THE ALICN PKIOIIICS I^• THE ISLE OF WKIHT. 233 found it a most convenient naval fortress from which their ships made descents on the Southern shores of Enghand, and to which they returned to enjoy their booty. Were the French to become masters of so strong a position, tlio injury to the reahn would be incalculable, llow, then, was it con- sistent with the safety of the kingdom to sufier Frenchmen to draw the rents of estates, or even to permit them to continue as residents in so important an island '? No sooner, therefore, did Edward I., in the year 1294, find himself not unwillingly drifting into a war with France, than we find him issuing the writ now before us, directing that all the priories '" de terra et potestate Regis Franciie " in the kingdom, together with all their lands, tenements, goods, and chattels, "should be taken into the king's hand, and that in the case of the Isle of Wight priories, in common with those near the sea-coast generally, the priors and their monks should be renioved to the interior of the country." ^ It may be convenient that we should here give a glance at the events of this stormy period. An uncomfortable feeling had been for some time growing up between the maritime population of the two countries. Piratical descents, followed by severe reprisals, became frequent on both sides. The mariners of the Cinque Ports in 1292 made a hostile attack on the coast of Normandy, and the following year ravaged the whole sea-board of France. In 129.'j the French landed at Dover, and were not beaten ofl' till they had inthcLed great damage ; while in the next 3'ear, 1296, Prince Edmund ravaged the French coast, and captured the city of Bordeaux. The indignation of Philip IV. had been roused b}^ the conduct of the seamen of the Cinque Ports, and in 1293 he had summoned Edward, his vassal, to answer for the mis- deeds of his subjects. This summons Edward lia<l treated with contempt, and in the following year, the date of the •* Tanner (Notit. Monast., Pieface, pp. King of France, and removed all the vi, viil, when speaking of this precau- alien monks twenty miles from the sea- tionary measure, places it two years too klle, that his enemies in France might late, the twenty-fourth year, 12y6, in- have no assistance from them." In lo39 Btcad of, as we see from the writ bef-ie we find an order of K<hvar.l III. for the us, the twenty-second year of Edward I., lemoval of the prior and monks of .A].pul- 1294: "The king," he writer, " in the durcombe to Hyde .bbey, near Wia- twenty-fourth year of hi.s reign seized all cheater. Worsley, Appendix, No. Ixxix. the alien priories during his wars with the
