Note 15 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

Apart, however, from problems as yet difficult and obscure, we shall be standing on sure ground in asserting that the charter of Edward I is the first that was granted to the Ports collectively, and that the rights and liberties it confirmed were those which had been granted to the separate ports by Henry II and John, and which it then made uniform and applicable to the whole confederation. As at London,15 we have always to remember that communal institutions might develop locally before their existence is proved by the crown's formal recognition. Delay in that recognition is not proof of their non-existence. What complicates so greatly the study of the Cinque Ports polity is the difficulty of disentangling its three component elements: the old English institutions common to other towns; the special relation to the crown in connection with their ship-service; and the foreign or communal factor on which I have myself insisted. No impartial student, I believe, will deny that I have fairly established the existence of this third element. Its relative importance and its sphere of action must remain, of course, as yet matter of conjecture.