s referring to pasture and the wild beasts are
therefore common.

To the same time must doubtless be assigned the exact delimitation of
the Sussex frontiers. During the early periods, the Kentings, the
Suthrige, and the West Saxons would all extend on their side as far as
the Weald, which would be treated as a sort of neutral zone. But when
the Woodland itself began to be occupied, a demarcation would naturally
be made between the neighbouring provinces. The boundary follows the
most obvious course. It starts on the east from the old mouth of the
Rother (now diverted to Rye New Harbour), known as the Kent Ditch, in
what was then the central and most impassable part of the marshland. It
runs along the Rother to its bifurcation, and then makes for the
heaven-water-parting or dividing back of the Forest Ridge, beside two
or three lesser streams. Then it passes along the crest of the ridge
from Tunbridge Wells, past East Grinstead and Crawley, till it strikes
the Hampshire border. There it follows the line between the two
watersheds to the sea, which it reaches at Emsworth. There is, however,
one long insulated spur of Hampshire running down from Haslemere to
Graffham (in apparent defiance of geographical features), whose origin
and meaning I do not understand.

With the Norman Conquest, the history of Sussex, and of England
generally, for the most part ceases abruptly; all the rest is mere
personal gossip about Prince Edward and the battle of Lewes, or about
George IV. and the Brighton Pavilion. Not, of course, that there is not
real national history here as elsewhere; but it is hard to disentangle
from the puerile personalities of historians generally. Nevertheless,
some brief attempt to reconstruct the main facts in the subsequent
history of Sussex must still be undertaken. The part which Sussex bore
passively in the actual Conquest is itself typical of the new
relations. England was getting drawn into the general run of European
civilisation, and the old isolation of Sussex was beginning to be
broken down. Lying so near the Continent, Sussex was naturally the
landing-place for an army coming from Normandy or Ponthieu. William's
fleet came ashore on the low coast at Pevensey. Naturally he turned
towards Hastings, whence a road now led through the Weald to London. On
the tall cliffs he threw up an earthwork, and then marched towards the
great town. Harold's army met him on the heights of Senlac, part of the
solitary rid