But now, bicause the Englishmen should haue their ioies mingled with
some sorrowes, it chanced that the Frenchmen (which about the same
time that the kings grandfather departed this life, were wafting on
the seas) within six or seauen daies after his deceasse, burnt the
towne of Rie. Wherevpon, immediatlie after the coronation, the earles
of Cambridge and Buckingham were sent with a power vnto Douer, and
the earle of Salisburie vnto Southampton: but in the meane time, to
wit, the one and twentith of August, the Frenchmen entring the Ile
of Wight, burnt diuerse townes in the same. And though they were
repelled from the castell, by the valiant manhood of sir Hugh Tirrell
capteine thereof, who laid no small number of them on the ground; yet
they constreined the men of the Ile to giue them a thousand marks of
siluer to saue the residue of their houses and goods, and so they
departed from thence, sailing still along the costs, and where they saw
aduantage, set on land, burning sundrie towns néere to the shore, as
Portesmouth, Dartmouth, and Plimmouth.
[Sidenote: Hastings burnt.