London and devastated Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire. Olaf was bought off with a payment of £16,000, but the Danes were insatiable. A truce, purchased by Ethelred in 1002, was brought to an abrupt conclusion by his own weakness and cruelty; for in that year he planned and effected the massacre of all the Danes in his dominions, on St. Brice's day. Among the victims was a sister of Sweyn of Denmark, and Sweyn's revenge was sharp and swift. In 1003 he laid Exeter waste, and in 1004 destroyed Norwich; and when two years later the "great fleet" of the Danes arrived off Sandwich, Ethelred was obliged to purchase peace with a supply of provisions and a sum of thirty thousand pounds.

Great efforts were made during this truce to reconstruct the navy. The king commanded ships to be built throughout the country and levied taxes to pay for them. Within a year it is said that eight hundred ships, equipped with thirty thousand men, were ready for the national defence. But no armament can be strong that is directed by weak hands, and the want of a wise and vigorous leader led to internal quarrels, which effectually destroyed Ethelred's chances of successfully resisting the Danes. In 1013 Sweyn was practically king of England, and Ethelred fled to Normandy. In 1016 the death of Ethelred left Edmund Ironside his son, and Canute, the son of Sweyn of Denmark, rival candidates for the throne. After fighting two battles, they agreed to divide the kingdom between them; but the death of Edmund the same year left Canute the master of the whole. Under Canute, peace prevailed and commerce began to thrive. "Men from the Rhineland and from Normandy moored their vessels along the Thames, on whose rude wharves were piled a strange medley of goods: pepper and spices from the far East, crates of gloves and gay cloths, it may be from the Lombard looms, sacks of wool; ironwork, from Liège, butts of French wine and vinegar, and with them the rural products of the country itself—cheese, butter, lard and eggs, with live swine and fowls." Such was Canute's influence that it became unnecessary to maintain more than forty ships for the protection of the coast, and this number was afterwards reduced to sixteen. With the death of Canute the Danish rule began to collapse, and with the accession of Edward the Confessor the Danes resumed their aggressive expeditions, though with but little success. William of Normandy found England without a fleet, for Harold had been compelled to disband the navy from want of supplies; and, as he destroyed his own ships after he had effected a landing, he began his reign without means of maritime defence.

THE STORY OF THE CINQUE PORTS.

THE BATTLE OF DAMME.—THE BATTLE OF DOVER.—THE BATTLE OF SLUYS.—THE BATTLE OF LESPAGNOLS-SUR-MER.—THE VICTORIES OF THE EARL OF ARUNDEL, THE DUKE OF BEDFORD, THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON, AND WARWICK, THE KING MAKER.

The history of the English navy from the Conquest to the fifteenth century is, in effect, the history of the great and powerful corporation known as "The five Cinque Ports and two Ancient Towns"—Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, Hythe, Winchelsea, and Rye. In the Domesday Book only three such ports are mentioned—Sandwich, Dover, and Romney—but in the charters and royal writs mention is always made of, and precedence assigned to, Hastings. Winchelsea and Rye were added to the first five soon after the Conquest, but the title of "Cinque" Ports was retained. In addition to the seven head ports there were eight "corporate members"—Deal, Faversham, Folkestone, Fordwich, Lydd, Pevensey, Seaford, and Tenterden—and twenty-four non-corporate members, which included Birchington, Brightlingsea, Bulverhithe, Grange, Kingsdown, Margate, Ramsgate, Reculver, Sarre, and Walmer, all of which were called Cinque Ports.

Some writers have endeavoured to connect the Cinque Ports with the five Roman fortresses which guarded the south-eastern shores of Britain, and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports with the Comes Littoris Saxonici—the count of the Saxon Shore, but it seems sufficiently clear that the confederation of the ports was of Teutonic origin. Originally, trading communities banded together to protect and control the herring-fishery, the principal industry and food-supply of the people; the regular descents of the Danes supplied the motive for the military character the union afterwards assumed.

The Danish invasion, which ended in Canute's supremacy, raged most fiercely round Sandwich, which was the head-quarters of the Danish fleet, and acquired the title of "the most famous of all the English ports."

As far back as the year 460, Hengist the Saxon conferred the office of Warden of the Cinque Ports upon his brother Horsa, and since the time of Godwin, Earl of Kent, who died in the year 1053, nearly one hundred and fifty persons have held that distinguished office. These include many whose names are illustrious in English history, amongst them being Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, William Longchamps, Hubert de Burgh, Sir Stephen de Pencester, Edmund Plantagenet, King Henry V., Simon de Montfort, Richard III., Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII., James II., and Prince George of Denmark. William Pitt was Lord Warden in 1792, and from that date until the year 1896 the holders of the office have been the Earl of Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Dalhousie, Lord Palmerston, Earl Granville, Mr. W. H. Smith, the Marquis of Dufferin and the Marquis of Salisbury. The privileges and distinctions of the inhabitants of the ports in those days were of a very substantial character. Amongst other things "pains and penalties" were imposed on any one entering or quitting the kingdom from or for the Continent except by way of Dover. The Grand Court of Shepway, at which the Lord Warden takes the oath of office, in the presence of the "barons," was formerly held in the open air at Lympne, a Roman port, the remains of which are now several miles inland, in the neighbourhood of Hythe, but the site of the court was removed to Dover as a more convenient place in 1693.

To Edward the Confessor may be attributed the incorporation of the Cinque Ports in the form of a Royal Navy bound to stated service. To attach them to the throne he granted them lands and franchises, in return for which they undertook, on a stated notice, to provide ships for fighting purposes for a specified time. The Domesday Book, for instance, records that "Dover, in the time of King Edward, rendered eighteen pounds, of which moneys King Edward had two parts, and Earl Godwin the third. The burgesses gave the king twenty ships once a year for fifteen days, and in each ship were twenty men. This they did in return for his having endowed them with sac and soc"—the right of independent jurisdiction and free courts.

Soon after the Norman conquest, the Danes once more threatened invasion with a powerful fleet, and Dover, Sandwich, and Romney were called upon to provide, at their own expense, twenty vessels equipped for sea, each with a crew of twenty-one men and provisions for fifteen days. Rye and Winchelsea rendered similar assistance, and in return received privileges similar to those enjoyed by the older ports. The fleet thus provided was so fully maintained by William Rufus that England's maritime supremacy may be dated from that early period. But, for more than a century after the Conquest, English ships seldom ventured beyond the Bay of Biscay or the entrance to the Baltic.

The reign of Henry I. was marked by the tragic death of Prince William in the year 1120 while crossing from Normandy to England in The White Ship. The rowers, hilarious with wine, ran The White Ship—probably an undecked