PORTS.—Ports and Havens were, however, essentially royalties, and, as we have seen, could be granted to religious houses. They were naturally in the king’s hand, for this reason: in the early times of which we treat, the stranger is looked upon as an enemy, and every one who does not belong to the association for the maintenance of peace, is _primâ facie_ out of the peace altogether. This applies to sailors, as well as travelling chapmen who wander from mark to mark or county to county; and it applied with peculiar force to England after her coasts became exposed to repeated invasions from the North. Still as England could not subsist without foreign commerce, and early became alive to that great principle of her existence, a system of what we may call navigation laws was established. The bottoms of friendly powers were of course received upon terms of reciprocal favour, but even strange ships had the privilege of safety if they made certain harbours, designated for that purpose. At the treaty of Andover, in 994, Æðelræd and his witan agreed, that every merchant-ship that voluntarily came into port should be in the peace; and even if it were driven into port (whether by force or by stress of weather is not specified), and there were a friðburh, asylum, or building in the peace, in which the men took refuge, they and their ship and cargo should enjoy the peace[180]. It is hardly to be doubted that the king had the power of declaring what ports should be gefriðod or in the peace; and as this privilege would necessarily draw many advantages to any harbour that possessed it, we can reasonably conclude that it was made a source of profit, both by the king and those to whom he might think fit to grant it. ----- Footnote 180: Æðelr. ii. § 2. Thorpe, i. 284. ----- WARDSHIP and MARRIAGE.—Wardship and Marriage appear to have been royalties; we must however believe them to have been confined to the children and widows of the thanes or comites, and to be a deduction from the principles of the Comitatus itself. In the secular law of Cnut there is a series of provisions, extending from the 70th to the 75th clause, which can only be looked upon in the light of alleviations, and which in the 70th clause the king himself declares so to be. From the nature of the relief thus afforded, we may infer that the royal officers had exercised their powers in a manner oppressive to the subject. Accordingly the king and his witan proceed to regulate the voluntary nature of the _feormfultum_, the legal amount of heriot, the descent of property in the case of intestacy, and the kings’s guardianship of the same; they protect the widow and heirs against vexatious suits, by providing that they shall not be sued, if the lord and father had remained undisturbed, and lastly they regulate what appear to me to be the rights of wardship and marriage.