land by the barbarous Saxon invaders
is summed up in the terse words of their own chronicle--"They slew all
that dwelt therein, nor was there henceforth one Briton left." The name
"Andredes Weald" is derived from the British--An tred--"No houses," and
it correctly described the surrounding country at the time of the Roman
occupation. The great Weald or forest actually extended from the coast
to the Thames valley, broken only by the "Old Road" along the side of
the North Downs, traversed by far-off ancestors of ours whose feelings
as they gazed fearfully down into the depths of the primeval wood must
have been on a plane with those of the earliest African explorers in
the land of Pygmies. Here were the very real beginnings of those
countless tales of Gnome and Fairy--ferocious tribe and gentle
tribe--with which our folk-lore abounds.

[Illustration: JEVINGTON.]

As to the existence of a British town here before the coming of the
Romans nothing is known, but that Pevensey Bay witnessed the landing of
Julius Caesar is tolerably certain, and here the custodians of Britain
erected a great stronghold of whose walls we shall see the remnants as
we first enter the castle. In 490 Ella besieged the city and, as quoted
above, put it to fire and sword in effectual fashion; from this period
therefore must be dated the foundations of the South Saxon kingdom.
After upwards of five hundred years another conqueror appeared on the
old Roman wall. On the twenty-eighth September 1066 William I landed,
stumbled and fell, and "clutched England with both hands." Pevensey
(Peofn's Island) was given to Robert of Mortain, and he it was who
built the massive castle of the "Eagle" which we see rising inside the
Roman wall. This name arose from the title "Honour of the Eagle" which
was given to de Aquila, holder of the fortress under Henry I. After
many changes of owners who included Edward I, Edward III and John of
Gaunt, and after being besieged by Stephen against Matilda, by the
Barons against Henry III, and by Richard II against Bolingbroke it fell
on evil times and was actually sold for forty pounds by the
Parliamentary commissioners as building material. The keep is in ruins
and the chapel can only be traced in the grassy floor; here may still
be seen the old font covered by an iron frame, and the opening of the
castle well, in which, as related by Hare, skulls of the wolves which
once roamed the great forest have been found.

In connexion