History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

SOME FEUDAL MILLS. 95
with certain fishings, are held of his Majesty by
mknight
service, and by the yearly fee-farme of d\ Chester.'
payable to George Cotton and Richard Cotton, esqs., 16. GamuU's
and their heirs." The tenure by knight's service— Purchase,
^^°°*
that of the previous holding by Sir R. Cotton— not
only entailed upon the alderman a responsibility for
possible military services, but had a more immediate
effect in placing his grandson and eventual heir,
Francis Gamull, in ward to the king.
17. One of the most curious and disastrous 17. Mills and
attempts of Edmund Gamull to increase the soke of ^^^terworks,
the mills was an alliance he made with the speculative
John Tyrer, owner of city waterworks built
closely adjoining the establishment of the king's
miller. Gamull became a partner in this concern,
agreeing to supply water or power from above the
causeway in the river; while Tyrer, as was alleged,
agreed on his part to supply no water to any citizens
who refused to grind at Dee Mills. This unwise
speculation was entered into in i6oi ; and, in the
light of subsequent events, it is significant to note
that in the same year some mysterious damage to
the causeway threw GamuU's corn mills into idleness
for several weeks. The full results of the league
with Tyrer were not experienced by Edmund Gamull,
as they accrued only after his death ;
but its early effects
caused him the gravest anxiety of his entire milling
career. The water supplying alike mills and waterworks
being impounded by the large stone dam across
the river, it was obvious that the abolition of this
causeway would set the citizens free of both Gamull
and Tyrer at one blow. The barrier across the river
was in truth a structure easily open to adverse criticism.
Nothing but the fact of its erection dating back prior
to the strict enactment of 1352 (ordering the de- Text, II. 185.
struction of causeways in navigable rivers erected