Afterwards, when his lordship the King gave unto the citizens a new Charter as to their liberties, in which it is set forth that no merchant stranger shall buy or sell any wares that ought to be weighed or troned, except by the beam and tron of his lordship the King, under forfeiture of the whole of such wares--and this, too, had been proclaimed throughout all the City--these merchants, nevertheless, continued to weigh as they had previously done. But when the King and his Council were given to understand this, his bailiffs, in accordance with his command, took all the balances and weights of the said merchants, and upon good sureties, attached the persons themselves. Afterwards, in this year, ... the King summoned the said merchants to appear before himself and his Council at Westminster; and because they were convicted ... and because their balances and weights, when examined in the King’s Exchange, were found, it is said, to be untrue, they were adjudged to be amerced and committed to prison; immediately upon which, being about twenty in number, they were taken to the Tower and there imprisoned. On the morrow, too, their balances and weights were burnt in Westchepe; and such parts thereof as could not be consumed by fire, were broken to pieces with iron hammers, and wholly destroyed.... Then the said merchants made fine to the King in the sum of one thousand pounds sterling; and this under compulsion, as it were, they being in dread of being thrust into a most noisome prison. A.D. 1270 ... in this year, about Easter last past, it was provided by the common Council of his lordship the King, that cloths coming into England from the parts beyond sea should contain at least 26 ells in length, and an ell and a half in breadth, under forfeiture of the whole piece of cloth. And at the same time, orders were given to the merchants that, after the Fair of St. Botolph then next coming, they should not bring any cloths into England, under the penalty aforesaid, unless they should be of the said length and breadth, burels [coarse cloths] of Normandy excepted. RIGHTS OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON A.D. 1246 In this year, the citizens of London took Queen Hithe, they paying a yearly rent of fifty pounds to Earl Richard, and sixty shillings to the Sick of St. Giles’s without London.