Although much of the history of these seven ancient towns, which ultimately formed the Cinque Ports, is unhappily lost to us, the existing records or customals give the student a very good idea of the life of the various periods to which they have reference. One, not the least interesting, was that of giving notice of the need to elect a mayor by a trumpeter at midnight. And woe betide him who refused to take the necessary oath of allegiance to the Ports and the Sovereign. Any who did was promptly ejected from his house, which was forthwith sealed up. At Dover the punishment was even more severe, as the house was generally pulled down. Another custom, which obtained at both Romney and Hythe, was the presentation by the corporations of those towns of “porpuses” (porpoises) to the lord’s table at Saltwood. We have never, so far as we know, tasted porpoise. It may be good; but, as the American said of another dish, “it sounds strong.” Amongst the purely medieval institutions in connexion with the Cinque Ports, the Romney Play in those far off times had a great reputation, “drawing crowdes of folk from the other townes, and from afar off in Kent and Sussex,” to witness its representation. There are frequent references to it in the Lydd records; and in the Port papers one finds the accounts and costs relating to these old-time pageants, even the prices paid for “wigges,” false beards, erection of the stage, “floats,” the scenery, costumes, and the labour of the scribe, who appears to have in a measure united the office of author with that of stage manager. The Play was a municipal undertaking, like those of other famous towns. The subjects of the Plays varied somewhat, but the majority appear to have been at least founded upon a religious or sacred basis, or to have been a monkish interpretation of some legend, and were in fact Old Mysteries. It is difficult to look upon the Romney of to-day and believe that Leland, who visited it in the reign of Henry VIII, was correct in stating that it had been a good haven “yn so much that withyn remembrance of men shyppes have cum hard up to the towne, and cast ancres yn one of the churchyardes.” He goes on to say, too, that at the period of his visit the sea was “two myles from the towne, so sore thereby decayed that wher ther wher 11 great paroches and chirches sumtyme, is now scarece one....”