These charters of John are most important, but have not, so far as I know, received scientific treatment. The charter to Hastings is in many ways distinct from the others. It alone speaks of the 'Honours at Court', the rights at Yarmouth, and the ship-service due, and alone mentions that this service was rendered 'pro hiis libertatibus'. The charter to Rye and Winchelsea is modelled on that of Hastings, and neither of them goes back beyond the charter of Henry II. The charters to Dover and to Hythe, it will be found, are closely parallel, and in both cases the privileges are to be enjoyed as in the times of Edward, William I, William II, and Henry (I). Sandwich has her liberties confirmed as in the days of Henry I, King William, 'and our predecessors'; Romney as in the days of Henry I.
If it be urged that the rights of Yarmouth, though only specified in the Hastings charter, were included under general liberties in the charters to the other Ports, I appeal, in reply, to that writ of Henry II[7] which treats the Barons of Hastings alone as possessing authority at Yarmouth. The charter and the writ confirm one another.
We see, then, that when we interpret the great charter of Edward I to the Ports (1278) in the light of evidence, not of supposition, we find that Henry II and John did grant separate charters to the different Ports as to other towns (not a collective charter to them all), and that these therefore must have been the charters referred to in the general confirmation of 1278. In other words, it was Edward I, not Edward the Confessor, who granted the first 'Charter to the Confederation', as a whole. Utterly subversive though it be of Professor Burrows' view, this is the only conclusion in harmony with the known facts.
Thus the sole result of examining my critic's evidence is to make me carry my scepticism further still. I now hold that even so late as the days of John, the Ports had individual relations to the crown, although their relations inter se were becoming of a closer character, as was illustrated by the fact that their several charters were all obtained at the same time. Hastings alone, as yet, had rights at Yarmouth recognized: hers were the only portsmen styled 'barons' by the crown.
It is always, in these matters, necessary to bear in mind that the local organization was apt to be ahead of the crown, and that communal institutions and municipal developments might be winked at for a time to avoid formal recognition. In this way I believe the rights and privileges belonging in strictness to Hastings alone were gradually extended in practice to the other ports. There is, for instance, a St Bertin charter granted by the so-called 'barons of Dover', although the formal legend on their seal styles them only 'burgesses'. The portsmen may all in practice have been loosely styled 'barons', even though Hastings alone had a special right to that distinction. Professor Burrows speaks of 'its acknowledged claim to be the Premier Port of the Confederation' as 'a circumstance of the greatest significance in our inquiry',[8] and here I entirely agree with him. But I cannot think his explanation of that pre-eminence in any way satisfactory. He lays great stress on 'the identification lately established beyond any reasonable doubt between the town in the Bourne valley and the "New Burgh" of Domesday Book'. I have searched long and in vain for this identification, but, whether it be accepted or not, it throws no light on the old town, the King's town, of Hastings.[9]
The importance of Hastings before the Conquest is shown not only by the action of its ships in 1049, but also by its possessing a mint. Yet the only mention of this town in Domesday is the incidental entry that the Abbot of Fécamp had 'in Hastings' appurtenant to his Manor of Brede, 'iiii. burgenses et xiiii. bordarios'.[10] One is fairly driven to the bold hypothesis that Hastings, which ought to have figured at the head of the county survey (as did Dover in Kent), was one of the important towns wholly omitted in Domesday.[11] The fact that its ship-service, when first mentioned, was as large as that of Dover is a further proof of its importance.
The geographical position of Hastings also severs its case, as widely as do its privileges, from those of the Kentish ports. It is therefore difficult to resist the impression that the distinction in John's charter had a real origin and meaning. The 'barons' of Hastings were, I believe, the men of the King's town (not, as alleged, the Abbot's) and so far from the Abbot's men being admitted to share their distinction, we find the latter, at Rye and Winchelsea, styled in John's charter 'homines', not even 'homines nostri'.
The accepted view as to Rye and Winchelsea is thus set forth by Professor Burrows:
The Confessor had evidently intended to make the little group of Sussex towns, the 'New Burgh', Winchelsea, and Rye, a strong link of communication between England and Normandy; but Godwin and Harold had contrived to prevent the two latter from becoming the property of the Abbey of Fécamp, to which Edward granted them in the early part of his reign; and this formed one of the Norman grievances. William promised to restore them to the Abbey, and when he had conquered England he kept his word.... Of the grant of Winchelsea and Rye to the same Abbey as part of the lands of Steyning we have distinct evidence in the charter of resumption issued by Henry III in 1247 (p. 27; cf. supra, p. 248).
Although this view has always been held by local historians and antiquaries, it seems to me obvious that there must be error somewhere. Rye and Winchelsea belonged geographically to the Abbey's lordship of Brede in the extreme west of the county; its lordship of Steyning was in East Sussex. On examining for myself the charter of resumption and comparing it with the Abbey's claims as to Brede at the quo warranto inquiry, I discovered the solution of the mystery. Rye and Winchelsea were not, as alleged, appurtenant to Steyning, but belonged to the Manor of Brede. The Abbey, however, claimed on behalf of its Manor of Brede (including Rye and Winchelsea) all the franchises granted to Steyning, contending that they were meant to extend to all its lands in Sussex. This claim was urged and recognized in the case of the charter of resumption (1246), the source of the whole misapprehension.