[613] Davies, 58-59.
[614] See, for 1549, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 14; for 1681, Davies, 52. The latest grant of the public land of Southampton was made on Sept. 16th, 1892, by the Mayor and corporation for a graving dock—part of the harbour improvements by which Southampton is to be restored to its old supremacy on the southern coast and once more to give room in its port to the largest steamers afloat. There was a far-away echo of old world controversies in the assurance of the mayor to the people that by this act of the corporation in giving the land at a nominal consideration there was scarcely anybody in Southampton who would not be benefited, and “not a soul in Southampton would be injured.”
[615] In the following century we find them making presentments at the Court Leet about the mayor’s misdoings (Davies, 123).
[616] As the King’s servant orders were sent direct to him without mention of the community. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 16, 103.)
[617] By admiralty law the sea was supposed to reach up to the first bridge, and he therefore controlled the Itchen as far as Woodhill and the Test as far as Red Bridge, and as admiral held his courts of admiralty in the accustomed places on the sea-shore at Keyhaven, Lepe, and Hamble. Davies, 237-40. Compare the mayor of Rochester (H. M. C. ix. 287).
[618] See for example of one difficulty of this supervision, Davies, 475. For an illustration of his anxieties in the seizing of a carrack, see Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 111.
[619] See Louis XI. et les Villes. Henri Sée.
[620] See pp. 447-8.
[621] Nottingham Records, ii. 34-6.
[622] Nottingham Records, ii. 222-238.