authorised to attack enemy shipping by letters of marque issued by the Crown), as the former did not exist as a permanent force until the 16th century. Mediaeval rulers had no administrative mechanism to adjudicate prizes or collect the royal share. The first Admiralty Court in England with responsibility for prize and prize money issues was created in 1483 and subordinate Vice-Admiralty courts were later set up in British colonies. Appeal from the Court of Admiralty was to the Privy Council. As the rights over enemy ships or goods are legally prerogatives of the Crown, there are few English or British statues that deal with naval prize money, other than the prize acts issued at the start of each war, authorising the Crown to issue orders or proclamations dealing with prize money, and these acts affirm rather than limit the Crown's rights. From Elizabethan times, the Crown insisted that the validity of prizes and their value had to be determined by royal courts, and that it should retain a portion of their value. In some cases, an English ship failing to bring a prize for adjudication was confiscated. Beyond this, it was left to the discretion of the Crown, guided by custom, as to what should be allocated to those taking prizes, and how that prize money should be allocated between the owners, the officers and the crew. Generally, the Crown retained one-tenth of the value of prizes captured by privateers. By ancient custom, the common seamen, but not the officers, of navy vessels had the right of free pillage, the seizure of the enemy crew's personal possessions and any goods not stored in the hold. The Commonwealth attempted to forbid the custom of pillage in 1652, but this rule was impossible to enforce, and the right to pillage was given statutory force after the Restoration. Some rewards that were previously customary or discretionary for privateers became entitlements 1643, when an ordinance passed by the Commonwealth parliament allowed them to retain any ships and goods captured after adjudication in an Admiralty Court and payment of one-tenth of the value of the prize and customs duties on any goods. A further ordinance of 1649 relating to naval ships, which applied during the First Anglo-Dutch War, entitled seamen and subordinate officers to half the value of a captured enemy warship and gun money of between 10 and 20 pounds for every gun