guilty parties.[1] These incidents show that although Henry could make liberal concessions, he would forego none of his legal rights against lawlessness. The other noteworthy point is that in the treaty concluded in 1269 between Henry and Magnus of Norway, a clause is to be found providing that, in case of a shipwreck on the coast of either country, the goods on board should be protected by the authorities, who were to give all the assistance in their power to the crews, while persons plundering were to be severely punished.[2]
The knowledge and utilisation of the directive powers of the magnet, and of the magnetised needle, were probably not new in Asia even so early as the beginning of the Christian era: but they were new in western Europe in the first half of the thirteenth century. It is therefore of interest to print two contemporary references to such primitive form of mariner's compass as then existed. Both were translated for Nicolas by Mr. Thomas Wright, the first from 'La Bible Guiot de Provins,' and the second from the preface to Michel's 'Lais Inedits'; and the originals of both are in verse.
"They make a contrivance which cannot lie by the virtue of the magnet: an ugly and brownish stone, to which iron spontaneously joins itself, they have; and they observe the right point. After they have caused a needle to touch it, and placed it in a rush, they put it in the water without anything more, and the rush keeps it on the surface. Then it turns its point towards the star with such certainty that no man will ever have any doubt of it, nor will it ever for anything go false. When the sea is dark and hazy that they can neither see star nor moon, therefore they place a light by the needle, and then they have no fear of going wrong. Towards the star goes the point, whereby the mariners have the skill to keep the right way. It is an art which cannot fail."
The second, more obscure, runs:-
"For a north wind nor for anything else does (without doubt) cease doing service the pole star clear and pure; the sailors by its light it throws often out of mishap, and assures them of their road; and when the night is too dark, still is it of such a nature that it makes iron draw to the loadstone, so that by force and by reason, and by a rule which lasts ever, they know the place where it is. They know its position on the way, when it is perfectly dark, all those who practise this art, who push a needle of iron till it almost disappears in a bit of cork, and touch it to the brown loadstone. Then it is placed in a vessel full of water, so that no one push it out; as soon as the water settles, to whatever place the point aims, the polar star is there without doubt."
Henry III. died on November 16th, 1272, and was succeeded by his son Edward I., then thirty-three years of age, and on his way home from a crusade.
