Custom House Quay, Boston.
When in 1304 Edward I. granted his wife Queen Margaret the castle and manor of Tattershall to hold till the heir was of age, he added to it the manor of St. Botolph and the duties levied on the weighing of the wool there. This was set down as worth £12 a year. A wool sack was very large—one sees them now at Winchester, each large enough to fill the whole bed of a Hampshire waggon—but at 6s. 8d. a sack the duties must have been often worth more than £12, for there was no other staple in the county but at Lincoln, and that was afterwards, under Edward III. in 1370, transferred to Boston, and whether at Boston or Lincoln, when weighed and sealed by the mayor of the staple, it was from Boston that it was all exported.
THE STAPLE
When a staple of wool, leather, lead, etc., was established at any town or port it was directed that the commodities should be brought thither from all the neighbourhood and weighed, marked and sealed. Then they could be delivered to any other port, where they were again checked. In 1353, during the long reign of Edward III., the staple was appointed to be held in Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter and Bristol. Of these, York and Lincoln sent all the produce when weighed to Hull and Boston, Norwich to Yarmouth, Westminster to London Port, Canterbury to Sandwich, and Winchester (by water or road) to Southampton. In 1370 some of the inland towns—York, Lincoln and Norwich—were deprived of their staple, and Hull and Queensborough were added to the list; and, though Nottingham, Leicester and Derby petitioned to have the staple at Lincoln, which was much more convenient to them, the answer they got was that it should continue at St. Botolph’s during the king’s pleasure.
South Square, Boston.
In Henry VIII.’s time, when the king passed through Lincolnshire after “the pilgrimage of grace” and the chief towns made submission and paid a fine, Boston paid £50, while Stamford and Lincoln paid £20 and £40 respectively.
FRIARIES AND GUILDS
In 1288 a church of the Dominican or Black Friars which had been recently built was burnt down, and a few years later a friary was re-established, which was one of the many Lincolnshire religious houses granted by Henry VIII. to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk. In 1301, under Edward I., a Carmelite, or White Friars, monastic house and priory was founded; and in the next reign, 1307, an Augustinian, or “Austin,” friary; and only a few years later, under Edward III., a Franciscan, or Grey Friars, friary was established. All these three were granted by Henry at the dissolution to the mayor and burgesses of Boston. He also granted the town their charter under the great Seal of England, to make amends for the losses they sustained by the destruction of the religious houses. It is a document with fifty-seven clauses, making the town a free borough with a market on Wednesday and Saturday, and two fairs annually of three days each, to which are added two “marts” for horses and cattle. The ground where the grammar school stands is still called the Mart-yard, and there you may still see the beautiful iron gate which was once part of a screen in the church, and is a very notable piece of good seventeenth-century work.