POLITICAL HISTORY lomew de Burghersh/ Edward St. John, William de Northoo and Roger de Asshe were also appointed to arrest the King's rebels and those who harboured them in Sussex/ The renewal of war with Scotland in 1335 caused a demand for sixty light horse to be supplied by the county, which were subsequently compounded for at 100 marks.^ Nor was home defence neglected, for in 1336 the castles of Hastings, Pevensey, Lewes and Arundel were ordered to be put in a state of defence,* and in 1338 Henry and Roger Hussey, Thomas Braose and Thomas de Wemyll were commissioned to array the men of Sussex to defend the coast/ Next year the Earl of Arundel and two others were appointed to put the walls and defences of Chichester in order, the clergy undertaking to contribute part of the expense in view of the poverty of the citizens/ That these measures were not unnecessary is evident, for in 1339 Andrew Peverel, who was in command of the men-at-arms, light horse and archers of Pevensey rape, had to summon all his forces to repel an attempted landing by the crews of fifteen galleys and other vessels at Eastbourne/ These galleys were no doubt the same whose crews sacked the castle of Hastings, which ever since its bestowal upon the Duke of Brittany in 1264 had been allowed to fall into decay, the dukes taking the castle-ward rents but spending nothing on repairs/ Pevensey Castle had also suffered much from neglect, but occasional repairs were done, sufficient to keep it fencible, and a small garrison was thrown into it whenever invasion threatened, as for instance in 1370, when Sir John St. Clare on several occasions put in garrisons of about twenty or thirty men/ Ten years earlier, in 1360, orders were given to John de Saham to array all men-at-arms within the honor, then held by Queen Philippa, and in case of the castle being threatened to send them into it and, always leaving a sufficient force to hold it, to attack the invaders with the other troops/" In this same year the French did actually land in Sussex and captured Winchelsea, burning the town and treating the inhabitants with extreme brutality. As King Edward had been in his nonage the unwilling subject of Mortimer's influence, so in his dotage he became the willing instrument of his third son, John of Gaunt. The predominant factor in English history during the close of this reign is the rise to almost absolute power of the enormously wealthy Duke of Lancaster ; his estates spread into almost every county, and had been increased in 1372 by the grant of the honor of Aquila in Sussex, with the castle of Pevensey." His rank and wealth combined made him the most influential man in the land, but his abuse of them made him the most hated. Consequently when in the spring of 1376 the emptiness of the exchequer compelled him > Pat. 4 Edw. III. p. I, m. 63. 2 Ibid. 3 Pat. 9 Edw. III. p. I, m. 2. ' Rymer, Feod. ii. 940. = Pat. 12 Edw. III. p. 2, m. I4d. " Pat. 13 Edw. III. p. I, m. 17. ' Assize R. 941, m. 8d. 8 Inq. p.m. 13 Edw. III. 2nd Nos. 57. Mins. Accts. 1028-4. •° Pat. 34 Edw. III. p. I, m. 22d. '« Dy. of Lane. Royal Ch. 325. 509
