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70 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: vol. iv.
III.
DEE MILLS,
CHESTER.
6. Alleged
Malpractices,
1397.
Harl. MSS.,
2057.
7. Inquisition,
1400.
Harl. MSS.,
2083. 517.
pending one of the usual claims for repairs, &c.,
against the king; and in 1405 a writ issued by
Henry IV. ordered
'*
John Wales and Mary his wife,
late fermors and receivers of the profits of mills of
Dee," to appear before the sheriffs and answer for
their arrears in respect of the same. Despite the foregoing
invidious record, John Walsh seems to have
been a man of repute in Chester. He was mayor in
1407, and again in 1411 ; while in 1409 he appears as
one of the dozen sureties for R. del Hope, a deputy
keeper of the mills ; and it seems, in fact, probable
that the extortions of which he was held to be guilty
were based on customs he had found in operation ;
and which, indeed, were enforced after he left, with
important results.
7. Thomas de Mostyn was the next appointed
lessee, and during his administration a series of
alleged extortions and abuses, said to have been
rampant " for forty years and more," reached an acute
stage. The citizens seem to have rebelled and
demanded an enquiry ; in any case an inquisition was
held, at which amazing evidences of malpractices by
the millers were produced. According to the finding
of the jury, Mostyn and his subordinates, like their
predecessors, were guilty of extortions alike against
bakers and burgesses, brewers and ;
*'paupores" and
so important was the verdict esteemed with regard
to the true customs, usages, and tolls of the mills,
Elizabeth it was
that as late as the reign of Queen
rendered into English and entered at length in the
Pentice Chartulary of Chester.* The following tran-
script is taken from this record, still existing among
the muniments of the city, and collated with a copy
of the same by Randle Holmes in the Harleian MSS.
* The Pentice, or Penthouse, was the court-house where the mayor anciently
dispensed justice.