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this agreement he was sent with an escort to
Rochester, but when he began to parley with the garrison they made a
sudden sally, and carried him off into the castle to renew the struggle.
The reduction of Rochester was no easy matter, and 30,000 men are said
to have answered the king’s appeal for aid. The defenders suffered
greatly and were finally compelled to surrender by the ravages of
disease in the overcrowded fortress.30 The fall of
Rochester made an end of the rising, and Odo was exiled from England for
ever. The palatine earldom of Kent, if it ever existed, came to an end
with his fall. In 1095, when William was marching north to crush the
rebellion of Robert Mowbray and other northern barons, his life is said
to have been saved from an ambush by a warning given by his old enemy
Gilbert de Clare, lord of Tonbridge.31 A similar
outbreak in Kent was prevented by William’s prompt action in sending
Anselm to defend the coast against an expected invasion from Normandy.32
On the death of Henry I, Stephen on coming over to claim the crown
found Dover and Canterbury held for the empress Maud by garrisons of her
half-brother Robert of Gloucester.33 Before a year had
passed, Robert had submitted to Stephen, but Dover Castle still held out
under Walkelin Marminot.34 Stephen in 1138 sent his
queen Maud to besiege the castle, and she reduced it to submission by
blockading the harbour with ships from her county of Boulogne.35
This able lady and William of Ypres,36 commanders of
Stephen’s Flemish mercenaries, were successful in retaining Kent for
Stephen when nearly the whole of England submitted to the empress on the
capture of Stephen in 1141,37 and when Robert of
Gloucester was captured later in the same year he was imprisoned at
Rochester38 until he was exchanged for Stephen in
November. It was at Canterbury, at Christmas 1141, that Stephen, after
the indignity of his capture, was crowned for the second time. Mr. Round
suggests that this was a graceful compliment to the county of Kent,
which in the ,darkest hour of the king’s fortunes had remained
faithful to his cause.39
In the last year of his reign, Stephen and his destined
successor Henry visited Canterbury and Dover, where they met the Count
of Flanders, but the discovery of a conspiracy against his life formed
by some of Stephen’s Flemish mercenaries, made Henry hastily return to
London, whence he departed for Normandy.40 Stephen was
at Dover for another interview with the Count of Flanders when he died,
25 October 1154. He was taken to Faversham, his own foundation,
to be laid to rest beside his wife Maud.41
The reign of Henry II is mainly memorable in Kent for the
contest between him and Thomas Becket, and for the king’s penitential
visit to Canterbury in 1174, when he spent a day and a night in fasting
and prayer
30 Orderic Vitalis, op. cit.
viii,
2. 31
Ibid.
32 Freeman, William Rufus, ii, 44.
33 Gervase of Canterbury, Op. Hisi. (Rolls
Ser.), 1, 94. The inference made by Stubbs, Const. Hist.
(ed. 4’), i, 345, that the ‘men of Kent’ refused to receive
Stephen does not seem to be justified; see Round, Geof. de
Mandeville, i, 2.
34 Orderic Vitalis, op. cit. xiii, 37.
35 Ibid. Leeds Castle in Kent was also
held at this time by Robert of Gloucester (Hen. of Huntingdon, Hist.
Angl. (Rolls Ser.), 261), but there is no further record of its
fate.
36 The statement that William was made
Earl of Kent is erroneous; he received, however, considerable revenues
from the crown lands there. See Dict. Nat. Biog.
37 Matth. Paris, Chron. Majora (Rolls.
Ser.), ii, 173
38 Gervase, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i,
121.
39 Geof. de Mandeville, 138.
40 Ibid. 158.
41 Ibid. 159. |