Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/91



Rh canonicorum." (D. B.)—(A.D. 1291) names the churches of St. Peter, St. James, and St. Nicholas; (Val. Eccl), beside the above, those of St. Mary, and St. John Baptist.

Lucius, the first Christian king of the Britons, built a church within the castle, and Eadbald, son of Ethelbert first Christian king of the Saxons (between A.D. 616 and 640), erected a college in the same, which a successor, Wigghtred, in 691 (A.D. 629, Matt. Westm.), removed to the town, and called St. Martin's. This was suppressed and refounded by K. Henry II, when it was called the priory. (Lambarde, who speaks likewise of the Maison Dieu, and of a hospital at Dover, as well as of a house of Templars, which last was suppressed by K. Edward II.) "There have been seven churches in the town, and five of them, viz., St. John, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, St. Martin le Grand, and St. Martin the Less, are demolished," (Kilburne); who adds, that the Maison Dieu was founded by Hubert de Burgh: (in the beginning of K. Henry III. Hasted.)

Differing on the subject from Kilburne, Hasted says there were only six churches in Dover, of which he describes the sites. St. Martin le Grand was taken down 28th of K. Henry VIII. St. Nicholas ; "now used as a stable. The crypt of the church is now used as cellars for the houses;" was desecrated at the same period. St. John's shared the same fate; it must have possessed a crypt, an "undercroft" being mentioned in a will of A.D. 1513. St. Peter's "seems to have been in use in the year 1611." (Hasted.)

The Monasticon refers the erection both of the castle of Dover and of a church or chapel therein to the time of the Roman occupation of Britain, on the authority of ancient documents quoted therein, stating the above facts, together with the foundation of the college of St. Martin in the said church, whence it was afterwards removed to the church of St. Martin in the town. The following extract is the commencement of a Brief, 14 K. Edward II, which recapitulates the history of this foundation. "Quarant et sept annz avant la Nativite de nostre Signieur Jesu Christ, quant Cassibalan regna en Bretagne qi ore est appelle Engleterre, Julius Caesar vint de Rome, et valeit conquerre Bretagne, si come il avait conquis Gol, Espaigne, et autres pais plusieurs. Une foiz et autre foiz Kassibalan l'en chacea; mes a la tierce foitz Julius Caesar le vanqui sur Berhamdune entre Canterberie et Doure per l'eide Androgen qui fust duk de Kent et de Londres. Mais apres Androgen les fit accorder, issint que