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fixed upon as one of the places where mints were to be established. By degrees all the flourishing towns of these parts, such as Barton, Hedon, Patrington, Grimsby, and Ravenspurn, were drained of their chief inhabitants and trade-Hull monopolizing all to itself-so that as it continually increased, those towns proportionately decreased; and at present little, if any, commercial business is transacted in any of them, except in Grimsby, which, from its favourable position on the Humber, coupled with the formation of railways, has of late years risen rapidly in the scale of importance.

Edward I., in the course of a progress to the north, visited Hull in the year 1300. He crossed the Humber, from Barton to Hessle, on the 26th of May, and the passage of the royal party across the ferry appears to have occupied two days; the sum of 13s. having been paid for the wages of Galfrid de Seleby and other sailors, with eleven barges and boats employed during that time. The high road northward (via regia) lay at that time in a direct line from Hessle to Beverley; but the King took a circuitous route thither, solely for the purpose of viewing the state of the newly-created borough of Hull. His stay there was of short duration, but the effects of his visit were soon visible in the various improvements by which it was succeeded, and particularly in the pavement of the streets; for defraying the expense of which a grant was made soon after the King's departure, of certain tolls, to be levied on all goods coming to the town for sale, within the five succeeding years. The roads in the vicinity were also repaired; and in 1303 the three great roads from Hull to Holderness, Beverley, and Anlaby, were appointed to be made. In the 19th of this reign (1291), a ferry was established between Barton and Hull, the extreme value of which, in 1320, was 40s. In 1356 it was leased at the yearly rent of £535. Os. 4d.; and in 1831, at a yearly rent of £800. The ferry now belongs to the Railway Company.

At a very early period, long anterior to the time that the situation of Hull attracted the attention of Edward I., the river Hull had experienced the change in its course, alluded to in the account we have given of that river in vol. i., page 32. As we have there shown, the old river was formerly on the west side of the town-the inlet, known by the name of Lime Kiln Creek being a part of it. The present river Hull, from the Humber to Sculcoates Gote, then called Sayer's Creek, but now the Old Harbour, is supposed to have been cut by Sayer de Sutton, to drain the marshes. The entire district for many miles round, being liable to violent floods, the country must have had the appearance of one vast lake, dotted with innumerable islands. Though it must perhaps remain undecided whether the diversion of the course of the river was the result of accident or design, it is not unreasonable to suppose, from the frequent irruptions of the rivers Hull and Humber, and the incessant and violent inundations to which the neighbourhood of the town was subject, that it is to be attributed to the former.

"Holderness, which has been described as an island," says Mr. Frost, "together with the entire district for many miles round Wyke and Myton, was peculiarly liable to the attacks of sudden floods, and in 1256 an extraordinary influx of the sea, which, according to Stowe and Walsingham, overflowed the whole of the eastern coast of England, extended to the fisheries and woods of Cottingham, belonging to the monks of Melsa, and swept away numbers of people of both sexes, together with many head of cattle; it also washed into the Humber a considerable quantity of land, which the monks had in Myton, and which was afterwards regained. These inundations were attended with the most serious consequences, and the sufferings they occasioned are described in terms of horror in an official letter, addressed by Archbishop Corbridge to the Prior and Convent of Giseburn, in 1301, which states, that in conveying the bodies of deceased persons from the chapel at Kingston to the parish church of Hessle for interment, it often happened that the bodies and attendants were all washed away by the water of the Humber. So dangerous indeed had these floods rendered the travelling between Hull and Anlaby, that the Commissioners, who were charged with the superintendence of the banks, and the protection of the country against inundations, found it necessary, at the commencement of the fourteenth century, to raise the road six feet above its ordinary level; this great work was effected by taking earth from the lands which lay to the north of the road, and the expenses incurred were directed by the Commissioners to be paid by the inhabitants of 'Kyngeston sur Hull, Hesill, Feriby, Swanland, Braythwayte, Westelveley, Willardby, Wolfreton, and Anlaghby.'"*

The irruptions of the Hull too were often attended with destructive consequences; and on one occasion the monks of Meaux complained of a loss from the inundations of that river and the Humber, of about six acres of arable land in Drypool, which was stated to be worth 2s. 6d. per ann.t Various ancient provisions have been made since the beginning of the reign of Edward II., for draining and embanking these parts. In the 30th of Edward III. (1356), it was reported to the King that the tides of the rivers Hull and Humber flowed four feet higher than usual, so that the road leading to Anlaby, and all the adjacent lands, were overflowed; his Majesty therefore granted letters patent for cleaning out the old ditch, and enlarging it twelve feet; and for cutting a new ditch, twenty-four feet broad, right through the pasture of Myton, into Hull, by which the waters might pass to and fro; and also for raising the road considerably higher. In the same year an ordinance was made by the Mayor and Commonalty, that all their lands without the walls, beyond the west postern, reaching from Lyle Street (now Mytongate) to the river Humber, should be let, free of rent, to such persons as would undertake to maintain the banks of the Humber in front of those lands, with a view to the safety and protection of the town and the adjacent country. The tides still continuing to rise higher than formerly, various commissions were issued to obviate this calamity; and in 1866 the tide rose so high, that the banks between Sculcoates and Hull gave way, and the water breaking in, not only swept away the cattle, but numbers of people were drowned in the general inundation, which flooded the whole country.

"In the reign of Richard II.," says Mr. Frost, "the possibility of the port being annihilated by the influx of the sea, was contemplated in the judgment pronounced against Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and in the time of Henry VI., the river had shifted so far from the town, that the greatest apprehensions were entertained, not only of the entire destruction of the port, but of the consequent desertion and depopulation of the place. With a view to prevent the occurrence of such a calamity, the King granted his license to the Mayor and Commonalty to purchase land to the extent of £100. per annum, for the reparation and protection of the port."*

The town and port were again threatened with destruction from the ravages of the Humber in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but by subsequent provisions the country was not only secured, but the low lands, which were unwholesome, not so much from their situation as from the effects of stagnant waters, rendered more healthy. The fact that this locality was subject to such dreadful inundations, scarcely leaves room for a doubt that the change in the course of the river was the effect of accident, occasioned by the breach of the bank under the influence of some overwhelming torrent, and Mr. Frost seems inclined to fix the period when this accident occurred, at the time of the great flood in 1256. In an agreement, made in 1269, between the Lady Joanna Stuteville and the Archbishop of York, mention is made of the former and her predecessors having had long previously enjoyed the privilege of putting down an iron chain across the river Hull at a place called Stanfordrak, from sunset to sunrise, in the time of war and tumult, for the security of the country against foreigners and disturbers of the peace.

• Frost's Notices, p. 35.

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

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 likewise describes the walls as being built of brick.

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