Читать книгу History of Brighthelmston; or, Brighton as I View it and Others Knew It - John Ackerson Erredge - Страница 7

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It is highly probable, from the surnames of some of the most ancient families in the town of Brighthelmston, the phrases, and the pronunciation of the old natives, and some peculiar customs of the people, that the town had, at some distant period, received a colony of Flemings. This might have happened soon after the conquest, as a great inundation of the sea took place in Flanders about that period; and such of the unfortunate inhabitants of the deluged country as wanted new habitations, could not have anywhere applied with a greater likelihood of success than in England, as Matilda, queen of William the Conqueror, was their countrywoman, being daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders.

Being thus settled in Brighthelmston, the Flemings were led by habits and situation, to direct their chief attention to the fishery of the Channel. Besides obtaining a plentiful supply of fresh fish of the best kind and quality for themselves and their inland neighbours, they, every season, cured a great number of herrings, and exported them to various parts of the continent, where the abstinence of Lent, the vigils, and other meagre days, insured them a constant market. There is no doubt, but, from time to time, additions were made to this foreign colony, from Spain, France, and Holland, as the names of some of the oldest families of the town verify; namely, Mighell (Miguel), Gunn (Juan), Jasper (Gaspard), Jeffery (Geoffrey), Gillam (Guillaume), &c.

The inhabitants were now classed into landsmen and seamen, or mariners, and they profited respectively by the advantages of their situation. The former, whose dwellings were on the cliff and part of the gentle acclivity behind it, drew health and competence from the fertile soil; while the latter, who resided in two streets beneath the cliff, found a bountiful source of subsistence and profit at the bottom of the sea. In process of time, the mariners and their families, principally descendants from the new comers, the Flemings, had increased in numbers so far as to compose more than two-thirds of the population of the town, and they had a proportionate share of the offices and internal regulation of the parish.

The Flemish, on their arrival, though received in all probability as vassals, found their condition an improvement on the general state-villeinage; and the indulgence shown to foreigners was eventually extended to the natives; and the disfranchised landholders gradually emerged from the most abject state of feudal dependence, to one less precarious, that of tenants by copy of court roll. Once registered on the rolls of a manor, with the consent of the lord or his steward, their title became indefeasible and descendible to their heirs, except in case of neglect or violation of the definite and recorded duties of their tenure. Thus settled, the husbandmen of Brighthelmston had every inducement to marriage, and they toiled with pleasure in their patrimonial field. The mariner also, freed from feudal caprice, braved the dangers of the deep, not only for his subsistence, but as a future provision for his family; and transmitted to his posterity, controlled by manorial custom, his ship or boat, his cottage, his capstan and garden, and other monuments of his paternal solicitude and industry. The town being, as now, a member of the port of Shoreham,—all boats of the town register at Shoreham,—was obliged to furnish some seamen for the royal navy; and no other tax or service was imposed upon the inhabitants, till the levying of a poll-tax in the reign of Edward III.

In 1313 Brighthelmston had become so considerable as to need the public accommodation of a market; and John, the eighth and last Earl de Warren, obtained a charter of Edward III. for holding a market every Thursday.

The mariners about this time, in the Lower Town, or under Cliff, increasing in number and property, extended their habitations to the Upper Town, and began two streets westward of the Stein, named from their situations, East Street and West Street, forming the inhabited limits of the town in those directions. After East Street and West street had been continued some considerable way towards the north, the landsmen, who were also becoming numerous, found it necessary to build intermediate streets, parallel to those already constructed; and the proprietor of the north laines, finding it more convenient to have their barns, and finally, their own dwellings and the cottages for their workmen, at that extremity of the town, formed North Street.

Most of the ground now occupied by Black Lion street and Ship street, and the intermediate space, are, in all the Court Rolls, called the Hempshares; and were, even after East street and West street were built, plots or gardens for the production of hemp, for the use of the fishermen of the town. The name of the ropemaker who constructed all the cordage for the supply of the fishery, was Anthony Smith, who, in 1670 suffered great persecution from Captain Nicholas Tattersal, a personage who assumed great power when basking in the smiles of royalty, consequent upon his effecting the escape of Charles II. to France. Smith was more especially the object of his malignity, from having been the occupier of the house, in West street, where the king sojourned preparatory to his flight; he happening to recognise His Majesty, yet having too much loyalty to betray him. Jealousy actuated him; as he was desirous of claiming all the honour in the royal escape. He in consequence kept all the merits, which were really due to Smith, in the background, and took all the honour to himself, and the reward to. In process of time, as the population increased, and the sea made encroachments on the lower town, two streets were erected on the site of the hemp-shares or gardens. In the most eastern street of these, with one front to the High street,—that which passed along the verge of the Cliff,—stood an Inn, with a Black Lion for its sign; and in the other there was an Inn, with a Ship for its sign. The two streets of the hemp-shares were soon distinguished by the two signs, and are the present Black-Lion street and Ship street. The Black-Lion Inn on the east side of the street, was converted into a private residence about the beginning of the present century. The Ship, the oldest tavern in the town, is now, and has been since 1650, known as the Old Ship, to distinguish it from the New Ship, a more recent erection. Besides the hemp-shares, the ground to the west of the town, which was afterwards brick-yards, and is now termed the Brunswick Square and Terrace district, was devoted to the growing of flax for the use of the fishermen.

The prosperity of the town received a check about the middle of the fourteenth century, from the ambitious projects of Edward III. against France, which exposed this and other fishing towns of the southern coast to the occasional retaliation of that kingdom. The inhabitants’ boats were taken, and their fishery frequently interrupted. In 1377 the French burnt and plundered most of the towns from Portsmouth to Hastings; but no particular injury to the town is recorded of Brighton, at that period. When, however, there was the least appearance of danger, the coast Watch and Ward, called in the king’s mandate Vigiliæ minutæ, were called into service. Their duties were nocturnal, and seldom exacted, unless an immediate descent was apprehended. The watch consisted of men at arms, and hobilers or hoblers, who were a sort of light cavalry that were bound to perform the service by the nature of their tenure. They were dressed in jackets called hobils, and were mounted on swift horses. The bold stand made against the French, in 1377, when they landed at Rottingdean, was principally by the watch and ward-keepers of the coast, which had been divided into districts, entrusted to the care of some baron, or religious house, by certain commissioners, called Rectores Commitatus. In the annals of the Prior of Lewes, and the Abbot of Battle, we find that those personages were several times placed at the head of an armed power, to oppose actual or threatened invasion. Certain borough hundreds were also obliged, under pain of forfeiture or other penalty, to keep the beacons in proper condition, and to fire them at the approach of an enemy, in order to alarm and assemble the inhabitants in the Weald.

From the constant alarm of the people and the ruin of war, Brighthelmston generally experienced a considerable share of the public distress; as, besides contributing some of its best mariners for manning the royal fleet, the town was deprived of its trade and fishery. In 1512, in consequence of war being declared by Henry VIII. against Louis XII., all the maritime industry of Brighthelmston suffered, and its buildings were threatened with plunder and conflagration. At this time, Sir Edward Howard, the English Admiral, having made several successful attempts on the coast of Brittany, and being joined by a squadron of ships commanded by Sir Thomas Knivet, went in pursuit of the French fleet, under the command of Admiral Primauget, Knight of Rhodes; the real intention being to destroy the town of Brest. The French fleet, consisting of thirty-nine ships, was in the harbour of Brest. Howard, having been misled by the information and advice of a Spanish Knight, named Caroz, as to the strength of Primauget’s force, entered the bay under the fire of two strong batteries, which commanded the entrance, with only a barge and three galleys, and took possession himself, of the French Admiral’s. But the French soon recovered from their panic, the two fleets met, and a furious engagement ensued. At length Primauget’s ship was set on fire, and determining not to perish alone, he bore down upon the English Admiral’s, and, grappling with her, both ships soon became involved in the same inevitable destruction. This dreadful scene suspended the action between the other ships; but after some time, the French ship blew up, and in its explosion destroyed the English ship. While the conflict was at its height, and the deck was streaming with the blood of his brave companions, Sir Edward was thrust with a half-pike into the sea and perished.

After this misfortune, the English fleet returned home; and Primauget’s being reinforced from Brest, and being animated with his recent success, he sailed for the coast of Sussex, to wreak that vengeance on the inhabitants which was due to Henry alone. He accordingly, in the night time, landed some men, who plundered it of everything valuable that they could remove, set many houses on fire, and wantonly slew many of the inhabitants. The rest flying in terror and confusion different ways, the country became alarmed as far as Lewes and the Weald. [20] The French re-embarked the next morning, with their booty, before the country people could assemble in any force to annoy them. Sir Thomas Howard, brother of Sir Edward, whom he succeeded, soon after, with Sir John Wallop, made a descent on the coast of Normandy, and desolated no less than twenty-one towns and villages, inhabited by people who never did, and perhaps never wished to do, any injury to their fellow men on this wide the Channel. Such is the fortune, and such are the advantages and distinctions of the royal game of war.

Holinshead mentions an attack upon the town by the French, about this time; and there is the probability that he refers to the same invasion, as he terms it a nocturnal visit from some French ships, but commanded by Prior Jehan, the high admiral. He says: “but when the people began to gather, by firing the beacons, Prior Jehan sounded his trumpet to call his men aboard, and by that time it was day. The certain archers that kept the watch followed Prior Jehan to the sea, and shot so fast that they beat the galley men from the shore, and wounded many in the fleet: to which Prior Jehan was constrained to wade, and was shot in the face with an arrow, so that he lost one of his eyes, and was like to have died of the hurt, and therefore he offered his image of wax before our Lady at Bullogne, with the English arrow in the face, for a miracle.”

According to the Burrell MSS., [21] in 1589, strict orders were given for maintaining beacons in all accustomed places, with orders to the watchmen, that if the number of invading ships did not exceed two, they were not to fire the beacons, but to cause larums to be rung from church to church as far as the skirts of the hill reached from the sea shore, and no further; and to send a post to the nearest justices: but if the ships exceeded two, they were to fire both their beacons, which were to be duly answered by the corresponding ones, and thus rouse the “force of the shire.” Five discreet householders in the neighbourhood, were assigned to each beacon, one to keep watch constantly. In 1590, the beacon watches were ordered to be discharged till further orders.