It is an incident not entirely without humour that Perkin Warbeck should have chosen to disembark some of his “force” within a mile or two of the spot traditionally identified as the landing place of Cæsar, where also the great Napoleon intended to land.
The coast now increases in height until one reaches charming St Margaret’s Bay, with a few houses almost standing on the beach itself, and others blinking at one from the cliff above. A favourite resort for picnics, but affording unsatisfactory shelter. On the summit of the cliff and a short distance inland stands a fine Norman church worth visiting, if time permits, from Dover. From the top of the cliff there is one of those unrivalled panoramas to which the higher portions of the Kent and Sussex coasts so admirably lend themselves. It extends over the far stretching expanse of Channel, south, east, and west; with the sea traffic of an Empire passing almost at one’s feet.
There is a curious story with an Eugene Aram flavour about it concerning a murder of long ago which was committed by a soldier on the road into Dover from St Margaret’s. He appears to have been of a hardy as well as a murderous nature, for after committing the crime he stuck the walking stick, with which he had killed his comrade, in the earth in a field, boasting that he was sure to escape detection until the stick took root. The latter was of sycamore wood. The soldier went on foreign service, and did not return (so the story goes) for some years. He came along the road which had for him such a tragic memory, and was astounded to find that the stick had grown into a tree. This discovery so horrified and unnerved him that he promptly went back to Dover and gave himself up to the authorities.
The South Foreland is now close on our starboard bow—that magnificent headland which the veteran nautical novelist Mr Clark Russell says is “surely the most incomparable of all vantage grounds for the marine dreamer. It is not only that every fathom of the gleaming water that the eye wanders over is vital with historic tradition, and rich with the most romantic of the hues which give to our own national story the shining complexion it wears; it is still the busiest of old maritime highways; fifty oceanic contrasts fill every hour....” There are, indeed, many types of craft still to be met with and seen in the Downs, from “the dainty clipper model in iron, lifting an almost fairy-like fabric of wire rigging and soaring yards, and swelling snow-white canvas to the skies” to “the huge ocean passenger steamer, noiselessly thrusting her nose through it faster than a gale of wind could have thundered an old line-of-battle ship along.” Then, sometimes, too, there are the white-winged yachts bound for Dover Harbour after a run out into the Channel, or from the Thames estuary bound much farther westward to Cowes, or even Dartmouth or Penzance. Or the Thames barge hugging the coast; a tramp rust-red, and high out of the water in ballast, till she looks like nothing so much as a long, deep cigar box, rounded at both ends, and with a funnel stuck far astern or in the middle, as the builders may have thought best; or sometimes a smart chasse marée, the like of which in the old days did service as privateers out of Calais, or as smugglers out of Boulogne, Dunkirk, or Gravelines.
We are inclined to agree that there is no strip of open water like the Channel off Deal and Dover for interest and variety.
On rounding the towering and magnificent South Foreland one gets one’s first glimpse of Dover when coming from the eastward. It is not very satisfying until one has actually entered the Bay, which is one of the finest artificial havens in the world. It has been the custom in the past of those who simply pass through Dover on their way to or from the Continent to decry it. We could produce more uncomplimentary remarks concerning the “ugliness,” “poverty,” “dullness,” etc., of Dover (perhaps written by those to whom a Channel swell had been less than kind) than of almost any other place of which we have personal knowledge. But to those who approach “the ancient town of Dover with its many memories, its commanding castle, its impressive pharos” leisurely from the sea on a fine day, we can conceive of no feelings being aroused than those of interest and admiration. There is something eternal in the appearance of this sole true survivor of the famous Cinque Ports, which makes it possible for one to realize that much of what one sees, at all events at a first glance, is what has been looked upon by countless generations from the time when Cæsar’s eagle eye rested upon Shakespeare’s Cliff, and travelled up the valley which lies snug in the shelter of and runs inland between the two o’er-topping cliffs. But whilst we may linger amid historic memories Cæsar passed on to an easier landing a little way further up the coast.
When one is snugly inside the breakwater, things begin to assume greater distinctness. There is the Castle and pharos still, but in the serried rows of houses, the Marine Parade along the front, the pier on which are numerous trains made or in the process of making up, and the air of bustle, one begins to realize that Dover’s greatness has not entirely departed, and that one has come to a prosperous and not a decaying port, a lively garrison town, a naval depôt of consequence, a commercial centre for miles round, and a popular holiday resort. And when one contemplates the vast harbour works, which have cost upwards of three and a half million pounds sterling and enclose a water space measuring upwards of 610 acres, one can easily see that Dover’s future may be as useful, as brilliant and as prosperous as has been her past. In this huge haven, which is entirely free from rocks or sandbanks, the largest battleships afloat can anchor in safety under the protection of the countless heavy guns of the forts. Already there is a flotilla of submarines stationed here, and the roadstead is full of life and movement from sunrise to sunset. The harbour has two excellent and adequate approaches, one between the Admiralty Pier and Southern Breakwater, 800 feet in width; the other between the Southern Breakwater and the Eastern Arm 600 feet in width.
Dover is nowadays a capital port for yachtsmen. The town is historic, picturesque, and quaint. It has just the narrow streets on a somewhat larger scale that one meets with in the smaller ports in Cornwall down west. Streets which seem as though squeezed in “where never such were meant to be,” with the two hillsides over-topping them as though thrust aside in high dudgeon. Then inland there is the newer and perhaps smarter town, with villa residences scattered on the sides of the Dour valley, and delightfully situated.
Up above the harbour stands the Castle, a grey, grim survival of an heroic age. It has been fortified from time out of mind. And there are yet existing, notwithstanding all that has been done to add to it and restore it, traces of both Roman and Saxon defences. It was this important fortress, with the not less essential “well of water in it,” that weak Harold undertook to deliver up to William of Normandy as soon as the breath should pass out of Edward the Confessor’s body. But a few days after the Battle of Hastings, which took place on October 14, 1066, and resulted in the defeat of Harold and the slaying of upwards of 30,000 men, William captured the Castle, and appointed as Constable his half-brother, Odo of Bayeux. Most of the walls and towers are of Norman date, and are probably the work of John de Fiennes, the second Constable. The massive and well-preserved keep dates from the reign of Henry II, and other portions of the Castle are of various subsequent periods.
One of the most shameful events in connexion with the story of the Castle is that of King John’s submission there to Pandulph, the Pope’s legate. Three years after this event, in the spring of 1216, Louis VIII of France, who had come over convoyed and supported by a powerful fleet under the command of Eustace the Monk, was before Dover Castle to besiege it after having landed at Stonor and captured Hastings and Rye. He also burnt Sandwich, which refused to yield to him. Some of his force joined with that of the revolting barons, and not only overran Kent, but even penetrated to London, of which they took possession. The garrison of Dover we are told was to the last degree inefficient, feeble, and ill-provisioned. But the commander poor, harried King John had placed in it, with jurisdiction over the Cinque Ports generally, was one of the most able and strongest men of his age, Hubert de Burgh by name. To his courage, resource, and endurance must be placed the credit of the successful defence of the last hope of England against the establishment of a French sovereignty. At length Louis, finding himself unable to reduce the Castle or persuade De Burgh to yield, raised the siege. He had failed; and his father’s remark was justified, “By the arm of St James, my son then has not obtained one foot of land in England.”