The commercial prosperity of England is generally said to have been built up on the industries arising out of the woolpack. But in the fourteenth century capital was already being found for the development of many other enterprises. In 1307 there were complaints about London fog, owing to the use of coal as fuel. In the Sussex weald and the Forest of Dean the iron trade was so busy that it was necessary to import a considerable portion of the ore from Sweden and Spain. The excellence of English guns, it is said, contributed largely to the victories of Henry V in France.[4] The lost art of brickmaking was reintroduced by the Flemings. Cheaper labour and materials induced copper-founders from Dinant and bell-founders from Liege to transfer their trades hither. Instead of bringing beer from Prussia the shipmasters found it more profitable to export Maidstone ales into Flanders. Meanwhile, the towns from a position of semi-servitude had been step by step attaining to liberty, wealth and the political franchise. London led the way owing to the presence of merchants from Rouen and Caen who settled there immediately after the Conquest and took the position of a governing class prepared to treat with the King for privileges. The steps by which the various boroughs secured their rights of self-government, free speech in free meeting and equal justice would need several volumes to describe. They were won by steady solid perseverance, by customs allowed to grow up unnoticed during the quarrels between the barons and the royal favourites, by a direct bargain with the lord of the manor, or in a few instances by less ingenuous methods. Most of the towns, like London, were situated on the royal demesne. With these the work was comparatively easy. Secure of his ultimate supremacy, and indifferent to small sources of power, the king was generally willing to surrender local claims for a fixed payment in money. A Corporation was a better security for the payment of dues than petty officers given to peculation. Accordingly, from the reign of Henry I, charters were granted giving a progressive degree of liberty, although until the reign of John the King retained the nomination of the portreeve or mayor. The feudal baron was not so willing to part with his supremacy. But the nobility were rapidly becoming poorer; and the issue of the battle was ultimately with the strong. Either the powerful merchants’ guild, returning unwearied to the fray after each rebuff, by its steady dogged agitation ended in forcing a compromise, or else the traders deserted the place and let it dwindle away into a poverty-stricken village. Sometimes an ancient charter was alleged to exist and prescriptive rights claimed before a commission in the King’s Courts; and the longest purse could fee the most persistent counsel.