What Is: the Cinque Ports

One of the most lucrative offices in the royal patronage was for the King to make someone Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.  Members of the Royal Family as well as prominent lords and barons held this title.  So, what were the Cinque Ports.

The Kent and Sussex coasts are on the English Channel and lie the closest to the European continent.  If any invasions were planned from France, this was the most likely spot.  These coasts needed to be heavily guarded and ships needed to be kept in readiness to meet any threat.  The Cinque Ports, or Five Ports, referred not only to 5 key coastal ports in this network, but also outlying towns who would be responsible for providing the initial money, men and materiel in case of an invasion.  The Five Ports are Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich.  Eventually the port of New Romney silted over and Rye was substituted as one of the towns.  Rye along with Winchelsea were among the Ancient/Antient Towns required to provide men for the coastal defenses.  Each of these towns was further supported by towns further inland, known as Limbs.  Lydd was a limb to New Romney, Folkestone, Faversham and Margate were limbs to Dover.  Deal, Ramsgate and Brightlingsee were limbs to Sandwich, while Tenterden was a limb of Rye.  Eventually other towns were added to these as limbs, forming a tightly-knit defensive sequence.

Although these five towns and their outliers had been key to defense since Saxon times, the towns and their responsibilities were outlined in a royal charter in 1155, only a year into Henry II's reign.  The towns collectively were to supply 57 ships with 15 days' provisions, to be kept in readiness at all times to meet an invasion from the Continent.  In return the towns were exempt from royal taxes and tolls, but could levy taxes and tolls of their own, punish wrongdoers within their boundaries and run their own court system, and claim salvage of abandoned cargoes or goods that went overboard on ships or washed onto their shores.  Exempt from royal taxation, a local industry based on smuggling and kickbacks soon developed.  As freemen of these towns were considered barons, with an automatic right to sit in Parliament, nobody was bound to interfere in how the ports conducted their business.  To oversee defenses, English Kings appointed an official as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.  This noble was also Constable of Dover Castle, with a residence at Walmar Castle, and entitled to the royal income derived from the ports. 

Over the years, the post became a valuable one, primarily because of the money involved.  Kings faced with appointing a Lord Warden were faced with a catch 22.  They had to appoint someone with military and political capability to keep these coastal defenses in readiness.  Yet that person had a great deal of freedom from royal control, access to the key fortress at Dover and other castles, control of money, munitions, ships and other resources, and a ready supply of money.  Some Lord Wardens became implicated in plots against the Kings themselves, such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York.  Today, there remains a Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, but his post is largely ceremonial.  Many towns associated with the ports incorporated the arms into their emblems, a lion halved with a ship.