[553] In the last year of Henry the Sixth the master of one of the King’s ships received from the Mayor £31 10s. 10d. In the first year of Edward the Fourth he again paid for the victualling and custody of the ship £68 5s. 10d. (Davies, 110, 113. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 85, 98.)
[554] Davies’ Southampton, 214. For sum in 1468 ibid. 72, 100.
[555] Davies, 62-3.
[556] Ibid. 105.
[557] With help from the king if necessary. (Davies, 80.) The town had power to raise a tax on all goods carried in or out of the gates till the wall was finished. (Davies, 60.)
[558] Davies, 80. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 61. So a hundred and fifty years later Henry the Eighth forbade any citizen to leave Chester, because “the city standeth open in the danger of enemies,” and requireth all “for its safety and defence.” (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 370.)
[559] Davies, 60, 61. Similar complaints were perpetually renewed in the next century.
[560] Davies, 35. Southampton was constantly in arrears of its ferm. Ibid. 34.
[561] Margaret of Anjou was allowed in 1445 a grant of £1,000 a year from the great and little customs of the town, and the annuity of £100 which was confirmed to her in 1454 was not resumed by Parliament till 1464.
[562] Davies, 37.