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HASTINGS 337 |
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on the eastern frontier of Normandy, and to him and the Abbot of Fecamp was assigned the special duty of keeping open communications between William's Duchy and Kingdom, a responsibility doubtless shared by William of Warenne, Braose, and Roger of Montgomery and their successors, who each possessed lands fairly opposite their Sussex estates in Normandy. The family of Eu lost Hastings because when Henry III. insisted on their deciding definitely whether they wanted to be English or French they did not choose to be British. After owning many lords, the Rape eventually passed to the Pelhams in the reign of Elizabeth, and the Castle still remains in their hands. At Hastings, during the Lent of 1095, long waited Rufus for suitable weather to cross the Channel on his bootless expedition to Normandy, and Anselm wasted a good deal of breath in trying to shame him into decorous behaviour, getting nothing but rudeness in return. As the Primate's biographer, Eadmer, growls "Young men at Court grew their hair like girls, and every day Anselm saw that they were in the habit of walking with their hair pranked, making irreligious gestures and walking mincingly." When, in 1147, a motley crowd of Crusaders of many nations captured Lisbon from the Moors, a Hastings man, one Gilbert, was selected as its first bishop.
Though the premier Cinque Port, Hastings had merely bailiffs till the Armada year (1588), when Elizabeth granted a charter (enlarged by Charles I.) for a Mayor and Twelve Jurats, called Barons. It seems possible enough (as M. A. Lower suggested) that the right of the Cinque Port burgesses to be called Barons was originally connected with the
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