The Cradle of the Navy.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 193, 21 July 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Cradle of the Navy.

They that bear The" cloth of honour over her, are four barons Of the Cinque-ports. King Henry VIII., Act. iv., Scene 1. During the latter half of the sixteenth century the menace which hung over these islands of ours (says the "Scotsman"'), was even greater than that which confronts us in a modern age. The boasted "day" of Germany was a- vet 'n the womb of time, but Spain wa.? in the zenith of her power, and was the force in Eu/ope most to be reckoned with. Her sea power was great. The West Indies and Mexico and Peru had been added to her conquests. Grenada was in check, the fierce power of the Moslem had been broken, and the dread tribunal of the inquisition had been in operation for over a century. Spanish galleons rode proudly upon the high soas. and a mediaeval Kaiser —Philip the second of bin ract —was biding his time and conceiving the invincible Armada, destined in his dreams to bring England beneath the Spanish yoke. Islands in the far-off Indian Ocean already bore his name. Tiie Holy League with Venice and the Pope had been inaugurated, and the blood-stained path of Alva hewn through Flanders and the Netherlands Pius V. and his devilish crew would gladly have kindled the Inquisition fires for all the heretics ot those apostate lands. The victory of Lepanto and the excommunication of Elizabeth were both ad maporem Dei gloriam, for Moslem and Protestant were al-ke obnoxious to "the Saint."

Presc-ott, and Froude, and Motley have dealt in ninny volumes with the records of the time —a period of history always fascinating, even in its crim«on sotting, for its story of romance and chivalry. In Scotland, as etlsewhere, a mighty struggle was hi pro.e-s. Tlic great figure of Knox looms out of the darkness as priest and Presbyter wrangled in the thoological arena. But, as in our own day, the call of real danger from without acts like a bugle call to consolidate energy in grappling with a foreign foe. so in K>BS. England roused herself to the dangers foreseen by prophets in the reign of Mary, and now imminent in that of her successor. THE SERVICES OF THE CIXQCE PORTS. It. ; s the purpose of this short article to deal with an aspect of the national strength, which ig but lightly touched upon bv the historians in their respective reviews—namely, the service which was rendered by the Cinque ports in the various crises of our nation's historq. Captain Burrows did good won; when he contributed his Clique Ports volume to Longmans' series of Historic Towns, but the late Chiehele Professor at Oxford is practically alone in this department. Froude himself only commences where Burrows leaves off. The descriptive record by Ford Madox Hueffer with Hr. Hyde's delightful illustrations has, so far as we are aware, never been reprinted, and is one of the publications of the house of Blackwood which is now somewhat difficult to procure.

Local records there are. of course, in abundance, and many of these we have studied in the ports themselves, but outside of Hastings or Dover they are not gcneral'v met with by the ordinary render. Captain Burrows attributes the paucity of our general information as ta Cinque Ports to the fact that the historical literature of England only took shape as the palsy of decay was creeping over their once vigorous life. A few notes, therefore, on this bypath of history may not be altogether inopportune at the present time, when a review of past glories inspires to no small extent the patriotism of our modern day. A REVIEW OFPAST GLORIES. Hastings, Sandwich., Dover, Romney,, and Hythe were the five ports hi the order of their importance, and with these there fell to lie bracketed the two " ancient towns" of Winchelsea and Rye, which were added subsequent to the Norman Conquest-. Camden seems to claim their descent from distant Roman times, identifying them with the five stations which under the Comes Littorcs Saxonici guarded from invasion the south-eastern coast of England. Some have even sought to identify the Lord Warden of the Ports with tliCs Cimnes or Limenareha Hiiuisplf, thus linking the present holder of the office with the days of Caesar.

Although the establishment of the ports is unquestionably of Teutonic origin, the country which lies around the North and South Foreland has always proved an important strategical key, and one thing at any rate is certain, that the lynx eye of Caesar saw the importance of strongly fortifying the nearest point to Gaul. The Roman Pharos at Dover Castle, well known to all visitors to this classic citadel, and the Roman camps in the near vicinity, all point to a recognition of Dover'* importance even at the dawn of our national history.

Dover bulks large'y in all subsequent history. By the time of Alfred >he was : ti a position to furnish a goodly 1111111'er of ships towards the fler.t which drove the Danish maurauders from our - uthern shores. In the days of Edward the Confo s'tr she could provide the King with no fewer than twenty ship, of war. After the bloody field of Senlac, when the Saxon's doom was sealed. Duke William turned his attention to the consolidation of the Ports, and the French title, which denotes their number immortalises the change n the national fortunes which m:c..decl Harold's fall.

The Channel was now an Anglo-Nor r..an branch of the high seas, and un

STORY OF THE CINQUE PORTS.

der Norman ru'e and discipline the Cinque Ports attained a fresh dignity and a considerable and enhanced importance. Hastings was the premier port, and the raising of the Conqueror's abbey at Battle contributed in no small degree to the town's prosperity. Dover was incorporated by ltoyal Charter. During the early Norman reigns, the English Navy consisted, if not wholly, at any rate to a considerable extent, of ships and men furnished by tiie live towns at their own charge, and maintained for not infrequently considerable periods. PRIVILEGES OF THE PORTS. As a recompense for this, the Cinque Ports were immune from many taxes imposed elsewhere. They were in a sense a nation almost entirely outside the rest of the kingdom. They paid no tolls, they were free from suits of counties and hundreds, they were entitled to wrecks and treasure trove and many tines for misdemeanours found their way into their coffers. Their soldiers and sailors c'aimed the van in battle. It is doubtful whether the expenses of military and naval service were met by these privileges, butt he fact remains that the Cinque Ports lejoiced in the high honours and privileges which they enjoyed, and the gallant townsmen readily submitted to the expenditure which glory entailed. The Cinque Ports were in the height of their importance from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. The Charter granted by Edward 1. was the palladium of their liberties. This Li the most ancient of the Charters in existence, but it rehearses and consolidates many privileges conferred in previous times. An interesting volume might be compiled from these records. To give but one instance of Cinque Ports privileges, the municipal records of one of the towns contain many entries of guarantee against " Withernam.-' The right of Withernam was a peculiar privilege granted by Charter to the Ports and its effect was that if any individual belonging to another borough owed money to a Cinque Ports freeman, a demand could be made upon the authorities of the town in which the debtor resided for payment. If payment was refused, the first man belonging to the place who happened to come with'n the radius of the Cinque Ports was promptly prized and his goods sequestrated. It was a summary process, but like the Chinese tradition for dealing with defrauding directors its effects were salutary! EDWARD lIl'.S WARS.

The glorious but protracted wan-; of Edward 111. were a heavy drain upon the resources of the Ports, and in -he pages of Froissart one may still read of the thrilling deeds of the Cinque Ports navy. Directed by their gallant King liinibc'f in the Salle Du Roy. tic Spanish pirates were given battle oil' Winchelsea, and a victory was gained for English seamanship which the Armada fight alone eclipses. A Cinque Ports fleet conveyed the army < f Richard II to Ireland, and once more in the reign of Henry Tudor it flourished conspicuously in the campaign m aid of Maximilian. The uxorious Henry VIII. crossed in a Cinque Ports convoy on the eve of the Battle of the Spurs, and when Spain demanded a reckoning in the days of Elizabeth it took its share in the attack on Cadiz. At an expense of over £-10,000 the Ports fitted out six ships of superior magnitude for the Queen's service, and these took pai't ] n the memorable fight of 1588, when under Howard and Drake, the galleons of Midina Sidonia were swept from olf the seas, and England gained the supremacy v."liit'll is still her inheritance. The advent of the Stuarts and the period of the Commonwealth still saw the Caique Ports a valuab'e nation.i! asset. As late as 1026 they responded to the call of Charles I. for service, when at the instigation of Buckingham the unhappy monarch joined th.) Triple League, and Cecil's failure nrecipitnted an inconclusive and inglorious peace. IX MODE I'IX TIMES. In our modern day all ha.s changed. A national Xavy now supersedes a local institution. Few of the ancient privileges of the Ports now remain. The Lord Warden is still an office of State, and in modern days it has been tilled by men like the Duke of Wellington. Ear! Granville, the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, and Lord Curzon, but the twentieth century Lord Warden can neither summon a ship nor mount a gun. Dover, with its harbour area of something like 600 acres, is the only port now remaining which can accommodate a British warship. To Charles Lamb, Hastings was merely ''the resort of the London stockbroker."

The Romney sheep graze peacefully upon the old bottom, and I've and Winchelsea. the paradise of tfie artist, stand now far removed from their nat'vo element, the sea. The sombre Martcllos, as we crops the Roinnoy Marsh, bear w itm-s to the last efforts at. fortification. Far out at sea as we stand 011 the wails of Rye we can discern the trial of smoke, and a few moments later the surf como>s hissing up the sand. It reveals the movements of some unit of the still watchful thet. Not locally as in days of yore, but from Scapa to the Noodle*, nay, from the .Midnight Sun to the Southern Cross, it guards the Empire. In the sunlit Aegean or amid the storms around the Horn, it is ready at the call of danger. Kent and Sussex lormed the cradle—for the Cinque Ports were the birthplace of this worklw :de power.—-I''. 11. Allan.