Even the fact that Lynn had been the depository of the king’s treasures, with his crown and regalia, during his absence from these parts, and till he removed them at his last departure, becomes very doubtful, or rather quite improbable, if we believe Rapin’s assertion, from M. Paris, that the king’s great competitor, the Dauphin, not long before, and within that same year, had actually reduced Lynn, and made the whole county, as well as those of Suffolk and Essex tributary to him. In that case, those treasures, &c. if deposited here, must inevitably have fallen into the Dauphin’s hands, and so be entirely lost to the king. We must therefore either conclude that the alleged fact of Lynn having been the depository of the said treasures, for any length of time, is unfounded, or that the said assertion, that Lynn had been that year taken by the Dauphin, is so. But as these matters are not very interesting, we will now drop them, and also our account of king John for the present. After the death of John, and in the reign of his son and successor, Henry III. the people of Lynn, at one time, seem to have sided with the malcontents of that period, and so forfeited their chartered rights: but their defection was of no long duration; they returned to their duty with every appearance of contrition, and soon gave full proof of the ardour, as well as the unfeignedness of their loyalty. Camden says that they “purchased their lost liberties of Henry III. not without blood, when they sided with him against the outlawed barons, and unluckily engaged them in the Isle of Ely. An account whereof we have in the book of Ely, and in Matthew Paris.” {399a} The battle here alluded to was fought somewhere about Littleport, where the Lynn volunteers of that day were very roughly handled by their opponents, and lost a considerable number of their people; of which mention has been made by several of our historians. In the 8th and 9th years of that king’s reign, licence was granted to foreign merchants to come with safety to the fair of Lenn; and in the 11th year a talliage was granted to the king by the bishop. The oath of the burghers then was, “You shall faithfully pay your talliage made by the lord (bp.) at his will, of all your chattels’ of your own property, whatever they are, and of the chattels of your wife, and all that is your due to pay.” {399b} Thus payment was made upon oath; but the tax was granted to the king by the bishop, without the concurrence of the burghers; and also assessed and levied by him _at his will_, without check or control. In such a case, and under such circumstances, it might be reasonably supposed there would be some misdoings, and not a few causes of complaint, and that misunderstanding would arise between his lordship and his Lynn vassals, which might lead to very serious results. That it really did so happen appears from authentic documents.