The Lord Warden, who is the chief officer of the Cinque Ports, combining therewith the governorship of Dover Castle and maritime jurisdiction as admiral of the ports, may be regarded as representing to some extent the ancient office of Count of the Saxon Shore, although the changes of time and the paramount importance of the Royal Navy in more recent times in the work of defending our shores, have tended to rob the office of much of its former importance. At the present time the actual duties of the post are confined to presiding as chairman of the Dover Harbour Board. The freemen or "Barons" of the Cinque Ports are often mentioned in connection with this subject, and it may be useful to put on record the following precise account of the subject, written by Mr. Charles Dawson, F.S.A. "A NOTE ON THE TITULAR RANK OF THE BARONS OF THE CINQUE PORTS "The Freemen of each of the Cinque Ports have from ancient times been termed 'Barons,' because they held their lands and privileges as joint Tenants-in-chief of the Crown, by fealty and special Military (Naval) Service. Their title was almost unique, in this sense, that as joint tenants of their Baronies they were not like the individual Barons of the Realm, but Barons-corporate. "When summoned to the King's councils, the Barons were addressed collectively by writ, a copy of which was forwarded to each Cinque Port. "Simon de Montfort's general summons to Parliament was addressed to 'the Earls and Barons of the whole of the Kingdom and of the Cinque Ports,' and in the year 1293 the Barons of the Cinque Ports claimed of King Edward I to be tried for their alleged delinquencies by 'their Peers, Earls and Barons.' "The title of Baron did not, of course, apply to every Freeman of the Cinque Ports in an individual sense, except so far as individuals represented, by election, the whole of their Combarons at each respective Cinque Port. "In the earlier Parliaments the order of nomination ranked the Barons of the Cinque Ports above the Commoners, and with the Barons of the Realm, the scale of their fines for non-attendance being identical with that of the Bishops and Barons of the Realm. "There yet remains one ancient custom which identifies the rank of the Barons of the Cinque Ports with the Peers of the Realm, namely:--that when their representatives perform their services to the Sovereign at the Coronation, within the Abbey Church of Westminster, they are entitled to assume their head dress at the same moment as do the Peers of the Realm, and immediately after the Crown has been placed on the Sovereign's head." DEFENSIVE CHAINS, ETC.