From the 'mene thing, as an inhabitation for Fischars,' that Leland says it was in the reign of Henry II, the town grew rapidly, and before the end of the thirteenth century it was represented in Parliament. In 1287, for the first time on record, the splendid harbour was officially recognized as a grand rendezvous, and three hundred and twenty-five vessels gathered here before sailing for Guienne under the command of the King's brother. Half a century later, orders were sent that men and ships should be collected at Plymouth to escort Princess Johanna, the King's daughter, to Gascony, and escorts for various Princes had to be provided on several occasions. The Black Prince was kept by contrary winds in the port for forty days, when he was on his way to France to fight the 'glorious battell at Poictiers.' In the early part of the fifteenth century Plymouth suffered severely from the attacks of the French and Bretons, and in 1403 the Bretons, under the Sieur du Chastel, burned six hundred houses in the part since called Briton Side. The name became gradually transformed into 'Burton,' but the memory of the raid survived so far, Mr Worth tells us, as to enable the boys who lived in the Old Town to taunt the 'Burton boys' during the wars with France, by reminding them of the harm that the French had done to their quarter.
On Freedom Day, a 'local Saturnalia kept as such from the earliest times,' one of the features was the fighting between the Old Town and Burton boys for a barrel of beer, provided by the Mayor. Long after this custom had been dropped, the recollection of it was revived by the sign of a public-house, the Burton Boys, though eventually the owner changed the sign to that of the Black Lion, as he 'wished for some more peaceful name'!
Plymouth does not seem to have been much affected by the Wars of the Roses, but Henry VII, as Earl of Richmond, 'while he houered upon the coast,' came ashore at Cawsand, and here 'by stealth refreshed himselfe; but being advertised of streight watch, kept for his surprising at Plymouth, he richly rewarded his hoste, hyed speedily a ship boord, and escaped happily to a better fortune.'
The fisheries of the port are old and important. The earliest grant now to be traced, made by Reginald de Valletort to Plympton Priory, was that of all his fishing rights in Tamar and Lynher--a privilege which Mr Worth thinks was probably bestowed 'not long after the manor passed into the hands of the Valletort family.' In 1384 Parliament decreed that all fish caught in the waters of Sutton, Plymouth, and Tamar should be displayed for sale in Plymouth and Aish [Saltash] only, which sounds as if Plymouth were already jealous of other fish-markets, as was certainly the case later on. During parts of the sixteenth century the industry flagged, and in Henry VIII's reign a royal proclamation ordered abstinence from flesh on Saturdays as well as Fridays, with the frank explanation that this was 'not only for health and discipline, but for the benefit of the Commonwealth, and profit of the fishing trade.' In Queen Elizabeth's reign matters were still worse, for the eating of fish had now come to be a badge of religious opinions, and '"to detest fish" in all shapes and forms had become a note of Protestantism.'