Strengthened by Geoffrey de Magnaville, Earl of Essex, and fourth constable of the fortress, who defended it against the usurper Stephen, but was, nevertheless, eventually compelled to surrender it; repaired in 1155, by Thomas à Becket, then Chancellor to Henry the Second; greatly extended and enlarged in 1190, the second year of the reign of Richard Cour de Lion, by William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and Chancellor of the realm, who, encroaching to some distance upon Tower Hill, and breaking down the city wall as far as the first gate called the postern, surrounded it with high embattled walls of stone, and a broad deep ditch, thinking, as Stowe observes, “to have environed it with the river Thames;”—the Tower of London was finished by Henry the Third, who, in spite of the remonstrances of the citizens, and other supernatural warnings, if credit is to be attached to the statement of Matthew of Paris, completely fortified it. A gate and bulwark having been erected on the west of the Tower, we are told by the old chronicler above-mentioned, “that they were shaken as it had been with an earthquake and fell down, which the king again commanded to be built in better sort, which was done. And yet, again, in the year 1241, the said wall and bulwarks that were newly builded, whereon the king had bestowed more than twelve thousand marks, were irrecoverably quite thrown down as before; for the which chance the citizens of London were nothing sorry, for they were threatened, that the said wall and bulwarks were builded, to the end, that if any of them would contend for the liberties of the city, they might be imprisoned. And that many might be laid in divers prisons, many lodgings were made, that no one should speak with another.” These remarkable accidents (if accidents they were,) were attributed by the popular superstition of the times, to the miraculous interference of Thomas à Becket, the guardian saint of the Londoners.