THE HISTORY

OF

Winchelsea,

ONE OF THE

ANCIENT TOWNS

ADDED TO

The Cinque Ports.

BY

WILLIAM DURRANT COOPER, F.S.A.

LONDON:

JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, OLD COMPTON STREET, SOHO.

HASTINGS:

HENRY OSBORNE, 55, GEORGE STREET.

mbcccl.

PREFACE.

THE maritime importance of Winchelsea, from the days of the Conqueror to the close of the 15th Century, made it desirable to have a more extended history than is to be found in any work relating to Sussex or to the Cinque Ports: and the publications of the Sussex Archæological Society appeared to be the best mode of recording the particulars hitherto unpublished.

The following pages owe their origin to that Society. The materials, however, were too numerous to carry out my first intention; and a separate work is the result.

Many of the MSS. now printed are very interesting: the list of the owners of all the houses at the foundation of the new town, temp. Edw. I, and the accounts of the town, so early as 1388, are, I believe, peculiar to Winchelsea; and it is hoped that the entire work will be found worthy of the extensive support it has received.

My warmest thanks are due to Sir Edward Cholmeley Dering, Bart., and to the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, through whose kindness a free use was granted of the valuable collection of Dering MSS.; and to Richard Stileman, Esq., William Holloway, Esq., and the Rev. Thomas W. Richards, for the aid, which their MSS. afforded.

To E. N. Dawes, Esq., the town clerk of Winchelsea; to J. B. Freeland, Esq., secretary to the Bishop of Chichester; and to J. G. Shorter, Esq., town clerk of Hastings, my acknowledgments are tendered for the information they severally furnished from the documents in their custody: whilst much of the completeness of the work is owing to the