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the place was so fiercely harried by the men of Eustace of Boulogne.* The loss of Calais affected Dover, it is true; and the town might have suffered much but for the advice of Raleigh that an improved harbour should be constructed under the castle. There has been difficulty in keeping the harbour open, owing to the manner in which shingle accumulates all along this coast; but later works have been effective, and the harbour of refuge, begun in 1847, has been of very great service. The great pile of the Lord Warden Hotel marks the pier of embarkation and departure-too well known to many passengers. The coast is connected with that opposite by the first submarine telegraph ever undertaken, laid down between Dover and Cape Grisnez, in August, 1850 -a course which was afterwards changed

for one between Dover and Sangatte. Should the scheme of a submarine railway tunnel ever be carried into execution, it will be in a somewhat similar direction.

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SALUTING BATTERY GATE, DOVER.

But we must not lose sight of those less fortunate members of the Cinque Ports, which, unlike Dover, or even Sandwich, retain but scanty traces of their former importance. Dover is the chief pilot station of all the Cinque Ports; but the services of its many pilots, except in so far as the open channel is concerned, are little needed but for its own haven, and for that of the ancient "limb" of Dover, which has grown into its rival-Folkestone. Like Margate and Ramsgate also lesser limbs of the Cinque Ports-Folkestone is a dependency which has become important only of late years, and its prosperity is due to the advance of railways, the improvement of its harbour, and the establishment of packets running from thence to Boulogne. In one point of view Folkestone may be regarded as the successor of its western neighbour, Hythe, a principal Cinque Port, and the representative of the Roman Portus Lemanis, with its protecting castellum. But the sea has retreated from Hythe, and it is now three miles distant from the Roman port. We are here at the north-eastern corner of Romney Marsh, and the hills stretching westward from Folkestone are in effect an ancient sea-board, at the foot of which the great marsh district has raised itself, and is still increasing. Hythe (the name signifies "the harbour "), which once, in Leland's words, lay "strayt for passage owt of Boleyn," is now an inland village, with a large church, dating for the most part from the thirteenth century. It is dedicated to St. Leonard, who was very much reverenced in all the Cinque Ports, possibly as the patron and deliverer of captives-since captivity was a fate to which their warlike sailors were frequently subjected. There is an enormous collection of human skulls and bones in a crypt under the chancel, resembling those which formerly existed at

*For the story of the outrages of Eustace, at Dover (September, 1051), and for all that followed, ending in the banishment of Earl Godwine, with whom Dover was in some special manner connected, see Freeman, "Norman Conquest," Vol. II., chap. 7.

Ripon in Yorkshire, and at Folkestone and Upchurch. In these latter cases the bones seem to have been gradually gathered from the churchyards, as still happens in Brittany. But at Hythe there are some peculiarities such as the evident marks of sword or weapon cuts on many of the skulls-which give probability to Mr. Wright's conjecture that the relics may have come from a Roman or Saxon cemetery, perhaps discovered by the builders of the earliest church. The local tradition asserts that the bones were blanched on the beach after a great battle; but the story is too vague, and the details provided are too impossible, to be of any value.

The earliest courts of the Cinque Ports were held, not in the ruined Roman castle, but, in accordance with most ancient Teutonic usage, in the open air, at a place called Shepway Cross, about half a mile beyond the church of Lymne. Here the "Limenarcha," the Warden of the Ports, took and received the oaths on first entering on his office. But, after the Limene or Rother had changed its course-and the silting up, which finally caused the change, is said to have been due to a great storm in the reign of Edward I. the inland position was probably found inconvenient; and the courts were removed to New Romney, another principal Cinque Port, on the western edge of the marshes, although the change of the river had also much affected the prosperity of Romney. Romney is now but a village, without any kind of harbour. Of the five churches which tradition gives to it, one alone, that of St. Nicholas, lifts its Norman tower above the level of the surrounding marshes, and is one of the landmarks of this remote district. Intersected by dykes and watercourses, almost treeless, and lying at one uniform level, the region of the Romney Marshes the old country of the Saxon "Mersewara" (Marshmen) is hardly attractive, though the vast plain, with its gleaming waterlines, "Rounded about by the low wavering sky,"

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OLD HOUSE AT RYE.

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has its own beauty, and often presents singular effects of light. We may pass round the somewhat dreary coast, and turning Dungeness with its lighthouse-a much-needed guide, for the navigation here is full of peril-reach at last the quaint old town of Rye, never a principal Cinque Port, though a very important limb of Hastings. Except Sandwich, Rye is perhaps the quaintest and most picturesque of these ancient sea-towns; and the streets of "Old Rye" (there is a newer town opposite) are as narrow, as crooked, and as irregular as those of the Kentish Cinque Port. The sea is nearly two miles distant from the steep, broken rock, tufted with grass in its crevices, along which the town is stretched, with the lines of its roofs barred by the square tower of the church and

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by the defensive tower of William of Ypres. But Rye has still a harbour, formed by a junction of three rivers, the Rother, the Brede, and the Tillingham. Vessels of 200 tons can enter it, and it has its own little fleet of fishing boats.

Thackeray, in his unfinished "Denis Duval," has reproduced the old-world character of the place so completely, with its atmosphere of smuggling, and the foreign touches arising from its connection with the Continent, that we can hardly do otherwise than re-people the streets, as we thread them, with the persons of his story. He introduces us to the comfortable Rector of Rye; but he does not take us within the great Church of St. Clement, which has portions of every architectural period, from Norman to Late Perpendicular. It is said that

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the church, like the town itself, suffered at various times from the attacks of French invaders, and that repair and rebuilding thus became often necessary. There is a clock on the exterior, the bells of which are struck by a pair of fat golden cherubs, which according to tradition was the gift of Queen Elizabeth, and is held to be the most ancient clock in England still doing its work.

Winchelsea and Rye stand on opposite heights, with about three miles of dreary marsh

land between them. The Winchelsea of which the relics

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DOORWAY, WINCHELSEA CHURCH.

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on lower ground, and after on the Eve of St. Agatha,

yet linger, for all its antique character, is not the original settlement. Old Winchelsea (the "ea," "ey" island, of a Saxon, Winchel) stood frequent inundations it was finally destroyed by the sea 1287. The new town was then founded upon the hill above by King Edward I., who was likewise the founder of the present "Kingstown," of Hull in Yorkshire, and of many English towns"-"villes franches," or "free towns "-in Guienne and Aquitaine. The arrangement of all these Edwardian towns is the same namely, a long parallelogram, crossed and re-crossed by parallel streets, with a large open market-place, adjoining which is the principal church. New Winchelsea traded largely in wines and other "commodities," and continued prosperous until the middle of the fifteenth century, when the sea rapidly retired, and the harbour soon became useless. The inhabitants deserted the place. The houses gradually disappeared; and the more massive buildings which remain "have a strangely spectral character, like owls seen by daylight." Three of the gates exist at one of which, the Strand Gate, Edward I. nearly lost his life when, soon after the town was built, the horse on which he was riding, frightened by

a windmill, leaped clear over the bulwark. All within gave up the king for dead. But the horse, after slipping for a considerable distance, did not fall; and Edward rode back safely through the gate. The chief point of interest at Winchelsea, however-after the general position of the place, and its strange desolation, have been recognised and wondered at is the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, of which the chancel with its aisles alone remains. This is very beautiful Early Decorated, and may date from about 1300. The peculiar window tracery, resembling that which, from its fullest development at Chartham, has been called Kentish, and the sculptured leafage of capitals and of corbels, are full of beauty; but more striking than any portion of the actual fabric are the noble tombs of the Alards-designed, it may well be, by the architect of the church itself, since the date renders this probable. The two principal are in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, in the south aisle. The beautiful canopies rise above the sills of the windows, and all the details -grotesque heads with clusters and sprays of oak - leaves, the mouldings and the ornaments—are admirable, belonging as they do to that best period of Gothic architecture when natural leafage and natural expression were carefully imitated, but with the feeling of the truest art. The effigy of Gervase Alard, on the earliest tomb, is cross-legged, and the hands clasp a small heart. The mail is thrown back from them in a singularly graceful. The lion at his feet, half-rising, yet still trodden down, turns his head growling. The second monument is probably that of Stephen Alard, a near relation (grandson?) of Gervase. The Alards were natives of Winchelsea, of humble ancestry, and a family of brave sailors. Gervase was no doubt one of the most distinguished seamen of his time, since in 1300 he became Admiral of the Fleet of the Cinque Ports.* In a petition presented in his old age to Edward I., he represents himself as having served the king in the wars of Gascony, in Flanders, in Normandy, and in three expeditions to Scotland. He was probably one of the first benefactors to the Church of St. Thomas, and his death occurred soon after that church was completed. The names of Thomas and of Justin Alard occur somewhat later as those of conspicuous seamen; and Stephen Alard appears as Admiral of the Cinque Ports in 1324. It is this Stephen to whom the second tomb is usually attributed. There are other monuments in the north aisle, hardly so fine, but of similar character, all of which are supposed (there is no absolute proof) to represent members of the Alard family.

Dominicans and Franciscans both had houses in Winchelsea. Of the Dominican friary there is not a relic. The house now called "The Friars" represents the Franciscan convent, but it is almost entirely modern. It is to be noted as having been the residence of the famous highwaymen, George and Joseph Weston, who, towards the close of the last century, plundered this part of the country in all directions, while enjoying a

* The title of admiral (it is from the Arabic amir, and seems to have been first applied in Sicily to a chief naval commander) appears for the first time in England in connection with Gervase Alard, who is so styled in the Wardrobe accounts of 1300; and the first commission to an admiral, of which there is any record, was granted by Edward I. to Gervase Alard, in 1303. The title had been used some time before in France; and in 1297 Sir William Leybourne was styled "Admiral of the Sea of the King of England" in a convention executed at Bruges. Gervase Alard, as admiral, received two shillings a day, which was the pay of a knight serving in the field. See Sir Harris Nicholas' " 'History of the Royal Navy," Vol. I., chap. 14. Alard appears on his monument in the armour of a knight.

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considerable reputation at Winchelsea for charity and the domestic virtues. One of them was made churchwarden. They are made to figure, it need hardly be said, in Thackeray's "Denis Duval."

The walk over the downs and along the cliffs, from Winchelsea to Hastings, the most westerly of the greater Cinque Ports, is a pleasant one; and the view of Hastings, with its ruined castle, as it is approached from Fairlight, is most picturesque.

Hastings

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was never perhaps so important a port as Rye or Winchelsea; but it was always in great repute for its ship-building, and the deep forests of Sussex afforded an unlimited supply of material. Except the castle, which may have been the work of the Counts of Eu, on whom the manor was bestowed by the Conqueror, there is little of real antiquity in Hastings, which has exchanged its older reputation for that of a very beautifully situated and fashionable watering-place. The eastern end of the town is chiefly occupied by fishermen, and their old-fashioned houses, constructed principally of blackened timber, are not the least picturesque feature of the town. The great battle with which the name of Hastings has been so long and so falsely connected, took place on ground which is at least seven miles inland; but the ships which conveyed the Conqueror's host no doubt spread themselves and disembarked their troops all along this part of the coast; and the harbour of St. Valery, from which the great expedition set sail, is visible in clear weather from the cliffs. It was at Pevensey that William himself landed, where the enclosing walls of the castle are really those of the Roman Anderida, the fortress which stands partly in the same relation to Hastings as a Cinque Port that Rutupia does to Sandwich. There are few more remarkable relics in this country. The walls are those of the Roman-British town,

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