that has never yet and probably never will be settled. The Romans built their lighthouse here, with another on the topmost point of the Western Heights, but the first Castle is not supposed to have been built before the time of Edward the Confessor, and the first reference to it is found in that oath which Harold swore to the Duke of Normandy, that he would yield up to him both the fortress and the well which was contained in "_castellum Dofris_." Of this building nothing now appears to be left, and the earliest portion of the present Castle is Henry the Second's Keep. [Sidenote: DOVER CASTLE] But whatever the size and strength of the Castle that stood here in Harold's day, it would seem to have been formidable enough to induce William the Conqueror to seek a landing elsewhere. He landed at Pevensey, and it was not until after Hastings and the fall of Romney that he turned and took Dover from the rear. The Castle was then made the seat of government for Kent, and one of those fierce fighting Bishops, Odo, half-brother of the Conqueror, installed. The Kentish people, revolting in 1074, endeavoured in vain to seize it; it was held against Stephen, and eventually surrendered to him; and here within the gloomy walls of the Saxon stronghold he died in 1154. No sooner was Henry the Second crowned than his advisers urged the rebuilding of the Castle, and to this period belong the Keep and the Inner Ward. Sixty years later the fortifications of Henry's reign received their first shock of war when, England having been given by the Pope to Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, King of France, that Prince endeavoured to take the gift. But hateful though John, King of England, might be, Englishmen were neither content that their allegiance should be transferred without reference to themselves, nor willing to become again the prey of invaders. Therefore, they bade Prince Louis to take the Pope's present if he could, and held Dover Castle against his forces. England, divided against itself, had permitted Louis to land, and even to be crowned in London, but the Constable of Dover Castle at that time, Hubert de Burgh, was a patriot to be won over neither by threats nor promises, and he held the Castle against all comers. The siege was undertaken in earnest. Louis sent over to France for all the artillery that the time could produce.