water to the surface at a mine at Whickham on the Tyne, belonging to the Bishop of Durham. In the roll of the stock-keeper of the Bishopric for the year 1492-3, a payment is recorded for "two great iron chains for the ordinance of the mine at Whickham, for drawing coals and water out of the coal pit there, by my lord's command.”

Other difficulties besides those arising from water were also beginning to embarrass the miners. Among these may be mentioned underground fires, several of which occurred in the sixteenth century. Thus at Coleorton, in Leicestershire, the coal was on fire and burnt many years during the reign of Henry VIII. The coal at Dysart, in Fifeshire, was on fire equally early and continued to burn for more than two centuries. Buchanan from this circumstance fixed on the neighbourhood of Dysart for the scene of the exorcism in his Franciscanus et Fratres (written in the reign of James V.), and describes the place as it appeared under one of those violent eruptions which are stated to have occurred periodically.

As the collieries became deeper and more extensive, the natural ventilation became more feeble and inconstant, and noxious gases began to imperil the safety of the miners. These gases we first hear of about the middle of the sixteenth century, writing at which time Dr. Kaye, or Keys (the founder of Caius College, Cambridge), speaks of certain coal pits in the northern

parts of Britain, "the unwholesome vapour whereof is so pernicious to the hired labourers that it would immediately destroy them if they did not get out of the way as soon as the flame of their lamps becomes blue and is consumed."

In other respects the working of the collieries was conducted with great simplicity. The miner's tools consisted of the pick, the hammer and wedge, and the wooden shovel. The only machine in common use was the windlass for raising the buckets or baskets of coal in the shaft; and in the collieries in the east of Scotland even the windlass was unknown, the coals being carried up stairs in the shafts on the backs of women termed coal-bearers." Above ground the produce was conveyed away from the mine either in ordinary wains, or in panniers on horseback, both methods being in common use.

CHAPTER IV.

COMBINATION AMONG THE COAL OWNERS ᎪᎢ NEW

CASTLE.-TAXES IMPOSED ON COAL.-THE HEARTHMONEY OR CHIMNEY-TAX.

-THE COAL FLEET.

"This great trade hath made this part to flourish in all trades." --Chorographia; or, A Survey of Newcastle-on-Tyne.

ONE of the first consequences of the increased demand for coal, arising from its extended use for domestic purposes, was an advance in the price of the commodity. This was doubtless due at least in part to natural causes, but at the time it was wholly ascribed to a "combynation" among the colliery owners in the north, which was brought about in the following

manner :

In the year 1582 Queen Elizabeth obtained from the Bishop of Durham a lease of the manors of Gateshead and Whickham, with all the coal-pits, &c., for a term of ninety-nine years. This lease (called the Grand Lease) was procured from the Queen by the Earl of

Leicester, who transferred it to his secretary, Sir Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charter House. Sutton again, for the sum of 12,000l., assigned his interest in the lease to the "Society of Free Hosts" of Newcastle-on-Tyne for the benefit of the town. The members of this society, about sixty in number, many of whom were coal owners, next compounded among themselves and made over their whole right to about eighteen or twenty, who having coal-pits of their own before engrossed the whole trade, and combined to sell coal at their own prices. These few persons, besides the Grand Lease, had secured all the principal mines about Newcastle, viz., Stella, the Bishop's Colliery, Ravensworth Colliery, Mr. Gascoigne's Colliery, Newburn Colliery, and others, of which they opened and shut up such and so many as they thought good.

While Sutton held the Grand Lease the price of coal of the best sort-which for a long time previously stood at 4s. per chaldron-rose to 6s.; and after this lease came into the possession of the town of Newcastle (1591 A.D.), the price rose successively to 7s., 8s., and 9s. On this the Lord Mayor of London protested to Lord Burleigh against the action of the northern coal owners, and requested an order from the Privy Council that all owners and farmers of coal-mines might open them and sell the coal at reasonable rates, not exceeding 7s. per chaldron, and might ship their coal at the most convenient places without any restraint. No steps,

however, appear to have been taken beyond the summoning of two aldermen from Newcastle to explain the causes of the advance in the price of coal. The regulation of the trade, or "management of the vend" as it was termed, was in full force in the early part of the following century; and long continued to be a peculiar feature of the Tyne coal trade.

Some other attempts to establish coal monopolies were made at this period at Coventry in the Warwickshire coal-field, and at Bristol in Somersetshire, but these were merely of local importance.

Scarcely had the coal trade begun to assume more extended proportions before it became subjected to a system of heavy taxation. Reference has been made to a small ancient duty of 2d. per chaldron due to the Crown upon all coal sold to persons not franchised in the port of Newcastle. This, it seems, had for a length of time been neglected to be paid, and Queen Elizabeth demanded such arrears from the burgesses of Newcastle that they professed themselves unable to satisfy the claim, but offered instead to pay a duty of 1s. per chaldron for the future on all coal sold to the free people of England. The compromise was accepted by the Queen, and the duty continued to be levied during a long period. Under the name of "the Richmond shilling" (so termed on account of the proceeds arising from it being subsequently granted by Charles II. to