After the change in the course of the Hull, the buildings were gradually transferred from the banks of the old river to those of the new channel; and when the town had attracted the attention of Edward I., sufficient time had elapsed to render the transfer and general appearance of the town complete. The recent edifices had spread over the greater part of the space which may now be denominated the old town, and nearly all the principal streets there were at that time in existence. From Hull Street (now High Street), which lay parallel with the river, to the quays and wharfs, where the business of the port was transacted, there were several communications by means of staithes or narrow passages, most of which yet remain. The freedom of passage conferred upon the burgesses by their charter, caused them to establish a ferry across the Hull; but Sir John de Sutton, Knt., then Lord of the Manor of Sutton, and owner of the lands on the Holderness side of the river, where the ferry lay, claimed, by descent from his ancestors, the exclusive right of passage across that river at Drypool, as appurtenant to his lands there. Having procured a writ of ad quod damnum to be directed to the Sheriff of Yorkshire, an inquisition was taken thereof, in the 35th of Edward I. (1307), when the jurors recognized the complainant's right to the ferry.

A few particulars of the death of Edward I., the reputed founder of the town, will be found in vol. i., page 133, of this history. In the 10th of Edward II. (1317), Sir Robert Hastings, Knt., was, by letters patent, made Custos or Warden of Hull during life; and for his courage and valour, as well as some noble and heroic deeds that he had done against the Scots, he was high in favour with his Sovereign. He had, moreover, the grant of the King's fee farm rents issuing out of this town, Myton, and Tupcoates, amounting in the whole to £70. per annum.* This year the King issued a proclamation to the Sheriff of Yorkshire, that no goods should be sold in the port of Hull before they were landed. Two years after Sir Robert Hastings waited upon the King, at York, and obtained a grant of him to lay a toll for the space of seven years, upon all such commodities as should be exposed in the market for sale, and the money to be employed in the paving of the streets. This toll, which was upon every quarter of corn, one farthing; upon every horse, mare, or cow, one penny; upon every salmon, one farthing; upon every lamprey, one farthing; upon every hundred of alum and copperas, one halfpenny; upon every hundred of stockfish, one halfpenny, &c., proved sufficiently productive for the purposes for which it was designed; the streets were everywhere well-paved and made commodious

Tickell's Hull, p. 16.

and neat. Historians tell us that all the stones made use of for this purpose were brought in ships from abroad. Leland says, that "at such tyme as al the trade of stokfisch for England cam from Isleland to Kingston, bycause the burden of stokfisch was light, the shipes were balissed with great coble stone brought out of Isleland, the which yn continuance paved al the toun of Kingeston thoroughout." Camden gives pretty nearly the same account. Tickell thinks it more probable that they were brought from the Spurn Head, or places adjacent, where plenty of them were to be had; but Mr. Frost tells us, that in the year 1400, paving stones constituted a part of the cargoes of two Dutch vessels, which arrived in that year, the Mariknight, of Amsterdam, having brought to the port 40,000; and the Skenkewyn, of Dordrecht, 16,000. In both of these instances, he continues, the paving stones appear to have been imported on account of the masters of the vessels, and it is therefore not improbable that they were brought for the two-fold object of ballast while on board, and of sale for paving the streets when landed.*

In 1322 many of the burgesses petitioned the King, for the greater safety and preservation of the place, to grant them a royal license for encompassing the town with ditches and castellated walls. The prayer of the petition was readily granted, and the fortification of the town commenced. In aid of the expenses of carrying on the work, a grant was made of certain tolls for five years; but the completion of the walls requiring further aid, another grant was made in 1325, of one penny in the pound, on the value of all goods and merchandise coming into the town, as well by land as by water. The walls were standing in the reign of Henry VIII., when that monarch's librarian (Leland) peregrinated England and Wales. That celebrated antiquary, "who notid a hole worlde of thinges very memorable," writes, that in the reign of Richard II., "The towne of Kingston-upon-Hull waxed very rich, and Michael de la Pole, merchant there, was made Count of Suffolk; in whose tyme the towne was wonderfully augmented in building, and was enclosyed with ditches, and the wall begun, and yn continuance endyd and made all of brike, as most part of the houses of the towne at that tyme was. In the wall (he adds) be four principal gates of brike, and yn one of them a posterne. Betwixt Mitongate and Hazelle (Hessle) gate there be three tours of brike; and from them to the haven mouth be five tours of brike. Michael de la Pole builded a goodly house of brike again the north end of St. Mary's Church, like a palace, with goodly orchard and garden enclosyed with brike. He also builded three houses in the towne, whereof every one has a tour of brike." Camden like

wise describes the walls as being built of brick.

Frost's Notices, p. 61. + Itin., vol. i., p. 49.

Antiquarians differ as to whether the original fortifications of Hull consisted of a ditch only, or if there was a wall as well as a ditch, and whether the wall was built of stone or brick. Leland tells us that the art of brick making, or, as they had been anciently called, wall tiles, which had been lost, or had fallen into disuse since the Roman period, was revived in Britain in the reign of Richard II.; and, as we have just seen, that the walls of Hull were built of brick in that reign.

Gent, in his History of Hull, says, that by the charter of Edward II., in 1322, “the inhabitants were empowered to build their houses for the future of lime and stone, and to make a wall, as designed by his predecessor, with a mote for their greater security." Dr. Charles Littleton, late Bishop of Carlisle, and President of the Society of Antiquaries in 1757, who wrote a Dissertation on the antiquity of brick buildings in England posterior to the time of the Romans, which was read before that society on the 20th of January, in the same year, has "no doubt that a stone wall was then built, and a moat made in consequence of this grant," for in the first of Richard II. (1378), according to Gent, he adds, that King "sent to Hull, to have the town put into a posture of defence, the long and happy reign of his predecessor having rendered their walls and ditches useless; but now the case being altered, the King commanded them to be repaired at the expense of the town." In the same paper the Bishop states that in September, 1756, he carefully examined the walls of Hull, and found part of the towers between Beverley and North Gates still standing, and entirely composed of brick; but that the part which stretched from the north Blockhouse towards Drypool Church, for a considerable length, was built of stone, but faced with brick. "This might lead one to suspect," he writes, "that the whole wall which surrounds the town had been faced in the same manner, and consequently might have been the work of a later age than the time of Richard II. I should indeed," he continues, "have embraced this opinion, had the town been first strengthened with a wall by De la Pole, as Leland asserts; but as Mr. Gent mentions a royal charter from King Edward II., to empower the inhabitants to build a stone wall, as designed by his predecessor; and a toll granted in consequence thereof; and we find Richard II. sending his orders to repair their walls, on an apprehension of the French and Scots invading England; I see no room to doubt of De la Pole's repairing with brick the old stone wall, and building the towers of the same materials."

Mr. Frost contends that the walls were built originally of brick, in the year 1322, and as to the use of the words stone and lime in the grant of Edward II., he thinks it was probably the usual language of licenses to

fortify, adopted in consequence of stone being the principal material then used for the fortification of buildings. Tiles, he says, were partially used in Hull in the reign of Edward II., and in proof of this assertion he states, on the authority of the town's records, that in a requisition taken in 1321, respecting the state of the manor of Myton, it is mentioned, that Sir Robert de Hastang, Knt., then Custos of the manor, had, in the preceding year, unroofed the buildings of a messuage in Lyle Street (now Mytongate), and had sold 3,000 tiles belonging to it for the sum of 10s. "The fact of the walls having been made of brick," continues the same writer, "is not only supported by the testimony of many persons now living, within whose memory they were taken down, but by the exposure of the foundations, which have been lately dug up in different places. The bricks taken from these foundations, like those in the chancel of Trinity Church, at Hull, are of Flemish shape, and similar to those which are groined in between the stone ribs of the vaulting over the passages through the Checquer or Western Gate of the Cathedral Close at Lincoln, the date of which is about the year 1350." He moreover states that in 1321, which was about the time when the walls were raised, William De la Pole had a tilery or brick yard, without the north gate of the town.* The town's records mention that a new brick yard was established here in 1357, at the west side of the Humber. The walls of Hull were frequently repaired and strengthened, and the town, from its situation, was considered an impregnable fortress. From an accurate measurement, taken before the military works were demolished, it appears that the walls of Hull were 2,610 yards in circuit, being 30 yards less than 14 mile. For several centuries after the building of its walls, the town was confined between the Humber to the south, the Hull to the east, and the walls to the north and west; beyond these limits all is modern. In the 5th of Edward III. (1331) the office of Custos or Warden of Hull was abolished, and the government of the borough was confided by royal charter to a Mayor and four Bailiffs, to be chosen annually.

In the reign of Edward II., the family of De la Pole flourished at Hull; and as the history of that illustrious house is intimately connected with that of Hull, we shall here briefly review it. Few towns can boast of having given rise to so celebrated a family; emerging from comparative obscurity to eminence, flourishing in such splendour, and experiencing such a variety of fortune. William de la Pole, second son of a knight of that name, was a native of Ravenspur, and an eminent merchant in that once rich and popu

Frost's Notices, pp. 141, 142.

VOL. II.

D

lous seaport. In consequence of the decline of his native town, he took up his abode at Hull, where he carried on an extensive commerce, and acquired immense wealth.

In 1332 Edward III., on his way to join his army in the north, paid a visit to Hull, and was entertained by Willliam de la Pole with the greatest possible magnificence. Being highly pleased with the excellent fortifications. of the place, and the reception he had met with, the monarch knighted his generous host before he took his departure. Tickell tells us that it was on this occasion he changed the government of the town from a Bailiff to the more honourable degree and dignity of a Mayor and four Bailiffs; but Mr. Frost states that the charter conveying this grant is dated 6th of May, 1331.* Sir William de la Pole filled the office of Mayor in 1333, and again in the year 1335; and other authorities state that he was the first Mayor of Hull, and that he continued in that office for the first three years.

During the war with France, which followed Edward's claim to that kingdom, from which he was excluded by the Salic law, the reader of English history is well aware of the straits to which that monarch was reduced, through the want of money to support his army. During his long stay at Brabant he endeavoured to borrow of all the foreign Princes who were able to supply him, and he even found himself under the necessity of applying to private persons to take up such sums as they were willing to lend. Sir William de la Pole, who was then at Antwerp for the management of his mercantile concerns, not only supplied the King with a large sum of money, which he had with him, but he also mortgaged the whole of his estates for his use. This loan amounted to £18,500., and Sir William was styled by the King "Dilectus Mercator noster," and "Mercator Regis."§ This act of loyal devotion was generously rewarded by Edward. He made Sir William a Knight-banneret in the field, and by letters patent conferred on him and his heirs 500 marks per ann. in crown rents, with a promise of an additional thousand marks per annum, in case he recovered his right of inheritance within the kingdom of France. As soon as the King returned victorious from France, he made Sir William first gentleman of the bed-chamber, then Lord of the Seigniory of Holderness, and he afterwards advanced him to other places of honour and emolument, and at length made him a Baron of the

Frost's Notices. + Tickell's Hull, p. 21.

Rapin, Hist. Eng., vol. i., p. 418.

§ This was an immense sum in those days, when wheat could be bought for 3s. 4d. a quarter, a fat sheep for 6d., and six pigeons for 1d., and when the daily pay of an Earl attending the King in time of war was 6s. 8d., in modern times the exact cost of a few minutes interview with an attorney.