HISTORIC TFr A NET.*
To understand the history of the Isle of Thanet is to under- stand bow completely man is at the mercy of the elements, and of water in particular. In the case of the ancient ports of Thanet, it matters little whether it was the advancing or the retreating sea. If there is a difference, it.is the difference between a sudden and a lingering, a violent or a natural death. The river, or perhaps we should say the channel, that once gave life to, the estuary and riverside ports, is no more, and with it went their being. It was a gradual decay for the most part, though perhaps we must except Reculvers, naw buried in the waves. The sea does not rage against this corner of England as it does against the rest of the coast-line, yet the lowness of the land has always placed it at the mercy of tides and storms. The raising of high-water mark, a high wind, these are enough to seal the doom of a low-lying coast town. The most famous, the most independent and obstinately tenacious of its rights of all the Cinque Ports, was in a few hours so utterly swept away that no one can now say where Ancient Winchelsea
• Historic Monet. By James Simson. London: Elliot Stock.
stood. It is an opposite and quieter lesson that is taught by the decay of Thanet's ports. Reculvers, indeed, has vanished in the sea, and left nothing but the two towers of St. Mary's church to remind the visitor of its early importance. It was on the point of being demolished by the parishioners in 1809, when the towers were bought as a landmark by the Trinity House. The bitterness of the antiquary when he thinks of the utilitarian propensities of the ordinary parishioner should militate against his objection to restoration. It is the fashion nowadays to decry modern architecture, and to profess contempt of any building that has not felt the hand of time. It is the beauty of decay that the lover of the picturesque admires ; the suggestion of restoring, of staying the levelling process of wind and weather, is abhorrent to him. Sooner or later, however, the question has to be faced, and the antiquary is torn between the desire to save some relic of art and the dread of the remorseless hand of the modern architect. One touch of the poor man's honest hand, one touch only, and the exquisite work of the name- less architect is to him but "the baseless fabric of a dream." It is easy to sympathise with this feeling, and we do sympathise ; but it is often, after all, only a form of selfishness. "It will last his time," he says. One of the most famous fanes in England is in this predicament ; on the one hand, the Destroyer, Time, on the other, the Restorer, so-called by courtesy, and by virtue of his intent. There can be no doubt about such places as the sea encroaches upon, for there is no alterna- tive but disintegration. Fortunately, many places in the Isle of Thanet are removed from this danger by the falling away of the sea, though their significance is thereby impaired. Richborough and Ebbsfleet have lost their position, and so have the settlements that bordered the Wantsum, Stonar, Minster, Monkton, Si. Nicholas, and Sarre. Not only has the waterway left them, but, in common with much of the east coast, the population has, to a great extent, disappeared. The soil has not lost its productive value. It is not in itself rich, its fertility being due to careful husbandry and its lowness. Valuable it has always been. Abbots quarrelled over marsh-land with their neighbours,—one caused a riot, even in those days, by levying a distress. The Manor of Monkton, which also comprised all the land west of St. Mildred's Lynch, held by the Monks of Christ Church, was claimed by Edward I., but the right of the Prior was con- firmed. Henry VIII. seized it, but almost immediately vested it in the Dean and Chapter. Minster, the seat of a Saxon nunnery, and part of a blood-gift from a Saxon King to his niece for the murder of her brothers, was granted by Canute to the Prior of St. Augustine's, and by Henry VIII. granted to some one from whom, we believe, it ultimately descended to a charity. At one time there must have been many gentle- men and yeomen resident here, for six people were summoned, under an order that those of an estate worth £40 a year should appear at the Coronation to receive knighthood. A commis- sion was given to some noblemen to arrange this transaction. Some compounded for a fine, others refused, one because his lands were let for a peppercorn to pay his father's debts, another because he had but half the sum on the day named. Sarre, once possessed of a ferry to Chislet, worked by lay brethren, had to be excused the payment of ferry tolls to Minster Abbey, and eventually to have a bridge over the diminished Wantsum. Stonar, according to Mr. Simeon, has so dwindled that, in 1890, the innkeeper and parish overseer could only return two persons qualified to vote. The land is probably more cultivated than it was, but it is not wanted to feed its inhabitants, but the towns on the coast that have grown so much, and the great City that has to be fed by every county in England.
The most historic spot in Thanet, and in all England, is Ebbsfleet, yet it is not marked in many atlases. There is nothing remarkable about the place ; to the invader it seemed merely an easy and certainly an inviting spot to land at, for possessing no striking scenery, it has charms of its own; as Mr. Simson says, it is one of Nature's favoured spots. The defenceless Kentish coast has always invited the Saxon, the Viking, and more modern enemies ; but it were invidious at this time •of day to lament that it was not of a more forbidding aspect. Edward III. gave orders that such places as were easily accessible to people landing should be fortified. And from an early date the towns and hamlets of Thanet were enrolled as non-corporate members of the Cinque Ports. They did not participate, we suppose, in all their privileges. For the Barons of the Cinque Ports were important folk, and held a privilege worthy of the grandeur of their trust, they carried the canopy at coronations ; the marchers of the Welsh marches disputed this right, but of course their claim was not allowed. Ramsgate and Sarre were members of Sandwich ; Margate, Birchington, and Broad- stairs of Dover. The north side of Thanet belonged to the jurisdiction of Hastings. The whole of the coast was pro- bably, as the writer says, under the Cinque Ports. The rest of Thanet was in the Hundred of Ringslow, which included part of St. Lawrence, Stonar, Minster, Monkton, and part of St. Nicholas-at-Wade. The inhabitants of Stonar, tired of the exactions of the Abbot of St. Augustine's, would have united themselves to Sandwich, and the struggle was long, and they were so ranked in Henry III.'s time, but the manor was adjudged to be in the county by a Common Assembly held at Sandwich in the last century.
Mr. Simson might have made a great deal more of Historic Thanet. He has not, he tells us, overburdened us with references ; he certainly has not, and has hardly collected more information than a moderately inquisitive person could have acquired. A history of Thanet has been done before, and if another was to be done, it was worth doing well ; it certainly deserves more than the small volume devoted to it by Mr. Sim- son. He does not even give us the various derivations of Thanet, which, we believe, with Lambarde, to be from " watery." Nor has the writer added an index or a map, showing suffi- ciently, we think, that he regards it as unworthy of its subject. This is a pity, for he realises the principles of history, and with more patience might have done justice to the Isle of Thanet.
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