MARITIME HISTORY 





the French plans, for nothing but a half-hearted land defence was contemplated here. It seems, 

 from a reference made by Walsingham in 1387,* that the French were still raiding the coast of 

 Sussex but we are left in ignorance of the details. Hostilities with France ceased in 1389, and for 

 some years maritime commerce suffered only its normal afflictions, for, although official peace existed, 

 private war always continued. In 1394 and 1396 the Cinque Ports were required to provide the 

 full service for the king's passages to Ireland and Calais, so that we may suppose that they had some- 

 what recovered from the effects of the war. In February, 1394, a new agreement was come to 

 between Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye, by which the first port, with its members, supplied five 

 ships, Winchelsea ten, and Rye five. 8 Rye had some shipbuilding, judging from a certificate of 

 1392 in favour of John Wickham, shipwright, who had carried on his business there for 16 years, 

 and the fact that in 1390 the townsmen were making a trade of selling ships to foreigners. 3 



An early writ of the reign of Henry IV is a commission to William Prince, master of Le 

 Cristofre of Arundel, as a privateer against the Scots. 4 Shortly afterwards a survey of Winchelsea 

 Harbour was ordered, from which it appears that it was still deteriorating. 6 In consequence of the 

 uncertainty of the truce with France not only the ports but many of the inland towns were ordered 

 on II January, 1400-1, to build ships, singly or in combination, at their own cost by the following 

 April. 8 Shoreham and Arundel were each assessed for one balinger, but the Cinque Ports were not 

 affected. When Parliament met it protested against this proceeding, and as Henry's position was 

 too uncertain to allow him to insist, as he might have done, on the strict legality of his action, the 

 order was withdrawn. For many years of this reign, while Parliament was complaining of foreign 

 pirates, the French chroniclers say that English seamen were incessantly ravaging the French coast. 

 The Cinque Ports, however, play little part in these recriminations ; the French attacks were 

 now directed against Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, from which may be inferred 

 the decline of the military value of the Cinque Ports and the rise of the western coast towns. 

 There are signs that the service from the Ports was becoming voluntary, or at least taking on the 

 character of that due from the remainder of the English coast, although that also was approaching 

 its period of decay and extinction. In 1405 Thomas of Lancaster, the king's second son, was 

 appointed to the command of a large fleet, and he wrote to the mayor of Rye inviting any who 

 possessed suitable ships to join him, promising them all prize money. 7 In 1407 a squadron 

 which was largely made up of Cinque Ports ships, under Henry Pay, the privateersman, took a 

 merchant fleet of 120 ships off the coast of Brittany, and if in their reduced condition the Ports 

 were able to send many vessels to sea for themselves it shows that the crown was not pressing them 

 for their ' service." 



To crush privateering and piracy Henry V, in 1414, instituted officials, called conservators of 

 truces, in every port who, assisted by two legal assessors, and holding their authority from the High 

 Admiral except in the Cinque Ports, where they were appointed by the Warden, were to have 

 power of inquiry and punishment concerning all guilty of illegal practices at sea. 8 They were to 

 keep a register of the ships and seamen belonging to each port, and acted as adjudicators in such cases 

 as did not go before the Admiralty Court. They seem, so far as related to judicial functions, to have 

 been a link on the civil side between the earlier keepers of the coast and the vice-admirals of counties 

 created in the sixteenth century. That the statute was strictly enforced and helped to preserve a 

 little peace at sea is shown by the fact that two years later the king consented to some modifica- 

 tion of its stringency by promising to issue letters of marque when equitable. In 1435 it was 

 entirely suspended, being found ' so rigorous and grievous,' said the Commons, taking advantage of a 

 weak rule ; in 1451 it was brought into force again for a short time, and once more renewed by 

 Edward IV. The statute when first promulgated and actively executed, under a monarch who was 

 determined to make his will obeyed, must have been a further blow to the piratical disposition of 

 the Ports. 



Henry V began his reign with the intention of having a great fleet of his own. The custom 

 of general impressment was now expensive both for the shipowner and the crown, slow and 

 inefficient, and the continual complaints of the merchant class, as voiced in Parliament, were not 

 safely to be ignored. The system could not be, and was not, at once abolished, but it became 

 much less frequent during the fifteenth century, and there is quite a modern note in the establish- 

 ment of cruisers along the coast in 1415, of which four were stationed between the Isle of Wight 

 and Orford Ness. 9 Formerly, in theory if not in practice, it would have been the special duty of the 

 Cinque Ports to guard that particular stretch of sea. The large fleet required for the campaign of 

 Agincourt included a contingent from Sussex, but very many ships were hired in Holland and 

 Zealand, the resources of the kingdom being insufficient, or Henry resolved not to tax them unduly ; 



1 Hist, dnglicana, ii, 153. 



3 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, App. 500, 501. 



* Ibid. pt. viii, m. 39 d. 

 8 2 Hen. V, cap. 6. 



Foedera, viii, 172. 



141 



* Jeake, Charters, 95. 

 4 Pat. I Hen. IV, pt. vi, m. 6 d. 

 7 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, App. 501. 

 ' Proc. ofP.C. (ist Ser.), ii, 145. 



