POLITICAL HISTORY 



lomew de Burghersh/ Edward St. John, William de Northoo and 

 Roger de Asshe were also appointed to arrest the King's rebels and those 

 who harboured them in Sussex/ 



The renewal of war with Scotland in 1335 caused a demand for 

 sixty light horse to be supplied by the county, which were subsequently 

 compounded for at 100 marks.^ Nor was home defence neglected, for 

 in 1336 the castles of Hastings, Pevensey, Lewes and Arundel were 

 ordered to be put in a state of defence,* and in 1338 Henry and Roger 

 Hussey, Thomas Braose and Thomas de Wemyll were commissioned to 

 array the men of Sussex to defend the coast/ Next year the Earl of 

 Arundel and two others were appointed to put the walls and defences of 

 Chichester in order, the clergy undertaking to contribute part of the 

 expense in view of the poverty of the citizens/ That these measures 

 were not unnecessary is evident, for in 1339 Andrew Peverel, who was 

 in command of the men-at-arms, light horse and archers of Pevensey 

 rape, had to summon all his forces to repel an attempted landing by the 

 crews of fifteen galleys and other vessels at Eastbourne/ These galleys 

 were no doubt the same whose crews sacked the castle of Hastings, 

 which ever since its bestowal upon the Duke of Brittany in 1264 had 

 been allowed to fall into decay, the dukes taking the castle-ward rents 

 but spending nothing on repairs/ Pevensey Castle had also suffered 

 much from neglect, but occasional repairs were done, sufficient to keep 

 it fencible, and a small garrison was thrown into it whenever invasion 

 threatened, as for instance in 1370, when Sir John St. Clare on several 

 occasions put in garrisons of about twenty or thirty men/ Ten years 

 earlier, in 1360, orders were given to John de Saham to array all 

 men-at-arms within the honor, then held by Queen Philippa, and in 

 case of the castle being threatened to send them into it and, always 

 leaving a sufficient force to hold it, to attack the invaders with the other 

 troops/" In this same year the French did actually land in Sussex and 

 captured Winchelsea, burning the town and treating the inhabitants 

 with extreme brutality. 



As King Edward had been in his nonage the unwilling subject of 

 Mortimer's influence, so in his dotage he became the willing instrument 

 of his third son, John of Gaunt. The predominant factor in English 

 history during the close of this reign is the rise to almost absolute power 

 of the enormously wealthy Duke of Lancaster ; his estates spread into 

 almost every county, and had been increased in 1372 by the grant of 

 the honor of Aquila in Sussex, with the castle of Pevensey." His rank 

 and wealth combined made him the most influential man in the land, 

 but his abuse of them made him the most hated. Consequently when 

 in the spring of 1376 the emptiness of the exchequer compelled him 



509 



