January 17, 2009

The Story Behind the Investiture

BY  DAL NEWFIELD
Finest Hour 20, July-August 1971

The origins of the Cinque Ports are lost in antiquity, but it is generally agreed that the confederacy began long before 1066.  Alfred the Great is credited with the establishment of the British Navy, but his appreciation of the use of sea power in war did not survive him, and England offered no effective naval resistance to subsequent Danish and Norman invasions. So it was that Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich formed an association to provide and man a naval defense force. Winchelsea and Rye were added later to these “head ports” and some 30 other inland towns became supporting “limbs.” William the Conqueror found it advantageous to deal with the Cinque Ports, giving tax exemptions and the right to make their own by-laws in return for the Cinque Ports’ commitment to maintain a fleet “to keep the Narrow Seas,” a function which they strenuously discharged throughout the Middle Ages.

At times the Cinque Ports were so powerful, relative to the central government, as to act almost as an Independent state. Their parliamentary representatives, appointed by the Lord Warden at first, later elected, were not abolished until the 19th century. Edward III reduced their importance somewhat by creating his own navy, but it was not until Richard II’s action making impressment of sailors legal that the Royal Navy became strong enough to threaten the power of the Cinque Ports.

But the honor of the appointment to the post of Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports has not only been maintained, but has grown over the centuries. It is, without doubt, the most ancient military honor England has to offer, and one of the most ancient of honors. Of the 158 prior holders of the post, only three had been commoners, but the list includes some of the greatest names in English history: Edward, Earl of Chester, “The Crusader,” who became Edward I; Henry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales — the victor at Agincourt as Henry V; James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral, who became James II, the greatest fighting seaman of the English Royal House.   Six prime ministers have held the honor, Lord North, William Pitt and the Duke of Wellington among them.

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It is difficult to imagine that any of Churchill’s predecessors received the honor under such peculiar circumstances. The situation in Europe in May, 1940, is well known to you. It was obvious that Chamberlain must step down, but who should take his place? Churchill had to be considered of course, but there is every evidence that neither his party nor his king wanted him as prime minister. Churchill was his own man. Churchill did not conform. Churchill was a doomsayer, which was ignorable, but the was almost always right, which is unforgivable. He had begun criticising his ‘superiors’ in print in 1898, with the STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE, and had held no ‘superior’ sacred since. And lately, it had been Churchill who raised a clamor when Hitler marched, unhindered, into the Rhineland. It was Churchill whose voice refused to be drowned out by the applauding crowds when Chamberlain returned from Munich.

Halifax was the obvious choice, but Halifax was a member of the lords, and not eligible. there seemed to be no choice, and the King reluctantly sent for Churchill. Some said that he was expected to make the best terms possible with Hitler and then sink into oblivion. If so, they certainly did not know their man.

Churchill began his tenure by warning his people: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” And for sixteen months, that is almost all he did give them.  The Dutch surrendered, the Allies were beaten out of Norway, the Belgians capitulated, Dunkirk was evacuated with horrible loss of men and equipment, Italy declared war, France sued for peace, the Channel Islands were occupied, Italy took Somollaland, the Luftwaffe began daylight bombing and the Battle of Britain began, the French Fleet was, in the main, lost, the Japanese joined the Axis, the Nazis invaded Romania, Italy invaded Albania, several battleships and hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping was lost, Germany invaded Jugoslavia, Rommel beat back a temporarily successful Desert Army, Greece was lost, Crete was lost, Hitler invaded Russian and the Russians retreated, retreated, retreated, America seemed sympathetic, but unable to cast the die.  It was, without doubt, the nadir of the forces and peoples of England.

And then:  the Court Circular for September 23, 1941, announce, “The Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer Churchill, M.P. (Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury and Minister of Defense) had an audience of the King.” King George had conferred upon the man he had so reluctantly made prime minister 16 months before the ancient honor of appointment as Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports!

For what Churchill had given the British was a sense of unconquerable unity and purpose. His tools: some of the finest speeches in the history of mankind. The Empire and Commonwealth, as well as England herself, had come to rely upon him as the bulwark (almost the ONLY bulwark) against the forces of evil and oppression.

Understandable, THE TIMES reported “It is understood that Mr. Churchill will not be installed or take up residence until after the war.”

On August 14, 1946, the time had come for the investiture. It was an impressive ceremony, redolent with tradition and ancient history.   Cheering crowds lined the route from Dover Castle and through the Market Square. Churchill responded with his by now traditional “V” sign. Kentish Fire — salvoes of rhythmic clapping — broke out. the Seneschal of the Court of Shepway called “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” as a salute of 19 guns boomed out. The bells of Dover pealed “down The Ways of the Port and Places of Landing” — some of the bells had pealed out the tidings from Agincourt. There were military bands and units from all of the services to march, the Barons of the Cinque Ports were there in their velvet costumes, with the mayors of the”head” ports and the “limbs.” And a the very centre of the celebration was Winston Churchill, one of the most honored men, and rightly so, in history.

In the ages since their founding, the Cinque Ports had been affected by the he shingling of the rivers. The Mayor of Dover still has the right to summon by drum every householder to go with a shovel and remove shingle from the harbor. But the imperceptible tilt of the British Islands themselves has been inexorable. Excepting Dover, all the other “Head Ports” are no longer ports at all. Winchelsea and Rye now lie inland and Romney and Hythe have built new settlements in the advancing seafront. The site of William the Conqueror’s landing is well inland today. Lymph Airfield a full 2 1/2 miles west of Hythe!

Churchill, in his address, pointed up another historical change: “We have moved into a new age. Secrets have been wrested from Nature which ought to awe us and prevent the quarrels of mankind even if they cannot assuage their rivalries and suspicions.  One thing at least we can promise to all: In our own place and in our own way, this glorious and pure foreshore of England, the shrine of its Christianity, the cradle of its institutions, the bulwark of its defense, will still do its best for all. We will strive forward — wearied it may be — toward that fair future for all the men in all the lands which we thought we had won but of which we shall never despair.”

THE TIMES, 24 September 1941, said “to this august tradition of Keeper of the Gates of England and Watcher of the English Seas, Mr. Churchill now succeeds. As First Lord in two wars he has fully qualified to preside in this ancient shrine of the seafaring tradition. As the dauntless leader of the Nation in the moment of its greatest peril he can wear the symbolic dignity as no other man can do.” In the war years that followed this accolade, WSC did nothing but enhance his qualifications.