it has seen great changes--not quite so tragic
perhaps, but no less momentous--and like Winchelsea, too, in its tide
of fortune or disaster, it has been at the idle mercy of the fickle
sea. Where now--from the Channel inland for three or four
miles--stretches a wide plain, centuries ago the sea went on its way,
reaching inland as far as Hailsham, and leaving Pevensey and other
"eys"--Horseye, Chilleye, Rickney--islanded in its midst. In those
days Pevensey served a double purpose: it was an island stronghold and
a port--a gate to shut out and a gateway to welcome the alien mariner,
according to his intentions and its own will. Then the waters of the
Channel receded, and the puissant fortress, robbed of its vital
strength, sprawled helplessly at the mercy of any Philistine invader.

It has had just this much of compensation: through its centuries of
serviceable isolation it has seen real life as a castle--withstood
sieges, beaten off marauding foes, taken sides in internal strife--and
in that it has had the cry over the most of our Sussex fortresses.

Originally a Celtic stronghold, it became, by reason of its unique
situation, the Anderida of the Romans, a fortified enclosure following
roughly the shape of the knoll on which it stood. This was in the
third century. Two hundred years later, when the Romans had departed
and left behind an enervated British race, the invading Saxons
descended on the stronghold, put to death every Briton they could find,
and destroyed all traces of the Roman settlement within the walls. For
centuries after this the enclosure was unoccupied; but the port
continued its activities, for we read that in the years 1042 and 1049
Earl Godwin and his sons, Sweyn and Harold, fell upon the place with
sword and torch, and carried off many ships.

But its real value as a castle site was only completely realized when,
in September of the year 1066, William the Norman landed there with his
hordes of mailed warriors. He straightway gave the derelict to his
half-brother, Robert of Mortain, who proceeded to erect a Norman
fortress at the east end of the enclosure, using the strengthened Roman
walls as an outer line of defence. To this was added, two centuries
later, a strong inner keep.

Since the time of the Norman landing Pevensey seems to have sustained
at least four earnest sieges. The first took place in 1088, when Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux, and supporter of Robert of Normandy, defended the
cas