n election, under whom they could
manage their own judicial and political affairs in their own Parliament.
Winchester, Northampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Doncaster, Carlisle, Lincoln,
Scarborough, York, won their charters at the same time--bought by the
wealth which had been stored up in the busy years while Henry reigned. A
chance notice of Gloucester shows us its two gaols--the city gaol
which the citizens were bound to watch, and the castle prison of the
king. The royal officers marked by their exactions the growth of the
town's prosperity, and no longer limited themselves to time-honoured
privileges of extortion. Bristol could claim its own coroners; it could
assert its right to be free of frank-pledge; its burghers were in 1164
taken under the king's special patronage and protection; in 1172 he
granted them the right of colonizing Dublin and holding it with all the
liberties with which they held Bristol itself, to the wrath of the men of
Chester who had long been rivals of the Bristol men, and who hastened to
secure a royal writ ordering that they should be as free to trade with
Dublin as they had ever been, for all the privileges of Bristol. Its
merchants were fast lining the banks of the Severn with quays, and a
later attempt to hinder them by law was successfully resisted. The new
commercial spirit soon quickened alike the wits of royal officers and
burghers. The weavers did not keep to the legal measure for the width of
cloth. The woad-sellers no longer heaped up their measures, as of old,
above the brim. The constables on their side began to demand outrageous
dues on the sale of herrings, and what was more, whereas of old heavy
goods, such as wood, hides, iron, woad, were sold outside the fair and
escaped dues, now the constable of the castle insisted on tolls for every
sale even without the bounds--a pound of pepper, or even more, had to go
into his hand. The citizens of Lincoln had analized the Witham, and built
up an illustration of the rapid development of the trading towns. As early
as the beginning of the century its owner, the Bishop of Norwich, had seen
its advantages, lying as it did at the mouth of the Ouse, and forming the
only outlet for the trade of seven shires. It was not long before the
prudent bishops had made of it the Liverpool of medieval times. The Lynn
of older days, later known as "King's Lynn," with its little crowded
market shut in between Guildhall and Church, the booths then as now
leaning