MARITIME HISTORY 



dominions or for a speedy concentration of ships and trained seamen in the event of a revolt or other 

 urgent necessity. It was further the king's aim so to bind to himself, by grants of favours and 

 privileges, the people holding the gate opening on the vital centre of his new kingdom that they 

 could be relied on not only to refuse to join an enemy, but also to repulse him. The same idea of 

 rendering the coast itself an impassable barrier is indicated in the Conqueror's division of Sussex 

 among his kinsmen or his most trusted followers. 1 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Calais and 

 the other French harbours nearest to Dover and Sandwich belonged to the count of Flanders ; 

 Sussex was the county whose ports offered the quickest passage to Normandy. Thus we find both 

 military reasons and motives of state policy for the charters granted by William and his sons estab- 

 lishing the position of the ports and conducing to a closer union between them. In the case of 

 Hastings its situation as the selected passage port for Normandy, 2 the importance of its castle, and 

 the possible magnitude of its fishery in the North Sea, may explain why it took the nominal first 

 place in the confederacy. The circumstances in which these ports were placed after the Conquest 

 thus fostered a continuous growth in wealth and strength. Their privileges gave them commercial 

 advantages which, used profitably, resulted in an increase in men and ships, the instruments of 

 maritime power ; their strategical position for war was more potent than it had ever been now that 

 the central portion of the north coast of France was ruled by the same monarch, for, with doubled 

 strength, they and the Normans could close the sea passage of communication between north and 

 south Europe and dominate the hither portion of the North Sea. 



William I was not a sovereign likely to neglect maritime power, and if just after the Conquest 

 there seem to be signs of carelessness it must have been because there was little for a navy to effect. 

 By 1071, at any rate, there was a fleet in existence, and in 1072 another was acting in Scotch waters ; 

 to these expeditions the Cinque Ports, as we may begin to call them, no doubt contributed effectively, 

 but not until much later have we any details of the demands made upon them. Hastings is hardly 

 mentioned in Domesday, and it is only by Richard's charter of 27 March, 1191, to Rye and 

 Winchelsea, confirming that granted by Henry II, that we find its service to have then been 

 2O ships, towards which the other two Sussex towns were to supply two. The reign of Henry 

 therefore marks the time when the two eastern ports were rising into importance ; it has been 

 inferred that it also marks the commencement of the decline of Hastings, 3 as requiring assistance ; 

 but it seems unsafe to draw such a conclusion, for we do not know whether the Rye and Winchelsea 

 ships were an addition or a substitution. Between the last threat of a Danish invasion in 1083 

 and the loss of Normandy in 1204 there were few occasions for great maritime levies, but the 

 Sussex ports must have been required to assist in the squadrons raised to take part in the desultory 

 dynastic wars of the period, and to provide for the passage of the sovereign and his troops between 

 England and Normandy. There can, however, have been no continuous strain ; that began with 

 the appearance of France on the Channel coast, and was intensified when the wars of territorial 

 expansion, initiated by Edward I and continued by Edward III, were carried on. In noi Henry I 

 awaited at Pevensey invasion by his brother Robert, but the latter arrived at Portsmouth. A con- 

 tingent of Sussex ships and men, in which Hastings was largely represented, formed part of the fleet 

 and army which took Lisbon from the Moors in 1147 and established the kingdom of Portugal. 4 



On 25 May, 1199, John, coming to obtain the crown, landed at Seaford 6 and left Shoreham 

 in June with a fleet and army for Normandy. The series of confirmations of their privileges granted 

 to the Cinque Ports in 1205 bore evident relation to the loss of Normandy and the necessity for 

 energetic action by sea. In the same year there is a list of 5 1 galleys belonging to the crown, of 

 which two were stationed, or laid up, at Rye, two at Winchelsea, and five at Shoreham. 6 Although 

 vessels were often collected for John's service they were usually directed to meet at Portsmouth, 

 probably owing to its convenient proximity to Winchester. An order of 1214' directed that a list 

 of all ships of 80 tons and upwards, belonging to the ports throughout England, should be sent to 

 the king by Christmas ; so far as the Cinque Ports were concerned this standard of size points to a 

 fact of which we shall meet other evidence, namely, that although the ships they were bound by 

 their charters to supply for their 'service' were very small, most of them possessed others much 

 larger. 8 It also points to a fact too often forgotten, in that although the deeds of the Cinque Ports 



1 F.C.H. Sussex,\, 353. 



1 By a charter from Henry I Hugh de Bek held lands in Beakesbourne as in charge of the king's passage 

 hip ' ministerium de esnecca sua de Hastinges' (Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 34-9; Testa de Nevill, 216-19). 

 See also remarks by Sir N. H. Nicolas in Hist, of the Royal Navy, i, 261, 432. 



1 Burrows, The Cinque Ports, 73. * 1 tin. Peregrinorum (Rolls Ser.), cxlii. 



* Gervase of Canterbury (ii, 92) says Seaford ; Matthew Paris and other historians say Shoreham. As 

 the latter was much the better known port it is more likely that Shoreham should be erroneously substituted 

 for Seaford than the contrary. 



6 Close, 6 John, m. Id. 7 Ibid. 1 6 John, pt. ii, m. 16. 



8 There was a Rye ship of at least 120 tons in 1212 (Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 23). 



2 129 17 



