I suddenly found that I needed Google Translate ... and, as far beyond the sea, than in some of the things that can be at any of the parts of the foreigners, and the act of the evils of ourselves and from those, both in the land, into the sea, than’. … der, um ?????
Then I remembered what this thread is meant to be about
... congregata immensa multitudine galearum et navium, tarn supra mare, quam in quibusdam portubus partium exterarum mala et facinora quae poterunt nobis et nostris, tam in terra, quam in mare ...If anyone can help ....
I’ve mentioned the attacks on the south coast by the French and their allies, and looking for a bit more detail, ‘During the Hundred Years' War Southampton suffered much at the hands of the French. Indeed, as early as 1338 it was captured and partially destroyed by a band of foreign pirates ...
Graphic demonstration of the weak defences came in October 1338, when a fleet of French and Genoese ships descended on Southampton early one morning. There is no indication the townsmen were able to mount any serious resistance. Many of them were slain or carried off for ransom, and their properties and merchandise plundered or destroyed by fire. No help came from county forces supposed to be guarding the coast. After the raiders had withdrawn, local and county men, it was later accused, had themselves looted wool and wines belonging to the king or to foreign merchants stored in Southampton. Large areas across the town, but particularly in the southern half, were burned down (probably including the house of the mayor of that year, where the town treasury and archives may have been kept) or were so badly damaged they had to be demolished; and during the coming year mercantile commerce came to a virtual standstill ...
Local government would likely have been disrupted, many of the town rulers having lost their lives or their homes, but this problem became academic when a furious Edward III suspended the borough liberties and appointed his own custodians of its government, supported by a small garrison; their focus was on repairing damage to the castle. The king also appointed a commission of enquiry into the failure of the defensive system. The investigation incorporated a review of the performance of local officials and one, a former mayor and a customs collector, was briefly imprisoned in the Tower and saddled with a ruinous fine for customs fraud and misappropriation of money collected for construction of defences’.
Reading up on this led to things such as: ‘Southampton was raided’, ‘Southampton was burned’, ‘Among other places, Portsmouth and Southampton suffered’. Rodger, and particularly Alban, go that bit further and include: the Isle of Wight, the Channel Islands, Plymouth, Portsea, Eastdean, the Isle of Man, north Wales, and of course – the important one – Swanage.
Most historians say that from late 1338 the south coast lived under fear of attack, with Alban saying, ‘It is clear that from the early 1330s the inhabitants of the coastal shires had become accustomed to the burdens and to the possibility of attacks upon them because of the naval war with the Scots … In March 1339, a force of eleven galleys attacked and burned Harwich. In May, a Norman and Genoese fleet sailed with impunity along the south coast of England, and although they merely threatened coastal places in Hampshire and were daunted by the formidable defences of the Isle of Wight, they nevertheless caused great damage at Plymouth and Hastings. In the same period, minor damage was done in the Isle of Thanet, at Dover and at Folkestone, while fishing vessels were put to the torch in Devon and Cornwall. In July, an enemy fleet of considerable proportions attacked the ports of Rye and Winchelsea.
The year 1340 told a similar tale. Despite the failure of the French invasion fleet at the battle of Sluys in June, raids on the English coast were recommenced in August when French and Castilian raiders, having been repelled by the defenders of the Isle of Wight, sailed westwards and fell upon Teignmouth and Plymouth, wreaking much havoc at the former but being driven off by the defenders at the latter’.
When I looked up ‘Southampton’ in the records, I found this.
Oct 13th 1338
Commission to Richard, earl of Arundel, John de Stonore and John Inge reciting that in the late attack on the county of Southampton the enemy plundered and burned the towns of Portesmuth and Southampton and other places and then retired to their galleys without encountering any resistance from the men of those parts, and that it is reported that the keepers of the coast and arrayers of men in the county, knowing that the attack was to be made, not only neglected entirely to provide for the defence of parts threatened but basely fled with the men of the said town on sight of the enemy, and that the said keepers and their deputies permitted the men appointed to stay to guard the coast at the charges of the said county and of the counties of Berks and Wilts and of some other places, for money and other gifts received for this purpose by the keepers and deputies, to go home, and did not find the men-at-arms, archers and others for whom they had levied divers other sums of money on the said counties and places, and commanding them to find by inquisitions through whose default the town of Southampton was taken, how the keepers and arrayers bore themselves when the galleys came in sight and at other times, the names of the men of Southampton and others who fled from the enemy or adhered to them and all other particulars of the disgraceful neglect of duty in this behalf, punish such as are most guilty by imprisonment in the Tower of London or elsewhere as may be expedient, and others as they deserve, and to certify the king with all speed of all that they do in the matter; to hear and determine all acts of rebellion, contempt and adherence and other trespasses herein; and to see that the town of Southampton be secured against any future attack, by the advice of John de Scures and Thomas Cemdray, the keepers of the town. By K. and the Keeper and the whole Council.
Source: Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1338. p180 and 181.
Granted, that is what was reported to Edward III, but I think it may have been reasonable for him to be ‘furious’.
However, he was a little distracted as he was doing his best to secure the loyalty of the Flemings, and in the parliament of March ‘39 there were moans and criticisms of his handling of the domestic situation. Orders to secure the coast were issued - but then they had been before! - and there’s a ‘writ of November 1338 regarding the ringing of church bells to warn of the approach of enemies, applied to churches situated within seven leagues of the sea’. Beacons were also supposed to be used to warn of invasion and people who held land within 12 leagues of the sea were ordered to move there ‘for defence of the realm against the French’.
During ‘39 and into ‘40 there were real concerns that the French were going to invade, but they and the Scots just kept on with their small invasions, and those living near the coast must have existed in quite some degree of fear.
- but a bit of 
