During the reign of Henry VIII. The French landed at the Coast off Brighton and burnt the entire Town to the ground.
The only building to survived the attack, was the Church on the Hill, Saint Nicholas’s Church. Leaving only the Street patterns as outline of the Town. A drawing recording the attack by the French fleet on Brighton is preserved in the Hove Museum.
Another raid at Portsmouth in 1545, in which the great English ship the Mary Rose capsized and sank.