The town suffered, as did so many others, from the attacks of the French, and in the year 1545 they made a descent upon it in force. Holinshed gives a very full and detailed account of their proceedings as follows: “In 37 Henry VIII, 1545, July 8, the Admiral of France, Mons. Donnebatte, hoisted up sailles, and with his whole navy (which consisted of two hundred ships and twenty-six gallies) came forth into the seas, and arrived on the coast of Sussex, before Bright Hampstead, and set certain of his soldiers on land to burn and spoil the country; but the beacons were fired, and the inhabitants thereabouts came down so thick that the Frenchmen were driven to their ships with loss of diverse of their numbers, so they did little hurt there. Immediately hereupon they made to the Isle of Wight, when about two thousand of their men landed, and one of their chief Captains, named Chevalier Daux, a Provençois, being slain with many other, the residue, with loss and shame, were driven back again to their gallies.... They disanctioned (disanchored), and drew along the coast of Sussex, and a small number landed again in Sussex, of whom few returned to their ships, for divers gentlemen of the country, as Sir Nicholas Pelham and others, with such power as was raised upon the sudden, took them by the way and quickly distressed them ... they turned stern, and so got them home again without any act achieved worthy to be mentioned.” As this same account goes on to say, “The number of Frenchmen was great, so that diverse of them who were taken prisoners in the Isle of Wight and in Sussex did report they were three score thousand.” Unless this estimate was purposely and grossly exaggerated, the force was one of the largest ever launched against these shores.