The people of Brighthelmstone were subject, incommon with all the coast, to invasion and reprisals tothe English raids on France, and their ships and boatswere occasionally taken, and their fishery interrupted.In 1377 the French harried the South Coast, spoiledthe Isle of Wight, and burnt Rye, Portsmouth, Dartmouth,Plymouth, and Hastings. There is no recordof Brighthelmstone being attacked, but the Frenchcame parlously near, as Holinshed tells us: 'Winchelsiethey could not win, being valiantlie defended bythe abbat of Battell and others. After this, they landed,one day, not far from the abbeie of Lewes, at a placecalled Rottington (Rottingdean), where the prior ofLewes and two knights, the one named sir ThomasCheinie, and the other, sir John Falleslie, havingassembled a number of the countrie people, incountredthe Frenchmen, but were overthrowen; so that therewere slaine about an hundred Englishmen; and theprior, with the two knights, and an esquier called JohnBrokas, were taken prisoners, but yet the Frenchmenlost a great number of their owne men at this conflict,and so, with their prisoners, retired to their ships andgallies, and, after, returned into France.'