A few years later and Edmund, Duke of York, was imprisoned here; and Queen Joan of Navarre, widow of the Duke of Bretagne, and second wife of Henry IV, was also confined here for a period of more than eight long years. The former appears to have been “an uncommon grateful prisoner,” for he is said to have left his gaoler a legacy of £20!
In Pevensey town in the sixteenth century lived a jester (professional or otherwise we have not succeeded in discovering), Andrew Borde, a monk, said to be the original “Merry Andrew,” and the author of two ancient works, still known to the few, called the Boke of Knowledge and The Wise Men of Gotham. His witticisms were apparently not seldom directed against the municipal authorities of Pevensey. On one occasion he makes the Mayor assert, with much access of dignity, “Though Mayor of Pevensey I am yet but a man,” and accuses a Pevensey jury of having brought in a verdict of manslaughter against a yeoman charged with stealing a pair of leather breeches!
Another detailed account of this latter event says that when the man had been brought in guilty of stealing the breeches by the jury, and they were informed that the theft was a capital offence, they were astounded and unwilling to hang the man and so adjourned the Court, dispatching a messenger hot haste to Thomas Willard, Esq., of Eastbourne, the town clerk, to beg his opinion whether it would be possible to reverse the present verdict and bring in a fresh one. It happened that Lord Wilmington, with the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, was at dinner with Mr Willard when the messenger arrived, and upon Mr Willard telling these two gentlemen the nature of the message he had received, the Chief Baron (as a joke, one must suppose) said, “Instruct them to reverse the present verdict and bring in another of manslaughter.” To this advice Lord Wilmington also assented, and Mr Willard advised accordingly, with the humorous result we have already mentioned.
Whilst yet another Mayor, who received an important letter by special messenger whilst engaged in the occupation of mending the thatch on his pig’s stye, on attempting to read the communication upside down, “was so long a-doing it” that the messenger at last ventured to hint respectfully that if he would attempt to read his letter as did ordinary folk he would make speedier progress towards mastering the contents. The reply must have been crushing, “Hold your tongue, sir!” exclaimed his worship with asperity, “understand that while I’m Mayor of Pevensey I hold a letter which end up I choose.”
Andrew Borde’s fame as a mirth provoker was so widespread that we find King Edward VI himself came to visit him. The room which by tradition is pointed out as that in which the youthful Sovereign had the interview with his father’s old physician is nowadays somewhat of a show place, and the house itself is a quaint one.
It is but five miles from Pevensey to Eastbourne, clean and smart-looking even from a distance at sea, and made yet more attractive to the vision by the charming wooded slopes of Paradise which form its setting or background; but there is no harbour or haven, and, in addition, Eastbourne is too new to have much history.
Two miles south-west of the town rises Beachy Head, the last of the Downs headlands—rugged, impressive, magnificent, almost sheer in places, and green-capped with close-cropped turf. In former times there have been many wrecks on its wave-washed base, till the Belle Tout lighthouse came in 1831 to fling across the dark waters its saving light, and the more powerful and more modern one at the base of the cliff, near what is known as Parson Darby’s hole, was erected in 1902 to take its place.
Possibly Beachy Head, which towers above us as we sweep round it, but at a respectful distance from the race off the south ledges, with perhaps a flock of tourists on its summit, having the semblance and proportions of flies so far above the water are they, has inspired more poetry than any other headland of the south coast. Most are cognizant of Mr Swinburne’s beautiful ode “To a Seamew,” which is, alas! too long for quotation, and would be spoiled by omission of a single stanza. But from Richard Jefferies’s “The Breeze on Beachy Head” one can cull some vivid lines, and by them bring the headland to the mind’s eye though so far from it. “But,” he says, “the glory of these glorious Downs is the breeze.... It is air without admixture. If it comes from the south, the waves refine it; if inland, the wheat and the flowers and grass distil it. The great headland and the whole rib of the promontory is wind swept and washed with air; the billows of atmosphere roll over it.... Discover some excuse to be up there always, to search for stray mushrooms ... or to make a list of flowers and grasses; to do anything, and, if not, go always without any pretext. Lands of gold have been found, and lands of spices and precious merchandize; but this is the land of health.”
One remembers, too, the description of the headland in King Lear. The truth of which, down to the smallest detail, seems to prove beyond question that Shakespeare himself must have visited the spot and have drunk in the salt sea breeze and felt the glorious sun as have other poets and writers.
And thus, as we leave the gleaming headland astern, we make for Newhaven by way of Seaford. The latter has by far the more attractive history, as should naturally follow the distinction of being a “limb” of the Cinque Ports. The cliffs are very fine all along to Seaford, and once a haven of refuge came very near being made at Cuckmere close by, but the advantages or claims, or both, of Portland further west prevailed.