PEVENSEY AND HURSTMONCEUX
In all this storied region there is no spot so rich in memories as Pevensey (or Pemsey, as it is called locally). Before such ancient settlements as Rye and Winchelsea were dreamed of, while yet Hastings was the merest collection of barbarian huts, Pevensey, or rather its Roman predecessor, Anderida, was a fortified place with all the ebb and flow of a flourishing life.
Like Winchelsea, it has seen great changes—not quite so tragic perhaps, but no less momentous—and like Winchelsea, too, in its tide of fortune or disaster, it has been at the idle mercy of the fickle sea. Where now—from the Channel inland for three or four miles—stretches a wide plain, centuries ago the sea went on its way, reaching inland as far as Hailsham, and leaving Pevensey and other "eys"—Horseye, Chilleye, Rickney—islanded in its midst. In those days Pevensey served a double purpose: it was an island stronghold and a port—a gate to shut out and a gateway to welcome the alien mariner, according to his intentions and its own will. Then the waters of the Channel receded, and the puissant fortress, robbed of its vital strength, sprawled helplessly at the mercy of any Philistine invader.
It has had just this much of compensation: through its centuries of serviceable isolation it has seen real life as a castle—withstood sieges, beaten off marauding foes, taken sides in internal strife—and in that it has had the cry over the most of our Sussex fortresses.
Originally a Celtic stronghold, it became, by reason of its unique situation, the Anderida of the Romans, a fortified enclosure following roughly the shape of the knoll on which it stood. This was in the third century. Two hundred years later, when the Romans had departed and left behind an enervated British race, the invading Saxons descended on the stronghold, put to death every Briton they could find, and destroyed all traces of the Roman settlement within the walls. For centuries after this the enclosure was unoccupied; but the port continued its activities, for we read that in the years 1042 and 1049 Earl Godwin and his sons, Sweyn and Harold, fell upon the place with sword and torch, and carried off many ships.
But its real value as a castle site was only completely realized when, in September of the year 1066, William the Norman landed there with his hordes of mailed warriors. He straightway gave the derelict to his half-brother, Robert of Mortain, who proceeded to erect a Norman fortress at the east end of the enclosure, using the strengthened Roman walls as an outer line of defence. To this was added, two centuries later, a strong inner keep.
Since the time of the Norman landing Pevensey seems to have sustained at least four earnest sieges. The first took place in 1088, when Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and supporter of Robert of Normandy, defended the castle against the Red King: the second in 1147, when the place was held for the Empress Matilda against King Stephen; and in both of these cases the defenders were compelled by famine to surrender. The third important attack was that of 1264, following the battle of Lewes, when Simon de Montfort and the Barons sought in vain to reduce a garrison of obstinate Royalists. It was during this particular siege that the larger gap in the original Roman wall was initiated. The fourth and last storming happened during the Wars of the Roses, when Lady Pelham, a stanch supporter of the Lancastrian cause, successfully held out against a force of local followers of Richard of York.
After that the glory of the place departed, and it became a State prison, wherein were incarcerated such illustrious personages as Edward, Duke of York; James the First of Scotland; and Queen Joan of Navarre, wife of Henry the Fourth. From the days of the seventh Henry onwards it gradually fell into decay; and its present dilapidated condition is due not so much to the violence of the sieges as to the habit of the local gentry of using the remains as a handy quarry for house-building purposes. For the presence of any remains at all our thanks are due to that much-reviled thing the Spanish Armada. In the year previous to the sailing of the fleet, orders were given for the complete restoration or total demolition of the castle. Happily, in the general confusion of the time, the instructions seem to have been forgotten. Pevensey now is one of the most picturesque spots in the south of England. The knoll on which it stands is sufficiently high to give the castle a dignified appearance, as it rises up out of the encompassing marshes; and yet there is none of that grim, forbidding aspect generally so noticeable about castles perched on an eminence. Rather is there about these ivy-mantled walls an atmosphere of sunlit serenity quite out of keeping with the story of the place. Around the little hill still stretch those amazing ancient Roman walls, with but two considerable breaches. These walls for the most part fail to get the attention they deserve. Visitors enter the little western gate and pass across the meadow—once the outer ward—and so come to the mediæval castle; but the outer walls are nearly a thousand years older and of transcendent interest. What magnificent masons those old Romans were! And what a secret they must have possessed for the making of mortar and cement! In several places here the cement has endured through all these hundreds of years, while even the outer stones have crumbled away. At other points, too, the actual marks of the masons' tools are visible in the ancient mortar.