bout the year 676, King Egbert having died, his brother
Lothair usurped the throne of Kent. In this usurpation he devastated the
country, without any respect for churches or religious houses, and
especially plundered Rochester, driving Bishop Putta from his see. Soon
afterwards, still within Lothair's reign, Ethelred of Mercia invaded
Kent, "spoiled the whole Shyre, and laid this Citie waste."

There was little time to repair the losses and damages suffered on these
occasions before the inroads of the Danes began. Rochester, lying at the
head of an estuary on the side of England towards the Viking-land, was,
of course, especially open to their attacks. In the year 840 they
ravaged Kent, and both Canterbury and Rochester "felt the effects of
their barbarity and hatred of the Christian religion." Again, in 884,
large numbers of them, under Hasting, invaded England, but our city and
cathedral were gloriously delivered out of their hands. "They," says
Lambarde, "in the daies of King Alfred came out of Fraunce, sailed up
the river of Medway to Rochester, and besieging the town, fortified over
against it in such sorte that it was greatly distressed and like to have
been yeelded, but that the King came speedily to the reskew and not
onely raised the siege and delivered his subjects, but obtained also an
honourable bootie of horses and captives that the besiegers had left
behind them." Then, for a time, apparently, the city and cathedral had
some repose, until, in 986, King Ethelred quarrelled with the bishop and
besieged the town. In anger at its resistance he plundered the property
of the church outside and had at last to be bought off. Much more
grievous were the injuries and losses of about twelve years later, when,
in 999, the Danes came again, drove away the inhabitants and plundered
their city.

"And all these harmes Rochester received before the time of King William
the Conqueror," in whose reign great changes for the better were to be
begun.[2]

[2] For Norman work, see the paper by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope in
Archaeologia, xlix., and Mr. Ashpitel's earlier essay in Jour. of the
Brit. Archaeol. Assoc., ix.

Siward, who had been bishop since 1058, retained the see, after the
Conquest, until his death in 1075. Sad indeed was the condition of the
cathedral then. It was itself "almost fallen to pieces from age," much
of its property had been lost, and there were only four canons left.
Even this small establishment