From the position of this fortress, it is most probable that, like Dover, it may originally have been a British work, the entrenchments, including the promontory and the south ditches, being the defences landward. The mound, however, placed at an angle of the inner ward, upon the bank, and covering the approach, is almost certainly a later, and no doubt an English, work.
Whatever may be the origin of Hastings as a defensive work, its known history commences towards the end of the sixth and the beginning of the eighth centuries in the times of Offa and Athelstane, when it was a place of some consequence, and contained a mint. Coins, indeed, were minted here as late as the reign of Henry I.
The termination “ceaster,” which it then bore, shows it to have been fortified. Towards the middle of the eleventh century it was plundered by the Danes, and towards the middle of that century it was the men of Hastings who, after the murder of Beorn by Swegen, captured his ships and slew his accomplices in the murder, though Swegen himself escaped. Hastings also played a part in the Norman Conquest, though not that popularly assigned to it as the scene of the battle. William landed at Pevensey, and thence moved rapidly to Hastings in search of food. There Odo of Bayeux, as one of his lieutenants, ordered a fortress to be thrown up, “ut foderetur castellum,” and thence, according to the same authority, the Bayeux tapestry, William marched against Harold. William, we are told, on reaching the port, selected a proper site, and fortified it rapidly with a castle in timber, “ligneum castellum.” This, we must suppose to be a replacing or restoration of whatever there was standing on the old site. It can scarcely have been a palisade on the low ground below the castle rock. He then placed Humphrey de Tilliol, brother-in-law of Hugh de Grantmaisnil, to execute his orders, “qui Hastinges a prima die constructionis ad custodiendum susceperat.” Wace’s description applies more to Hastings than to Pevensey, which was already walled in:—
“Un chastel ì ont fermé
De bretesches è de fossé.”
De Tilliol’s occupation was confined to the construction or restoration of the defences: the castle and castelry, manor, and superiority of the whole Rape were granted by William to Robert, Earl of Eu, one of the most powerful of his Norman adherents. This grant of the castelry is recorded in Domesday, and a castelry involves the existence of a castle. The Earls of Eu held possession for five generations in the male line. No doubt either Earl William, who succeeded in 1090, or Earl Henry, who died in 1139, executed some works in masonry at the castle,—probably the wall of the enceinte, much of which still remains. Either the first or second earls founded within the castle a free chapel and college, with a dean and secular canons, and to this Henry, the third earl, added a considerable endowment by charter in the reign of Henry I. The college survived the castle, and flourished when the latter became a ruin. Thomas à Becket held the deanery, and William of Wykeham one of the prebends. The college endured to the 38 Henry VIII., when it was dissolved and the property alienated to Sir Anthony Brown. After the extinction of the Eu earldom, the patronage vested in the Crown. The charter of Earl Henry is recited in a confirmation, 22 Edward I.
In 1088 the castle probably had been made strong, for it was the boast of William of St. Calais, Bishop of Durham, that he secured Hastings for William Rufus. It was the place of muster for the powerful military force with which that king proposed to invade Normandy. At that time Anselm and many bishops and barons were present in and about the castle and were detained there from Candlemas, in 1094, for six weeks by contrary winds, during which time the king was present at the completion and consecration of his father’s Abbey of Battle. Immediately afterwards, Robert Bloet was consecrated Bishop of Lincoln within the chapel of the castle, and here also Bishop Herbert of Thetford was deprived of his see. It was in the castle of Hastings also, on this occasion, that Rufus once more refused attention to the reasonable remonstrances of Anselm, who left him unblessed to depart on his Norman expedition. The Earls of Eu, by no means always faithful vassals of the Crown of England, seem latterly to have neglected the castle, which was inferior to Pevensey as a muster-place for troops and had become of but moderate value. Henry, the fifth earl, who died in the reign of Richard I., left an only daughter, Alice, who married Ralph de Essoudun, who in her right became Earl of Eu, and so died in 1211. Their son, William, elected to become a subject of France, and, 29 Henry III., his possessions in England escheated to the Crown, and were granted to Prince Edward. As early as 1227 King Henry allowed to Robert de Aubeville 10 marcs, half his salary, as keeper of the castle. The college was retained by Henry in his own hands. In 5 Edward III., the dean and canons petitioned to have the castle wall restored, it having been injured by the sea. In 1372, the castle was granted to John of Gaunt, and in the reign of Richard II. it was a ruin and probably so remained. The early English work, especially connected with the chapel, was probably executed by Henry III. on his acquisition of the barony.
By Henry IV. the castle was granted to Rafe Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, with reversion to Sir John Pelham, who again transferred it, in 1412, to Sir Thomas Hoo, created Baron Hoo and Hastings in 1447. He died without issue male about 1453. The feoffees of Sir Thomas sold the castle and other property, in 1461, to Sir William Hastings, who in that year was summoned to Parliament as Lord Hastings of Hastings. By his descendant, Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, the castle and its appendages were sold, in 1591, to Sir Thomas Pelham, in whose descendant, now Earl of Chichester, they remain vested. Those who wish to understand thoroughly the position of Hastings as regards the landing, first movements, and subsequent advance of Duke William upon English soil, will do well to consult the very lucid and quite original account of the battle of Senlac, given in Mr. Freeman’s “History of the Conquest.”