Page:The Hastings Guide.pdf/37

Hastings gives name to the easternmost of the six divisions of the county of Sussex, called Rapes : the Castle and Rape (which always accompanied it) belonged to the Earls of Ewe, in Normandy, descendants from a natural son of Richard, first Duke of Normandy. Robert, the first Earl to whom it was given, was one of the chief counsellors to William the Conqueror, by whom many other large estates were settled on him. He left this honour to his son William, whose son Henry, upon levying the aid for marrying the daughter of King Henry II. certified that his father in the preceding reign was enfeoffed with 65 Knights' fees, of which he then had 56 in the Rape of Hastings, and for which he paid £40. He left only one daughter and heir; she, marrying Ralf de Yessenden, had by him a son and heir, William, who, after his father's death, adhering to the King of France, and his mother Alice having otherwise forfeited her estate to the Crown, Henry III. in the 29th year of his reign, seized upon it, and gave it to Prince Edward, his son. Peter de Savoy, uncle to Queen Eleanor, being then in great favour at Court, -