A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



grievances before him and the council. 1 The Portsmen were unusually peaceably inclined, perhaps, 

 because they had on their hands a quarrel with the Flemings and an internecine war with the 

 western counties, so they obeyed the royal orders ; towards the end of the year the Yarmouth men 

 were pardoned their offences as to life and limb, but condemned to pay 1,000 to the Cinque 

 Ports owners they had injured. There was consequently no outbreak, but the animosity that con- 

 tinued between the East Anglians and the southern men is shown by the fact that the king thought 

 it necessary, in 1319, to issue an especial inhibition to both, when they were to come together in a 

 fleet destined for service against Scotland, warning them not to attack each other as heretofore, 

 ' whereby the affairs of the king and his progenitors have been frequently retarded.' 2 



Leland has a story, assigned by him to the next reign, of the Fowey men refusing to ' vail 

 bonnet ' to the Portsmen, fighting them off Rye, and earning the title of ' the gallants of Fowey.' * 

 The quarrel seems to have been of this reign, and arose from a Fowey crew taking a man accused 

 of murder when, no doubt, either the accused or the victim was a Cornishman out of a Cinque 

 Ports ship and killing some of the men on board her; as a consequence the Portsmen were hunting 

 down all vessels hailing from the Fowey river. 4 How long the warfare had continued is not known, 

 but in January, 1321, the Cornishmen appealed to the king for protection; the Cinque Ports 

 appear to have ignored the inhibition which followed, for another was necessary in August, and 

 from this last it is evident that they were also fighting and holding their own against the coast 

 towns of Hampshire and Dorset as well. 6 Probably a complaint to Parliament from the people of 

 Southampton that in 1321 Robert Bataille of Winchelsea came there and burnt and robbed ships 

 and goods to the value of 11,000 relates to one incident of this county war. 6 Cornish writers, 

 relying on the complimentary epithet won by the Fowey men, have taken for granted that they 

 fought on at least equal terms with the Cinque Ports, but the phrasing of the writs implies that it 

 was they, and not the Portsmen, who were longing for an end to the strife. 



Besides this illegitimate warfare on a large scale the Ports also pursued the customary practice 

 of piracy, although much of what was then called piracy was simply the seizure of enemy's goods 

 in neutral bottoms, and would, later, only have provided suits for the adjudication of the Admiralty 

 Court. Before and after 1312 there were many complaints from foreign merchants which probably 

 related to occurrences of this character, but there was also real piracy committed under pretence of 

 attacking the Scots. Often, neither this nor any excuse was considered necessary. In August, 1314, 

 Edward granted a licence to the barons of Winchelsea to fit out two ships to protect the coast ; by 

 September the men of one of them, the St. John of Rye, had boarded, plundered, and scuttled 

 several ships in the Swyn, and murdered many of their crews ; they then came over to Orwell 

 Haven and dealt similarly with two Flemings lying there. 7 As the ships in the Swyn were bound 

 for Harwich, this must have been pure piracy. Another flagrant affair happened towards the end of 

 the reign, and it may be considered certain that for every such case in which the magnitude of the 

 loss made it worth while to appeal to the king there were dozens where the victims were silent or 

 too poor to take any action. In this last instance a Fleming was boarded off the Isle of Wight by 

 Winchelsea and Sandwich men; they took cargo to the value of 600, brought the ship to the 

 Downs, forced the owners to sign an acquittance to the effect that they sought no redress in respect 

 of the goods seized, and then put them in a boat to find their way home. 8 At the time they no 

 doubt thought themselves fortunate that they were not thrown overboard. The same lawlessness 

 was shown ashore when inquiry was set on foot. In 1315 a Spanish ship was wrecked on 

 Dungeness and the cargo carried off by men of Winchelsea, Rye, and Romney ; a writ of inquiry 

 issued to the Warden of the Ports, but on the day appointed for the hearing at Winchelsea a 

 riotous assembly, made up from the three towns, prevented him by force from carrying it into 

 effect. 9 Judging from a writ of 1309 10 prohibiting the men of the Cinque Ports from taking fish 

 without payment from Dutch fishermen, much of their fishery also was carried on at the expense 

 of others. 



Within a few months of the accession of Edward III the full service of the Ports was 

 required against Scotland, but peace was made in 1328. This levy from the Ports deserves notice 

 because Waresius de Valoignes, the admiral of the western fleet, was occupied within their liberties 

 in pressing men both for their ships and for those taken up along the south coast. 11 Later, the Ports 



1 Close, 10 Edw. II, m. 3O</. ; Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 35. * Close, 12 Edw. II, m. 5 d. 



8 Itinerary, iii, 22. The bonnet was an additional sail which laced on to the foot of the main sail for 

 use in fair weather. The word was also in general use as meaning a head-covering ; Leland may have 

 employed it either in its nautical or its figurative sense. 



4 Pat. 14 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 24. 5 Close, 15 Edw. II, m. 32 d. m. 31 d. 



' Rot. Par/, ii, 413. The French swooped on Southampton in 1338, but it is doubtful whether they 

 did much more damage. 



7 Pat. 8 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 29, m. 21 d. ' Pat. I Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 6d. 



' Rot. Par/, i, 329. 10 Close, 3 Edw. II, m. 23. "Close, 3 Edw. Ill, m. 1 8. 



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