services, that prince so much resented his conduct, as to confiscate bis estate ; nor could he be prevailed with to restore the lost honors to his heirs. Yet, it appears, from the same notice,[1] that " Robert de Roclint, son of Humphrey de Tilleul, one of the sons of Anfrid the Dane, was governor of the fortress the Conqueror erected at Hastings."
These possessions appear to have continued in the family of the Earls of Eu, until the 29th of Henry III., when William of Eu, adhering to the King of France,[2] they became forfeited to the crown, and were given by Henry to his son Edward I.
The antiquity of Hastings is traced, by various authorities, to a very remote period. The county of Sussex, it is said, belonged to the principality of Regni; and, during the Roman government, was included in their province of Britannia Prima. From its contiguity to the part of Kent where Julius Caesar first landed , in his invasion of Britain, it must, we may presume, have been among the first parts of his conquests in the island . Its boundaries were extensive; to the south extending to the channel, and northward to the Thames and Severn . The Roman name of Hastings is stated, by the Editor of Mag. Brit. page 498, to have been Anderida ; but from what authority it does not appear.
Hastings, called by the Saxons Hastinga, derives its etymology, according to. Camden , of high authority in matter of antiquarian research and enquiry, from a Danish pirate of the name of Hasting, who, it is stated, built small fortresses at the points where he landed for plunder. This pirate seems to have carried his predatory excursions to the coasts of Essex and Kent, where he is stated to have built also several small fortresses.
Its antiquity may be likewise inferred from its having been a place of importance as far back as in the Saxon Heptarchy, when Sussex belonged to the kingdom of the South Saxons, and was established, as such, A.D. 491. In the 31st of the reign of Ofa, A. D. 792, Berodaldus, one of -
