marched on London; or how he exacted from Harold, even during the lifetime of Edward, a solemn pledge that he would surrender into his hands the castle and keep of Dover,—no doubt as being the centre of all military action in respect of the opposite coasts.
“To enable his government to wield the resources of this maritime district with the greater vigour and promptitude,” says a writer on the Cinque Ports, “William severed it wholly from the civil and military administration of the counties of Kent and Sussex, erecting it into a kind of palatine jurisdiction under a gardien or warden, who had the seat of his administration at the castle of Dover, and exercised over the whole district the combined civil, military, and naval authority; thus uniting in his own hands all the various functions which (to use the terms most intelligible to modern readers) we may describe as those of a Sheriff of a County at large, a Custos Rotulorum, a Lord- lieutenant, and an Admiral of the Coast.”
It is well known that from the conquest to the reign of Henry VIII. the country at large had no navy, the maritime defence of the kingdom being all along entrusted to the “good men and true” of the Cinque Ports, who were bound jointly to fit out, at their own cost, such armaments as were wanted from time to time. Such being the case (the army and navy not being as yet separate services), the Warden of the Cinque Ports held really, to some extent, the modern post of Minister or Secretary at War; and formed part of the executive of the nation; and, accordingly, it is still a prescriptive rule that no one but a privy councillor is capable of being nominated to that office. In the reign of Edward I. the Ports, we find, were ordered to supply jointly a fleet of fifty-seven sail, fully equipped for fifteen days’ service; but in the reign of Edward III. the respective quota was assigned to each port and its members, or tributary towns; and English history teems with similar examples. The gradual rise of the British navy and its permanent organisation have, of course, rendered obsolete the naval services of the ancient palatinate of the Cinque Ports, and indeed, even if such had not been the case, the same result would have followed from the great physical changes which have come over the ports and harbours by the change of the coast line; even “New” Romney and Sandwich—the latter once well known to history as the “port of London”—being now both separated from the sea by a mile or two of alluvial deposit, to say nothing of Winchilsea, which is now remarkable for little but its ecclesiastical antiquities.
Another proof of the Norman origin of the Cinque Ports is to be found in the use of the terms “Jurats” and “Barons,” in lieu of the analogous Saxon names of “Aldermen” and “freemen,” so familiar to English ears, and so redolent of English liberties. In former days, under the Norman and Plantagenet kings, and indeed to a much later date, the civil and municipal rulers of the Ports used to meet and transact their business in a Parliament of their own, the framework of which still remains in the “Brotherhood” and “Guestling,” which is convened from time to time for purposes of internal regulation. It was assembled during the present century in 1811, and again in 1828, and more recently on two occasions, and according to present arrangement it is ordered to be convened once, at least, in every seven years. When the Brotherhood is convened, the barons and combarons still meet in the parish church at New Romney to elect a speaker with the ancient solemnities, which are celebrated with a scrupulous adherence to ancient precedent, that, pleasing as it may be to the lover of old associations, can scarcely fail to raise a smile on the lips of those who care as little as most men in the middle of the nineteenth century care for shadows whose substance has departed. It is remarkable that to the present day the members returned to parliament by the boroughs of Hastings, Dover, Hythe, and Sandwich, are still termed “Barons” of the Cinque Ports, and that they still claim to exercise, in virtue of the original grant, the honorary office of holders of the canopy over the head of the sovereign at every successive coronation. Their claim as of right to dine, as they dined in olden days, on the right hand of the sovereign at the dinner in Westminster Hall was most ruthlessly and cruelly ignored at the coronation of George IV., when the barons, to maintain and assert their right, refused to give place, or withdraw, and stood (we are told), all the time till the banquet was over, for which act, no doubt, they were subsequently rewarded by the thanks of their grateful combarons, of whose privileges we may literally term them the upright representatives.
The jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports, which now extends from Seaford in Sussex to Birchington near Margate, originally embraced a large portion of the Essex coast, and also employed a deputy or bailiff at Great Yarmouth; but they have lately been shorn of these outlying portions of their jurisdiction. The Ports, we should add (except Hythe and Winchilsea), had each several detached “members” assigned to them, as tributaries—not unlike the συντελεῖς πόλεις of early Greek antiquity. Thus, to Hastings were attached Pevensey, Seaford, and part of Bexhill and St. Leonards, together with Beaksbourne near Canterbury, and Granch near Rochester; to Rye was tacked on Tenterden; to Romney, Denge Marsh, Lydd, and Orlestone; to Dover, the towns of Folkestone, Faversham, and Margate, and the parishes of St. Peter, Birchington, and Ringwold; to Sandwich, the towns of Fordwich, Deal, and Ramsgate, and the villages of Walmer, Sarr, and Brightlingsea: but some of the most distant “members” were pruned off some fifty years ago, on account of the many practical difficulties which arose in the administration of justice, and other inconveniences. It is by the several surviving “members” of these Ports that the bailiffs and jurats are sent to the court of the Guestling abovementioned, the court of the Brotherhood being restricted to the mayors of the Five Ports and two “ancient towns,” together with a certain number of jurats, thus forming a sort of Upper House.
As may naturally be expected, the list of the Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports includes several names well known in history, including more than one member of the royal family. Since