Such being the intention of the Charter you will not be surprised to learn that it met with strenuous opposition from Lowestoft. LOWESTOFT MEN PROSECUTED BY THE YARMOUTH BAILIFFS FOR CONTRAVENTION OF THIS CHARTER. When the foreign and west country fishing boats appeared in the Roads in the autumn, and the Lowestoft men went out, as usual, with their boats to buy herring from the ships at anchor off the denes, officers appeared from Yarmouth armed with authority from the Bailiffs, to enforce the new law, and to seize any ships selling or discharging herrings in contravention of their charter. They found a large number of Lowestoft men purchasing herrings from ships within the prohibited area, but instead of attempting to seize the ships, which was their proper remedy under the charter, they took the more prudent course of prosecuting the buyers, and some 25 Lowestoft men were summoned before the Yarmouth Bailiffs. They met the indictment brought against them by an appeal, and it was removed by writ of certiorari to the King’s court in Westminster Hall. The indictment states, after reciting the charter,— “That on Friday next after the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist (18th October) John Botild of Lowestoft bought of John Trampt of Ostend, an alien, in the said place called Kirkley Road, which is within the 7 leuks, twenty-five lasts of new herring (value 50 pounds.) and the said alien took his boat, (value 20 shilling) out of the ship, and in the night elongated himself (i.e. ran away) to his own proper house, and hauled the boat ashore, so that the said bailiffs could not touch the said herring, nor the boat, nor the ship, to arrest them, because the aforesaid alien had by the advice of the said John Botild elongated himself, nor could they thence by any means answer it as a forteiture to the Lord the King.” The defence of the Lowestoft men was that the prohibited area only extended as far as a place called “Stampard” (the Stanford channel?) construing the term “leuca”, as equivalent to “mile,” (which was the construction afterwards put upon it); and that the ships from which they bought herrings were lying beyond this distance. The trial of the appeal came on before the King at Westminster Hall in the Spring term of 1374, but was adjourned for further hearing; a proceeding caused probably by the congested state of business in the Law Courts, an inconvenience to suitors not unknown even at the present time. What the end of the case was we are not informed, but it evidently went against Lowestoft. Meanwhile the Lowestoft people had appealed to another power. In 1376 they presented a petition to Parliament for the repeal of the obnoxious charter. FIRST REVOCATION OF EDWARD’S CHARTER TO YARMOUTH.