Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

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

V. TUDOR AND STUART PERIODS.

Henry VII. had little to do with Dover beyond giving
a modest sum of money to encourage the commencement of
a new harbour. Henry VIII. had largely to do with the
Castle, the Harbour, and the religious houses, of which
details appear in other Sections ; and mention may be made
here of a picturesque event in which the Corporation took
part during his reign — his embarkation at this port in May,
1520, to take part in the festivities of the Field of the Cloth
of Gold. That embarkation has been portrayed in a well
known picture, which is re-produced in one of the stained glass
windows of the Maison Dieu Hall, where the King is depicted
standing on the high deck of a gorgeous ship in Dover
Harbour — the little Harbour at Archcliff, on which this King
afterwards spent much of his time and money. On the
adjoining quay are represented the Mayor of Dover, Mr.
Thomas Vaughan, and other Burgesses bowing before the
King, while the heralds' trumpets are blaring in the Royal
ears, and the little cannons on Sir John Clark's Round
Tower are preparing to give a Royal salute, which, if
actually given, was probably the first Ro>al salute ever fired
at this port, for cannons (with two " n's ") had then been
very recently introduced at Dover.

In the twelve years occupied by the uneventful reign
of Edward VI. nothing occurred to advance the prosperity
of Dover. On the contrar)-, the sudden stoppage of the
Harbour Works and the bad accommodation for the Passage
Packets plunged the Town into poverty, which so lowered
the standard of independence and love of order amongst the
Freemen that the Common Assemblies became disorderly
gatherings. During the reign of Queen Mary, owing to
religious persecutions, disorder continued, and afforded an
excuse for excluding the main body of the Freemen from
participation in local affairs and the formation of an inner
circle of rulers, called the Common Council.

The establishment of the Common Council dates from
the last year of the reign of Queen Mary, and after that
year it appears, from the minutes of the Corporation, that



244 ANNALS OF DOVER

disorder and uncharitableness amongst the leading mem-
bers of the Corporation prevailed, being apparently a
continuation of strife from the reigns of Edward VI. and
Queen Mary, when there had been bitter feelings between
the Catholics and the Protestants.

Owing to these protracted local disorders, (^ueen
EHzabeth, acting on the advice of William Hannington, who
was the Queen's Superintendent of the Victualling Office at
the Maison Dieu, Dover, sent down a Commission to establish
peace, the result of which is given in a quaint minute worth
reproducing. It runs: —

"O yez ! That on the 15th daye of the moneth of Ap'ell,
1559, came Thomas Keyes and WiUiam Hannington, Esquires, byfore
the Worshipfull Thomas Collye, Mayer, Thomas Foxley and seven
other Jurats, who (Thomas Keyes and William Hannington) being
Commissioners appointed by the Queen's Council by virtue of their
letters unto them directed, to enquire of all manner of griefs, discords
and dissentions between the said Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty.
The letters being read, the Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty then
assembled, in the presence of Thomas Keyes and William Hannington,
the Commissioners, at which time the inquisiticni made, and the said
Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty were all in pcrict peace, amity and
concord, thanks be given unto God. and liath openly promised so
to continue by God's grace."

The peace made in the presence ut the Queen's Com-
missioners, in April, 1559, was soon broken, for in July, the
same year, it was ordered "' that John Robbyns and Thomas
Warren, Jurats, for their disobedience to the Mayor s
commandment shall forfeit four pounds apiece to be levied
of their goods and chatties." The spirit of insubordination
shown by the members also infected the officials, for, in the
month of August of the same year, the luwn Clerk, Roger
Wood, caused trouble by falsifying the accounts, and, having
been arrested, he broke prison, and was heard of no more.

In the following year, Thomas Te'])per, the Mayor,
brought about another peacemaking, the Mayor and Jurats
agreeing " that from this day forth all manner of old griefs
and slanderous words that have moved and stirred between
the Mayor and Jurats be clearly forgotten and forgiven, and
never to be remembered or spoken of again, but to be lovers
and friends, knit in one unity f(jr ever, whereby
justice may be better administered for the better gov-
ernment of the Town; and he or ihey that from
henceforth do infringe this present act be clearly
dismissed from the Juratship, nev£r to be of the fellowship



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 245

again." Eight days later one of the Jurats who signed the
bond of peace was dismissed for infringing it.

In the beginning of the Stuart Period the Dover Cor-
poration lost control of the Dover Harbour, which lowered
their prestige and diminished their responsibilities. The first
of the Stuarts, being ambitious enough to meddle in
European affairs, brought a great deal of trouble on the port
by making it the embarking place of a riotous hireling force
raised in England to fight ingloriously in the Palatinate.
In the tragic reign of Charles I. one Mayor had to conduct
festivities at the King's marriage, and another had to proclaim
to the Town his execution. In this sad reign the Civil War had
a blighting effect, and the only local event of a striking
character was the capture of the Castle by a small number of
townspeople on behalf of the Parliament, with which the
principal members of the Corporation were in sympathy.
For eighteen years — from 1642 to 1660 — there was no Royal
flag flying from the Castle Keep.

The period of the Commonwealth in this Town and
Port was the dreariest time on record. The population was
then very small, 200 of its houses being empty; the people
were in abject poverty owing to military exactions and the
stagnation of business.

On the landing of Charles II. at Dover, on the 25th
May, 1660, to resume the monarchial rule, the inhabitants
rejoiced, because they expected to have settled government
and freedom, but local history, during the quarter of a
century over which the rule of Charles II. extended, indicates
that the bitter strife through which the people had passed
had left scars which took long to heal. The Party that had
been oppressed during the Commonwealth retaliated as soon
as they had sufficient power. Two years after the joyful
reception of the exiled King at Dover, Commissioners came
down in his name, and, by a threat of expulsion from the
Corporation, induced the Mayor and fifty-six other Freemen
to conform to religious ceremonies which they had not
previously observed, and they removed .seven Jurats and
twenty-three Common Council men from office because they
would not conform. Those who expected settled government
and freedom were disappointed. Three times over the purge
was applied by means of laws made in the Restoration Period
which undermined the chartered rights which the Corporation



246 ANNALS OF DOVER

had enjoyed for many centuries. Eventually the Charter
was cancelled, for alleged legal reasons, but really to enable
the Crown officials to exact fees for issuing a new one. In
one way and another Dover was made to suffer smartly for
the absence of the Royal flag from the Castle Keep from
1642 until 1660. So drastically did the purge operate that
Captain Stokes, who brought over the King at the Restora-
tion, was ejected from his office as Mayor of Dover, and
Thomas Papillon, the Member for Dover (who gave the
Town the Papillon Charity) had to seek refuge in Holland
until the Stuart rule was over.

The short reign of James II. — the last of the Stuarts —
did not affect Dover very much. James, as Duke of York,
during his brother's reign was popular at Dover as the Lord
High Admiral of the Fleet ; and his installation at Dover
as Lord Warden, in 1668, was a great local event. John
Carlisle, the Clerk of the Passage at Dover, wrote the
following account of the procession passing through the
Town from the Castle and up to Bredenstone Hill on the
Western Heights: —

" First there came the Guard of Dover Castle, with a horse
and pistol each ; then Dr. Jenkins, in scarlet, and the Judge of
the Admiralty Court, in black ; the Admiralty Court-Sergeant, with
silver oar and anchor on it, and the Boder of the Castle, with his mace,
all bareheaded. Colonel John Strode, the Lieutenant of the Castle,
came next, and was followed by the Duke of York, accompanied
by the Duke of Lenox. After them followed Mr. Jermyn and several
persons of tjuality, succeeded by the five Mayors of the Ports — Dover,
Hastings, Sandwich, Hythe and Romney, and the two Mayors of
the ancient Towns, Rye and Winchelsea, all in black g^owns, on
horseback, only the Mayor of Dover had a white rose. Then seven
Bailiffs, who are Mayors, in their station, in black gowns. Then
forty-two Jurats, who were returned to wait upon the Lord Warden,
each attended by a sergeant in livery; then Sir Thomas Armstrong's
Troop of Horse, to bring up the rear. There was a sermon
preached before the Lord Warden in St. James's Church, and, after
the ceremony in the tent, which was erected over the Breden Stone,
they all returned to the Castle, where great provision was rrnde,
including ten fat bullocks, and a great concourse of people all fed
free."

The popularity which the Duke of York evoked as Lord
Warden and Admiral of the Fleet to some extent remained
when, as James II., he, in 1685, bfcame King; but, the
majority of the people of Dover being out-and-out Protestants,
his attempts to trnmple underfoot the laws of " this Pro-
testant Kingdom'" alienated from liim the greater number



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 247

of his subjects in this Town. If it had been a matter of
popular feeling, the warm-hearted Duke of York would have
stood far above the cold-blooded WilUara of Orange, but
the majority of the people of Dover were swayed by their
religious principles causing them to join heart and hand in
the Revolution.

When William of Orange anchored off Dover on his way
to Torr Bay, Dover was ready to welcome him as the
defender of the Faith for which so many Kentish folk had
>'ielded up their lives at the stake a century earlier.



248 ANNALS OF DOVER