and, as he destroyed his own ships after he had effected a landing, he began his reign without means of maritime defence. THE STORY OF THE CINQUE PORTS. THE BATTLE OF DAMME.--THE BATTLE OF DOVER.--THE BATTLE OF SLUYS.--THE BATTLE OF LESPAGNOLS-SUR-MER.--THE VICTORIES OF THE EARL OF ARUNDEL, THE DUKE OF BEDFORD, THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON, AND WARWICK, THE KING MAKER. The history of the English navy from the Conquest to the fifteenth century is, in effect, the history of the great and powerful corporation known as "The five Cinque Ports and two Ancient Towns"--Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, Hythe, Winchelsea, and Rye. In the Domesday Book only three such ports are mentioned--Sandwich, Dover, and Romney--but in the charters and royal writs mention is always made of, and precedence assigned to, Hastings. Winchelsea and Rye were added to the first five soon after the Conquest, but the title of "Cinque" Ports was retained. In addition to the seven head ports there were eight "corporate members"--Deal, Faversham, Folkestone, Fordwich, Lydd, Pevensey, Seaford, and Tenterden--and twenty-four non-corporate members, which included Birchington, Brightlingsea, Bulverhithe, Grange, Kingsdown, Margate, Ramsgate, Reculver, Sarre, and Walmer, all of which were called Cinque Ports. Some writers have endeavoured to connect the Cinque Ports with the five Roman fortresses which guarded the south-eastern shores of Britain, and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports with the _Comes Littoris Saxonici_--the count of the Saxon Shore, but it seems sufficiently clear that the confederation of the ports was of Teutonic origin. Originally, trading communities banded together to protect and control the herring-fishery, the principal industry and food-supply of the people; the regular descents of the Danes supplied the motive for the military character the union afterwards assumed. The Danish invasion, which ended in Canute's supremacy, raged most fiercely round Sandwich, which was the head-quarters of the Danish fleet, and acquired the title of "the most famous of all the English ports."