

MARITIME HISTORY 



Three MSS. 1 allot Shoreham 329 men, while two others 2 give it 339, and a sixth 3 429 men ; the 

 disagreement is only noticeable as one of many indications that the copies cannot be accepted as 

 authoritative. The names in the list are in no geographical order, but after Shoreham and Seaford, 

 and before Hamble, occurs Newmouth with two vessels, which must have been mere fishing boats, 

 and 1 8 men. The place is unidentified, but may possibly be connected with the Ouse or the 

 Shoreham river. It will be observed that 40 ships came from the Sussex Cinque Ports, and the 

 total from Kent and Sussex was double the number of their service by charter. On 29 August, 

 1350, the battle of L'Espagnols sur Mer was fought and won off Winchelsea by Edward in person, 

 and although most of the vessels present were king's ships there were no doubt many Portsmer. 

 amongst the crews. The Black Prince and John of Ghent were with the king. 



The naval history of Edward III is an illustration of the fact that the almost invariable conse- 

 quence in former times of the destruction of an enemy's military fleets was an increase in raids and 

 privateering. Although sea victories were won, and no resistance was or could be made to the 

 transport of Edward's armies, the coasts were continually harrassed by French incursions or the fear 

 of them, and the sense of helplessness was aggravated by the losses suffered from privateers and the 

 exhaustion of the shipowning classes. On Sunday, 15 March, 1359-60, the French surprised 

 Winchelsea, partly burnt the town, ravaged the surrounding country, and did not retire until the 

 county levies were gathering in force. The French had many old scores to settle with Winchelsea 

 and Rye, and the Normans still feared them ; but if Shoreham had continued the progress it seems 

 to have been making during this reign it might have won some of the attention paid by the French 

 to the greater ports. We have seen that its quota to the Calais fleet was not much behind that of 

 Winchelsea ; many entries on the patent rolls show its commercial importance, and a writ of 1 346 4 

 directing the inhabitants to make war on the French by sea and land testifies to its military 

 strength. Seaford, about 1357, had almost ceased to exist, having been burnt down and devastated 

 both by war and pestilence, so that it was unable to supply ships ; 6 probably it had never recovered 

 from the losses referred to in the Inquisitiones Nonarum. 



An unstable peace existed between 1360 and 1369 ; the commencement of war in the latter 

 year caused the king to convoke another council of provincial experts at Westminster in November, 

 to which Chichester and the Cinque Ports sent representatives. 6 The renewal of the war was 

 attended by the complete loss of English supremacy in the Channel. Levy followed levy without 

 result; the Commons laid before the king their views as to the causes to which they attributed the 

 decay of shipping, and in June, 1372, after the defeat of the earl of Pembroke before Rochelle, 

 the crown was reduced to issuing commissions of array for the maritime counties instead of defend- 

 ing them by fleets at sea. The ordinary rate of hire for ships impressed was 3;. ifd. a ton for three 

 months, and now both that and wages were left unpaid, in contrast to the liberality Edward had 

 displayed 30 years earlier when he made extra and unusual payments to help the equipment of the 

 fleets. The year 1375 was marked by another maritime disaster in the shape of the capture or 

 destruction in Bourneuf Bay of 39 merchantmen ranging from 300 tons downwards ; only one 

 Sussex ship, the Paul of Rye, of 22O tons, was taken. 7 Edward III died 21 June, 1377, and on 

 the 2gth the French took Rye, slaughtering 'without sparing man or woman,' says Froissart. In 

 1369 the townsmen had obtained a licence to wall, or extend the walls, but courage was needed as 

 well as defences, and in that essential the men of Rye are said to have been wanting on this 

 occasion. 8 While holding the town Jean de Vienne, the Admiral of France, who commanded the 

 French fleet, proceeded to threaten Winchelsea, but that place was garrisoned by the abbot of 

 Battle, and Vienne retreated. The Admiral rejected a proposal from his second in command to hold 

 Rye, burnt it, and sailed to Rottingdean, where, having routed a force raised by the prior of Lewes, 

 he marched inland burning and plundering. Hastings suffered the same fate later in the year when 

 Vienne, returning from the westward in August, also assaulted Winchelsea but was repulsed by 

 the abbot of Battle. 9 In 1339 the Commons had said that the Cinque Ports had been enfranchised 

 as ' a guard and wall between us and foreigners ' ; the French, even 40 years later, regarded them 

 in the same light if it be true that on their return to France several were hanged for their refusal to 

 keep Rye when it was captured and the barrier thus broken down. 10 The late Admiral Colomb " 



Cott. MSS. Titus, F. Ill, fol. 262 ; Stowe MSS. 570, fol. 230 ; Harl. MSS. 246. 



Stowe MSS. 574, fol. 28 ; Harl. MSS. 3698, fol. 130. s Rawlinson MSS. (Bodl.), C. 846, fol. 17. 



Close, 20 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 13 d. ' Ibid. 30 Edw. Ill, m. 13. 



Toedera (ed. 1 8 1 6), iii, 880. ' Chanc. Dipl. Doc. P. 324. 



Stow, Cbron. (ed. 1615), 278. 



The contemporary chroniclers are not in agreement as to the sequence of these events. 

 10 Rot. Par/, iii, 70. There is some doubt as to the reading of the old French of the Rolls of Parliament, 

 most historians having considered the meaning to be that some of the Rye men were hanged for their weak 

 defence, but the version in the text is also supported by the opinion of Mr. Edward Salisbury, of the Record 

 Office. " Naval Warfare, 3. 



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