394 ^' ^' 1242: 



fons and properties of the Englifli merchants found hi his dommions to 

 be feized, whereby, fays Mathew Paris, [p. 585] he brought a gi-eat dif- 

 grace upon the antient dignity of France. The confequence was a re- 

 taUation upon the French merchants in England. 



Henry III wrote to the barons of the Cinque ports, and to the good 

 men of Dunwich, to get ready their fhips, fufficiently manned, for his 

 fervice. He alfo ordered, that the king's galley of Briftol, and another 

 galley of the fame town, and the king's gallies in Ireland, fhould be fit- 

 ted out. He at the fame time ordered the mayor and citizens of Dub- 

 lin, and the good men of Waterford, to fend all their gallies and fhips. 

 Similar orders were fent to Bourdeaux for the gallies belonging to that 

 city. \Yoedera, V. i, pp. 406, 407.] This, I believe, is the fecond occa- 

 iion, after the days of Alfred, on which even a fmall number of veflels 

 belonging to the king *, or to the public, are mentioned. (See above, 



p. 378.) 



The mariners of the Cinque ports, making a very bad ufe of the 

 commiflion given them by the king to annoy the fubjeds of France, 

 wherein he warned them againfl injuring his own fubjedls, became 

 mere pirates, and plundered all they met, of whatever nation, not fpar- 

 ing even their own acquaintances and relations. Nor were fuch atro- 

 cities confined to the failors of thofe ports. There was a very general 

 combination of the inhabitants of the city of Winchefter and the adja- 

 cent parts of Hampfhire to plunder all whom they could overpower, 

 whether ftrangers or Englifhmen, fo that even the king's wine pafling 

 along in his carts could not efcape their depredations. In confequence 

 of a complaint made by two merchants of Brabant, accompanied by 

 threats of reprifals upon Englifh merchants in that country, an inquifi- 

 tion was fet on foot in the year 1 249 : but it was not without having 

 recourfe to very rigorous meafures that a jury could be found to con- 

 demn the guilty, of whom about thirty were hanged. [M, Faris, pp. 

 589, 760.] 



1243 — ^The mofi; antient fpecimen of paper, fuch as we now ufe, 

 made of linen rags, is a charter, feven inches long and three inches 

 broad, preferved in the emperor's library at Vienna, which was written 

 in the year i 243, as the date is calculated by Mr. Schwandner, an Auf- 

 trian nobleman and principal keeper of the imperial library, who hag 

 written an eflliy on this curious relique, which, he fays, is at leaft half 

 a century older than any other fpecimen hitherto difcovered f . 



* King Henry III liad a large (hip calL-d the of hnen-rag paper, fixed the commencement of the 



Qiiecn, vvliich lie cliartercd to John lilancbiiUy for manufaifture of the later between the years 1270 



his ( BlancbuUy'i) life in the year 1232 for an an- and 1302 : and in the year 1762 he offered a pre- 



■nual jjayuient, or rent, of fifty marks. {MadoKS mium to any one v.'ho (hould produce the carliell 



4hjl. of the exchrq. c. 13, ^ II.] public indnimcut, wiitten on paper made of linen 



f Mr. Meerman, fyndic of Kotcrdam, who with rags. — Mr. North {Archxolog^'m^ F. x] mentions a 



much lludy invcftigated the origin of printing and letter, wrillen by the king of Spain to lidward I, 



5 king 



