On the first day of meeting the business, as befitted an association for trading purposes which dated back to the time when the herring fishery was the staple trade of the Ports, was invariably the Yarmouth fair, and the court heard the report of the bailiffs of the last fair who stood bare-headed before them, and elected their successors who were to govern the coming fair.[754] But other interests had grown up round the assembly hill. The seafaring population, masters and mariners of trading barges, saw in the union of Ports the power which regulated the relations of seamen on either side of the Channel. To the taxpayers it was a voluntary association for the equitable adjustment of their burdens. And all the inhabitants alike recognized its importance for maintaining against lords of other franchises the privileges which had been granted them in return for their services.[755]
On the great day when the Yarmouth fair was under discussion the Court of Brotherhood sat alone; but on the following days when other work was to be done—the distribution between the various towns of the taxation[756] ordered at Shepway, the discussion of commercial relations,[757] the care of the common corporate privileges of the confederation[758]—the Court of Brotherhood was joined by the Court of Guestling, probably a descendant of the ancient Hundred Court once held in the old town of Gestlinges near the border-line of Kent and Sussex.[759] To this court each town might send the mayor, two jurats, and two commoners; so that if all the delegates came the number of the united assemblies would be seventy-seven; as a matter of fact however in the time of Henry the Sixth the business was done by about thirty members.[760] All the important affairs of the Cinque Ports practically lay in their hands, and their decisions, registered as Acts of the Brodhull by the Common Clerk of the Cinque Ports,[761] became the law of the whole confederation.
Constantly reminded of their ancient covenant and confederation by imminent perils, arduous exertions and recurring taxes, trained to habits of vigilance and mutual support, the Cinque Ports kept a jealous watch against the slightest infraction of the privileges of their united body. But there was one matter with which the confederation had nothing whatever to do. Subject to a variety of jurisdictions, some of them depending on the King, some on the Archbishop, some on a bigger neighbouring town, the special liberties of each borough had been developed under very different conditions; and the whole association took no heed of the defence of the liberties of any single Port against its lord, or the enlargement of the privileges of any one member of their society as apart from the whole.[762] The corporate existence of the united Cinque Ports was a thing altogether apart from the corporate existence of each town within it; and indeed combination for any purpose of securing local liberties would have been out of the question in a confederacy where a certain outward uniformity was but the screen of endless diversity, and towns bound together by special duties and privileges were widely separated from one another in all the conditions of government.[763] This is very evident if we compare the situation of Sandwich and Romney—much more so if we consider the position of any of the subordinate members of the Ports.