This is valuable for a picture of the gradual process by which England changed from the fen and forest condition in which the Romans found it, to the corn-producing country of to-day. The passages quoted deal with the draining of the area about the Wash, from which the sea had gradually receded, and which is known as the Great Level, or the Bedford Level. Dugdale wrote at the close of the Commonwealth period, and his review brings out the value of the monastic care of the drainage works up to the dissolution of the abbeys; also the fact that such undertakings as this requiring capital were managed by companies of Adventurers, exactly similar to those who took up colonization. The grants of land by which Bedford and his associates were repaid, are an instance of the way the members of such Companies grew to be the plutocrats who, in the eighteenth century, were able to control politics by the purchase of seats or of votes in Parliament. Bedford was the recognized head of a great party under George II and George III. LONDON THE HANSA LEAGUE’S HOUSE IN LONDON (Stow, Book II, p. 202) Next to [Cofin Lane] is the Stelehouse, or Steleyard (as they term it) a Place for Merchants of Almaine [German States] that used to bring hither, as well Wheat, Rye, and other Grain, as Cables, Ropes, Masts, Pitch, Tarr, Flax, Hemp, Linen Cloth, Wainscots, Wax, Steel and other profitable Merchandises. Unto these Merchants, in the Year 1239, Henry III at the request of his brother, Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of Almaine, granted that all and singular the Merchants have a House in the City of London, commonly called Guilda Aula Theutonicorum, should be maintained and upholden through the whole Realm, by all such Freedoms, and free Usages or Liberties, as by the King and in his noble Progenitors Time, they had enjoyed.... And in the 10th Year of the same Edward II Henry Wales being Maior, a great Controversie did arise between the said Maior and the Merchants of the Haunce of Almaine, about the Reparations of Bishopsgate, then likely to fall; for the said Merchants enjoyed divers Privileges, in respect of maintaining the said Gate, which they now denied to repair ... a Precept was sent to the Maior and Sheriffs, to destrain the said Merchants to make the Reparations.... And so they granted 210 Marks sterling to the Maior and Citizens and undertook that they and their Successors should (from Time to Time), repair the said Gate, and bear the third Part of the Charges in Money and Men to defend it when need were.