All these privileges and exemptions were matters of negociation between the borough and the king or the lord of the manor to be bought for money, or for political support, or for loans in time of need.[422] The people everywhere simply won such advantages as time and opportunity allowed, and secured benefits which were measured by the grace of the king, or by the price they could afford to pay, or by the show of resistance they could make to their lord. Nor was there anything startling or revolutionary about the first beginnings of independent municipal life. The town assemblies which discussed and inaugurated a new constitution transacted their business with a completeness and accuracy of methodical routine which might kindle the sympathy of a Town Council of modern Birmingham. In the organization of “meetings” the mediæval Englishman seems to have had nothing to learn, and the doings of the people of Ipswich when they got their first charter from King John in 1200 carry us into the quiet atmosphere of a board-room where shareholders and directors of some solid and old-established company assemble for business with the decorum and punctuality of venerable habit.[423] The charter granted those essential privileges which were recognized by all boroughs as of the very first importance—the right henceforward to deal in financial matters directly with the Exchequer, and no longer act as a mere fragment of the shire through the sheriff; to be free of tolls on trade throughout the kingdom, and have a Guild Merchant with all its commercial privileges; to carry out justice according to the ancient custom of the borough; and to elect each year from among themselves officers to rule over the town, who being thus appointed by common consent could only be removed from office by the unanimous counsel of the whole people. The charter was given on May 25, and in the following month a general assembly of the burghers was summoned. At this meeting they first elected the chief officers for the year, the bailiffs and coroners, and then proceeded to decide by common counsel that a body of twelve “Portmen” should be appointed to assist them; and three days later these too were formally chosen through another and more complicated system of election by a select body of citizens named for the purpose. Having taken an oath faithfully to govern the borough and maintain its liberties, and justly to render the judgments of its courts, the new officers then caused all the townsmen to stretch forth their hands towards the Book, and with one voice solemnly swear from that hour to obey and assist them in guarding the liberties of the town. Twelve days after this they met to ordain the most necessary rules for the administration of the town. Two months were then spent in drawing up “Ordinances” which were finally solemnly read to the whole people assembled in the churchyard, and received their unanimous consent. And lastly a month later, on October 12, the organization of the Merchant Guild for the regulation of trade was completed and its officers elected; the newly made Common Seal[424] was inspected; and the community ordered that a record of all their laws and free customs should be written for perpetual remembrance in a roll to be called Domesday. And thus with all the grave ceremony which befitted the dignity of a new republic, Ipswich started on its independent career as a free borough.
CHAPTER VII
BATTLE FOR FREEDOM
(1.) Towns on Royal Demesne
So auspicious a beginning of municipal life as was granted to Ipswich did not however fall as a matter of course to the lot of every English town, nor was political liberty by any means an inevitable consequence of favourable commercial conditions, or necessarily withheld from boroughs in a humbler way of trade. In a society where all towns alike depended upon some lord of the manor who owned the soil and exercised feudal rights over his tenants, that which mainly determined for each community the measure of independence it should win, and the price which its people should pay for liberty, was the form of lordship to which it was subject. By the decisive accidents of position and tenure the fate of the town was fixed, rather than by the merits or exertions of the burghers.
First among the boroughs in number and importance were those in “ancient demesne”—that is, boroughs which held directly from the king, and were therefore reckoned as being a part of the national property, such as Canterbury, York, Winchester, Southampton, Yarmouth, Nottingham, Gloucester, and so on. A second group was formed by the towns which belonged to a lay noble, like Morpeth, Berkeley, or Leicester; or were held by him as a special grant from the king, as Barnstaple or Liverpool. Finally there were the towns on ecclesiastical estates, whether they were the property of a bishopric like Lynn, which was under the Bishop of Norwich, Wells under the Bishop of Wells, Romney and Hythe under the Archbishop of Canterbury; or whether they owed suit and fealty to a convent, as the towns of Reading and St. Albans, which belonged to the abbots of those monasteries respectively, Fordwich to St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, Weymouth to St. Swithun’s at Winchester.[425] In all these various groups the towns were equally willing to relieve their feudal superior, king or lord or bishop, of the cares of government, and the only question was how far the king would go in supporting these demands, or how far the noble and ecclesiastic could be compelled to acquiesce in a re-distribution of feudal jurisdiction and privileges in favour of traders and “mean” people.
Happily for the national wealth and freedom the great majority of towns in England, and almost all those of importance, were part of the royal demesne, and the king was lord of the soil. Fenced in by privileges which had been devised to protect the interest of the King, and which they gradually found means to transform into institutions for the protection of their own interests, the burghers on ancient demesne were bound into one fellowship by the inheritance of a common tradition and common immunities;[426] and regarding their towns as the very aristocracy among the boroughs, enjoyed a self-conscious dignity such as the Great Powers of Europe might feel towards the less favoured minor States. There is the ring of a haughty spirit in the answer sent by the men of Hereford when the people of Cardiff begged for a copy of their “customs” to help them in deciding on the constitution of their own government. “The King’s citizens of Hereford,” they say, “who have the custody of his city (in regard that it is the principal city of all the market towns from the sea even unto the bounds of the Severn) ought of ancient usage to deliver their laws and customs to such towns when need requires, yet in this case they are in no wise bound to do it, because they say they are not of the same condition; for there are some towns which hold of our Lord the King of England and his heirs without any mesne lord; and to such we are bound, when and as often as need shall be, to certify of our laws and customs, chiefly because we hold by one and the same tenure; and nothing shall be taken of them in the name of a reward, except only by our common town clerk for the writing and his pains as they can agree. But there are other market towns which hold of divers lords of the kingdom wherein are both natives and rustics of ancient time, who pay to their lords corporal service of divers kinds, with other services which are not used among us, and who may be expelled out of those towns by their lords, and may not inhabit in them or be restored to their former state, but by the common law of England.[427] And chiefly those and others that hold by such foreign services in such towns are not of our condition; neither shall they have our laws and customs but by way of purchase, to be performed to our Capital Bailiff as they can agree between them, at the pleasure and to the benefit of the city aforesaid.”[428]
I. Singular advantages, indeed, fell to the lot of towns thus happily situated on the national estate. The King was a Lord of the Manor too remote to have opportunity for overmuch meddling, and too greatly occupied with affairs of state to concern himself with the details of government in his numerous boroughs.[429] County magnates might cling passionately to the right of holding local courts as sources of power, and yet more important sources of wealth; but such rights were of small consequence to a powerful sovereign, who as supreme head of the law could call up criminals to his own judgement seat from every court in the country.[430] Confidence of supremacy made him careless to put it to the test by abrupt assertions of authority, as private owners, apprehensive and uncertain, might be tempted to do; and in his indifference to small uses of power and devices for paltry gain, he held loosely to rights that brought much trouble and little profit.[431] So long as his yearly ferm was punctually paid,[432] he was ready to grant to the townsfolk leave to gather into their own treasury the petty sums collected at the borough or manor courts,[433] or to make their mayor the king’s escheator; and while he thus won their gratitude and friendship he lost nothing by his generosity. In surrendering local claims for a fixed payment, he not only relieved himself of the charge of salaries to a multitude of minor officials, but he had no longer to suffer from the loss of fines and dues and forfeitures which were nominally levied for the King, but which had a constant tendency to find their way into the pockets of the town officers or the tax-collectors rather than into his exchequer. In many cases, moreover, he may have gained considerably by the price which he demanded for his favours; and the royal accounts possibly give a very inadequate record of the number of special gifts of money and yearly annuities paid by boroughs to the King in return for liberties granted to them.[434]