HOME	The Confederation of the Cinque Ports.

At some early unknown date, five towns in south east England Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich banded together in a confederation designed presumably for mutual protection at sea and the furtherance of their trade.

The King used them in certain ways - a packet boat service - perhaps even as early as the reign of Edward the Confessor, for which they were paid, not in cash but by the receipt of certain privileges, most of which had a financial value. The duties and the privileges of the five ports grew with the years and their heyday came in the thirteenth century, by which time the "Ancient Towns" of Winchelsea and Rye had been added to their number.

The first Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was appointed in 1053. Subsequent notable holders of this office include the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. By the 1200s King John grasped what was ready formed, the Cinque Ports fleet. In return for more and more privileges, the ports lent him free for so many days each year an agreed number of ships, fully manned and maintained,

At first alone, later in conjunction with the growing naval forces, this fleet of the Five Towns and their Members kept control of the English Channel. They may have had successes and failures, they certainly loved piracy and private wars and feuded with the ships of other English towns but the Cinque Ports fleet held a vital gap in the kingdom's defences for many years.