after a few years increased. But before twenty years was expired, it was twice entered by enemies : first by Frenchmen, and secondly by Spaniards, that entered by night at Farely, where the high steeple is about three miles from Winchelsea ; at which invasion the town was spoiled, and scant syns cam into the pristine state of wealth ; for the common voice is, that at that tyme were twenty aldermen in the town, merchants of good substance. Within the walls be two parish churches, and there were two houses of friers, grey and black. Without the town, a parish church belonging to the liberty of Hastings." The French, in 1377, again attacked Winchelsea, after burning its neighbour Rye, but were repulsed with great loss, owing principally to the abbot of Battle coming with his retainers to their assistance. In 1380, the French fitted out a fleet, assisted by the Spaniards, and after burning the towns of Hastings and Rye, places which suffered so severely but three years before, attacked Winchelsea and burnt that also.
The abbot of Battle was defeated in his second courageous attempt to save the town. The burning of these towns could not have been a general conflagration, as the old records seem to imply, or they would not have risen so rapidly from their ruins.
Winchelsea, notwithstanding the great injury it had received from the French and Spaniards, rapidly rose to its former prosperity; so that when Queen Elizabeth visited it, in the year 1573, she was so much pleased with the situation of the town, the magnificence of its buildings, and its shipping lying in the harbour, that she called it Little London. Unfortunately, the town enjoyed this prosperity but for a short time. The sea, in the latter part of the queen's reign, quitted the neighbourhood, leaving a dreary and unhealthy marsh. Its commerce began to decay, its merchants and traders left ; and from that time -
