A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



animals out oi their crops. The earl gained his claim at the time of 

 the Quo Warranto, pleading that when his ancestors lost their Norman 

 lands of Warenne King John granted them universal warren for their 

 English estates for the sake of the pun on their name, but the commons 

 of Lewes petitioned against this decision, saying that the twelve jurors 

 of every hundred in the rape had presented the Earl for encroaching, 

 but he had been cleared on the finding of a single twelve who were his 

 friends and were corrupted by him, and who had been challenged, un- 

 availingly, as such by Robert Aguillon/ A similar monopoly of the right 

 of wreck was successfully asserted by the lords of the rapes. 



Beyond and behind the tangled system of privilege and feudal 

 jurisdiction lay the hundred-courts, which in Sussex were entirely in 

 private hands, being either appurtenant to the great baronies or granted 

 to local lords, as in the case of Dumpford hundred held by Henry 

 Hussey, Bexhill by the Bishop of Chichester, and the half hundred of 

 Milton by John de la Haye ; and the county court, which had formerly 

 been held at the central towns of Lewes and Shoreham, but, by the 

 influence of the Earl of Cornwall, was at this time held at Chichester. 

 The locus of the county court continued for some time unsettled, until 

 in 1337, after a commission had been issued to make inquiries as to the 

 most suitable spot, it was fixed at Chichester," where it remained until 

 1504, when an act was passed for the county courts to be held alternately 

 at Chichester and Lewes. 



To the reign of Edward L belongs also the commencement of the 

 parliamentary history of Sussex, the first return ' of the knights of the 

 shire extant being for the parliament of 1290, when Henry Hussey and 

 William de Echingham were elected, and the first return of the boroughs 

 being in 1295, when members were returned from Chichester, Arundel, 

 Lewes, Bramber, Shoreham and Horsham. The boroughs varied con- 

 siderably in number and identity in later elections, Steyning being 

 usually united to Bramber ; East Grinstead and Midhurst appear for 

 the first time in January 1301, and all these eight boroughs sent repre- 

 sentatives to the three parliaments between February 1358 and January 

 1361, but as a rule the number of boroughs taking part in any one 

 election was not more than five or six. Seaford appears from 1298 to 

 1302, in 1325, and from 1366 to 1371, and again from 1396 to 1399, 

 but then ceased to be a parliamentary borough till restored in 1640. 

 Hastings, Rye and Winchelsea also sent members in right of their 

 position as Cinque Ports. In 1299 the electors of Sussex refused to 

 proceed in the absence of the archbishop and other magnates on the 

 King's service beyond seas; and the county was again unrepresented 

 in 1327, as the writs reached the sheriff^ too late to be published, 

 as there was no county court before the date fixed for the assembly 

 of parliament. 



During the course of his reign Edward I. was not unfrequently 



• Anct. Petition, 13780. 2 Pat. 10 Edw. III. p. I, m. igd; p. 2, m. 26. 



a For these returns see Suss. Arch. Coll. xxx. 



504 



