Dartmouth had a great stake in the country's welfare in early days, and was a port of much stir and traffic. From here sailed many of the ships that Richard I gathered together to take the English who were going with him on the Third Crusade. William Rufus started once from this harbour when there was trouble in Normandy, and King John paid the town two visits. In Edward III's time Dartmouth had already become renowned for her shipping and sent six ships for the King's service in a fight in which engaged the combined French, Flemish, and Genoese fleets; and she sent two more a few years later to help in his war against Scotland. Fifty years later this loan was entirely eclipsed by the magnificence of contributing no fewer than thirty-one ships to the siege of Calais.
'A schipman was ther; wonyng far by weste, For ought I woot, he was of Dertemouth.'
As if it were more likely that a typical seaman would come from Dartmouth than anywhere else! In no harbour could that great training-ship the _Britannia_ have been more appropriately moored, nor could a more fitting place be chosen for the long range of buildings on the hill above, the Naval College that has superseded it. Risdon tells us that the town has been 'sundry times subject to the attacks of foreigners,' and particularly mentions one occasion in the reign of Henry III, when the French made such a furious onslaught, that the women turned out by the side of their menkind and hurled flints at the enemy. These found themselves 'courageously resisted by the towns-men and-women, Amazonian-like.'
In 1470 Dartmouth was a step in the retreat of Warwick, 'the King-maker,' when Edward IV pursued him as far as Exeter. Warwick embarked here for France, and his arrival in those unsettled times must have created much bustle and excitement amongst all the gossips of the place. The Earl was 'in danger of being surprized, whereupon leisurely (for his great spirit disdained anything that should look like a Flight) he retired to _Exeter_, where having dismissed the Remainder of the troops that attended him, he went to _Dartmouth_, and there, with many ladies in his company and a large Retinue, he took ship and sailed directly to Calais.'