Lynn was now in a fair way to become the Liverpool of mediæval times. Under King John its prudent bishop obtained for the town charters granting it all the liberties and privileges of a free borough, saving the rights of its lords;[521] and then at once proceeded by a bargain with the convent at Norwich to win back for the see the whole of the lay property in the old borough, leaving to the monks only the churches and spiritual rights. Once more sole master of the town, his supremacy was only troubled by the lords of Castle Rising who, by virtue of a grant from William Rufus, claimed half the profits of the tolbooth and duties of the port, while the bishop had the other half. In 1240 however an exact agreement was drawn up between prelate and baron as to their respective rights; and the bailiffs of both powers maintained a somewhat boisterous jurisdiction over the waters of Lynn,[522] collected their share of dues paid by the town traders on cargoes of herrings, or on the wood, skins, and wine they imported from foreign parts, and in their own way made distresses for customs, plaints, and so forth. Thus Robert of Montault, in the time of Edward the Second, set up a court under his own bailiff at one of the bridges, and caused the merchants “rowing and flowing to the said town of Lynn with their ships and boats, laden as well with men as with merchandise,” to be summoned, distrained, and harassed, “both by menacing them with hurling of stones that they come to land and tarry, and by extorting heavy fines from them,” till at last in despair the traders gave up their business, and sold all their ships and boats. And when the exasperated burghers in their turn set upon these alien officers in 1317 and threw Robert himself into prison,[523] this outbreak only brought upon them new calamities, for they were condemned by the King’s judges to make atonement for their crime by paying to the offended lord within the next six or seven years a fine of four thousand pounds; which was practically equal to the confiscation of the whole of the municipal expenditure for about thirty years. Soon after this, however, the rights of the lords of Rising were sold to the Queen Dowager Isabella and passed through her to Edward the Third; so the rough and ready methods of their bailiffs came to an end.[524]