In the summer of 1216 a French prince was proclaimed king of England — in London, in St Paul's, by England's own barons. One castle on a chalk cliff above the narrowest part of the Channel would not open its gate. His miners brought down one of its two gate towers. The French went in through the gap, and were thrown back out.

This episode is about Dover Castle in Kent: the Roman lighthouse and Saxon church on the hill, Henry II's Great Tower of the 1180s, and the siege of 1216–17, when Prince Louis of France — invited by the barons who had forced Magna Carta on King John — held London and could not take Dover from Hubert de Burgh and his 140 knights. We follow the one eyewitness, the Anonymous of Béthune (read in our own translation from his French), and Roger of Wendover on Louis's offer and Hubert's refusal after John's death.

Then the phrase. "The key of England" reaches us through the chronicler Matthew Paris — and its best telling is not Hubert's but a blacksmith's, who in 1232 refused to put the fallen Hubert in irons (read from J. A. Giles's 1849 translation, abridged). The siege is why the north gate is walled up and why Dover first went underground; in the 1750s–1810s its medieval towers were cut down for cannon and barracks were tunnelled into the white cliff; and in 1940 Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay ran Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation, from those same rooms — told to expect 45,000 men in two days. The official count was 338,226.

One hill, asked the same question twice.

Watch the documentary version: https://youtu.be/DtccZDy8YIA

Full written guide, with every source and visitor information:

https://stonekeepatlas.com/castles/dover-castle/

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open — the last door

1:22 Chapter 1 — The shortest crossing

2:31 Chapter 2 — Six thousand pounds

3:50 Chapter 3 — The invited invader

6:04 Chapter 4 — The mine

9:01 Chapter 5 — The king is dead

12:10 Chapter 6 — The key of England

14:48 Chapter 7 — Cut down for cannon

16:10 Chapter 8 — Dynamo

18:46 Chapter 9 — What is left

KEY SOURCES

• Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre (the Anonymous of Béthune), ed. F. Michel (1840) — the mine and the breach; translation ours

• Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History, tr. J. A. Giles (1849), with Matthew Paris's additions; Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard — the refusal, the sea fight, the smith

• English Heritage: P. Pattison, History of Dover Castle and The Sieges of Dover Castle 1216–17; C. Kightly, The Great Siege of Dover Castle 1216; Operation Dynamo

• Historic England, scheduled monument 1019075; R. Eales, "Dover Castle and Royal Power in Twelfth-Century Kent", Archaeologia Cantiana 141 (2020)

• Vice-Admiral Ramsay's despatch, Supplement to the London Gazette 38017 (17 July 1947); L. F. Ellis, The War in France and Flanders (1953)

• Full bibliography in the article linked above.

ABOUT THE SHOW

StoneKeep Atlas tells the real stories of Europe's great castles, palaces and fortresses — one definitive episode at a time. New episodes alongside the documentaries at youtube.com/StoneKeepAtlas.

Website: https://stonekeepatlas.com

CREDITS

Music: Envato Elements. Narration produced with synthetic voice.