Wisbech Barton manor a freedom or exemption from toll in all fairs or markets throughout England, which A.D. grant was afterwards confirmed by king John; and when 1214. this latter monarch was driven to extremity by his barons, who had offered to acknowledge Louis, eldest son of Philip of France, for their sovereign, he seems to have been flying from one place of defence to another for refuge, for more than four months in which period we hear of him at Winchester, Hereford, Gloucester, Oxford, Cambridge, Lynn, Wisbech, &c. Most of the quarters where the king took refuge were places of strength, and had their castles. At this time, the inhabitants of Lynn, which ranked high among the trading towns of the kingdom, espoused that monarch's cause to the utmost of their ability, and manifested their zeal, not only by raising recruits for his army, but by furnishing sailors and ships for naval operations; and whilst there, he granted to the townsmen various privileges and immunities, raising them to be a free burgh, with a charter of incorporation.* On his departure from Lynn on the 12th October 1216, the king came to Wisbech, 1216. as Dr. Brady proves from original records in the tower, and in all probability took up his residence at the castle there, as a place of defence. There is no solid mark of this monarch's residence at Wisbech, except that he * King John, notwithstanding all the faults which, it is to be feared, are too justly charged upon him, had some right notions for the advancement and prosperity of the towns and people: he erected demesne towns into free burghs, which prepared the way for the gradual diffusion of commerce through his dominions. Instead of king's collectors levying sundry tolls and taxes, there was now only one annual sum paid, which was called "the "Fee Farm Rent" of each respective burgh. Before his time, the crown had appointed a chief officer, who raised several taxes in an arbitrary way. King John gave the townsmen the privilege of electing their chief officer annually out of their own body. might furnish the means of erecting certain almshouses, there being buildings of that denomination, called by many "King John's Almshouses," situate on the north side of the church-yard; but this is a very doubtful matter, and even if they were erected from his donation when at Wisbech, they certainly have been re-built, not bearing the least mark of antiquity about them. The king was at this time assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting a great battle, and thus striking a decisive blow; but after leaving Wisbech, he took the road across the washes, which he attempted to pass at an improper time, when he lost, by the flow of the sea, all his carriages, treasures, baggage, and regalia.* The affliction of this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state of his affairs, no doubt helped to increase the sickness under which he was then labouring; nevertheless, he proceeded onward, and took up his abode at Swineshead abbey, in Lincolnshire, and on the 15th of October arrived at Sleaford, but when he reached the castle of Newark on the 18th, he was obliged to halt, soon after which his distemper 66 * Matthew Paris, who died in 1259, makes king John lose his baggage in crossing the river Nene. He says, "Veniens autem per Burgum et 'Croilandiam, ipsam ecclesiam deprædatus est, deinde per maneria "abbatis de Croiland transiens, omnes segetes ejus sicut erant, in fine "autumni, congestæ in favillas redegit. Novissime per urbem que Len "appellatur transitum faciens, ab urbanis cum gaudio susceptus est, et "magnis donariis honoratus. Deinde versus aquilonem iter arripiens, "in fluvio qui Welle Stream dicitur, carretas omnes, vigas et summarios "cum thesauris vasis pretiosis et regalibus omnibus, quæ propensiori I cura dilexit, inopinato eventu amisit. Aperta est enim in mediis "fluctibus, terra et voraginis abyssus quæ absorbuerunt universa, cum "hominibus et equis ita quo'm nec pes unus evasit, qui regi casum "nunciaret." There is a house at some distance below Sutton Washway which still bears the name of " King John's House," and tradition says hẹ crossed there. See also a place called King's Creek, p. 60, (Note.) " put an end to his life, in the forty-ninth year of his age and eighteenth of his reign, and thus freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed by his success and by his misfortunes. About twenty years after this period, a very lamentable A.D. disaster befel the town of Wisbech, by a most violent 1236. storm and tempest causing an inundation of the sea, which carried all before it, and laid the town and country many miles around it under water. Holinshed, in his chronicles, thus notices it: "About this time, (21st Henry III.) many wonderful strange lights were seen "in different parts of England, afterwards followed by great tempests of rain, and on the morrow after "the feast of St. Martin, and certain days after, the "sea burst out, with such tides and tempests of wind, "that the marish countries neare to the same were "drowned and overflowen, beside great heards and "flocks of cattel that perished. The sea rose con tinually in flowing the space of two days and one "night without ebbing, by reason of the mighty "violence of contrarie winds. At Wisbech also, and "in villages thereabouts, the people were drowned in great numbers, so that in one village there were "buried one hundred corpses in one day. Also, the day "before Christmas eve, there chanced a great wind, "with thunder and rain in such extream, that many buildings were shaken and overthrown."* * Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 220. Matthew of Westminster also makes the following remark on the same storm: "In crastino vero beati Martini et per octavas ipsius, vento validissimo, associato tumultu quasi tonitruo, "mundaverunt fluctus maris metas solidas, transeuntes ita quod in confusio “ ipsius maris, et in marisco utpote apud Wisebeche, et locis consimilibus "navícula pecora necnon et hominum maxime periit multitudo." |