Nor did the authority of the Warden end at Shepway. As Constable of the Castle he had his court-martial in Dover.[746] As Admiral he could order a “quest of the Admiralty” to be held on the sea-shore, or perhaps at some one of the Ports which had offended against the laws of the confederation—a calamity which the town at once sought to avert by negociations and bribes “that he should not hold the court.” As Chancellor he issued precepts and summonses as to the services to be performed by the Ports in return for their privileges, and exercised in his court of chancery the complicated jurisdiction that gradually arose out of these records. There were moments when the King was stirred to a recollection of his sovereignty—moments when the towns had pushed independence too far, or when the treasure in the royal coffers had fallen low; then from Westminster a writ of enquiry would come as to the privileges of the Ports, delegates were summoned from the various towns to appear before the Warden, and might find themselves kept many days and nights at Dover[747] while “inquisition was made for the King.” Sometimes they were ordered to assemble on the sea-shore. Sometimes the Warden came down the steep path of the castle hill to the tiny church of S. James, set in the first little reach of level ground below the walls of the fortification, and there the jurats came up to meet him from their lodgings in the town below, and after days of discussion probably returned home with heavy news of fines to be levied for buying a new charter, or for getting the confirmation of some doubtful privilege.
In the authority of the Warden we see the view held at Westminster about the uses of the Cinque Ports and the main object of their existence. To the people on the other hand the association had another and wholly different character. So completely was all the business of the Warden’s court at Shepway looked on by the portsmen as the King’s affair, and so slight was their sense of participation in it, that they presently gave up attending it altogether, leaving the Warden at last to preside in solitary state. In course of time even the ancient site was abandoned, and instead of the annual assembly at Shepway the president only summoned an occasional court of appeal to be held at Dover,[748] and there, surrounded by a group of lawyers to advise him, sat on the chalk cliff fronting the castle to hear certain cases immediately touching the King’s interest.[749] Meanwhile the barons of the Ports had their own tradition of independence and self-government; and the popular belief as to the object and meaning of the confederation was embodied in another court which sat on the Broad Hill, near Romney—a court where the Lord Warden had no seat.[750] It was there that the whole interest of the people centred, as turning their backs on the King’s courts and leaving him to conduct through the Lord Warden the matters which were his peculiar business, they occupied themselves with the management of their own special affairs. For to the fisherman of the coast the confederation of the villages was in its origin and working simply a great trading company of the Ports for the protection of their staple business, the herring fishery, and for the preservation of their ancient customs of harbourage and sale on the strand at the mouth of the Yare—a matter which became of absorbing importance when their monopoly was threatened by the fishermen of Yarmouth, so that from the time of John onwards they could only preserve their interests by ceaseless vigilance and by costly appeals to King and Parliament, and Council.[751] In the eyes of the barons therefore the great assembly of the confederation was that which yearly met to discuss the business of the Yarmouth fair. And this was in the strictest sense a court of the people themselves, summoned only by common consent,[752] presided over by the chief magistrate of each Port in turn, and in which every town was represented by its mayor or bailiff, three elected jurats, and three commons. The sheltered harbour of Romney formed a sort of natural centre of the Ports, and the delegates met for business on the Broad Hill or Bromhille of Dymchurch close by, whence they possibly took the name of Brodhull, a name which in later days when the first site was forsaken and forgotten and the delegates met in Romney itself, became changed into “Brothyrhill” or Brotherhood.[753]