of Hastings, Thomas Frewen, Esq., the Mayor of Rye, W. Davey, Esq., G. S. Butler, Esq., and W. D. Cooper, Esq.

The collection of articles was so large and varied, that we can only notice a few of the most important. Mr. Frewen exhibited a handsome silver cup, beautifully chased, the nature of which was fully explained by the following inscription on it,-"This cup, filled with guineas, was presented by Sir Edward Frewen, of Brickwall, to his grandson, Thomas Frewen, at his christening, in October, 1716. It will hold 2,250 guineas, and weighs 93 ounces ;"-other silver of the same date; an original painting of Archbishop Cranmer, found in the possession of Mr. Moreton Frewen, (there is another original painting of Archbishop Cranmer in the British Museum); the great seals of Richard II. and Elizabeth; a "Brute Chronicle" from Dunwich Priory; a Toledo blade temp. Henry VI.; a sword of the Commonwealth, from Cromwell's house at Huntingdon; Queen Elizabeth's shoes left at Northiam, &c. The Mayor of Hastings presented a number of old parchments relating to the town of Hastings, and to the peculiar rights and privileges which were granted to the barons of the Cinque Ports; also memoranda kept by the barons of the Cinque Ports, when they went to Yarmouth for forty days, of their daily proceedings; on their return these proceedings were read at the bar of the Cinque Ports House of Commons: these memoranda were dated 1582, 1584, and 1620; mediæval pottery found at Hastings; and specimens of iron castings from the Sussex furnaces. Lady Webster exhibited the wassail bowl of the Abbot of Battle, and some fine specimens of antique carved work. The Mayor of Rye, among a number of other articles, presented the great seal of the Commonwealth (Symons), the whole of the Protector's series of proclamations, the seal and maces of the corporation, and the Mayor of Rye's bell, bearing the date of 1566. Mr. George Slade Butler, of Rye, exhibited part of the canopy used at the coronation of George III., and Mr. W. P. Lamb, of Ewhurst, a baron's dress worn at the coronation of George IV. The Countess of Waldegrave exhibited three coronation bells of George II., III., and IV., and barons' dresses and old court dresses. Mr. W. D. Cooper exhibited photograph of William Hayley, D.D., Chaplain to William III., and first Dean of Chichester of that name, from a portrait at Boston, Massachusetts, sent to England by the Hon. Judge C. H. Warren; the leaves of an illuminated chartulary of the Abbey of Fécamp, with the charters of their privileges in Hastings, and their other lands in Sussex; a drawing of Titus Oates in the pillory, &c.

The day proved very fine, and the party were met at the station by the general and local committee, and were conducted by the Mayor, Lieut. Rock, and Mr. W. D. Cooper to the Castle.

The town is of undoubted antiquity, although little is known respecting its origin. It is conjectured by some that the present is not the original town of Hastings, which, it is thought, must have been considerably to the south, on a site which has been for many years covered by the sea, but the existence of the town walls appears to be against such a supposition. Of the early history of the town very little can be ascertained with certainty. It is recorded that, about the close of the year 900,"The Danes, in 250 ships, commanded by the pirate' Hastinges,' landed at the mouth of the river Rother, near Romney Marsh, and immediately possessed themselves of Apuldore; where, and at Hastings

(so called from their leader), they constructed forts, and ravaged all the coast to the westward of the country." Such is one statement as to the origin of the town. A different account of it, however, is given in the Life of St. Edward the Confessor, published under the sanction of the Master of the Rolls, in which, after describing the landing of William, the writer says

"The Duke fortifies and rebuilds a tower,

Which he calls Hastings,

Because it was hastily fortified,

And therefore was so called."

It had, however, a mint in Saxon times, and the Abbot of Fécamp had a cell here, the remains of which were found last year in the Highstreet, opposite the Town-hall.

The ruins of the castle, as every one knows who has visited Hastings, form one of the most prominent objects of attraction in the town. They are situated on the summit of a lofty cliff, in a westerly direction. What now remains resembles in shape two sides of a triangle, with the points rounded off-the base, or south side, next to the sea, completing the triangle. The entrance is destroyed, with the exception of a pointed arch, near which are the ruins of a small tower enclosing a circular flight of steps; and a little further to the west are a sally-port and the remains of a square tower. The walls are about eight feet thick, and do not present an entire appearance in any part. The remains of the castle enclose a space of about an acre and a-fifth. From its elevated position of 400 feet above the sea, and the fact that a ditch 100 feet broad and 60 deep surrounded it, it must have been at one time an almost impregnable fortress, which completely commanded the subjacent district. The view from the walls is very fine, and commands both the old and the new parts of Hastings.

When the whole of the company had arrived upon the castle grounds, Mr. Cooper took up his position on an elevated part of the ruins, and proceeded to give an explanation of their principal features. He first directed the attention of the company to the place on the coast, in the direction of Beachy Head, looking westward, where William the Conqueror had landed, the exact locality of which, between Langney Point west and Bulverhithe east, he pointed out. It was well, he said, to begin with this, because it was seldom that such a clear and well-defined view of this spot was to be obtained as they had that day. In the landing of the transports William is supposed to have been assisted from Hastings; he said assisted, because it was well known that all the ships of Hastings had been away for some short time previous to this event, and in Hastings had been discovered remains belonging to the Abbey of Fécamp, which had been connected with the Conqueror, and had retained amongst its privileges the law of gavelkind, still continued in the portion of Hastings which had belonged to the abbey as well as in their possessions at Rye and Brede; the tenure being most probably preserved in consequence of services rendered upon this occasion. It was evident, at any rate, that the Conqueror had a friendly party at this place for his landing. It was also clear from the Bayeux Tapestry, that the first thing his followers did upon landing, was to dig an earthwork and begin to erect a wooden fortress, which was succeeded by that amongst the ruins of which they were then assembled. The building of the castle, however, must have been a work of very con

siderable labour. The principal portion of this original castle which now remained was that part of the staircase turret which was of Norman work, "and the remains of a postern above the dyke, which shews how the gates were secured with a strong wooden bar, which when not in use was pushed back into a space left for it in the thickness of the wall; whilst on one of the reveals of the postern is a mason's mark common in Norman and Early English work." The castle was chiefly of utility as a means of defence, but it had suffered greatly by the encroachments of the sea, which had washed away a considerable portion of the cliff on which it was erected; and indeed a part of it had thus been carried away in the memory of persons still living. The portion of the castle next in point of date which remained, was that on which the company were then congregated, to the north-east, in which the inner wall had been raised for the purpose of giving battlements for fighting from, and from that side alone was it that any danger would have existed. It was inferred that the whole of the work connected with the castle must have been finished by the time of Henry III., because it could not be found that any payment on account of it had been made at any period subsequent to this. It might be supposed, therefore, that they saw the castle as it stood when the battle of Lewes was fought. At that time the castle of Hastings must have been of very little use, for after the battle of Evesham Simon de Montfort's troops retired to the fortified town of Winchelsea. The chapel did not belong to the owners of the castle; till the dissolution of chantries it was a royal free chapel, and had been well described by the Rev. E. Turner in the thirteenth volume of the Collections of the Society. The remains shewed Early English work, but brought down to the latest period of the geometric style. Probably one window was as late as the time of Edward III., as in that reign the canons petitioned for the repair of the castle walls. The watch-tower stood on the upper side, and there was a second watchtower beside the entrance through which the company had come, the foundations of which had been discovered. As to the successive possessors of the castle, Mr. Cooper stated that it was first granted to the Earls of Eu, in whose possession it remained until 1221, when the heiress married William de Ysenden, when it went by escheat to Henry III. In 1262 it was granted to the Earl of Richmond, and in 1269 to the Duke of Brittany. In that family it remained till the time of Edward III., who granted it to John of Gaunt, but he surrendered it to the Crown. It remained in the possession of the Crown until the reign of Henry VI., when the rival claims of the Pelhams and the Hoos (the descendants of the Eus) terminated in the favour of the Hoos. In 1482 it was sold to Sir Edward Hastings, Chamberlain to the King, and ancestor of the Earls of Huntingdon, in whose possession it continued until sold in 1591 to Sir Thomas Pelham, in whose family it remains at present. The chapel itself is remarkable for its association with three names of some note. The first was that of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who here met King William II., to endeavour to be reconciled to him, but failed, and the King sailed to Normandy without receiving his blessing; the second was that of Thomas à Becket, who had spent a portion of the early part of his life here, having been dean of the chapel in 1153; and the third was that of William of Wyke

d See Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. iii. p. 161.

ham, who had been a prebendary of it in 1363. On the outside of the ditch were a series of small intrenchments, which had been most likely of British work, and had been continued to be occupied as outposts until a very recent time. After some further descriptive remarks, Mr. Cooper directed the attention of the company to the scene of the Norman battle-ground, the locality of which, from the high ground at the back of Bexhill and Pepsham to the hill now known as Telham-hill, he pointed out; and then proceeded to remark that it was a matter which had been much disputed whether there ever had been any Danish settlement at Hastings. It was very generally believed that there never had, but it was a remarkable fact that the fishermen of the place, who had all along kept themselves as a distinct race, and were quite different from the fishermen of other towns, bore undoubted marks of a Scandinavian origin. Mr. Cooper considered that Bulverhithe, which was altogether Scandinavian, might have been a Danish settlement, and one of great importance in former times. It was one of the war titles of Odin, and was borne by one of the most famous of the Scandinavian scalds; and there had been at one time a large harbour there, for down to the time of Edward I. parties were prohibited from embarking there as well as at Hastings.

The town itself had not produced persons of considerable note in the history of the country; but Titus Oates, who had rendered himself notorious as a spy, had been born and baptized in that place. Sir Cloudesley Shovel had been supposed to have been a native of Hastings, but he was born in Norfolk, though they would see the house in which his mother lived in All Saints-street. There was, however, one worthy seaman in the time of Elizabeth, Thomas Lake (whose Diary had been published, as Bailiff to Yarmouth), who gallantly commanded one of the five Cinque Ports ships, of 160 tons burden, at the capture of Cadiz, in 1596; and had rendered himself famous by his naval exploits in conjunction with Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex, of which the following record is given: Somewhat without the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar is the island of Gades, or Cales, in length thirteen miles. Anno Christi 1596, it was suddenly taken by the English under the conduct of Charles, Earl of Nottingham, Robert, Earl of Essex, and Sir Walter Raleigh, at which time they burnt the Spanish Indian fleet, consisting of forty ships, whose lading was worth eight millions of crowns. They overthrew also the Spanish fleet, consisting of fifty-seven men-of-war; they took two great galleons with their luggage; they spoiled and carried away abundance of warlike ammunition. They slew and took prisoners 4,000 foot and 600 horse, whence one made this distich :

'Alcides yields to Devereux; he did see

Thy beauties, Cales; but Devereux conquer'd thee.'"

The exploit was better known, however, Mr. Cooper observed, by another distich, complimentary to the men of Kent, and alluding to the number of knights made on that occasion :

"A knight of Cales,

An esquire of Wales,

And a laird of the north countrie;

A Yeoman of Kent,

With his yearly rent,

Can buy them up all three."

Lake is recorded to have fought manfully with many great Spanish ships and galleys, and one of the trophies brought home by him long adorned the south chancel of St. Clement's Church.

At the close of Mr. Cooper's explanation, a cordial vote of thanks was accorded to him, on the motion of Mr. Blencowe.

On leaving the ruins of the castle, the party took their way over the Downs towards the Old Town. The curious excavations in the sand formation known as St. Clement's Caves, which are situated on the West-hill, at the back of Gloucester-place, lay in the route taken, and were visited by the archæologists. These caves, which are chiefly remarkable for the extent to which the sandstone has been excavated, and the numerous compartments and labyrinthine passages which they contain, were illuminated for the occasion by candles placed in niches.

St. Clement's Church was next visited. It is known as the "Upper Church," and is situated in a rather confined situation near the Highstreet, behind the Town-hall. It is built of stone and flint, embedded in cement, but it has frequently been repaired with brick; and it is to be regretted that, as in the case of too many other sacred edifices, alterations have been made without keeping in view the general character of the building. The church consists of a chancel, nave, and two aisles -the northern one apparently of a much more modern date than the southern. The tower at the west end, which has a massive but not lofty appearance, is square and embattled. The south wall of the church is also embattled. The chancel was handsomely decorated by the Hon. Archibald Hutcheson, one of the barons in Parliament in the reign of Queen Anne. The former altar was painted in 1721, by Roger Mortimer, the uncle of John Hamilton Mortimer, the well-known artist of Eastbourne, and the ceiling was, till lately, painted to represent the heavenly regions, in which are introduced a variety of female figures, the representatives of Faith, Hope, Charity, and Fortitude. There is a brass to Thomas Wekes, in 1563, in his civic robes; and another to John Barley, mercer, 1601. The font, at the entrance to the chancel, is octagonal, containing on its sides representations of the cross and the instruments of our Saviour's Passion. It is of Sussex marble.

Mr. Cooper stated that this church was originally built on the abbot's land in 1285 or 1286, but the whole of that building has long since disappeared. It is now of the late Perpendicular style, and the east window is about the worst specimen of the style. It appeared from the stone in the columns that Caen stone had been largely used in some parts, for the portion that had been built in 1285 had been re-used and patched up with sandstone of the district, and finished in some of the tops of the shafts with the green sandstone of Eastbourne. The choir formerly took in one-half of the present nave, the roodloft being at the third of the six arches; it was inferred, from the largeness of the chancel and the smallness of the nave, that it was intended more as a monastic church than for the use of the town; indeed, until the seventeenth century St. Clement's parish was a comparatively small one. There were sedilia and a piscina in the chancel, now covered by real oak, painted to imitate oak-a strange attempt to improve upon nature. The church received aid towards repairs from Archibald Hutcheson, who was well known as a Jacobite, as a friend of the Duke of Ormond, and as the upsetter of the South Sea bubble: he was returned member of Parliament for Hastings, in 1721, by a majority of one against the Whig Duke of Newcastle; being