696 A. D. 1478. 



vented merchants from attending the fairs, whereby the people of tlie 

 country were deprived of the convenience of purchafing goods, and the 

 lords of the fairs loft their cuftomary profits. It was therefor enaded, 

 that in fuch cafes the plaintiffs fhould fwear, that their caufes originated 

 in the time of the fair and within the jurifdidion of it. [^6?j- 17 Zdw. 

 IV, r. 2.] 



Tile-makers were required to have their tiles fufficicntly wrought, 

 well whited and anealed, and of ftandard dimenfions. \c. 4.] 



March 5'" — King Edward renewed the antient friendfhip and free 

 coinmercial intercourfe with Frifeland, which had been interrupted. 

 \F(£dera, V. xii, p. 51.] 



May 3'^ — Tn this age it was cuftomary for fovereigns to be concerned 

 •in merchandize. We have feen a great ftiip, belonging to the king of 

 Sweden, in England in the year 1455. The king of Naples had a galeafle 

 now in Southampton, the commander of which obtained King Edward's 

 protedion for himfelf and his veflel from arreft for any debt or tranf- 

 greflion. The king of Scotland was owner of at leaft one veflel, a carvel, 

 which was taken at Cadfant in Flanders by a veflel belonging to the 

 duke of Gloucefter, for which King Edward ordered his ambaflador 

 Lye to promife reparation. But King Edward went beyond all the con- 

 temporai-y fovereigns in commercial tranfactions : he owned feveral 

 veflels *, ' and, like a man whofe living depended upon his merchandize, 

 ' exported the fineft wool, cloth, tin, and the other commodities of the 

 ' kingdom, to Italy and Greece, and imported their produce in return, 

 ' by the agency of fa<5lors, or fupercargoes.' {See above, p. 671. — Feed- 

 era, V. xii, p. 59. — MS. Cott. Vejp. C. xvi,^ 119, 120. — H'ljh Croyl. p. 

 559.] But the trade of thefe royal merchants, when they carried it to 

 a great extent, as King Edward adually did, muft have been very op- 

 preflive and ruinous to the real merchants, who could not pollibly com- 

 pere with rivals, who paid no cuftoms, and had the national force to 

 aflift and protedl their trading fpeculations. 



June 1"— Agreeable to the treaty between England and the Hanfe 

 towns, notice was given, under the feal of Lubeck, that the citizens of 

 Colberg had defired to withdraw from the confederacy. \Fcedera^ V. xii, 

 pp. 60, 91.] 



July 1 2'" — The treaty of thirty years, entered into with the duke of 

 Burgundy in 1467, was now renewed, and declared perpetual. In ad- 

 dition to the articles of the former treaty, it was ftipulated, that the 

 merchants of England fliould be at liberty to carry the gold or filver, 

 acquired by them in countries not fubjed to Burgundy, through the 



* He took from William Canyngs of BriRol be fitted out for an invafion of Scotland, it is 



2,4.70 tuns of (hipping, as already obfcrvcd in a doubtful, whether they had been all employed in 



note under the year 1450. A lilt of fix vefTels, tr ide, or were built on purpofe for war, as tliofe 



called //;^ king's Jliifis, appears in the year 148 1, now called L'ln^^s Jliifis are. 

 :^FcecLra, V. xii, />. 139.] 13ut ai they were to « 



