“This dispute as to the Liberties and Privileges of the Tower began as early as 1465–66, the fifth of Edward IV. Early in Queen Elizabeth’s reign it was renewed; the points of controversy are referred to in the above letter (a letter from the Lord Mayor to the Lords of the Council complaining of the conduct of Sir William George, Porter of the Tower of London, regarding his usurpation of the Liberties and Franchises of the City by ‘compelling poor victuallers strangers, coming to London by ship or boat with fish, fruit, or such victuals, to give him such a quantity as pleased him to take, as two or three cod-fish from each boat, etc., without payment. Such as refused he caused to be imprisoned in the Tower, whereby the victuallers were discouraged to come to the City, and their number decreased, to the great hurt of the markets and the victualling of the City, especially at this present time of Lent’). The Council referred the question to the consideration of the Lord Chief-Justice of the Queen’s Bench (Sir Christopher Wray), the Lord Chief of the Common Pleas (Sir Edward Anderson), and the Master of the Rolls (Sir Gilbert Gerard), who gave their opinion upon some of the privileges claimed by the Lieutenant, but not upon the question of boundaries. They reported with respect to the claims of freedom from arrest by action in the City, and protections granted by the Lieutenant to officers and attendants in the Tower, and not obeying writs of _habeas corpus_; that in their opinion, persons daily attendant in the Tower, and serving the Queen there, should be privileged, and not arrested on any plaint in London, but this should not apply to writs of execution or _capias utlagatum_; that the Lieutenant ought to return every _habeas corpus_ out of any court at Westminster, so that the justices before whom it should be returned might either remand it with the body, or retain the matter before them, and deliver the body. They further gave their opinion that the claim of the Lieutenant, that if a person privileged in the Tower were arrested in London, he might detain any citizen found within the Tower until the other was delivered, was altogether against the laws of the realm. The Lords of the Council made an order settling these controversies, which was dated from Nonsuch, October 3rd, 1585. The question of boundaries still remained in dispute. Stowe quotes documents, which he says he had seen among the Records in the Tower, from which it would appear that the bounds in controversy were at Little Tower Hill, the Postern, and East Smithfield on one side, and on the other the extent of Tower Hill, and towards Barking Church. The City claimed the Postern Gate in the end of the London Wall by the Tower, and houses built near to the Wall and Postern; all the void ground within the Postern Gate—viz. the whole hill and ground where the scaffold for the execution of traitors stood, and where the Sheriffs of London received prisoners