[THE STORY OF THE CINQUE PORTS.]
THE BATTLE OF DAMME.—THE BATTLE OF DOVER.—THE BATTLE OF SLUYS.—THE BATTLE OF LESPAGNOLS-SUR-MER.—THE VICTORIES OF THE EARL OF ARUNDEL, THE DUKE OF BEDFORD, THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON, AND WARWICK, THE KING MAKER.
The history of the English navy from the Conquest to the fifteenth century is, in effect, the history of the great and powerful corporation known as "The five Cinque Ports and two Ancient Towns"—Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, Hythe, Winchelsea, and Rye. In the Domesday Book only three such ports are mentioned—Sandwich, Dover, and Romney—but in the charters and royal writs mention is always made of, and precedence assigned to, Hastings. Winchelsea and Rye were added to the first five soon after the Conquest, but the title of "Cinque" Ports was retained. In addition to the seven head ports there were eight "corporate members"—Deal, Faversham, Folkestone, Fordwich, Lydd, Pevensey, Seaford, and Tenterden—and twenty-four non-corporate members, which included Birchington, Brightlingsea, Bulverhithe, Grange, Kingsdown, Margate, Ramsgate, Reculver, Sarre, and Walmer, all of which were called Cinque Ports.
Some writers have endeavoured to connect the Cinque Ports with the five Roman fortresses which guarded the south-eastern shores of Britain, and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports with the Comes Littoris Saxonici—the count of the Saxon Shore, but it seems sufficiently clear that the confederation of the ports was of Teutonic origin. Originally, trading communities banded together to protect and control the herring-fishery, the principal industry and food-supply of the people; the regular descents of the Danes supplied the motive for the military character the union afterwards assumed.
The Danish invasion, which ended in Canute's supremacy, raged most fiercely round Sandwich, which was the head-quarters of the Danish fleet, and acquired the title of "the most famous of all the English ports."
As far back as the year 460, Hengist the Saxon conferred the office of Warden of the Cinque Ports upon his brother Horsa, and since the time of Godwin, Earl of Kent, who died in the year 1053, nearly one hundred and fifty persons have held that distinguished office. These include many whose names are illustrious in English history, amongst them being Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, William Longchamps, Hubert de Burgh, Sir Stephen de Pencester, Edmund Plantagenet, King Henry V., Simon de Montfort, Richard III., Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII., James II., and Prince George of Denmark. William Pitt was Lord Warden in 1792, and from that date until the year 1896 the holders of the office have been the Earl of Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Dalhousie, Lord Palmerston, Earl Granville, Mr. W. H. Smith, the Marquis of Dufferin and the Marquis of Salisbury. The privileges and distinctions of the inhabitants of the ports in those days were of a very substantial character. Amongst other things "pains and penalties" were imposed on any one entering or quitting the kingdom from or for the Continent except by way of Dover. The Grand Court of Shepway, at which the Lord Warden takes the oath of office, in the presence of the "barons," was formerly held in the open air at Lympne, a Roman port, the remains of which are now several miles inland, in the neighbourhood of Hythe, but the site of the court was removed to Dover as a more convenient place in 1693.
To Edward the Confessor may be attributed the incorporation of the Cinque Ports in the form of a Royal Navy bound to stated service. To attach them to the throne he granted them lands and franchises, in return for which they undertook, on a stated notice, to provide ships for fighting purposes for a specified time. The Domesday Book, for instance, records that "Dover, in the time of King Edward, rendered eighteen pounds, of which moneys King Edward had two parts, and Earl Godwin the third. The burgesses gave the king twenty ships once a year for fifteen days, and in each ship were twenty men. This they did in return for his having endowed them with sac and soc"—the right of independent jurisdiction and free courts.
Soon after the Norman conquest, the Danes once more threatened invasion with a powerful fleet, and Dover, Sandwich, and Romney were called upon to provide, at their own expense, twenty vessels equipped for sea, each with a crew of twenty-one men and provisions for fifteen days. Rye and Winchelsea rendered similar assistance, and in return received privileges similar to those enjoyed by the older ports. The fleet thus provided was so fully maintained by William Rufus that England's maritime supremacy may be dated from that early period. But, for more than a century after the Conquest, English ships seldom ventured beyond the Bay of Biscay or the entrance to the Baltic.
The reign of Henry I. was marked by the tragic death of Prince William in the year 1120 while crossing from Normandy to England in The White Ship. The rowers, hilarious with wine, ran The White Ship—probably an undecked or only partially decked vessel, of not more than fifty tons burden steered by two paddles over the quarter—violently on to a ledge of rocks, now called Ras de Catteville. The sea rushed in, and all on board, except two men, were lost. As soon as his ship struck, the prince and a few others got into a small boat and pushed off, but, returning to the aid of his sister, many persons jumped in the boat and all were drowned. The prince's body was carried away by the current and never recovered. Fitzstephen, the captain, whose father had carried William the Conqueror to England, and who held his office by virtue of providing a passage for his sovereign, rose once to the surface and asked, "What has become of the king's son?" Being answered, "We have not seen him, nor his brother, nor his sister, nor any of their companions," he exclaimed, "Woe is me!" and sank back into the sea. For three days no one ventured to break the news to Henry who, the old chroniclers say, was so stricken with the tidings that he fainted away and was never seen to smile again.