A mangonel, as constructed at the siege of Saianfu, described by Marco Polo, BL Royal MS 19 D I f.111 (France, c.1340)

After seven weeks, the siege of Rochester was at last approaching its denouement. Having dug tunnels beneath the castle's south-east tower, on Friday 25 November the King wrote to Hubert de Burgh at Dover asking that he send 'by day and night forty of the fattest bacon pigs from those least worth eating, to be used to fetch fire beneath the (castle) keep', presumably to supply grease by whose burning the mines could be sprung.1 From Dover, too, the King was supplied with wine.2 By Saturday 28 November, he was summoning to Rochester as many soldiers as could be spared from the garrisons of Winchester and the west country, including mercenaries newly arrived at Winchester from Angoulême. A high powered delegation consisting of the earl of Salisbury, Hugh de Neville, Philip d'Aubigny and William de St John was expected to bring the King treasure, or perhaps state prisoners (the record is damaged here, and refers only to a person or things, 'ea'), removed on the King's orders from Corfe Castle.3 Peter de Maulay, the constable of Corfe, was ordered to receive back into the King's fealty a group of rebels whose names would be supplied to him by the earl of Salisbury.4 On 25 November, the same day as orders were issued for pigs to be brought from Dover, payment was arranged for mangonels brought from Shoreham to Winchelsea, perhaps for transport by sea round the Kent coast to Rochester.5 In the Thames estuary, the King's galleys continued to blockade the trade of the Londoners, allowing passage only to those merchants (in the present week, Anselm of Ypres) whose trade with the city was licensed by the King.6 Hence the protection offered on 22 November to the men of the hundred of Barstable, on the north banks of the Thames, granting them peace from demands made by the King's galley keepers.7 Tonbridge, the principal Clare castle in Kent, was besieged and taken by Robert of Béthune shortly before the fall of Rochester.8 Around 25 November, Fawkes de Breauté lay siege to Bedford castle, with the garrison sending to their lord, William de Beauchamp, for aid.  When no such aid was forthcoming within a week, the castle surrendered.9 Seizures of rebel property continued this week, including in one instance an order for the customary pillage to be inflicted against the land of an 'enemy and traitor to the King' ('facto prius inde quod fieri debet de terra inimici et proditoris domini reg(is)').10 There were also several instructions intended to settle disputes over the property of royalists. Thus Godfrey of Crowcombe was ordered to ensure Roland Bloet possession of Knepp and the honour of Bramber previously held by the late Giles de Braose, bishop of Hereford.11 Gioni de Chanceaux, one of the King's alien French favourites, specifically proscribed in Magna Carta, was to have back lands in Gloucestershire and Somerset of which he had been deprived by Nicholas Puinz.12 Also in north Somerset, the lands and castle of Warin fitz Gerald at Stogursey were entrusted to the care of the local prior, not apparently as a hostile gesture but in order to protect Warin's interests there as a royalist either captured by the rebels or temporarily indisposed.13 The King's clerk, Philip de Langeberge, was promised custody of the land and heir of Ralph Belet in Gloucestershire, with marriage of the heir for his niece and of Ralph's widow for his nephew, provided that the widow would consent to this (i.e. as the briefest of nods in the direction of Magna Carta clause 8).14 Other commands were issued in favour of the royalists Thomas the Welshman and Master Nicholas the King's carpenter.15 Cecilia de Haye, whose eldest son, Walter, was with the rebels, was permitted to transfer her estate to another son, Roger, presently serving with William Brewer.16 At Southampton, Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, was granted custody of the vacant priory of St Denis.17