26 f°ur major wars), yet he would vomit at the sight of blood and flesh on the battlefield. The list of paradoxes and Dover in contradictions is endless. The number of love affairs, even after marriage, was also endless. Yet he the Reign of was devoted to his wife Eugenie. One of his mistresses, an English actress from Brighton, Harriet Howard, so loved him Bloody Mary that she spent her fortune financing his attempts to win power. Even when he was locked up in the fortress at Ham Ivan Green BA., FCCEd. he wooed a young pretty laundress... DURING THE SIX YEARS of the reign and gave her two children whom he o f Edward the Sixth, who succeeded later made counts. Henry the Eighth, there was little to One affair that shook France was report on the fortunes o f Dover. The that with a 25 year old beautiful circus castle suffered badly from neglect and artiste Marguerite Bellanger, who the harbour became more and more earlier worked as a chambermaid in unusable, because of shingle (often Boulogne. They met at a royal hunt and called 'prebble' in old records), she was soon showing him tricks in progressively blocking the harbour which she could stand and walk on her mouth, so much so that even ships drawing as little as four feet of water hands. Paris gossip was that she could could not enter. do other tricks while standing on her Queen Mary started off her reign in hands too! the right way, as far as the town was There were scores more women concerned, spending much money on whom Napoleon III bedded. From Italy, the castle, and being concerned with the France, and Russia they flocked to him harbour problem, though her efforts for the honour. There was even a lover achieved little. She authorised an in TUnbridge Wells. indulgence which gave permission to It seems to me if Napoleon III had collect money from all over the country spent less time in bed, indulging his for the repair o f the harbour. It however pleasures, he might produced practically nothing. have made an even A fundamental problem was the greater Emperor. landing of goods and passengers from Still, we all have the ships which, being unable to enter our weaknesses! the harbour, were forced to anchor offshore, many small boats being used to ferry their goods and passengers to Napoleon & Eugenie (circa. 1862) the beach. These boats, being completely uncontrolled, charged exorbitant fees, and caused both inconvenience and scandal. It is said that these small boat crews, by their exorbitant demands, gave the name to Dovorians of 'Dover sharks'. To overcome this problem and Drawing by E.Senyard enable the town to control them, the Queen granted the town its charter of Sir Thomas and some 150 of his 27 Rivage and Ferriage in 1553. Following followers were executed. Many others, the usual preamble in Latin, the including several Dovorians, were translation o f the first part reads: pardoned. The marriage was 'Know that we of our special grace and of consummated, but Philip soon our certain knowledge and mere motion abandoned Mary and returned to Spain. have given and granted, and by these But one local event was to have presents do give and grant, to our beloved terrible consequences. On the 17th of the Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of our November 1554 Cardinal Pole landed in town of Dover, in our county of Kent, the Dover, his intent being to assist Mary in Rivage and ferriage of our whole port of the reconciliation of the English church Dover, in our said county of Kent, from all with Rome. The terrible persecution of and all manner of skiffs and boats within people unwilling to comply began in the port aforesaid for the carrying of men earnest in 1555. Several hundred, and other things to be carried and including over 70 in Kent, were burnt at transported from the shore of the port the stake, a very public and terrible aforesaid to the ships in the aforesaid port, death, and hundreds died in prisons and lying at anchor to the deep sea near from disease and starvation. the aforesaid port, and from those ships to It was prim arily directed to ordinary the shore aforesaid: so that none there and humble people, both young and old, presume to convey or transport any thing many of them parents of families. or any men in any skiffs, vessels or boats, Fortunately Dover did not suffer the except only in the boats or vessels of the dreadful persecution, though most of inhabitants of our said town of Dover, the inhabitants must have been very without the licence of the said Mayor, disturbed when Cardinal Pole, who was Jurats and Commonalty, or their assigns! made Archbishop of Canterbury when The remainder is too long to quote here. Archbishop Cranmer was burnt at the Mary's proposed marriage to Philip Stake in March 1566, came to Dover on of Spain was bitterly opposed in many a visitation the same year. He was parts of the country, especially in Kent accompanied by Bishop Thornton, the where it caused a rebellion led by Sir Bishop of Dover, who was very active in Thomas Wyatt. The rebellion failed and the condemnation of many Kent people The old Maison Dieu founded by the great Hubert de Burgh in 1203AD, as it was in the 16th century. Note the little chapel on the extreme right, which was added to the Maison Dieu early in the 13th century. It still survives, but is now enclosed by the enlargement of the main building, and its interior can still be seen by visitors since, many years ago, it was coverted into use as the old courthouse. / \ continental artist's view of Dover in the mid 16th century. He has got many of the town's details wrong, but the emphasis is on the tremendous strength of the castle> and the many guns by which the town is defended. who were later burnt. persecution of Dover citizens following At that visitation the officers of St Cardinal Pole's visitation was probably Mary the Virgin's church in Dover were because of the even more precarious ordered by Thornton to provide a mass situation of English held territories in book, candlesticks, tapers, a pyx, a cross, France. Dover was the one link through a holy loaf and hallowed fire, at a cost o f which they could be helped. The some £3, a substantial sum in those French, for many years the victims of times. the supremacy of the English longbow Bishop Thornton also discharged men, had turned to gunpowder. Christopher James, the priest of St Although Henry the Eighth's gunnery Mary's, because he was a married man, campaign had resulted in much use of and appointed another priest in his guns in his defences and on his ships, place. In 1555 the mayor, Richard Elam English territories in France were was turned out of office, together with woefully inadequate in their own use of several members of the corporation, guns for their defence. because they did not conform to the Soon Calais, England's last town and Roman faith. harbour on the continent, was directly While Richard Elam was still in menaced, and Mary was desperately office he supervised the moving of the alarmed. Sir Thomas Cheney, the town's curfew bell from the tower of old deputy constable o f Dover castle, was St Peter's church, (then situated where ordered to muster all the able bodied Lloyds Bank now stands in the Market men, and their ships, from the Cinque Square) to the tower of St Mary's. The Port towns to assemble at Dover, and to bell was rung by an official who was them he added all the castle defenders, paid by the town. except only a hundred men. The freedom from religious But the Queen was so unpopular, and indeed hated, that the response was between Dover and Calais was soon disastrously slow and fitful. Her reinstated. bonfires of so many ordinary and The much hated and feared queen humble people, her consigning of passed away, unlamented, on the 17th o f hundreds more to death by starvation November 1558, and her cruel cardinal and disease in filthy prisons, and her also died on the same day. It was the end lack o f any concern for her subjects was of an era. Incredibly, that cardinal such, that she had forfeited her subjects' having also been Archbishop of loyalty. The muster was reluctant, slow Canterbury, has an elaborate tomb in and inadequate. Eventually a scratch Canterbury Cathedral. > force was collected, but almost as soon When the news of the queen's death as it left Dover it was struck by a storm reached Dover, the mayor, Thomas and was dispersed. Collye, surrounded by the members of Many Dover men, and Dover ships, the Common Council and freemen, held were lost in that ill fated attempt. Calais, a hornblowing in the Market Square and which the queen declared was so close to announced Mary's death and the her heart, fell and with it the last accession of the new queen, the great English port on the continental coast, Elizabeth the First, and the start o f a though the Passage itself, the sea link new, and better, reign. This old and somewhat muzzy picture of Dover in the time of Bloody Mary is of great interest. The building with the tall spire is the church o f St Mary the Virgin, and above it; and slightly to the left, is the old Biggin Gate.