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Francis W. Steer, John Philipot’s Roll of Constables of Dover Castle and Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports, 1627 (1956)

On 7 October 1965, Sir Robert Menzies accepted Queen Elizabeth II’s appointment to make him Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle. A historic and much storied position dating back to the 12th century, but one that appeared (to critics) to be somewhat esoteric and even anachronistic by the 1960s.

Robert Menzies was a strong advocate of having a ‘sense of continuity’ which grounded a person in the past, and thereby gave them a greater sense for what they themselves would be passing on to posterity. So he would have been the last person to accept that a ceremonial position deteriorated with age – if anything it improved, like a fine wine. Nevertheless, it was still important to make the history of the ‘Lord Warden’ feel tangible and alive, something which the re-publication of a historical document from the early 17th century helped to achieve.

Originally produced for George Villiers, the ‘favourite’ and rumoured lover of James I & VI, John Philipot’s Role of Constables of Dover Castle and Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports takes the reader back to the tumultuous period directly proceeding the English Civil War. Indeed, the assassination of Villiers as Lord Warden in 1628, might even be understood as one of the first warning shots of the subsequent conflict directed against the Stuarts. As Charles I had dissolved parliament in order to shield Villiers from impeachment following his failed oversight of the Cádiz expedition against Spain, and a disgruntled army officer took matters into his own hands by personally eliminating the Duke.

While Menzies had been schooled in the ‘Whig’ version of English history, which sided with the roundheads over the Cavaliers and was none too fond of the Stuarts, he nevertheless appreciated this historical tie that linked him to some of the formative years of Parliamentary Democracy. As Sir Winston Churchill (Menzies’s predecessor in the role of Lord Warden) explains in his foreword to the book:

‘Many Lord Wardens of the Cinque Ports have been more estimable, but none has been more outwardly magnificent than George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. In the early years of the reign of Charles I, the year before the proud duke was murdered at Portsmouth, there was presented to him an emblazoned Roll of the Constables of Dover Castle and Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports prepared by John Philipot “Bayleif of Sandwiche” and Somerset Herald. In reproducing and publishing this historic document the County Councils of East Sussex and of Kent add lustre to the fame of the Cinque Ports whose Charter is as Old as Parliament itself. As the present Lord Warden, I am glad to associate myself with their action’