Kent history

Siege of Rochester, 1215

You are King John's master engineer outside the walls. Five weeks to take the castle: batter the outer wall, the gatehouse and the keep, then dig under the south-east tower and burn the props with the fat of forty pigs.

How to play

• Winding the trebuchet: press and hold anywhere on the picture. The power meter rises and falls; let go near the top for a full shot. There is no aiming line, so judge it.
• Choose your stone: light stones fly further; heavy stones fly shorter but smash more masonry. Set the arm low or high.
• The walls crumble stone by stone, and anything left hanging falls. Bring down the share of the wall shown in the counter before the week's days run out. Every shot costs a day.
• Week five is the mine: tap when the marker is in the green to drive the tunnel; miss and you lose a day. Under the tower, tap as fast as you can to get the forty pigs on the fire before it dies.

The real siege

In October 1215, months after Magna Carta, rebel barons under William d'Aubigny seized Rochester Castle. King John arrived within days and besieged it for about seven weeks. His engines battered the walls while miners tunnelled under the south-east corner of the keep; the king sent for "forty of the fattest pigs" to fire the props, and the corner collapsed. The garrison fought on behind the keep's cross-wall until hunger forced a surrender on 30 November 1215. The rebuilt corner tower is round, unlike the keep's other three, and can still be seen today.

A game, not a reconstruction: the weeks, engines and physics are invented for play. Nothing is sent to our servers; your progress stays in this browser.