Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FIVE.
THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION.

IV. IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Dover, in the Middle Ages was a thriving town and
port, having the sea passage to France, protected by
Royal decrees and many other privileges. The whole
of the Burgesses, as members of the Corporation, had
the right to speak and vote in Common Assemblies ;
and, according to their several trades and callings, were
formed into guilds to protect and promote their special
interests. The Town Guilds in Dover, of which the oldest
and most important was the Fellowship of the Passage,
reached their zenith during the short reign of Henry V.
and the long minority of Henry VI., when " Good Duke
Humphrey," as the then Regent was called, was Constable
of the Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports.

That period, in Dover, was one of peace and pros-
perity. The townspeople seemed to have been a happy
family ; their Burgesses of Parliament, their Mayors and
Jurats were from time to time elected unanimously. Those
trusted men Walter Stratton, John Garton. Thomas Arnold,
John Braban, Thomas Crouchc. and William Brewys all
took their turns in the Mayoralty, in the Cinque
Ports Brotherhood and hi Parliament; but at the
end of the Minority of Henry VI. there came a
blighting change, when the young King and Queen, influ-
enced by foreign advisers originated a policy which disturbed
the harmony of Dover and a few years later involved the
country in that civil war called the Wars of the Roses.
Duke Humphrey, the Lord Warden, in 1435, unfortunately
became the next in succession to the Crown, and the Queen,
jealous of his popularity, alleged that he was plotting
against the King's life. Persecution against the Lord
Warden and his wife Eleanor (one of the Cobhams of Kent)
became so bitter, that not only were they involved, but the
Mayor and Jurats of Dover, some of whom were Castle
Officials, were suspected of being the Duke's partisans.
This strife lasted ten years, from 1436 to 1446- The
Duchess Eleanor Cobham was charged with practising witch-
craft against the Kings life, was sentenced to a shameful



24© ANNALS Of DOVEft.

penance and imprisoned for life in Peel Castle. Duke
Humphrey, thus severed from his wife was charged with
High Treason, and before he could be brought to trial
was poisoned in prison.

In the midst of this crisis, when the imprisonment of
Eleanor Cobham and the persecution of the good Duke
Humphrey had aroused hostility to the King and Queen,
amongst the men of Kent it was thought desirable by the
King's party to conciliate the men of Dover. The plan
adopted was to threaten them with all kinds of pains and
penalties for what they were alleged to have done and then
to win their alliegence by a general pardon. The pardon
was issued in November 1446 when the impeachment of
the Duke was pending and the Duchess was in prison. The
pardon was specially addressed to the Corporation of Dover.
Opening with the usual formal greeting, it proceeded: —
" Know ye that of our special grace, etc, we have par-
doned, remitted and released to Ralph Toke, Mayor of the
town of Dover, and Walter Nysham, Bailiff, and the
commonalty of the said town all manner of trespasses,
offences, etc, committed by the said Mayor, Bailiff, and
Commonalty, before the 9th of April last past," etc. The
document continues to recite, in an enormous num!)er of
words, eleven different classes of offences accumulated up
to various dates. The full meaning of the legal jargon
and the significance of the special dates mentioned would
require an intimate knowledge of the day l)y day proceedings
in Dover during the previous ten years. Seeing that the
Mayor, Bailiff, and the whole Commonalty of Dover were
fully and freely forgiven, the details were of no consequence
except the outstanding fact that for the Duchess Eleanor
there was no ])ar(lon, the prison in the Isle uf Man, where
she then lay being destined to retain her till death came to
her release. The celebrated Dover pardon was no doubt
intended to cover up an ugly past, but the reckoning had
to be settled a few years later in a different way, when
Jack Cade's Rebellion brought matters to an i.ssue by a
fearful sacrifice of life, including the beheading of the
Lord Warden, who succeeded Duke Humphrey, in London
and the Duke of Suffolk, the Queen's favourite, was
executed at sea, and his head was cast on the shore at
Dover.



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 241

The Wars of the Roses following quickly on the
dramatic climax 6i the Cade Rebellion was a cause of great
anxiety to the Dover Corporation; and the trouble was far
from being over when Edward of York ascended the throne
in the room of the unfortunate Henry VI. who had vainly
tried to clean the slate by the Dover Pardon. The final
crisis came after Edward IV. had reigned ten years, when
Earl Warwick, the Lord Warden, went over to the Lancas-
trian side, and, for a brief period, — from the 9th October,
1470, until the 14th of April, 147 1 — kept Henry VL on the
throne. In the performance of that surprising .feat
"Warwick, the King Maker" was supported by the
Cinque Ports. If Warwick had not been slain in the final
battle of Barnet, the Lancastrians, after all their reverses,
might have prevailed, and English history might have been
written in a different way. The impartial historian is bound
to record that Dover and the Cinque Ports generally, were
more moved by a great leader than by a just cause. They
sided with Earl Warwick as a Yorkish leader, and with
equal enthusiasm they fought with him when he turned
Lancastrian ; with the result that two months after the
final defeat of the Lancastrians and the death of the Earl
of Warwick, Edward IV. su.spended the chartered rights of
Dover. The document by which the suspension was effected,
dated 9th July, 1471, was as follows: —

" Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, etc., to all
to whom these present letters shall come, — Greeting. Know that,
as the Liberties and Franchises of our town of Dover and its Limbs
stand seized in our hands for reasonable and legitimate causes ; we,
therefore, wishing so far as pertains to us to properly provide for
the sound and suitable government and the happy ruling of our
Town and Limbs aforesaid, and of our people there, and for the
safety of others daily going to the same, and also for notable
causes especially moving us and our Council, with the assent and
advice of our said Council, we have constituted our beloved and
faithful Thomas Hexstall, in whose discretion and fidelity we repose
full confidence, as Warden of our Town and Limbs aforesaid, during
our pleasure, giving and granting to him, by the tenor of these
presents, full and suflBcient authority and power for ruling and
governing the said Town and Limbs, and our people of the same,
and others going to them, and for doing, exercising and executing
all other and singular things which pertain to the good ruling and
sound government of the said Town and Limbs, according to the
laws and customs hitherto justly and reasonably used in the said
Town and Limbs, also for having the keys and officers, as the
Mayors of the Town aforesaid, by virtue of certain Liberties conceded
by us and our progenitors on 'that behalf, hitherto had, until we
otherwise order for the governance of the said Town and Limbs :
We give it also firmly in command to the officers of the Town and



242 ANNALS OF DOV£R

I^imbs aforesaid, and also to all and singular our Lieges and
subjects of the said Town and Limbs, by the tenor of these presents
that they be aiding, consultant and obedient in all things, as is seemly,
to the said Thomas, as Warden of the said Town and Limbs, in all
things which pertain to the rule and governance aforesaid.

" Witness myself at Westminster on the Ninth day of July,
in the eleventh year of our reign." [By the King himself, and on
the date aforesaid, by the authority of Parliament.]

The Parliament in which the above decree was made
was hastily summoned in July, 147 1, immediately after
Edward IV. had finally overcome the rebellion. In that
stage of the Wars of the Roses, the Cinque Ports men having
been against the King, it was thought necessary to take
immediate steps to place Dover, which was then in reality
the Gate of the Kingdom, in reUable hands; and it was
also resolved to send out a Commission of Judges to try
and, if necessary, punish those who had been responsible
for using the Cinque Ports forces against the holder of the
Crown, as it was one of the most ancient and cherished
franchises of Dover that its Freemen should not be tried
except by a Cinque Ports tribunal, the King deemed it
necessary to suspend the ancient liberties so that his Judges
might come down to the Ports and 'ry the rebels. What
happened in the other Cinque Ports tovns forms no part of
this narrative, but at Dover the proceedings of the Royal
Commission were little more than a formality. Although
the Mayoralty was suspended, Thomas Hexstall, who hati
been Mayor up to the time of the Commission, was retained
in ofHcc as the King's Warden, with exactly the same power
and authority that Mayors had always h.'^<l. In the calendar
of persons to be trieil, Thomas Hexstall, Receiver of the
Lord Warden, was one, yet, six months before the Com-
mission sat at Dover, Thomas Hexstall was described, in
the King's own words, as " our beloved and faithful Thomas
Hexstall, in whose fidelity and discretion we repose full
confidence." Whatever he had done was partloned.
The Commission which sat in the Cinque Ports consisted of
the following Judges : — Nicholas Statham, Baron of the
Exchequer, Thomas Bourchier, Knight. T. Dynham, John
Fogge, Thomas Echyngham, Knight, and William Notting-
ham. There are various entries about thi'; date in the White
Book of the Cinque Ports, which indicates that the trials
by the Royal Commission extended to all the Cinque Ports,
but at Dover no one seems to have been " one penny the
worse," for Thomas Hexstall, in the course of 147 1-2, was
again holding the office of Mayor in the ordinary way.



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 243