538 A. D. 1348. 



was exacled, the trade was not proteded, many merchants having loft 

 their lives and properties by the enemy upon the fea. The commons 

 therefor requefted, that thofe who had undertaken the protection of the 

 trade might be obliged to make fatisfaction to the fufferers. About 

 four years afterwards they petitioned for a total abolition of this new 

 duty ; but they were refufed. And it came in time to be firmly efta- 

 bliftied under the well-known denomination of tunnage and poundage *. 

 [Cotton s Abridgement of records, pp. 56, 57, 63, 75.] 



February 14'*' — The Flemings, having again got the ftaple among 

 themfelves, took upon them to hinder the Lombards and others from 

 purchafing the wool carried thither by the merchants of England. 

 Their condu6l being complained of, the king wrote to the magiftrates 

 of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, requiring them to refpeit the liberties 

 of the ftaple, and to permit the Lombards and others to buy wool from 

 the Englifh merchants, and to carry it by land or water whitherfoever 

 they pleafed. [F^dera, V.v, p. 611 .] 



April 5''' — King Edward, in order to promote the profperity of his 

 new colony at Calais, ordained that it ftiould be a ftaple for tin, lead, 

 feathers, Englifh-made woollen cloths, and worfted ftuffs, for feven 

 years : and he ordered, that the exporters of thofe articles ftiould make 

 oath before the coUedors of the cuftoms, that they would carry them to 

 no other place. [Fctdera, V. v, p. 618.] 



September — So earneft was King Edward to obtain an alliance with 

 Alfonlb king of Caftile, the moft powerful of the fovereigns of Spain, 

 that he kept up a correfpondence of feveral years with him, and 

 alfo with his counfelors, the mafter of his genet horfes, and Leonora 

 de Guiman his concubine, for the purpofe of contradhng a marriage 

 between Alfonfo'soldeft ion \ and his own daughter Joanna, which was 

 at laft agreed upon in June 1345, and the portion fixed at the enormous 

 fum oi Jour hundred thoufand gold florins of the JlneldX, Edward profefling, 

 however, that he expeded fome abatement of the fum, and a long in- 

 dulgence of time for completing the payment. But this conjugal alli- 

 ance, the labour of fix years, never took place. The young princefs 

 was fent to Bourdeaux upon her way to the court of Caftile ; and there 

 ftie fell fick, and death delivered her from being one of the wives of 



* This later fentcnce I conceive to be infcrted is dill more fiiprifing, Edward wrote a letter in 

 by Sir Robcit Cotton, or his editor, Pi-ynne. July 1355 to Alfonlo, who had been dead above 



♦ Born in Anguft 1334- His name appears to five years. \_Ficdera, F. v, />. 821.] 



have btcn imknovvn in England till Augult 1345, J The fum was equal to ^8o,coo (Icrling, each 



wlicn it is firft mentioned in FxJtra, V. y,p. 476. florin being worth four (hillings. (See Fadcra, 



Neither do Edward or his fccretaries fecm to Ikitc V.y,p. 4H5.) But the kings of England and 



known that the princefs and her intended hufhand France were bidding au6lion for the marriage of 



were fo nearly related, that a difpcnfation would Alfonfo's heir. 

 be nccellary to legitimate theu- marriage. Whit 5 



