This game of see-saw between Crown and Parliament with reference to the Yarmouth Charter, was an episode in the struggle which was going on between these Powers during the whole of the 14th century and which forms an important chapter in our constitutional history. The result of the contest as regards the fortunes of the two towns would seem to have been a complete triumph for Yarmouth; involving restrictions on the trade of Lowestoft, which were intended to deprive it of any share in the herring trade, beyond the produce of their own fishing boats. This however was by no means the actual result. The obnoxious charter proved to be perfectly harmless to Lowestoft, if not entirely useless to Yarmouth. It was beyond the power of Yarmouth to enforce it effectually. The statue of Herrings, forbidding the “forestalling” of the Free Fair by buying herrings from ships at sea, applied to the Yarmouth merchants as well as to Lowestoft men. The anomalous right given to the Yarmouth Bailiffs of exacting harbour dues from ships anchored in the sea, at a distance of several miles from their harbour mouth, must have been incapable of enforcement, without a fleet of armed bailiffs. It would appear that Yarmouth made little or no attempt to enforce the provisions of the charter against Lowestoft merchants buying herrings within the 7 leucæ, and contented themselves with claiming harbour dues from the ships which discharged their herrings there. In this claim they had for some years the assistance of the Lowestoft merchants themselves, who undertook to farm the tolls of the town. They paid as much as £26 a year for these tolls in the years 1393–4–6. This blackmail was, however, soon reduced, and in a few years the task of collecting the tolls was left in the hands of the Yarmouth Bailiffs themselves.