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Before the days of those supposedly
impregnable forts in Spithead which bar to all inimical visitors a
passage up the Water, the town was not immune from attack from the sea
and in 1338 an allied French, Genoese and Spanish fleet sailed up the
estuary and attacked the town to such good purpose that the burgesses
were forced to fly and from a safe distance saw their homes burned to
the ground. Another assault was made by the French in 1432, but
profiting by bitter experience, the citizens had by now constructed
such defences and armed them so well that this attack was an
ignominious failure.
The port was the scene of several great expeditions overseas before it
gave its quota to that greatest of all crusades in 1914. It saw the
start of Richard Lion-Heart's transports, filled with the chivalry of
England, on their way to challenge the power of Islam. The town
records show that 800 hogs were supplied by the citizens for feeding
the army _en route_. Perhaps the most famous of the sailings was that
of the twenty-one ships that carried the English army to the victory
of Crecy.


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