“In the year 1235, you will recollect that Isabel, third daughter of King John, by his third Queen, Isabella of Angoulême, was sent with great splendour into Germany, to marry the Emperor Frederick II. She was attended by William Brewer, Bishop of Exeter, and a Privy Councillor to King Henry III., and also by the Archbishop of Cologne, the Imperial proxy, who had pronounced her Empress. Upon this occasion, according to the customs of the ancient Norman Law and the Feudal System, the King received an aid to furnish her dowry, of two marks out of every Knight’s Fee;--that is to say, as it is usually accepted, £1. 6_s._ 8_d._ from every person who possessed an estate of £20. per annum, which was granted by the Common Council of the kingdom. This rather uncommon aid, you find certified in Thomas Madox’s ‘_History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England_,’ London, 1711, folio, page 412; and in the voluminous collections of that eminent Antiquary, now preserved with Sir Hans Sloane’s Manuscripts in the British Museum, No. 4563, page 181 b, is the following very curious document, which connects this circumstance with the history of London Bridge. ‘To be remembered concerning the payments of Purprestures’--fines for enclosing and damaging of Land--‘and of Escheats’--accidental returns of estates to their principal owners,--‘It is commanded to the Sheriffs, that they get all the arrears of all the above rents, and the issues of all Purprestures and Escheats; _excepting the rents of London Bridge_, and the remainder of the amerciaments belonging to the Circuit of W. of York,’--most probably Walter Grey, then Archbishop of York, and Lord Chancellor,--‘as well in the County of Middlesex as at the Tower, and all the deficiencies (of the aid) for marrying the King’s sister, and for the passing over this sea into Gascony.’ In the Exchequer Rolls of the 32nd of Henry III., A. D. 1247, 12 a. “Towards the latter end of the year 1248, King Henry vainly endeavoured to collect from his Barons, a sum sufficient to enable him to recover certain provinces in France; upon which, he offered a portion of his plate and jewels for sale to the Citizens of London, by whom they were bought. The King, displeased at finding they readily procured money for such a purpose, and yet pleaded poverty whenever he solicited a supply, resolved upon retaliation; and, to that end, kept his Christmas in the City, forced the inhabitants to present him with divers costly New Year’s gifts, and established a Market at Westminster, to last for fifteen days, beginning on the 13th of October, during which time all other fairs were suspended, and, in London itself, all commerce was prohibited. I think too, that we may trace the effects of Henry’s anger yet farther; for, in the Patent Roll of the 34th year of his reign, 1249, Membrane the 5th, is the following writ.