hen national amity shall have
become mentionable besides personal pence, London shall attract to
herself all the small vice, as she does already most of the great, from
the country, all the thrusters after gain, the vulgar, heavy-fingered
intellects, the Progressive spouters, the Bileses, the speculating
brigandage, and shall give us back from the foggy world of clubs and
cab-ranks and geniuses, the poets and painters, all the nice and witty
and pretty people, to make towns such as this, conserved and purified,
into country-side Athenses; to form distinct schools of letters and art,
individual growths, not that universal Cockney mind, smoke-ingrained,
stage-ridden, convention-throttled, which now masquerades under the
forms of every clime and dialect within reach of a tourist ticket."

The customs of Lewes at the end of the Saxon rule and the beginning of
the Norman, as recorded in the pages of the Domesday Book, show that
residence in the town in those days was not unmixed delight, except,
perhaps, for murderers, for whom much seems to have been done. Thus: "If
the king wished to send an armament to guard the seas, without his
personal attendance, twenty shillings were collected from all the
inhabitants, without exception or respect to particular tenure, and
these were paid to the men-at-arms in the ships.

"The seller of a horse, within the borough, pays one penny to the mayor
(sheriff?) and the purchaser another; of an ox, a half-penny; of a man,
fourpence, in whatsoever place he may be brought within the rape.

"A murderer forfeits seven shillings and fourpence; a ravisher forfeits
eight shillings and fourpence; an adulterer eight shillings and
fourpence; an adultress the same. The king has the adulterer, the bishop
the adulteress."

[Sidenote: THE PROVIDENT DE WARENNES]

With the Conquest new life came into the town, as into South Sussex
generally. The rule of the de Braoses, who dominated so much of the
country through which we have been passing, is here no more, the great
lord of this district being William de Warenne, who had claims upon
William the Conqueror, not only for services rendered in the Conquest
but as a son-in-law. When, therefore, the contest was over, some of the
richest prizes fell to Earl de Warenne. Among them was the township of
Lewes, whose situation so pleased the Earl that he decided to make his
home there. His first action, then, was to graft upon the existing
fortress a new stronghold