In Times of Peace

VII. IN TIMES OF PEACE.

In times of peace, for centuries past, it has been the custom for visitors to Dover to chmb the Ca.stle Hill to be conducted over the great fortress by guides who could recite much of its wonderful history. Such a visit, with an intelligent guide, serves to illustrate many well-known passages in English history. There are special features, concerning which tourists never fail to make enquiries.

THE UNDERGROUND WORKS.

The underground passages, for instance, arouse much curiosity ; but they cannot be entered unless application has been made beforehand for a pass from the Army Headquarters Office at Dover. The members of the British Archaeological Congress were conducted through them, in 18S3, by Major Plunkett, R.E. The writer had an opportunity of going through them on that occasion, and once earlier, under the guidance of an old soldier, who was skilful in drawing the "long bow." Such an adventure is romantic and interesting, yet very little of a military character is to be learned down there. The oldest of the underground passages date from the construction of the northern works in the spur soon after the French siege in 1 216; and the more modern are the passages connected with the casemates in the Cliff face excavated in 1798, with the shaft sunk from the top of the Castle cliff to the Mote Bulwark at the same period.

THE TOP OF THE KEEP.

The top of the Castle Keep, the other extreme of the Castle fortifications, is a point that visitors are not allowed now to reach without special arrangement. The top cannot be approached by the broad stairs that lead to the inner rooms, but by a narrower stairway in the south angle. The top, 469 feet above sea level, affords fine views of the town and harbour, and of the strikins: succession of hills and dales which furrow the landscape on the west side of the Dour Valley. To the north-east the view extends to the North Foreland, Ramsgate, Reculvers Towers, Richborough Castle, and Sandwich Towers, Eastward the view extends to the Notre Dame Tower at Calais and Napoleon's Column near Boulogne. Although *he Keep is lofty, the land to the south-west is higher, the elevation at Paddlesworth Knoll being 146 feet higher than the summit of the Keep.

In the year 1787 Major-General Roy fixed an instrument to the north turret of the Keep to enable the surveyors of England and France to connect the triangulation for the exact measurement of the distance betwe^en the two countries. The distance across the Straits, which had not been accurately known previously, was found to be from this turret to the Tower of the Notre D.ime, Calais, 137,449 feet, that is 26 miles 11 poles and 4 feet.

Looking from the top of the Keep, it will be interesting to recall the substance of a statement made from that point of vantage to a company of archaeologists by Major Plunkett, R.E., on the 25th August, 1883. He said: "If you look out on this side towards the sea you will obtain a clear idea of the size and form of the mound on which stands the ancient structure known as the Pharos. The earthwork seems to have originally consisted of a parallelogram of 400 feet by 140 feet. The first addition to that oblong earthwork seems to have enciosed what is the parade ground below us. The next great line of defence, in the form of a horseshoe, is pretty clearly shown by the walls and towers of the Keep Yard, which are built on the ancient Saxon work. Then there is a larger horseshoe, said to have been originally Saxon work. The base of it extends from Peverell's Tower there, on the west, to Averanche's Tower, on the east. The curve of the horseshoe is represented by the walls and towers extending round the north part of the Castle from Peverell's to Averanche's. That horseshoe vas originally formed of earthworks, which were first impioved by the erection at intervals of detached towers from which archers could annoy an enemy attempting to mount the slopes. In Roman and Saxon times it was considered sufficient to provide a wide ditch to prevent their enemies from closing with them, but greater skill in throwing missiles at the detendcrs on the ramparts within the ditch made it necessary to have these detached towers, where, through loojj-holes, the archers could shoot without exposing themselves. There were three ot those anhers' towers still standing, shown hi the plans of the Castle, in 1794. Coming to the Norman system of fortifications, the Keep on which we stand was a principal feature. It has been assumed l)y some who have attempted to describe the Castle that the outer walls and towers round the hill from the cliff at Canon's Gate up to the Constable's Tower and along the eastern side back to the cliff again, were the work of the early Normans, but there is reason to believe that they are of the Edwardian times. These outer walls and flanking towers formed the next step in the progress of fortifications after this central keep was built. The chief point in the construction of such fortifications was the placing of flanking towers at such intervals that the assailants of any one tower would be exposed tn a cross fire of arrows and stones from the towers on either side. Another characteristic of mediaeval fortificaticions was sally-ports and barbicans, from which to make sorties and annoy the liesieging forces. At yonder jpur northward, with its underground works, there was an arrangement of that nature, where a passage from the ditch branched off into three galleries. The next step in fortifications was necessitated by the introduction of artillery. It was some time l)efore the new system was introduced here, but it was brought into use by Henry VIII., who made improvements in the fortifications at the foot of the Castle cliff. No other great change seems to have been made in the defences of the Castle from the time of the Edwards until the end of the Eighteenth Century, when Mr. Pitt appears to have obtained £50,000 to spend in strengthening these fortifications. Great improvements were then made; advanced bastions and earthworks which you see on the way up from the town and others on the eastern side. The object was the same as in the construction of the mediaeval towers — that the several parts of the fortifications should afford protection to each other. The most recent improvement was the construction of caponniers, or covered galleries, from which to flank and defend those ditches. If you will look towards the north you will see Fort Burgoyne, which is a good example of the more recent phase of the art of fortification, in which the system of defending the ditches by caponniers is a very important feature, with arrangements for heavy fire from artillery and rifles along the ditch, the defenders being so placed as to be almost safe from the fire of the enemy. I would also point out to you how the whole of the defences of the position of Dover — not only the defences on this hill, but on the heights on the other side of thd valley — are only the adaptation of principles which were well known in the Middle Ages. That long line of ramparts on the opposite Heights, from the Drop Redoubt up to the Citadel, has in front of it the valley up which the Folkestone Road runs, which W!.» may look upon as a gigantic ditch, and which, as long as it is swept by the fire from Fort Burgoyne, from this Castle, and from any batteries which may be placed between them, would be inaccessible to an approaching force, which must, consequently, be confined in its advance to the narrow neck of land stretching westwaid from the Citadel in the direction of Folkestone ; while on the east side of the Castle the fire from the outwork called the East Wing Battery sweeps the hollow ground to the edge of the cliff." After this statement on the top, the underground works, already mentioned, were visited.

THE OLDEST TOWERS.

The oldest Towers in the Castle are enquired after by visitors. It will be gathered from Major Plunkett's statement that some of the old towers were destroyed in adding new defences in the Eighteenth Century, but the oldest tower of all, the Roman Pharos, stands — suppo.sed to date from AD. 50. The olde.st Saxon Tower remaining is known as Colton Gate, which bestraddles the narrow way that anciently led up into both the Roman and vSaxon fortifications. Peverell's Tower, with an arched gateway on the wall next the town, is believed to be the oldest existing Norman work, the Con.stable's Tower, which was older, having been rebuilt a century after the Conquest.

ANCIENT WEAPONS.

Of ancient weapons, there used to be many samples in the Keep and the Constable's Tower. In one of the walls in the Keep is preserved intact a Norman loop-hole used in the liays of darts and arrows. There also may be seen spears and cross-bows o^ the Middle Ages; also, some curious pieces used four centuries ago when fire arms were first introduced. One is a seven-chaml^ercd gun, all the barrels of which were fired simultaneously. There is also a two-handed sword j)icked up on the battle field of Hastings. Somewhere in the Keep is said to be the ancient sword which for centuries was in the Constable's Tower, and known as the sword of Julius Caesar. Affording comparison with the old, the Keep contains an armoury of modern weapons.

THE ANCIENT CHURCH.

The Church in the Castle, the antiquity of which has already been mentioned, is much encjuired about by visitors. It is said to be the oldest church in this country, and it certainly was the first built in Dover. When it was founded, about the year 180 the whole of the population of Dover occupied this hill top. During a long lapse into heathenism this Church fell into ruin, but it was reconstructed under Augustine, the first Bishop of Canterbury, about A.D. 600, and King Eadbald, A.D. 620 established a college of Secular Canons, who served this rhurch until they were removed to their new house and church of St. Martin beside the livei Dour A.D. 700. After that date the services of the Castle Church were continued by three Chaplains, supported out of the Manor of Cocklescombe in the Parish of Lydden ; but, after the Reformation their number was reduced to one. There was a regular succession of chaplains until A.D. 1690, when, owing to the ruinous state of the church, public worship therein was discontinued. After that date the stipend, amounting to f)etween thirty and forty pounds continued to be paid for more than a century, but tlic recipient never did duty. This church was used by the Castle Garrison for about 600 years, and during that time many distinguished persons were Iniried within it, while for the soldiers and their families there was a burial grotmd on tiie south and east sides of the church, within the limits of the Roman entrenchment. After the discontiruiance of the services in 1690 the burials in the Castle Cliurchyard ceased, the Castle Garrison interments, which were few, taking place mostly at St. James's Church. About the middle of the eighteenth century when the wars brought more soldiers to Dover, the Old St. Martin's Churchyard, to which there was an entrance frorc the Market Place, was used to bury common soldiers, while the officers were usually buried at St. James' and St. Mary's Churches. From 1796, for about 20 years a great many regiments were crowded into Dover Castle, and in the year 1800 a graveyard was consecrated for the burial of soldiers outside the Castle walls near the top of the Northfall Meadow. That graveyard still exists and there used to be a good many small headstones there indicating that the soldiers there buried belonged chiefly to Militia Regiments from Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Cornwall, Yorkshire, Sussex, and Wales. Some, it was mentioned, died in the Castle of smallpox, which led to the suppo.sition that this burial ground had been specially used at the time of an epidemic, but the evidence seems to indicate that it was generally used for the Castle Garrison interments, one writer, as late as 1S44, said it was then occasionally used for soldiers. There were many monuments in the Castle Church when it ceased to be used in 1690, but they were all allowed to crumble to decay with the exception of a beaatiful monument erected there in memory of the Earl of Northampton, Constable and Warden, who died in 1614. VValpole, in his anecdotes of notable men, says he copied from the note-book of Nicholas Stone, the Statuary, the following memorandum: "A.D. 1615, agreed with Mr. Griffin for to make a tomb for my Lord Northampton, and set it in Dover Castle, for which I had £500, well paid." Owing to the neglected state of the church after the services ceased, the tomb and the marble coffin containing the body were removed in 1696, and in the wall where the monument had stood was placed a stone bearing this statement "In this place was buried the body of Henry, Earl of Northampton, Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, A.D. 1614; and in this place stood, likewise, a monument in memory of the said Earl, whose body and monument, by reason of the ruinous state of this chapel were removed to the Hospital at East Greenwich, the foundation of the said Earl." After the church fell into ruin the Old Churchof St. James' at the foot of the hill was used by the garrison, the church plate from the Castle was lent to the clergy of St. James's and the bells which had long hung in the Pharos Tower were given to a church at Portsmouth, giving rise to the saving " The Dover Castle bells can be heard at Portsmouth." In 17S0 the ruins of the Castle Church were convened into a cooperage and storehouse, and in 1794 it was transtormed into a barrack room, but, on the evening of Christmas Day, iSoi, the south-west corner of the nave collapsed, and large portions of the south and west walls fell. The interior was then choked up with debris, but in 1808 it was cleared out and used as a coal store. Having been reduced to these base uses for a period of 170 years, in 1860 its restoration was taken in hand by Sir Gilbert Scott, on behalf of the War Department, and in 1862, the edifice with its ancient architectural features carefully preserved, was re-opened as the Castle Garrison Church, and placed in charge of the Senior Chaplain of the Forces at Dover.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S POCKET PISTOL.

The most popular "lion" of the Castle is a long gun exhibited on a stand near Canon Gate. Up to the year 1827 it occupied a wooden stand near the cliff edge, but in that year the Duke of Wellington, as Master General of the Ordnance, had its present iron stand cast from the metal of guns brought from the field of Waterloo. A contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1767, gave a description of the gun as follows: — "On the most southern part of the cliffs, which form the platform of Dover Castle, lies a brass gun, 24 feet long without, and 22 feet long in the bore, with these inscriptions raised on it in Roman Capitals: — "This is supposed to be the founder's name. Under it is a shield with six chevronels, quartering a fess indented; on the escutcheon of pretence a saltire cheque. Motto: — "Sans aultre." The arms of England in a garter with "Dieu et Mon Droit." Then follows the inscription: — "Under an armed woman holding a spear and palm branch is the word, "Victoria." Under another woman, "Libertas." Under a river god ' ' Scalda. ' ' This curious gun, vulgarly called " Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol," the Gentleman's Magazine writer continues " was a present from the Emperor Charles V. to Henry VIII., while they were engaged together in a war with France. It requires 15lbs. of powder, and will carry a ball seven or eight miles, or, as they say, to Calais."

We give the foregoing statement of the history of the gun because it has been adopted by many writers. Opinions differ as to whether the " pistol " was presented to Henry VIII. by Charles V., or, as the inscription on the board near "it asserts, by the States of Holland to Queen Elizabeth. The "latter opinion is best supported. It is evident from the account in the Gentleman's Magazine that it was generally known as Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol as early as 1767. Also, the metal stand which the gun now occupies has the initials E.R. cast in it, and as that was done by the order of the Duke of Wellington, Master General of the Ordnance in 1827, it may be assumed that, in his official position,, from the records of the Ordnance Department, he had obtained knowledge which justified him in affixing the monogram of Queen Elizabeth to the trophy. On the other side, there is no evidence whatever that the gun was presented by the Emperor to Henry VIII. In the year 1544, when the gun was cast at Utrecht, the Emperor Charles and King Henry formed an alliance to invade France and march on Paris, the Emperor's army to march from the Netherlands, and Henry's from Calais. Possibly, when this grand scheme was in the bud, the Emperor commissioned the Utrecht founder to cast this gun as a present to his powerful ally; but, early in 1544, these two monarchs quarrelled, the Emi)eror making a separate Peace with France in violation of the treaty of alliance, and Henry rcturnefl to Dover after the useless siege of Boulogne. It is certain that the two monarchs never afterwards had any friendly intercourse, therefore it is reasonai)le to suppose that the gun was never presented to Henry VIII., it being left in the Netherlands, and 34 years later, when Queen Elizabeth formed an alliance with the Orange Party in the Netherlands, the gun was presented to her as the official notice states, " Presented by the States of Holland to Queen Elizabeth."

HAROLD'S WELL.

This celebrated well Harold swore to give up with the Castle to William of Normandy. Opinions differ as to which was the well — the one in the now demolished Well Tower, which stood south-east of the Keep Yard or the one in the well-room near the top of the grand stairs of the Keep. Both wells are probably of Saxon origin, but historians identify that in the Keep as Harold's Well; for, although it is now in a Norman Keep the Saxon Keep was on the same site, and when the Normans raised their more lofty structure they carried up the steening of the well to the present elevation of its muuth in the Well Room. The well, from which the garrison is now supplied, is a modern one, both of these Saxon wells having been lost or forgotten, the one in the Keep having been arched over at an early period and the other when the Well Tower was demolished in 1780. Harold's Well in the Keep was re-opened in 181 1, being then dry and only 289 feet deep, having, unfortunately been used as the dust bin of the Royal apartments, for it had originally been sunk to a depth of 400 feet from the ground level. The other well of the Well Tower, the situation of which had been forgotten, was found in 19 10, when a builder was digging foundations for soldiers' quarters between the Roman Oval and the Keep Yard.

ROYAL APARTMENTS.

Dover Castle has always been deemed royal, and from the earliest times the Constable was expected to entertain Kings anil Princes when they desired to stay there. The royal ajjartments at the beginning of the Ni.nman Period were over Godwin's Sally-port overlooking Knight's Bottom where the tilting matches were held. When the Constable's Tower was re-built, a century after the Conquest, the Royal apartments were there ; but after the present Keep was built by Henry H., the large upper rooms were regularly occupied by the royal visitors who had a private stair-case to the leads above, where, from the Keep top they enjoyed a combination of extensive views, fresh country air, and the ozone of the sea. Quite a rare pageant of monarchs and princes have century after century occupied the Castle Royal apartments; the Conqueror entertained by his half-brother Odo, the Constable, viewed the Knights' tilting matches from Godwin's Tower; Stephen and his spirited Queen Maud enjoyed the grand western views from the newly erected Constable's Tower. John, when threatened by the French and by his Barons, gave his final directions here to Hubert de Burgh before the great sici^e. Edward I., before his accession occupied the Royal apartments in the Keep, as a prisoner of the Barons. Henry VIII. passed many a night here when he was preparing the Castle to receive artillery and building his "Mighty Pier"; and it is possil)le he 'aid his weaiy head to rest here when he returned from the disappointing expedition to Boulogne in 1544. Queen EHzabeth spent a gay week here during her progress in the .lutumn of 1573, and another soberer week in 1601, when with tne wisdom and experience of old age, she conferred with Sully, the French King's envoy, on the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe. Charles I., in 1625, met his bride, Henrietta of France, on the Grand Staircase, she having spent the night in the Keep apartments before the King came to take her to their marriage ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral. Charles II., with rather a roistering party spent three weeks of revels in these apartments on the occasion when the quickly discarded Treaty of Dover was negotiated. Queen Victoria vi-sited the Castle, and made a short stay in the Constable's Tower in November, 1842, their main stay at that time being at Walmer Castle, where the Queen remained a week as the guest of the Constable of Dover Castle — the Duke of Wellington.

THE DEBTOR'S PRISON.

The Debtors' Prison, near Canon Gate, was for many years a point of interest, and at the same time a terror to indigent people of Kent and Sussex. Originahy it was the general prison of the Cinque Ports. In times of civil and religious strife, political and ecclesiastical prisoners were incarcerated here, amongst whom, at different times were impri.soned the Rev. John Reading, Mini.ster of St. Mary the Virgin ; Capt. Samuel Tavener, a Cromwellian soldier and a Baptist minister; and Luke Howard, a prominent Dover Quaker. Later it was a place of detention for debtors and smugglers. The cases of the debtors was most pitiable as their apartments were wretched places ; they had to depend on friends or their own means for sustenance, and until their debts were paid or forgiven they had no definite hope of liberation. For their benefit there was a collecting box outside with the appeal on it "Pity the poor Debtors!" Parliamentary candidates for Dover always u.sed to make a point of coming up to give them something ; and Mr. James Neild, the London Philanthropist left ;£8oo in consols for their relief in the Eighteenth Century, and when the prison was closed in 1855 the capital sum was transferred to the Dover Alm.shouses Charity. The prison itself was finally demolished in 191 1 to provide a site for soldiers quarters.