And in England it hath always been held, that the king is lord of the whole shore, and particularly is the guardian of the ports and havens, which are the inlets and gates of the realm: and therefore, so early as the reign of king John, we find ships seised by the king's officers for putting in at a place that was not a legal port. These legal ports were undoubtedly at first assigned by the crown; since to each of them a court of portmote is incident, the jurisdiction of which must flow from the royal authority: the great ports of the sea are also referred to, as well known and established, by statute 4 Hen. IV. c. 20. which prohibits the landing elsewhere under pain of confiscation: and the statute 1 Eliz. c. 11. recites that the franchise of landing and discharging had been frequently granted by the crown.

After decades of quiescence, mid-Danubians took the war path as the 400s began.

“It seems to me the thing's an impasse. French expression,” I explained, “meaning that we're stymied good and proper with no hope of finding a formula.”

A boy in a disguise nobody believed in, an actor playing a part he didn't understand, he would trudge every rocky field and quaking bog, every pot-holed road and tortuous boreen, each of the thirteen villages on his father's estate, speaking the Irish he had learned from his father's servants.