acious speed, which
God Almighty continue and increase. And, my dear Lord, if it like
you to know _my_ fare, I am here laid by in manner of a siege with
the county of Sussex, Surrey, and a great parcel of Kent, so that
I may not [go] out nor no victuals get me, but with much hard.
Wherefore, my dear, if it like you by the advice of your wise
counsel for to set remedy of the salvation of your Castle and
withstand the malice of the Shires aforesaid. And also that ye be
fully informed of the great malice-workers in these shires which
have so despitefully wrought to you, and to your Castle, to your
men and to your tenants; for this country have they wasted for a
great while.

"Farewell, my dear Lord! the Holy Trinity keep you from your
enemies, and soon send me good tidings of you. Written at Pevensey,
in the Castle, on St. Jacob's day last past.

"By your own poor
"J. PELHAM."
"To my true Lord."

[Sidenote: ANDREW BORDE AGAIN]

In the town of Pevensey once lived Andrew Borde (who entered this world
at Cuckfield): a thorn in the side of municipal dignity. The Dogberryish
dictum "I am still but a man, although Mayor of Pevensey," remains a
local joke, and tradition has kept alive the prowess of the Pevensey
jury which brought a verdict of manslaughter against one who was charged
with stealing breeches; both jokes of Andrew's. Borde's house, whither,
it is said, Edward VI. once came on a visit to the jester, still stands.
The oak room in which Andrew welcomed the youthful king is shown at a
cost of threepence per head, and you may buy pictorial postcards and
German wooden toys in the wit's front parlour.

Before leaving Pevensey I must say a word of Westham, the village which
adjoins it. Westham and Pevensey are practically one, the castle
intervening. Westham has a vicar whose interest in his office might well
be imitated by some of the other vicars of the county. His noble church,
one of the finest in Sussex, with a tower of superb strength and
dignity, is kept open, and just within is a table on which are a number
of copies of a little penny history of Westham which he has prepared,
and for the payment of which he is so eccentric as to trust to the
stranger's honesty.

The tower, which the vicar tells us is six hundred years old, he asks us
to a