A crowd of waverers changed sides.  At their head were William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, the bastard great-uncle of the little king, and William, the young marshal, the eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke.  The regent wandered from town to town in Sussex, receiving the submission of the peasantry, and venturing to approach as near London as Dorking.  The victorious Wilkin was made Warden of the Seven Hundreds of the Weald.  The greatest of the magnates of Sussex and Surrey, William, Earl Warenne, followed the example of his tenantry, and made his peace with the king.  The royalists fell upon the few castles held by the barons.  While one corps captured Odiham, Farnham, Chichester, and other southern strongholds, Falkes de Breaute overran the Isle of Ely, and Randolph of Chester besieged the Leicestershire fortress of Mount Sorrel.  Enguerrand de Coucy, whom Louis had left in command, remained helpless in London.  His boldest act was to send a force to Lincoln, which occupied the town, but failed to take the castle.  This stronghold, under its hereditary warden, the valiant old lady, Nichola de Camville,[1] had already twice withstood a siege.

    [1] On Nichola de Camville or de la Hay see M. Petit-Dutaillis
    in Melanges Julien Havet, pp. 369-80.

Louis found no great encouragement in France, for Philip Augustus, too prudent to offend the Church, gave but grudging support to his excommunicated son.  When, on the eve of the expiration of the truce, Louis returned to England, his reinforcements comprised only 120 knights.  Among them, however, were the Count of Brittany, Peter Mauclerc, anxious to press in person his rights to the earldom of Richmond, the Counts of Perche and Guines, and many lords of Picardy, Artois and Ponthieu.  Conscious that everything depended on the speedy capture of the royal castles, Louis introduced for the first time into England the trebuchet, a recently invented machine that cast great missiles by means of heavy counterpoises.  “Great was the talk about this, for at that time few of them had been seen in France."[1] On April 22, Louis reached Dover, where the castle was still feebly beset by the French.  On his nearing the shore, Wilkin of the Weald and Oliver, a bastard of King John’s, burnt the huts of the French engaged in watching the castle.  Afraid to land in their presence, Louis disembarked at Sandwich.  Next day he went by land to Dover, but discouraged by tidings of his losses, he gladly concluded a short truce with Hubert de Burgh.  He abandoned the siege of Dover, and hurried off towards Winchester, where the two castles were being severely pressed by the royalists.  But his progress was impeded by his siege train, and Farnham castle blocked his way.

    [1] Histoire des ducs de Normandie, etc., p. 188; cf.
    English Hist.  Review, xviii. (1903), 263-64.