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Louis invited and welcomed

The war began over Magna Carta but quickly turned into a dynastic war for the throne of England. The rebel barons, faced with a powerful king, turned to Prince Louis, son and heir apparent of Philip Augustus, King of France, also a maternal grandson-in-law of the late English King Henry II. The Norman invasion had occurred only 150 years before, and the relationship between England and France was not so simply adversarial as it later became. The contemporary document called the annals of Wave...

First siege of Dover

In the meantime, the King of France taunted[citation needed] his son for trying to conquer England without first seizing its key: Dover. The royal castles at Canterbury and Rochester, their towns, and indeed most of Kent had already fallen to Louis but when he did move on to Dover Castle on 25 July, it was prepared. Its constable, Hubert de Burgh, had a well-supplied garrison of men. The first siege began on 19 July, with Louis taking the high ground to the north of the castle. His men succes...

Sieges of Windsor and Rochester

Apart from Dover, the only castle to hold out against Louis was that at Windsor, where 60 loyalist knights survived a two-month siege, despite severe damage to the structure of its lower ward (immediately repaired in 1216 by Henry III, who further strengthened the defences with the construction of the western curtain wall, much of which survives today). This is possibly due to its having been already besieged by the barons in 1189, less than 30 years earlier. In 1206, John had spent £115 on r...

Ironclad, a 2011 film starring Paul Giamatti and James Purefoy, chronicles the siege of Rochester Castle.Robin Hood, a 2010 film, is loosely based on the events surrounding the Barons' War.