![]() ![]() This body was sufficiently independent as to venture on occasion to refuse to grant the full maltolt asked for. 5 For making ordinances and obtaining grants of maltolts the mayor and jurats had to resort to the common assembly, known after the method of its summoning as a ‘hornblowing’. One or two of these custodes were usually jurats, the others being drawn from rising commoners, who by their tenure of office fitted themselves to fill the next vacancies among the jurats. The common chest and seal were carried to his house, although this practice probably ceased after 1368, from which date four custodes bonorum ville were elected to collect and disburse the town’s revenues. The new mayor then selected the jurats for the forthcoming year, usually naming the same men as had been in office previously, with one or two changes at most. But the jurats (although they could not intervene at an earlier stage) might reject a person whom they considered unsuitable and oblige those assembled to put forward another. According to the custumal compiled in the mid 14th century the commonalty elected the mayor every year on 8 Sept. ![]() The internal government of Dover was left in the hands of the mayor and 12 jurats. However, the barons had reasonable security against royal interference through this agency, in the fact that between 13 the office was normally held by a townsman and, in any case, those royal servants who did secure the post usually nominated one of the barons to act as their deputy. The chief officer in Dover was the King’s bailiff, who presided over the town court and accounted for the revenues due to the Crown. The barons frequently procured orders to have Dover’s privileges observed, and Edward III’s ordinance was confirmed by Richard II in 1381, reiterated in the Parliament of 1390 (Jan.), and approved by Henry IV in 1399. Before 1380 they even tried to make the merchants of the Staple at Calais, crossing in their own ships, pay Dover the usual toll of 3 s.4 d. The barons did their best to reinforce Dover’s natural advantages by securing a legal monopoly based on custom and a royal ordinance issued in 1335, which forbade any travellers save for recognized merchants to cross the Channel except from Dover. It suffered for a time in Edward III’s early French wars, owing to the absence of a secure port of landing on the other side of the Channel, but the capture of Calais remedied this lack, though it also provided a rival for control of the crossing. Dover’s prosperity was firmly based on its position as the main port of embarkation for travellers to the continent. No fortification in the British Isles has a longer recorded history than Dover castle, and the town on its doorstep shares its antiquity.
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