[509] The revenue from Liverpool in 1296 was £25: it then had 168 inhabited houses. (Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 20.) In 1342 the personalty of the burgesses taxed was £110 13s. 3d., that is, the average personalty of each was about one mark (25). The revenue in 1327 was £30; in 1346 it was £38 (26), and remained the same in 1394 (31). In 1444 it was reduced to £21; in 1455 to £17 16s. 8d.; and under Edward the Fourth to £14 (36-7). In 1515 an inquiry was made as to the decay of the revenue (38), and the Act of 1544 put Liverpool in the list of towns which had wholly fallen into decay (45). Two plagues, one in 1540, another in 1548, probably carried off half its population (47); and in 1565 it had but 138 inhabited houses, and probably seven or eight hundred inhabitants, and twelve vessels navigated on an average by six men each (55). There were five streets under Edward the Third, and seven under Elizabeth (62).
[510] Fortified in 1406. Picton’s Mun. Records, i. 21, 22.
[511] A little thatched building in the High Street which had to serve as toll house, town hall, and gaol, but the greater number of criminals were imprisoned and judged in the Stanley and Molyneux Castles. Picton’s Memorials, ii. 25-6.
[512] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 32-3.
[513] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 36, 37.
[514] Ibid. i. 37, 38, 46, 48-9.
[515] Picton, i. 63.
[516] As an illustration of the reverse process, showing the impulse given to municipal liberty when a borough was transferred from private ownership to the State, see the case of Sandwich (Ch. XII.).
[517] See charter to Beverley; Stubbs’ Charters, 105; Lambert’s Gild Life, 73-6, York; Stubbs’ Charters, 304, Salisbury; Gross’ Gild Merchant, ii. 209-10.
[518] Pol. Poems and Songs (Rolls’ Series). Ed. Wright, i. 327, 334.