MARITIME HISTORY 



considering the early naval history of Sussex the reader must picture an entirely different coast-line 

 from that which now exists. Hastings sent out vessels, apparently at short notice, to chase Sweyn, 

 Godwin's son, and both pursuers and pursued went far down Channel. With the exception of a 

 reference in 7 7 1 by Simeon of Durham 1 to an attack by Offa of Mercia on the Hastings district, and 

 another reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to a similar attack made by the Danes in ioil,thisis 

 the first time that Hastings appears in English history and is its first appearance in naval annals. 



When Earl Godwin fled from England in 1051 he took ship from Thorney Island in 

 Chichester Harbour, another slight indication of the confidence he felt in the affection of the Sussex 

 seamen for him, an affection he must have won by care for their interests. 8 When he returned in 

 the following year we are especially told that the sailors of Hastings and the neighbouring ports 

 flocked to join him, saying that they were ready ' to live or die with him,' and for a short time his 

 fleet sheltered at Pevensey. It is important to notice that in Hampshire, Dorset, and north of 

 Sandwich Godwin and Harold plundered and burnt as in an enemy's country, while in the inter- 

 vening district practically that of the Cinque Ports they were received and behaved as friends. 

 It may be that in this circumstance we have the key to some of the obscure questions connected 

 with the rise of the confederacy. Three Kentish ports are described in Domesday, and charters 

 granted by the Confessor to Hythe and Dover are referred to in those given by John. It is evident 

 that before the Conquest, and perhaps for long after it, there was no perfected system among the 

 ports either of duties or privileges, but it is possible that in the reign of the Confessor the first 

 lines of union and common action were sketched in by Godwin. If that be the case it is singular 

 that no charter is known to have been obtained for any port in a county obviously devoted to him, 

 unless the explanation is that he preferred that Hastings and the other towns should serve him rather 

 than the king. Edward gave the manor of ' Rameslie,' which included Rye, Winchelsea, and a 

 part of Hastings, to the abbey of Fecamp ; but a grant of the manor need not necessarily have pre- 

 vented Godwin from keeping the maritime strength, to which he attached the most importance, under 

 his own control or influence. If the earl first drew together the threads which were afterwards to 

 bind the ports into a confederation he must have found that a common situation and common 

 interests among them rendered his work easy, and in fact marked out the lines it was to follow. 

 The geographical situation of the ports from the North Foreland to Beachy Head was one which 

 rendered all of them almost equally liable to attack from three out of the four quarters of the 

 compass, and the same conditions which had enforced the fortification of the ' Litus Saxonicum ' 

 were reproduced in the Middle Ages and in 1804. The first brunt of any assault from seaward was 

 most likely to fall upon them, and the constant raids by the Danes must have speedily taught the 

 Kentish ports the advantages of united action when that was possible. It was a necessity for con- 

 tinued existence that the Kent and Sussex ports should hold their own coast and territorial waters ; 

 it was to their profit as well that they should have the command of all that portion of the Channel 

 fronting them. To do either was out of the power of any one or two ports, but not out of the 

 power of a group when they had learned or been taught the wisdom of combination. The motive 

 for association, therefore, came from within, and it was the product of centuries of stern experience; 

 the deciding impulse may have come from without, and of the two men, Edward and Godwin, 

 whose political position rendered them able to lay the foundation of co-ordinate action, only the 

 latter showed political capacity in his career, while his personal interests coincided with an innova- 

 tion of national utility. In the English Chronicle, under the year 1046, we find Godwin sailing 

 from Sandwich with two of the ' king's ships ' and 42 ' people's ships ' ; 3 it is the first occurrence 

 of such a phrase, and happening where and when it does may well be the first indication known to 

 us of the new coalition. 



As between Kent and Sussex there was, besides the common motive of defence, a common 

 commercial interest drawing them together. It has been noticed 4 that there are signs in the civil 

 history of the Cinque Ports of the existence of distinct Kent and Sussex groups, united later, but 

 perhaps at one time independent, and if this separation was the original state it may have been 

 owing to the fact that while the Kentish union was mainly due to the welding effects of war, that 

 of Sussex, a county far less troubled by the Danes, was the outcome of the fishery at Yarmouth. 

 Entries in Domesday show that several Sussex manors paid heavy rents of herrings, and among 

 John's charters of 1205 that to Hastings is the only one of the seven which specifically allots the 

 right of ' den and strond ' at Yarmouth. Such evidence and tradition as has survived tends to the 

 conclusion that the boats of both counties met on the eastern fishing grounds long before the 

 Conquest. From conjoint action where commercial interests were involved there was only one 

 step further, under the pressure of necessity or the will of a common over-lord, to conjoint action in 



1 Hist. Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 44. 



* At Bosham, close at hand, he had a residence, and the place was also well lik d by Harold. 

 3 ' Landes manna scipa,' translated as ' ships of the country people,' in Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls ed.), 

 iij ijq. * J. H. Round, Feudal England, 507. 



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