POLITICAL HISTORY coast of Sussex was the first spot of English ground on which he set foot as king, for in May 1199 he landed at Seaford/ By 16 June he was at Shoreham, whence a few days later he crossed to Normandy/ His restlessness and the rapidity of his movements, which were the subject of astonishment to his contemporaries, brought him not infre- quently into the county ; thus in April 1206, on his way from Romney to Southampton, he was on successive days at Battle, Mailing, Knepp, and Arundel : in 1208 he was at Aldingbourne, the Bishop of Chi- chester's manor, from 27 to 30 March, and was also there in the following January, and in May 1209, when he went on to Knepp for several days, also visiting Arundel, Bramber and Lewes. John again spent four days at Knepp in April 1 2 1 1 ; and this was evidently his favourite residence in Sussex. It was a manor belonging to William de Braose, containing a small castle, probably used by the lords of Bramber as a hunting seat; when John in 1208 began the quarrel with de Braose, which ended in the latter's flight to France and the death of his wife and son at Windsor, this manor, with others, was seized by the King and was not infrequently visited by him, the last occasion apparently being in January 121 5. The complete failure of John's continental campaigns, ending in the conquest of Normandy by Philip of France in 1205, led him to fear an invasion of England. Accordingly he summoned a council of the barons, who decided that an oath to keep the peace and defend the kingdom should be taken throughout the realm by all above the age of twelve ; at the same time it was ordained that head constables should be appointed for every county, and under them a constable for every hundred and borough, in addition to the usual constables of the castles, and that hsts should be made of the armed men under each of the constables, who should be empowered to summon such levies when required for defence.^ In addition to thus providing for infantry and irregulars, it was enacted that every nine knights throughout the country should equip and maintain a tenth knight on penalty of losing their fees.* While it is impossible to estimate even approximately the strength of the local levies in Sussex at this period, we can compute with some degree of accuracy the number of knights furnished by the county.^ The greatest military tenant was the Earl of Arundel, who held the Honour of Arundel under a grant of Henry II, and owed the service of eighty-four and a half knights, of whom the honor of Petworth found twenty-two and a half, that of Halnaker twelve ; Earl Warenne provided sixty knights, the Count of Eu fifty-six, and Gilbert of Laigle thirty-five and a half of ' the honor of Mortain ' (an honor distinguished by its ' small fees,' which were so far privileged that when any tax or aid was assessed upon knight's fees these ' small
- Gerv. of Canterbury (Rolls Ser.), ii. 92. Matthew Paris and other historians say Shoreham.
2 Itin. printed in Cal. Rot. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i. 3 Gerv. of Canterbury (Rolls Ser.), ii. 96, 97. * Pat. 6 John, m. 2d. » Red Book of Exch. (Rolls Ser.), passim ; Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 222-4. 491
