Note 8 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

But at London itself also we find the Normans favoured. The very interesting charter of Henry II, granted by him, as Duke of the Normans, in 1150 or 1151, to the citizens of Rouen, confirms them in possession of their port at Dowgate, as they had held it from the days of Edward the Confessor.8 Here then we have evidence—which seems to have eluded the research of our historians, both general and local—that, even before the Conquest, the citizens of Rouen had a haven of their own at the mouth of the Walbrook, for which they were probably indebted to the Norman proclivities of the Confessor.