xix. In Nottingham one pledge was required in the fourteenth century;

generally two in the fifteenth century. See Nott. Records, i. 285-7, ii. 272, 302, iii. 58, 80, 84, 90, 102.

[327] In 1397 the burgesses of Preston paid sums varying from 3_s._ to 40_s._ (Preston Guild Rolls, xvi.-xix.) In Exeter an artificer had to pay 20_s._, a merchant whatever the Mayor chose to ask (Freeman’s Exeter, 142). In Canterbury freemen were admitted in the fourteenth century for 10_s._; in 1480 the sum had risen to 40_s._ (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 144). See also Hereford (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii.). In the sixteenth century the jury of the Mickle Tourn of Nottingham presented a request that every foreigner should henceforth pay £10. (Nott. Rec. iv. 170-1. Wells, Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106.) In Dover the payment was “put into the common horn” by the new freeman (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 306).

[328] In Preston the rule was that if he had received for his burgage “a void place” he must set up a house on it within forty days; in other towns, as in Norwich or Hereford, he was allowed a year and a day. (Custumal of Preston, given in Hist. of Preston Guild, 74. Hudson, Municipal Organization of Norwich, 27. Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 468.)

[329] In Preston regulations had to be made to prevent builders blocking up a street by temporarily fixing in it the framework of a house. (Hist. Preston Guild, 47.)

[330] Carlisle Mun. Records, Ed. Ferguson and Nansen, 63-4.

[331] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 472, 475; Lyon’s Dover, ii. 362.

[332] Gross, ii. 276. Custumal, Preston Guild, 75. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. i. 426.

[333] In Hereford the freeman who lost his position for perjury could never recover it save by the special favour of the commonalty, “and by the redemption of his goods and chattels at least for twice as much as he gave before.” Any citizen who had been sentenced to the pillory, tumbrill or the like, “by that means let him lose his freedom; but afterwards by the special favour of his bailiff and the commonalty he may be redeemed.” (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii. 468, 481.)

[334] English Guilds, 403.

[335] Also at Andover; Gross, The Gild Merchant, ii. 320, 324. Public disapproval was held to be a powerful motive. In Hereford if a plaintiff brought a writ of right for the possession of a tenement into the court and the defendant refused to appear at the court, “there ought to be taken from the tenement demanded one post and to be brought unto the court and delivered to the bailiff; and the second time two; and the third time three; and _this to be done always towards the street, in reproach to him, and to the noting of his fellow-citizens_; and if he shall not come, the house ought to be thrown down, by taking one post towards the street, and so forward and forward until the whole house be thrown down to the ground.” (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii. 481-2.)

[336] A copy of the Charter of Manchester, granted 1301, is given in Baines’ History of County of Lancaster ii. 175-6. A comparison of the special privileges of the burgesses with those in the Preston custumal illustrates the variety in the customs of different towns. (Cutts’ Colchester, 169-170. Davies’ Southampton, 111.)

[337] See von Ochenkowski, Die wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 66. Stubbs’ Charters, 107, 159. The monopoly was sometimes the privilege of the Merchant Guild. “So that no one who is not of that Guild shall make any merchandise in the said town, unless with the will of the merchants.” (Hist. of Preston Guilds, Custumal, 73. Gross, ii. 122, 127, 129.) In other towns where we do not hear of a Merchant Guild it belonged to the whole body of burgesses. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425.)

[338] An alien living in Romney paid double Scot to the town. (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 332.)

[339] English Guilds, 392, 384. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 332.

[340] Boys’ Sandwich, 521. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 365, 366, 367, 386; Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Soc. 137.

[341] An Act to prevent Mayors from levying shewage from denizens. Statutes 19 Henry VII., Cap. 8.

[342] “The Mayor of the city of York and his brethren made great instance” to Lord Surrey to see that their fellow citizen, Thomas Hartford, bower in Norwich, should not be annoyed by Thomas Hogan, a shoemaker. (Paston Letters, iii. 366.) This protection however was only given on the condition of his renouncing all other aid. The mayor of York and his brethren aldermen in 1488 were applied to by Sir Robert Plumpton to protect some “servants and lovers” of his dwelling in York from annoyance by certain York citizens. The mayor answered in the name of himself, the aldermen, and the common council, that these dependants of Plumpton’s had been franchised and sworn to keep the customs of the city of York, that they were therefore bound to show any variance or trouble to the mayor “and to none other, and he to see an end betwixt them.” The mayor plainly intimates that these men must either go home and live under the protection of their master there, or else if they stay in York must submit their affairs to the mayor alone “as their duties had been.” (Plumpton Correspondence, 57-58.)

[343] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425.

[344] Preston Guild Rolls, xxiv.; Freeman’s Exeter, 144; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 241, 242, 246. For instances of royal pressure brought to bear on the town courts, see Proc. Privy Council, ii. 152; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104.

[345] There was a hot dispute on this question between Wycombe and the Abbot of Missenden under Edward the First, and the jury was finally formed of seven burgesses and five foreigners, “thus saving to the said burgesses their liberty aforesaid.” (From Pleas de Quo Warranto, Bucks, Rot. i. Edw. I., 1286. Parker’s Hist. of Wycombe, 23-4.)

[346] Parker’s Hist. of Wycombe, 12.

[347] Especially in matters of debt and arrest. Stubbs’ Charters, 107. In Romney a burgess might recover money owed to him by a stranger in the town by himself going, in the absence of the bailiff, to make distraint on the stranger’s goods under the sole condition of delivering the distraint to the bailiff. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425. For Rye see Lyon’s Dover, ii. 358; Boys’ Sandwich, 449. See also for the difficulties of aliens, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 243.)

[348] English Guilds, 391; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 170-1. Henry the Second granted to burgesses of Wallingford that if his provost impleaded any one of them without an accuser, he need not answer the charge. (Gross, ii. 244.) See Newcastle, Stubbs’ Charters, 107. The importance of these provisions is obvious if the custom of Sandwich was common. There the mayor might arrest and imprison any one whom he chose as a “suspect.” After some time the prisoner was brought from the castle to the Mastez and a “cry” made to ask if there were any one to prosecute him. If no one appeared he was set free on giving security, but if he could find no security he might at the mayor’s will be banished for ever from the town. The bailiff could not arrest on suspicion as the mayor did. (Boys’ Sandwich, 687, 466-7.) For mediæval notions of punishment see the sentence of the King in Piers Ploughman, pass. v. 81-82—

“And commanded a constable to cast Wrong in irons, There he ne should in seven year see feet ne hands.”

[349] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 170-1. Boys’ Sandwich, 445 and 443. In Winchester the freeman was summoned three times to the court, others only once. (English Guilds, 360.)

[350] English Guilds, 391. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 152.

[351] In Norwich the bailiffs were liable to such heavy expenses in bad years that in 1306 it was ordained that they could only be compelled to serve once in four years. (Blomefield, iii. 73. Ordinances in Hist. of Preston Guilds, 12.)

[352] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145.

[353] Parker’s Manor of Aylesbury, 20, 21.

[354] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 536-541.

[355] Davies’ Southampton, 168. In 1422 a Winchester burgess paid £10 to be free of holding any office save that of Mayor for the rest of his life. Another paid five marks to be freed from ever taking the office of bailiff. (Gross, ii. 259-260.) In Lynn, when a man was chosen jurat, “he took time till the next assembly to bring ten pounds into the Hall, or otherwise to accept the burden.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.) Fine for refusal to go to Yarmouth as bailiff of Cinque Ports, and payment to substitute (Ibid. v. 541). In 1491 an Act was passed forbidding the burgesses of Leicester to refuse the Chamberlainship. Sixty years later another Act ordered them not to refuse the Mayoralty. By Acts of 1499 and 1500 members who absented themselves from the Court of Portmanmote at Whitsuntide and Christmas were fined. (Ibid. viii. 426.) In Canterbury certain powers were exempted by writ from serving on juries, 1415. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169.)

[356] Shillingford’s Letters, xxiii.

[357] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 527.

[358] Lyon’s Dover, Custumals, vol. ii. 267, &c.

[359] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425; Boys’ Sandwich, 679, A.D. 1493. Gross, The Gild Merchant, ii. 276.

[360] The charter of Edward the Fourth to Colchester declared that the burghers should never be appointed against their will in any assizes or any quests outside the borough; nor to any post of collector of taxes or aids, or of constable, bailiff, &c., nor should they be liable to any fine for refusing these posts. (Cromwell’s Colchester, 257.) The Winchester people paid a sum about 1422 “to excuse every citizen of the city from being collector of the King’s money within the county of Southampton.” (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 602.)

[361] Thus in Hythe there was a privileged body who were not of the franchise, but were still apparently subject to the town jurisdiction, and excused by a writ called Dormand from Hundred Court and Shire Court and inquests. See also Preston Guild Record, xii., xvi., xx., xxix.

[362] English Guilds, 394. Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk, iii., 80.

[363] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 544-545. At one time when Preston was much distressed, it was ordained that decayed burgesses unable to pay their yearly taxes should not lose their freedom because of poverty. (Thomson’s Mun. History, 104. Custumale in Hist. of Preston Guild.)

[364] See ch. x.

[365] See ch. xi.

[366] See vol. ii., The Town Market.

[367] The non-burgesses of Lynn, the “Inferiores,” were men of substance and formed an important body, whose struggles for a re-distribution of power fill the annals of the town in the fifteenth century.

[368] English Guilds, 386, 399

[369] Paston Letters, ii. 293.

[370] 7 Henry IV. cap. 17. The coming of country apprentices into towns, though forbidden by Richard II. and Henry IV., was afterwards permitted in London, Bristol, and Norwich. (Statutes 8 Henry VI. cap. 11; 11 Henry VII. cap. 11; 12 Henry VII. cap. 1).

[371] Paston Letters, iii. 481. Apprentices in London and Bristol might not be _under_ seven years old. Ricart, 102.

[372] Manners and Meals, xv.

[373] Piers Ploughman, Passus x. 206-207, 253-4.

[374] Custumal in History of Preston Guild, 73-78. As late as the time of James I. lords here and there were fighting to keep up old customs. An action was brought by a lord against a townsman of Melton for not baking his bread at the lord’s oven; “and the action,” wrote the steward, “is like to prove frequent, for the lord’s court there is scarce able to preserve his inheritance in this custom of baking.” Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 342-3.

[375] If a Preston burgher died suddenly, neither lord nor justices might seize his lands, which passed on to the next heir; only if he had been publicly excommunicated they were to be given in alms. Custumal. Hist. Preston Guild, 77. Compare Luchaire 248.

[376] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 471. The age was sometimes fixed at twelve, sometimes at fourteen. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 244.) The burgher had no power to leave by will any lands he held outside the town liberties, which must pass to the heir appointed by the common law. For the frauds to which this might give rise, see Hist. MSS. Com. x. 3, 87-9. Wills bequeathing land were read publicly in the borough courts (Nottingham Records, i. 96), and there enrolled by the mayor as a Court of Record. The muniments of Canterbury show that from this right the mayor went on to claim probate, possibly following the example of Lynn. The claim was perfectly illegal, but was energetically pressed.

[377] Birmingham, which under Henry the Eighth had 2,000 houselings, and was said to be “one of the fairest and most profitable towns to the King’s highness in all the shire” (English Guilds, 247-9), only counted in Doomsday nine heads of families. In 1327 these had risen to seventy-five. The burghers first won the lightening of feudal dues, when Birmingham was freed from ward and marriage, heriot and relief, so that if a burgess died the lord could only take his best weapon—a bill or a pole-axe—or forty pence. (Survey of the Borough and Manor of Birmingham, 1553. Translated by W. B. Bickley, with notes by Joseph Hill, pp. xii., 108.) The bailiff and commonalty rented the stalls in the market from the lord, and leased them out by their constables to the townsfolk, fishmongers, butchers, and tanners, and in this way secured complete control of the town market (pp. 60-61), where burgesses were exempt from toll, while strangers free of the market paid a small sum, and those not free a larger amount. After the Plague a “free burgage by fealty” grew up, with an oath to observe the customs and services of the manor. The normal holding of the villein seems to have been forty-five acres, that of the cotters less (pp. xii., xiii. See Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, i. 12, 298). As population increased new pastures in the foreign were leased out for a term of years at an annual rent, and while the increase of perpetual free tenures thus ceased the alienation of the whole domain was prevented (pp. xiv., 74, 102). Though the town was not made a borough by royal grant, it had even in the thirteenth century secured an independent life, called itself a borough and elected its officers (pp. 60-1, 108-9). Its public acts were done under the style of “bailiff and commonalty” or “bailiff and burgesses.” See also Manchester Court Leet Records, 12, 14, 169, 170. For examples of the first privileges which the townspeople sought to win see the “customs” of Newcastle under Henry I., Stubbs’ Charters, 106-8.

[378] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491, et seq.

[379] For the injuries that might be inflicted on a community by a lord’s reeve, see Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Society.

[380] If the lord of the soil held the town as a market-town, and not as a borough, the inhabitants had to attend the Sheriff’s tourn, where their petty offences were judged by him or his deputy. In all cases which were not specially exempted they had to appear also twice a year at the court of the shire for view of frank pledge and for judgment of their more serious crimes. Manchester Court Leet Records, 14.

[381] The coroner was an officer elected in full county court, and was charged with guarding the interests of the Crown. His intrusion in the towns was much resented.

[382] When a robber from Bridport escaped from the town prison a set of girths or horse-nets was sent by the town to Dorchester to mitigate the sheriff’s anger.

[383] For abuses in appointing tax collectors, see Paston Letters, i. li.

[384] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491.

[385] See Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 361-3.

[386] Close Rolls, I. p. 273, 1216.

[387] Nottingham Records, i. 46.

[388] This appears in the records of Gloucester. The scot-ale was a very common method of collecting money for other purposes. See Malmesbury, Gross, ii. 172, Newcastle (183), Wallingford (245), Winchester (253), Cambridge (358). It was an article of inquiry for Justices Itinerant in 1254. (417) Stubbs’ Charters, 258-259.

[389] Hundred Rolls, i. 49, 55. The jurors of Bridgenorth complained in 1221 that the sheriff’s bailiffs and the men of the country had committed to them the duty of following the trail of stolen cattle through their town and fined them if they failed, whereas they could not follow a trail through the middle of the town. Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Society, 113.

[390] Piers Ploughman, Pass. iii. 59, 177, iv. 172.

[391] For the profits to be made in this business and its opportunities of fraud, see Winchelsea (Rot. Parl. i. 373). Sometimes the escheator divided the fines levied between himself and the King; in other cases the office was farmed out and the King took a fixed sum leaving the escheator a free hand to do what he pleased. In the towns the office was finally given to the mayor at a fixed salary. The Mayor of Norwich received as escheator £10; that is, an equal salary to that which he received as Mayor (Blomefield, iii. 179). As Mayor of the Staple he was given £20. (Ibid. iii. 94.)

[392] He was forbidden by Richard the Second to ride with more than six horses, or tarry long in a town. (Statutes, 13 Richard II. 1, cap. 4, and 16 Richard II., cap. 3.) In 1346 the King by charter freed Norwich from “the clerk of the market of our household,” so that he should not enter the city to make the assay of measures or weights, or any other duties belonging to his office. (Norwich Doc., pr. 1884, case of Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., p. 26.) For clerk of the market in Calais, Lives of Berkeleys, ii. 198.

[393] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.

[394] Statutes, 13th Richard II., I, cap. 3.

[395] In Rochester “the King’s hackney-men” took oath to be ready at all times, early and late, to serve the King’s Grace with able hackney horses at the calling of the Mayor, and to provide at all times for any man riding on the King’s message, and to give information to the Mayor in case any hard-driven hackney-man in the town “purloin or hide any of their able hackney horses in any privy places, whereby the King’s service may be hindered, prolonged, or undone.” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 287.) For Romney see Lyon’s Dover, ii. 341. In some towns certain innkeepers had letters patent to require horses and carts for the King’s service. The right was greatly abused, and such patents declared void by Statute. (28 Henry VI. cap. 2.)

[396] For purveyors, Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, 1., 119, 166. Brinklow’s Complaint, 19, 20. Rot. Parl. i. 400. At Lynn the King’s Larderer would claim ships to go out fishing for the King’s provisions, or perhaps to carry 5,000 fish for the King’s household. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 188-9.) As late as 1493 it was necessary for Canterbury (which had been freed by charter from these exactions in 1414) to get a “breve” from Henry the Seventh to give its inhabitants a summary means of resisting the demands of the King’s Purveyors. (Ibid. ix. 168.) For seizing of carts, see Nottingham Records, i. 118. The King’s cart-takers in the seventeenth century, Hist. MSS. Com. v. 407.

[397] Instances in Chester, 1282, Hemingway’s Chester, i. 132.

[398] Among the Bristol liberties was one that no burgess nor inhabitant of Bristol shall against his will receive none host into his house by lyverance of the King’s Marshall. (Ricart, 24.)

[399] Instances of the necessity for new grants and confirmations and the heavy consequent expenses are too numerous to quote. In Canterbury £36 was paid in 1460 for a new charter, and other payments connected with the same business were made in the following year. In 1472 messengers were sent to London for the obtaining again of a charter of liberties. Two years later an envoy rode to London to treat with the Treasurer, Lord Essex, about a writ of proviso touching the liberties of the city, and a grant was then made, probably in return for heavy payment, which confirmed a recent restoration of ancient privileges. A magnificent supper given to Lord Essex expressed the gratitude of the city. In 1474 the city paid for a proviso to confirm the restorations of their liberties. In 1475 there was an investigation _in camera_ of the charters and muniments concerning the bounds of the liberty; and in 1481 payments were made to friends and patrons who had helped them with the King in preserving the liberties of the city. At the accession of Henry the Seventh it became necessary to buy renewal and confirmation of the charter, and this was completed in 1487. In 1490 the Mayor conferred with Cardinal Morton on the renewal and extension of the liberties of the city. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140 _et seq._, 170.) See Romney, Ibid. v. 534-5, 537, 539, 543-4.

[400] Writ of inquisition as to privileges of Cinque Ports. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 544.) The instance of charters forfeited on these grounds are very frequent.

[401] In Southampton a hogshead of Gascony wine was given “by common consent” to the sheriff to have his friendship in the return of a jury. In 1428 a sum of 13_s._ 4_d._ was paid for returning “friends of the town” on a jury to settle a question which had arisen between the King and Southampton as to which was to have the goods and chattels of a felon who had run away. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 140, 142.) See also Ibid. v. 518.

[402] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539. The Lieutenant of Dover, who settled the amount and division of benevolences required from the Cinque Ports, had also his offerings from the various towns that they might be well dealt with. (Ibid. v. 527.)

[403] Ibid. v. 528. These courts on the sea-shore meant considerable expense in fees and feasts.

[404] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 491. In 1474 money was given by Canterbury to Kyriel, that he might excuse the city from sending men and ships to the war. (Ibid. ix. 143.)

[405] Ibid. v. 518, 522.

[406] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 543. Three and fourpence, and 18_d._ for a pair of boots as a reward.

[407] See in Winchester the gifts to the coroner’s clerk, to jurors at the Pavilion, to the King’s taxers, to the wife of the Sheriff, to the Bailiff of the Soke of Winton, and so on. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 595-605.)

[408] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 138-149. The expenses at Lynn were very great. (Ibid. 218-225.)

[409] Doubtless a scribe’s error for Llandaff. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145.) The Bishop of St. David’s writes that “in many great cities and towns were great sums of money given him which he hath refused.”

[410] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 141-3.

[411] At the important meeting in 1474, when the constitution of the town was reaffirmed, William Haute, the lord of the manor of Bishopsbourne (four miles away), who was then patron of the town, was put at the head of the list before even the five aldermen, the sheriff, or any town officers, as establishing and ordaining the town ordinances. Poynings, Browne, Guildford, were at different times patrons of the city.

[412] Davies’ York, 128-9, 123-5. For an interesting instance of beneficent protection in 1605, see Hibbert’s Influence and Development of Guilds, p. 95.

[413] The election of a Mayor as a responsible person through whom the King could deal with the town was probably often connected with the settlement of the fee-farm rent. In Liverpool the first mention of a Mayor is in 1356, the very next year the fee-farm was granted to the Mayor and others on behalf of the burgesses for ten years. (Picton, Municipal Records of Liverpool, i. 13-15.)

[414] As against the idea of Merewether and Stephens, that charters of municipal incorporation only began in 1439, Dr. Gross points out that such a charter occurs in 1345, that in the time of Edward the First the technical conception of municipal incorporation was familiar, and that long before the judicial conception came into being the borough had a real corporate existence, and exercised all the functions of a corporate body. (Gild Merchant, i. 93, &c.)

[415] In 1391 the Statute of Mortmain was extended to cities and boroughs. (Statutes, 15 Richard II., cap. 5.) Even when license to hold land was granted by the Crown the amount was strictly limited, and the power of refusal or of limitation was a serious consideration to the town.

[416] According to Mr. Round, London found means of annexing the shire of Middlesex instead of asking to be separated from it. (Geoffrey de Mandeville, 347-373.)

[417] We have a hint of a troublesome mode of interference with the municipal taxation in an incident in Norwich in 1268, when “the lord the King commanded all his bailiffs that, _for a fine_ £10, _which Margaret the Taneresse of Norwich made with the same lord the King_, he granted to her such liberty that for the whole time of her life she should be quit from all his tallages in the town of Norwich ... for whatsoever cause they may be made. And he commanded that they vex not the aforesaid Margaret contrary to this his grant.” (Norwich Documents, pr. 1884, 9.) In any case where the tallage was a fixed sum due from the town some one else would have to pay Margaret’s share.

[418] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 478.

[419] Journ. Arch. Ass. 479. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 241-2. Statute of Maintenance, 13 Richard II., Stat. 3. For the jealousy of the towns as to any inhabitant relying for protection on a lord outside, see p. 183, note 2.

[420] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 482. For a duel in Leicester in 1201, see Select Civil Pleas, Selden Society, p. 33. Judicial combat in Fordwich with an alien had to take place in the middle of the river Stour, the alien standing up to his middle in the water, while the Fordwich man apparently fought from a boat tied to the quay, with an instrument called an “ore,” three yards long. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 442.) In 1200 “the citizens of Lincoln came and produced the king’s charter which witnesses that none of them need plead outside the city walls except the king’s moneyers and servants, and that they need not fight the duel because of any appeal.” An accused man answered the charges against him “word by word as a free citizen of Lincoln,” and “according to the franchise of the town” waged law with thirty-six compurgators. (Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Society, p. 39.) For compurgation in Sandwich in 1493, Boys, 680.

With old forms of trial old forms of punishment were allowed to survive. In Sandwich, if a man failed to clear himself by compurgation of a charge of homicide or theft he was condemned to be buried alive in a place called the Thiefdown at Sandown. (Ibid. 465.) Felons were also drowned in a stream called “the Gestling”; but in 1313 a complaint was made that the prior of Christchurch had diverted the course of the stream, and that criminals could not be executed in that way for want of water. (Ibid. 664.) At Dover and Folkestone a thief was killed by being thrown from a cliff, and at Winchelsea was hanged in the salt marsh. (Lyon’s Dover, i. 231.) In others of the Cinque Port towns when a thief was taken his ear was nailed to a post or cartwheel and a knife put in his hand, he had to free himself by cutting off his ear, to pay a fine, and to forswear the town. In 1470, 12_d._ was paid “for nailing of Thomas Norys his ear.” (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 525, 530.)

[421] Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 407. Nottingham retained the old usage till after the fourteenth century; Records, i. 175. Exeter till 1581; Freeman’s Exeter, 119. The question may have partly turned on the form of government adopted in the town and the work required of the common assembly in which the burghers voted.

[422] It has been argued (Gneist, Constit. Communale, tr. Hippert, i. 263; v. 275) that the State created local government in the towns as a method of developing better administration, and that it was therefore only accidentally and as a secondary consequence that independence and local liberties came in the wake of this administrative system. The facts, however, of their story make it perfectly clear that municipal liberties were of natural growth, and sprang out of local needs rather than out of Court statecraft.

[423] Gross, i. 23; ii. 115.

[424] The seals of English towns of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries were of finer workmanship than any in Europe. They generally represented a fortress or walled town, a ship, a patron saint, or heraldic arms, but it is interesting that in no case is the figure of the Mayor used to typify the borough save in the London seal, where he stands among the corporation and citizens. Sometimes a bridge is given, as at Barnstaple; in two or three cases the Guild Hall.

[425] A few towns, in the case of some members of the Cinque Ports, depended on another borough.

[426] For the position of tenants on ancient demesne, see Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, ch. iii. Mr. Maitland (Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, ii. 99, &c.) gives an account of King’s Ripton, a manor on ancient demesne, whose tenants when transferred to the Abbey of Ramsey were always fighting with their new lords as to the services due from their holdings. “The privileged nature of the tenure had engendered a privileged race, very tenacious of its land and of its customs” (p. 105). The study of the way in which the customs of ancient demesne affected the later constitution of the boroughs lies outside my subject, and is therefore merely indicated.

[427] Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, 89. Compare the claim of Bristol to be “founded and grounded upon franchises, liberties, and free ancient customs, and not upon common law.” (Ricart’s Kalendar, 2.) For its liberties, see p. 24-5.

[428] As a matter of fact the various towns of this kind which applied to Hereford for any information as to its customs on any point had to pay one hundred shillings for the answer vouchsafed to them. (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 470.)

[429] There was constant watchfulness on both sides as to their rights. In 1400 the bailiffs of Ipswich granted land for the building of a mill for the benefit of the corporation; the King’s officers declared the grant to have been made without the royal licence, and the mill was seized for the King. On the other hand, when the sheriff of the county arrested a felon in the liberties of Ipswich and put him in the King’s jail, the bailiffs required that he should be given up to them. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 231, 246.)

[430] That is on the plea of lack of justice in the borough court. In 1401, when the citizens of Canterbury were summoned by the Crown to appear at Westminster about a breach of the statutes for the regulation of the victualling trades, they pleaded that by their charter they could not be called to answer civil suits out of their own city. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 167.)

[431] In 1299 the amercements ordered by the Leet Court of Norwich amounted to £72 18s. 10d.; the amount accounted for by the collectors was £17 0s. 2d. (Hudson’s Leet Jurisd. of Norwich, Selden Soc. xl.) Where there was profit to be made the King was, however, always on the alert. In Piers Ploughman, Passus v., 169, he complains bitterly of the lawyers; “through your law I believe I lose my escheats!”; and it was often late before he made the mayor escheator. In 1492 two Scotch priests were arrested in Ipswich for treasonable talk, and the King granted their chattels to one of his own serjeants. The bailiffs sent the Town Clerk to Henry to represent that the forfeited goods of felons rightly belonged to the town; to which the King answered that he would not for a thousand pounds infringe in the least degree their charters, but that the community had really no right to these particular chattels, since the priests, being Scotch and not the King’s subjects, could not fairly be accused of treason, and had a perfect right to talk as they chose. On this plea he kept the goods. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 247.)

[432] This was strictly enforced, and the town charter forfeited if the rent fell into arrears. (Madox, 139, 161-2.) The towns therefore made careful provision for the discharge of the debt, sometimes setting apart a mill or some valuable property for its payment (Madox, Firma Burgi, 251-2; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 198-9; Nott. Rec. i. 313), or assigning certain tolls or customs; (Shillingford’s Letters, 92); or collecting it as rent from house to house. (Custumal in Hist. Preston Guild, 75.)

[433] When the ferm of Carlisle was raised from £60 to £80 the citizens were granted, as a help towards its payment, all fines, inflicted by the King’s judges within their walls. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 198, 200.) See also Norwich Documents, 16, 17.

[434] Thus the Nottingham men paid 13_s._ 4_d._ a year to Henry the Sixth, at least from 1454, for liberties granted them. There is no entry of this in the King’s accounts, and the only evidence of it is in the Nottingham Records (iii. 133). The loyal theory of Hereford was that “our goods and chattels are to be taken and taxed at his pleasure, saving unto ourselves a competent quantity for our sustentation and tuition of our city.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 471.)

[435] Nott. Rec. i. 225, 227, 413, 421.

[436] The agreement made in the fourteenth century which fixed the tenths and fifteenths for the towns at a permanent fixed sum, made it easy for the King to give over to local officials the levying of this tax without fear of injury to the Exchequer. (Stubbs, ii. 599, 600.)

[437] Blomefield, iii. 137.

[438] The Admiral and his deputy had jurisdiction over everything done on the sea and the great rivers up to the first bridge. (13 Richard II. St. 1, cap. 5; 15 Richard II., cap. 3; Blomefield, iii. 103; Davies’ Southampton, 239-40.) In 1487 the commonalty of Ipswich by a covenant with the King bound themselves to take surety of every owner, master, or purser of every English ship to twice the value of the ship, that the mariners should keep the peace on the sea; that if the surety by any means became less than twice the value of ship, tackle, and victuals, new security should be taken; and that the town should strive to arrest every robber and spoiler in the sea or the streams thereof. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 259-60.) In 1463 a charter was given to the corporation of York, constituting them the King’s justiciaries for overlooking and preserving the main rivers of Yorkshire. For the expenses and difficulties which this involved, see Davies’ York, 59-63, 82, &c.

[439] As an illustration of his difficulties, see the statute allowing sheriffs and escheators to remain for four years in office, because owing to pestilence and wars there was not a sufficiency of persons to occupy these offices. (9 Henry V. St. 1, cap. 5.)

[440] In the lack of officials to carry out the regulations for the control of trade a number of private people got royal letters appointing them surveyors and correctors of victuallers in various cities and boroughs, and freely used their privileges for extortion and oppression, and the taking of heavy fines and ransoms; their patents were gradually withdrawn; and in 1472 an Act was passed that all such letters and patents should be void, and that the duty of searching and surveying victuals should rest wholly with the mayor or bailiff. (12 Edward IV. cap. 8.)

[441] In this matter the King was not allowed to interfere. In 1489 there was a dispute in Leicester between the Town Council and the Commons about the election of a Mayor. The matter was referred to the King, who issued a precept under the seal of the Duchy of Lancaster, showing that it was as Lord of the Manor and not as King that he interfered. He set aside both candidates and reappointed the last Mayor. The next year the question was settled by Act of Parliament. (Thomson, Mun. Hist., 84.) For authority exercised by Parliament see Norwich (Doc. Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c. 30.) When the citizens applied in 1378 to the King and Council for a renewal of their ancient liberty that no stranger should have power to buy or sell by retail, they were answered that it would not be valid “without Parliament”; they therefore pray for a grant by charter.

[442] See Hudson’s Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. xxvii. xc. “For he doth represent to us the body of our King.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 462.) See the proclamation of the London Mayor: “We do command, on behalf of our Lord the King, that no dyer or weaver shall be so daring,” &c. —”Memorials of London,” p. 309. An illustration of how the King’s law and the town law ran side by side may be seen in the fines for the breach of certain rules, as, for instance, the rule against liveries, which had to be paid both to the King and to the town. (English Guilds, 388-9.)

[443] Piers Ploughman, Passus ii. 156, 157.

[444] Warkworth’s Chronicle, 2.

[445] See Gross, ii. 245.

[446] The instances of similar grants made to various towns at almost the same date are too numerous to give, but they would form a striking list.

[447] Charter of Lincoln the same year; that of Winchester, 1190. (Stubb’s Charters, 257-8). Nottingham and Northampton in 1200 (ibid. 301-3). The system of government adopted at Norwich was followed or imitated a little later by the neighbouring towns of Yarmouth and Colchester.

[448] Norwich Doc. Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c. p. 3. In the great majority of cases this grant was made once for all; but occasionally it was renewed from time to time. Thus Henry the Sixth in 1437 gave the mayor and burgesses of Bristol a lease of the town and its profits for a term of twenty years. In 1446 he granted a new lease for sixty years. In 1461 Edward the Fourth renewed the lease, not for a term of years, but for ever. (Seyer’s Charters of Bristol, 105.) The ferm was granted in the same way for a term of years in the case of Dunwich, a royal town, where it was let out to the highest bidder. Here, however, the collection of rent was peculiarly uncertain from special circumstances (Madox, 235-8, 241); and in 1325 Dunwich, ruined by the filling up of its port, prayed to have the town taken into the King’s hand and a guardian appointed. (Rot. Parl. i. 426.) For the inconvenience of this letting out to the highest bidder, see Madox, 251.

[449] Hudson, Municipal Organisation in Norwich, 20; Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Society, xvi. lxxii.

[450] Hudson’s Notes about Norwich, Norfolk Arch. vol. xii. p. 25.

[451] In 1288 the four bailiffs presided over the courts of these leets. (Hudson, Municipal Organisation, 16, 21.)

[452] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., p. 5.

[453] Ibid. 6, 8, 10. Blomefield, iii. 46, 62.

[454] The convent sided with De Montfort. For the state of affairs in the city, see Blomefield, iii. 52, &c.

[455] Blomefield, iii. 49.

[456] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., 7.

[457] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., 16, 17.

[458] Ibid. 10-12.

[459] This meant that it was the town bailiff who was to return the certificate of what he had done in execution of a writ addressed to him, instead of this being returned, as formerly, by the sheriff.

[460] Norwich Documents, 16, 18.

[461] Norwich Documents, 25.

[462] Ibid. 26.

[463] Blomefield’s Hist. of Norfolk, iii. 103.

[464] Ibid. iii. 81, 94-5. In 1393 the corporation was granted shops and houses held of the King and worth £10 yearly, the profits of which were to be spent on repairing the walls and towers. For this licence they had to pay the King £100. Norwich Documents, 32.

[465] Ibid. 33-37.

[466] Gross, i. 240-267.

[467] Report on Municipal Corporations, 1835, pp. 16-17. Gross, i. 94, note 1.

[468] This change was evident from the time of Richard the Second, when the powers of the Justices were rapidly enlarged. See Statutes, 12 Richard II. cap. 10; 13 Richard II., 1, cap. 8; 13 Richard II., 1, cap. 13; 13 Henry IV. cap. 7; 2 Henry V. cap. 4; 2 Henry V., 1, cap. 8; 2 Henry VI. cap. 12; 2 Henry VI. cap. 14; 2 Henry VI. cap. 18; 6 Henry VI. cap. 3; 18 Henry VI. cap. 11.

[469] Southampton, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 104. Cases of interference occur in the unpublished records of Coventry. For Romney see Lyon’s Dover, 313. In 1489 there was some such trouble in Leicester (Thompson, Mun. Hist., 84). And in 1512 there is another instance in Nottingham (Records, iii. 341-2). From the time of Richard the Third there seems evidence of the growth of a new anxiety in the central government about the democratic movement in the boroughs, and a determination to reserve power in the hands of a small corporation. An earlier instance may perhaps be found in the Exeter quarrel from 1477 to 1482 (English Guilds, 305, &c.); and in York in 1482 (Davies, 122-4).

[470] There were many cases in which a town’s privileges were forfeited, whether for arrears of rent (Madox, 139, 161-2) or for other causes (154-5, 157). The franchises of Nottingham were twice forfeited for some unknown cause—in 1283 for three years (Records, i. 56), and in 1330 for a short time. (Ibid. 102.) In the same year Edward the First seized the franchises of Derby because of exactions of the Merchant Guild, but restored them on payment of a fine. (Gross, ii. 53.) For the case of Sandwich (Boys, 661, 676). Ipswich charter withdrawn, 1285; regranted, 1291. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 230, 239, 243.) Chester in 1409. (Hemingway’s Chester, i. 137.) The liberties of Carlisle were forfeited for a short time for some irregularity in the town courts in the thirteenth century. (Gross, ii. 38.) Southampton lost its freedom in 1276 and 1285, and again in the next century for letting the French into the town. (Davies’ Southampton, 33, 35, 79.) Norwich suffered several times; for its attack on the Priory in 1272; for an accusation of having exceeded its powers in punishing crime in 1286; for riots about the election of mayor in 1437; and for Gladman’s insurrection in 1443. (Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., Norwich Doc., 9-12. Proceedings, Privy Council, v. 45. Hist. MSS. Com. i. 103.) In these cases a royal officer was appointed to rule the town; and the complaint of Scarborough, when Edward the Second in 1324 deprived it of the right of direct payment to the Exchequer, shows how a town suffered when its ferm was leased out. (Rot. Parl. i. 423.) The loss of liberty was always temporary, lasting from a few months to five or six years, and had no political significance as in France, where it formed part of a settled policy and had results which to the English mind seem of peculiar importance in the history of constitutional development.

[471] Gross, ii. 235-243.

[472] Occasionally a borough was granted to a great noble or court favourite; but more commonly as time went on the grant merely meant giving a charge on the rent of the town. Thus before 1339 Preston had been granted at various times to neighbouring lords. In 1361 John of Gaunt held the manor, but long before this the rights of the lord were so reduced that they are practically never mentioned in the history of the town. (Hewitson’s History of Preston, 7-8.) For the troubles to which the nobles’ claims to rent might lead, see Davies’ Southampton, 112. Edward the Fourth granted the ferm of Bristol to the Queen for her life. The treasurer of the King’s chamber declared it had been assigned to him in payment of a debt and brought an action for it against the Bristol sheriff. Bristol proved the money had been paid to the Queen and gained the case, 1465. (Madox, 227-8.)

[473] In 1273 Henry de Tracy held the borough from the King in chief at a ferm of about £5 14_s._ 2_d._ There were 36 tenants whose rent amounted to 23_s._ 8_d._ and some tenants in a suburb who paid an uncertain rent, but generally about 6_s._ 8_d._ A market was held every Friday which yielded in tolls to the lord about £3 a year, and a yearly fair gave 10_s._ Fines, reliefs, &c., came to about 13_s._ 4_d._ a year. The wealth of the town increased after the building of the “Long Bridge” in 1280 over “the great hugy, mighty, perylous, and dreadful water named Taw,” and the increase of the cloth trade about 1321. Towards the close of the fourteenth century the legacies and accounts show that the burghers were laying up considerable wealth and doing a thriving trade. Hence probably the dispute as to the claim to profits. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 206-213. See also case of Bridgewater, ibid. iii. 310-14.

[474] They even claimed the right of infang theof and outfang theof, and to be impleaded only in their own court. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 206.

[475] Rich. Redeless, ed. Skeat, Early English Text Society, Text C, Pass. iii. 177, &c.

[476] Book of Precedence, E. E. Text Society, 105-108. Langland in Richard the Redeless describes the noble who “keepeth no coin that cometh to their hands, but changeth it for chains that in Cheap hangeth, and setteth all their silver in samites and horns;” and

“That hangeth on his hips more than he winneth And doubteth no debt so dukes them praise.”

Richard the Redeless, Passus iii. 137-40, 147-8.

[477] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 467. Nott. Rec. ii. 425.

[478] The landowner of the fifteenth century was usually a mere landlord subsisting on his rents and not interested in the produce of the soil except as a consumer. He was only occasionally a trader. (Rogers’ Agriculture and Prices, iv. 2; see Berkeleys, i. 365-6; ii. 23; Paston, i., lxxxviii-ix., 416, 430, 431, 454; ii. 70, 106; iii. 430; Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 263; iv. 1, 464.) The really important classes were the new proprietors who rented land for trading purposes.

[479] See Fastolf, Paston Letters, i. 187-8.

[480] Treasures were apparently stored in different quarters for greater security. See Fastolf’s stores at Caistor. (Paston Letters, i. 416, 473-475; S. Benet’s, 468, 508; S. Paul’s, London, 493; Bermondsey, 474; White Friars, Norwich, ii. 56.) The religious houses had their reward in the form of benefactions for which masses were sung for the donor. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 461.) In the Paston house there was stored away over 16,000 ounces of silver plate, nearly 900 yards of cloth, about 300 yards of linen, and coats and hats without number. See also Hist. MSS. Com. vii. 537; viii. 93; Berkeleys, ii. 212. Plumpton Corresp. 10-11, 13, 37.

[481] Berkeleys, i. 167.

[482] John of Gaunt retained Rankyn d’Ypres to dwell with him for peace and war for the term of his life, granting him board and twenty-five marks a year from the ferm of Liverpool, _in time of peace_. (Picton’s Municipal Records of Liverpool, i. 16.) For the management of a great house with the giving out of wool for spinning and weaving and accounts audited by a master clothier, see Berkeleys, i. 167; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 330; Denton’s Lectures, 293; Paston, ii. 354-5; Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, p. 297. Often they supplied their own livery. (Brinklow’s Complaynt, 45; Paston, ii. 139.)

[483] Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 63.

[484] Plumpton’s Correspondence, 13, 20-1, 41, 71, 72, 97, 99, 148, 194, 206, 187, 198-9. The abbot of Fountains had to write a severe letter to order that a wine-seller in Ripon shall be paid for a tun of wine. (Ibid. 62.) For courtiers who “paid on their pawns when their pence lacked,” Richard the Redeless, Pass. i. 53-4; Paston Letters, ii. 333-5, 349-50; iii. 99.

“Butt drapers and eke skynners in the town For such folk han a special orison That florisshed is with curses here and there And ay shall till they be payd of their here.”

Book of Precedence, Early English Text Society, 107.

[485] Paston Letters, iii. 326, 194, 219, 358.

[486] Ibid. iii. 6-7, 20, 23, 24, 35, 46, 49, 114-5, 219, 258.

[487] Lives of the Berkeleys, ii., v.; Brinklow’s Complaynt, 40.

[488] Richard the Redeless, Pass. iii. 172.

[489] Berkeleys, i. 159.

[490] Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 130. A charter given by Baldwin of Redvers to Plympton, 1285, grants the same rights as the citizens of Exeter had from the King, except that Baldwin’s serfs, if they lived in the borough, might not be granted its liberties without his leave. (Madox, Firma Burgi, 42.) The King could grant a number of privileges which were beyond the power of any other lord—such as freedom from tolls throughout the kingdom, exemption from the sheriff’s jurisdiction, freedom from interference of royal officers, and so on; and the matter of tolls was so important that towns on private estates were practically obliged to get a royal charter as well as a charter from their lord. Compare the charters given in Stubbs’ Charters, 105; and Gross, ii, 136; with royal charters such as those in Stubbs’ Charters, 103; and Nott. Rec., i. 1. See also Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 273.

[491] Berkeleys, i. 341.

[492] Berkeleys, i. 226, 228.

[493] Ibid. i. 183-185.

[494] Ibid. i. 227.

[495] Plumpton’s Correspondence, 1-li.

[496] Berkeleys, i. 233-236, 272, 280. Compare the story of Sir William Plumpton, who fought at Towton on the losing side. He was brought before the chief justice in York and gave a bond for the payment of £2,000 before next Pentecost, and failing to procure it had to give himself up a prisoner at the Tower. He obtained a pardon, was released from his bond in 1462, and had new letters of pardon in 1463, but was still unable to return home till 1464, after he had been through a new trial and been acquitted. (Plumpton’s Corres. lxvii-ix. 30.)

[497] Freeman’s Exeter, 166-7.

[498] Berkeleys, ii. 95. Compare the expenses of Fastolf in a lawsuit of ten years, the costs of which were recorded in a roll of seven skins. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 461.)

[499] Berkeleys, ii. 65-73, 75, 84, 103-116.

[500] Freeman’s Exeter, 164; Paston, i. xcviii, 350-1; Proceedings of the Privy Council, v., xc-xci.; vi. lxxviii-ix. In 1437 a commission of inquiry into felonies and insurrections in Bedford could not be held because Lord Grey, to whom the town belonged, appeared with a strong armed force, and was met by Lord Fanhope ready to oppose him with another army. (Proceedings of Privy Council, v., Preface xv-xvi.) Account given by witnesses before Privy Council, v. 35, 39, 57. Fresh troubles in 1442, v. 192.

[501] For the evils of liveries and maintenance under Richard the Second, see Richard the Redeless, Pass. i. 55 &c., ii. 74 &c., iii. 309 &c. The wearing of liveries was forbidden in Shrewsbury lest “when any affray or trouble fall in the said town each man having livery would draw to his master or to his fellow and not to the bailiffs.” (Owen, i. 217.) From the towns these evils seem to have been rigorously and effectually banished by ordinances from 1309 (Freeman’s Exeter, 165, 143) throughout the two following centuries. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 557; Eng. Gilds, 385, 388-9, 393, 333; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, page 16.) The cases of trouble which occur are rare. (Nott. Records, ii. 384; iii. 37, 344-5. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 415. Hunt’s Bristol, 103-5.)

[502] Leicester shows the comparatively slow growth of freedom in one of the most favoured towns dependent on a great lord. Its great charter given by Edmund Crouchback in 1277, and translated into English under Henry the Sixth, was mainly concerned with the ordering of legal procedure for the burghers; and it was not till 1376 that the town bought from its earl the right to appoint its own bailiff, and to receive the annual profits of its courts, and various other dues and fines. The town property was simply a tenement, a chamber, and a small place yielding a few pence yearly till 1393, when it was allowed to hold a little property for the repair of the bridges; and not till 1435 were the mayor and the corporation given the right to acquire lands and rents for the sustenation of the town and mayoralty. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 404, 412, 413, 414. Thompson, Mun. Hist., 74. A pamphlet on the Origin of the Leicester Corporation by J. D. Paul gives a translation of Crouchback’s charter.) Doncaster belonged to the family of De Mauley till the middle of the fifteenth century, when it passed for a few years to the Duke of Northumberland, and in 1461 was taken into the possession of the Crown. Edward the Fourth made it a free borough and gave it a common seal. Henry the Seventh in 1505 granted to the corporation all the property which the Crown had acquired at Doncaster on the attainder of Percy in 1461, and for a yearly rent of £74 13_s._ 11½_d._ secured to it the rights which had belonged to the ancient feudal lords. (Hunter’s History of the Deanery of Doncaster, i. 13-15.)

[503] Picton’s Municipal Rec. of Liverpool, i. 1-4.

[504] Picton’s Municipal Rec. of Liverpool, i. 5-7.

[505] Ibid. 13, 14, 16. From this time leases of the ferm were very numerous and were constantly granted to one or more individuals; between 1354 and 1374 Richard de Aynesargh and William Adamson, who were often mayors, took such leases for several terms. (Picton’s Memorials of Liverpool, ii. 54.)

[506] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 35-36.

[507] Ibid. i. 27-28.

[508] In 1413 the burgesses presented a petition complaining that their privileges were infringed upon by the shire officers coming into the borough and holding courts by force, by which “the said burgesses are grievously molested, vexed, and disturbed, to the great hindrance and detriment of the said borough and the disinheriting of the burgesses.” It was declared on the other side, that the mayor and bailiffs had held the King’s Courts without authority and received the tolls and profits. It is not known how the case ended. Ibid. i. 31-2. Picton’s Mun. Records, i. 20.

[509] The revenue from Liverpool in 1296 was £25: it then had 168 inhabited houses. (Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 20.) In 1342 the personalty of the burgesses taxed was £110 13_s._ 3_d._, that is, the average personalty of each was about one mark (25). The revenue in 1327 was £30; in 1346 it was £38 (26), and remained the same in 1394 (31). In 1444 it was reduced to £21; in 1455 to £17 16_s._ 8_d._; and under Edward the Fourth to £14 (36-7). In 1515 an inquiry was made as to the decay of the revenue (38), and the Act of 1544 put Liverpool in the list of towns which had wholly fallen into decay (45). Two plagues, one in 1540, another in 1548, probably carried off half its population (47); and in 1565 it had but 138 inhabited houses, and probably seven or eight hundred inhabitants, and twelve vessels navigated on an average by six men each (55). There were five streets under Edward the Third, and seven under Elizabeth (62).

[510] Fortified in 1406. Picton’s Mun. Records, i. 21, 22.

[511] A little thatched building in the High Street which had to serve as toll house, town hall, and gaol, but the greater number of criminals were imprisoned and judged in the Stanley and Molyneux Castles. Picton’s Memorials, ii. 25-6.

[512] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 32-3.

[513] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 36, 37.

[514] Ibid. i. 37, 38, 46, 48-9.

[515] Picton, i. 63.

[516] As an illustration of the reverse process, showing the impulse given to municipal liberty when a borough was transferred from private ownership to the State, see the case of Sandwich (Ch. XII.).

[517] See charter to Beverley; Stubbs’ Charters, 105; Lambert’s Gild Life, 73-6, York; Stubbs’ Charters, 304, Salisbury; Gross’ Gild Merchant, ii. 209-10.

[518] Pol. Poems and Songs (Rolls’ Series). Ed. Wright, i. 327, 334.

[519] The Bishop of Salisbury by a royal charter of 1304 got the right to tallage the townspeople of Salisbury, while the burghers were given municipal privileges the same as those of Winchester. In 1305, however, the burghers, rather than pay tallage to the bishop, surrendered their municipal privileges to the King, and promised to give up to him their common seal. (Rot. Parl. i. 174-6.) But in the composition made the next year between the lord bishop and the citizens, those who had shared in the revolt and had not made their submission were utterly separated and removed from privileges of trade or government. (Gross, ii. 209-10.) In 1396 there was again a quarrel between the bishop and the citizens, and the case was carried to the King’s Council, when the mayor and commonalty entered into a recognizance to the King in £20,000 to behave well to the bishop, and two hundred of the citizens entered into recognizances to the bishop, each one in the sum of £1,000. In the agreement, however, certain provisions were made to prevent the ecclesiastics from taking advantage in any way of this treaty. (Madox, 142.)

The Commons in giving the grant of 1435 pray that no prelate may be a collector, adding that the dioceses of bishops and the neighbourhood of abbeys were greatly oppressed by ecclesiastical lords. (Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, iv. 164.)

[520] Our Borough, by E. M. Beloe, 1-3.

[521] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 185-6.

[522] For the troubles of the mayor and community in trying to carry out the King’s laws in the presence of this divided jurisdiction, see Rot. Parl. i. 331.

[523] There had been trouble the year before which Robert’s soft words failed to dissipate. “Know, dear friends,” he writes, “that I am surely concerned for your trouble, and if I could give you ease or alleviation of your trouble I would do it most readily, but assuredly, dear friends, I am at present in such misfortune of money that ... wherefore I pray you, my dear friends, that you put me in possession of my moneys as speedily as you can, since of a truth I can no longer dispense with them which much troubles me. And with respect to the wrong that was done to my bailiff, you have sent me word that the parties are in agreement. Know you that though peace be made between them the contempt done to me is not redressed, wherefore, I pray you, dear sirs, that you will take order amongst yourselves that amends may be made to me for the aforesaid contempt. Adieu, dear friends! May he give you happy and long life!” Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 241-4.

[524] For the King’s bailiffs, see the petition in 1382 to the Lord Chancellor for relief from extortionate demands of the bailiffs of the Tolbooth. The bailiffs were perhaps not to blame; in 1396 and 1397 they had to pay 20 marks of silver out of receipts to the Duke of Britanny; in 1398, 10 marks to the Duke of York; in 1400, 8½ to the Duke of Lancaster. Ibid. 244-5.

[525] The charter of 1268 granted the right to elect a mayor in accordance with the former charter of the bishop. Hist. MSS. Com. xi.