How spacious it is,
and how quiet, full of the sweetness and the beauty of some motet by
Byrd. History is little to us in such a place, which is to be enjoyed
for its own sake, for its own unique beauty and delight. And yet the
history of Winchelsea is almost as unique as is the place itself.
Winchelsea when we first hear of it as given by King Edward Confessor
to the monks of Fecamp, was not set upon this hill-top as we see it
to-day, but upon an island, low and flat, now submerged some three
miles south and east of the present town. Here William the Conqueror
landed upon his return from Normandy when he set out to take Exeter
and subdue the West; here again two of those knights who murdered St
Thomas landed in their pride, hot from the court of Henry their
master. Like Rye, its sister, to whom it looked across the sea,
Winchelsea was added to the Cinque Ports and was presently taken from
the monks of Fecamp by Henry III. It was now its disasters began.
In 1236 it was inundated by the sea as again in 1250, when
it was half destroyed. Eagerly upon the side of Montfort it
was taken after Evesham by Prince Edward, and its inhabitants
slain, so that when in 1288 it was again drowned by the sea
it was decided to refound the town upon the hill above, then in
the possession of Battle Abbey, which the King purchased for this
purpose.
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