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boundary of Bishopswick. In the eleventh century we obtain, in St. Nicholas Church, evidence that the Haven's northern limit was beside St. Nicholas churchyard.

The three lower stages of the tower of St. Nicholas Church were probably erected very late in the eleventh century, to which period belong, likewise, the small roundheaded openings (originally external windows) above the western arches of the nave. The upper stage of the tower was added, late in the twelfth century, when great alterations were made in the lowest stage, by the insertion of arches on all four of its sides, and by the addition of narrow aisles to the tower, a most singular feature of this church. At the same time dog-tooth ornaments were added, to some of the arcading, in the second and third stages of the tower. We may however, without any doubt, accept the church of St. Nicholas as a north-western boundary beyond which the haven did not extend, at the end of the eleventh century.

Probably the haven was of considerable width at that point (from north to south), and perhaps it did not then begin to narrow much until it reached what we call Old Romney. The extended nature of the Port, and the length of shore available for landing or wharfage, is testified by the name Langport, which it had obtained at the time of the Domesday survey. It has been suggested, and not without some reason, that St. Nicholas Church was that which in the reign of William the Conqueror was called Langport Church. St. Nicholas Church was certainly reckoned as being within the Hundred of Langport; and Langport Church was recovered at Penenden, from Odo, Bishop of Baieux, by Archbishop Lanfranc, for the monks of Canterbury; but it is very difficult to prove their identity beyond doubt. Langport has always been reckoned as being within Lydd, although its manor has ever been coupled with that of Old Romney. The actual identification of Langport Manor and Church requires further study, and deserves it.

We have already seen that the Lang or Long Port began to belie its name in the thirteenth century, and that it became necessary, in 1258, to dig a new channel for the

outlet of the waters of the Rhee, that they might still flow into the Haven.

The exact course of that new channel we cannot accurately determine, because we know not where Effeton, Affeton, or Offeton, was situated. The only surviving ancient name at all like it, is that of Jefferston Head and Watering. One portion of the work done in 1258 was the construction of a sluice gate beside the haven. Where that was situated we cannot determine. Later, in 1412, the sum of £5 4s. 24d. was paid to William Thwoyts and his partners for digging and walling, and for digging opposite the Quenehall and other days' work about the sluice.* This may afford a clue. The Quenehall stood at the easternmost extremity of New Romney town, on the road to Dymchurch; remains of it can still be seen in the cottage which stands next, westward, to "The Elms," the residence of Mr. Henry Stringer.

As the sea retreated from the Haven, the Jurats of New Romney expended large sums in reclaiming, as "the Common Marsh," much of the area which had formed their Port. During the fifteenth century they expended £400 upon this work. Another sum of equal amount was spent upon similar work during the reign of Henry VIII. Thus, the Municipality turned to the best use they could the area which, having once been an actual port, became at last merely a Cinque Port Liberty. Long however, and energetic was the struggle made with the sand and shingle and mud, by the men of Romney, before they finally accepted the obliteration of their Port as inevitable. The struggle lasted throughout the whole of the fifteenth century, after the waterway to Appledore had been already blocked up.

Gallant efforts were made to preserve a haven. Works were in progress for a fresh watercourse, at Romney, in 1439, to supply the deficiency of the dried-up Rhee. Walter Sheryngtone, with others, rode "to survey the new watercourse of the haven," in that year, and the town paid 10s. 10 d. for their expenses.† Six years later, John Colkyn received 10s. for digging in the channel near Saltcote.

*Hist. MSS. Commission, Fifth Report, p. 538".

† lbidem, p. 542".

This must have been a third channel, attempted after the second had been irretrievably blocked.

It would seem that, after this third channel was choked, the men of Romney did not despair. In 1466 they paid the expenses of John Cobbes and six others, who "viewed the harbour." In the following year Richard Broadnex and others "made scrutiny of the level for the harbour." In 1468, men of Romney went to Appledore to consult as to making a harbour. Whether anything was then done, we cannot discover; but in 1477 "bomes for the havyn" were purchased at a cost of 16d., and in 1481 the records mention. "the old Havene." Some hope seems still to have been entertained; in 1488, a deputation of the Jurats rode to Maidstone, to consult the Lord Cardinal, about the haven; and others went to Guildford Marsh to see whether they could not obtain water thence for the said haven.†

The persevering continuance of these gallant efforts of the men of Romney, to recover their haven, accounts for the statement of Leland, who, writing in the time of Henry VIII, said "Rumeney hath been a neatly good haven, in so much that, within remembrance of men, ships have come hard up to the town, and cast anchors in one of the churchyards.' The churchyard of St. Nicholas was that into which anchors had been cast: in fact, after Leland's time there was a "kydellgrownde right against St. Nicholas church," for which William Hackett paid to the town a rent of 6s. 8d. per annum, in the third and fourth of Philip and Mary. Nevertheless, as Leland continues, in the reign of Henry VIII, the sea was two miles from the town. In truth, New Romney haven never entirely recovered from the effects of the tempests, which caused the first recorded blocking of the Rhee, about A.D. 1236-58.

kept open, to Red Nor was the haven fifteenth century,

Nevertheless, the entire waterway was Hill, in Appledore, until about A.D. 1380. allowed to remain blocked, during the throughout which the inland river bed was choked. *Hist. MSS. Commission, Fifth Report, p. 545.

Ibidem, p. 548.

W. A. SCOTT ROBERTSON.

ON THE LOCALITY (NEAR DOVER) OF KING JOHN'S ACT OF VASSALAGE TO THE

Doveram....

POPE.

BY JOHN WARD, C.B.

KING JOHN made his submission to the Papal Legate Pandulph on the 15th of May, A.D. 1213, thereby surrendering to the Pope the Kingdom of England and Lordship of Ireland, in the house of the Knights Templars, near Dover; and he then put into the Legate's hands a Charter recording the act, which is dated "apud domum militum Templi juxta xv die Maii anno regni nostri decimo quarto." Matthew Paris (a monk who wrote in the thirteenth century) relates in his Chronicle the royal act above-mentioned, stating that King John's submission was made apud domum militum Templi juxta Doveram, as mentioned in the Charter. See the Latin Chronicle of Mat. Paris, London, 1640, edited by William Watts, in two vols. folio, vol. i. p. 197. The first edition of Mat. Paris was published A.D. 1571.

The historian John Stow (who lived in the sixteenth century) states in his annals that, on the occasion of the surrender of the Crown to the Pope, " King John and Pandulph, with the nobles of the Realme, came together at the house of the Knights of the Temple by the Towne of Dover." See Stow's Annals, edited 1631, p. 171. The first edition of Stow was published in 1573.

The same transaction is referred to by William Lambarde in his Perambulation of Kent, first edition, London, 1576. He says the Templars' house at Dover was erected after the time of the Conquest, and was suppressed, with other houses of that Order, in the reign of King Edward II (A.D. 1312). He adds, p. 132, that Matthew Paris putteth him in mind

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that in that Temple King John yielded his realme tributary to the Pope. "There standeth yet," says Lambarde, in notes to his book, not published until after his death, upon the high cliffe between the town and the peere (as it were), not far from that which was the house of Templars, some remain of a tower now called Bredenstone, which had been both a pharos for comfort of saylors, and also a watch-house for defence of the inhabitants." From which it is clear that the ancient house of the Templars near Dover stood upon a part of the western heights then called Bredenstone-Hill, which was among the possessions of the Knights of that Order.

Although the Order was suppressed by the Pope, and its possessions were given to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John in the reign of Edward II, it does not follow that the house was then pulled down; and indeed it would seem to have been standing in the reign of Henry VIII; for a view of Dover taken at that period has been preserved in the British Museum among the Cottonian MSS., Augustus, i., vol. i., No. 22 (which is about six feet in length), and according to a modern print* struck off from that drawing, a large house then standing on the western heights may without much doubt be identified as the domus militum Templi. It stood at some distance west from the Bredenstone, and almost in a N.S. line with Archcliffe-chapel, which was near the site of the present Archcliffe fort.

The locality of the domus militum Templi juxta Doveram is thus pretty clearly ascertained to have been upon the western heights. As to the assertions of Rapin, Lingard, and other modern historians, that the King's act of vassalage was made in a church at or near Dover, it is needless to add that those assertions rest upon no other authority than the passages above quoted, and the fact that ruins of a round church still exist on the western heights. A plan of the ruins is given in Archæologia Cantiana, XI., 45.

*"Dover, 1838. Published by Thomas Rigden, Book and Printseller, and sold in London by J. R. Smith, 4 Old Compton Street, Soho."

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