Meanwhile the Norwich people had been gradually perfecting their own internal system of government—a system which will be described in a later chapter—and in the difficulties of Henry the Fourth they found opportunity to complete their work. A sum of £1,000 given to the King, besides heavy fines paid in bribes on all sides, secured in 1403 a charter which finally guaranteed to them the constitution of their choice.[465] Norwich was made into a county of itself. A mayor was appointed, who was given supreme rights of jurisship.” in the city, and received from the King himself a sword which was to be carried before him with the point erect, along with the gold or silver maces borne by the serjeants-at-mace. The four bailiffs were replaced by two sheriffs, also elected by the burgesses, who were charged with matters concerning the interests of the crown which had formerly been the business of the bailiffs, and were responsible for the yearly rent of the city. The mayor was appointed the King’s escheator, and thus the last office which had been reserved in alien hands was given over to the municipality. Finally in token of the consummation of the municipal hopes the old seal of the bailiffs was abolished to make way for a new city seal.
Norwich was but one among a number of boroughs whose inhabitants quietly and steadily gathered to themselves the liberties that made them free, for in the fellowship of towns holding of the King under a uniform tenure throughout the “ancient demesne,” the list of privileges granted to any one became the model for its neighbours near and far.[466] With orderly progression, unbroken by any of the violent and dramatic incidents that indicate a time of conflict, all the bigger towns won by gradual instalments complete local independence. Such changes of method as we observe are simply changes made necessary by new national legislation, such as the form of incorporation required after the Statute of Mortmain,[467] or the right to elect Justices of the Peace when one power after another had been given to these officers by law.[468] We do not distinguish seasons of plentiful harvest and periods barren of all growth; in one century as in another Kings stooped to accept the “courtesies” offered, and granted the favours solicited. Nor do we find records of advantages hastily given and timidly withdrawn; or, until the reign of Richard the Third,[469] is there any suggestion of anxiety on the part of Kings to check or limit the free action of the boroughs.[470] Up to that time rulers of the state seem to have had no apprehension of peril to public order, of jeopardy to trading interests, of injury to the administration of justice, of possible usurpations by the municipalities which might bring them into collision with the ordered forces of the world; and for three hundred years statesmen freely allowed the growth of municipal ambition, and gave full scope for the developement of all the various systems of local self-government. The full importance of these facts only becomes clear when we turn to the history of the towns that were under subjection to other lords than the nation itself; and compare the peaceful negotiations by which matters were arranged between the royal boroughs and the State, with the violence of feeling aroused when the misgivings and alarms of private owners were brought into the controversy.
CHAPTER VIII
Battle for Freedom
(2) Towns on Feudal Estates
On the King’s lands, as we have seen, the interests of the monarch never came into collision with the interests of his burghers, and the townsfolk found an easy way to liberty. From time to time they presented a petition for freedom, brought their gifts to win the sovereign’s favour, and joyfully carried back to their fellow citizens a new charter of municipal privileges. But the condition of the towns that belonged to noble or baron was doubly depressed from the standpoint of their happier neighbours. Of secondary importance alike in numbers, in wealth, or in influence, as compared to those on royal demesne, they for the most part never emerged into any real consequence; while their lord had every reason to oppose the growth of independence in his boroughs, and lacked nothing for its complete suppression but the requisite power. New franchises were extorted from his weakness rather than won from his good will, and where acquiescence in the town’s liberties was not irresistibly forced on him his opposition was dogged and persevering.
The dispute was none the less intense because under the conditions of English life the controversy between the town and the feudal lord was limited within a very narrow field; for the burghers saw well how the lord’s claims to supremacy might permanently fetter an active community of traders, and on this point townspeople fought with a pertinacity determined by the conviction that all their hopes of prosperity depended on victory. To manufacturers and merchants the rule of an alien governor was fatal; trade died away before vexatious checks and arbitrary imposts, and enterprising burghers hastened to forsake the town where prosperity was stunted and liberty uncertain, and take up citizenship in a more thriving borough. Success and emancipation went hand in hand; for the effects of a maimed and imperfect freedom were always disastrous and far-reaching, and there is not a single instance of an English town which remained in a state of dependence and which was at the same time prosperous in trade.
One or two instances will be enough to show the extent and character of the traders’ claim for “liberties.” The burghers of Totnes, who had been fined for having a Guild by Henry the Second, had no sooner succeeded in securing its authorisation from John than they at once made it a weapon of offence, and a formidable weapon too with its roll of more than three hundred members, against their lord’s control of the town market and of the shopkeepers. The Guild claimed the right to admit non-residents to their company, so that these might freely trade without paying any tribute to the lord for one year, after that giving six pence annually; and pretended to have authority to test weights and measures without orders from the lord’s bailiff; to hold the assize of bread and ale and receive fines; and apparently to deal out justice for petty offences. These usurpations of his rights were discussed between the lord and his tenants with riots and contentions, in which the lord proved victorious in 1304, forcing the burghers to submit on every point in which the Guild tried to bring in customs which lay beyond the ancient rights of the community. They were forbidden to admit to the Guild anyone who had not a house in the town, and non-residents had to take oaths before his bailiff to pay a yearly fine to the lord. No trial of weights and measures could take place till orders had been issued to the Seneschal of the Guild by the lord’s bailiff; when the trial came on bailiff and town provost sat beside him in the Guildhall to hear the charges, and even then all false or suspected measures were to be kept by the provost till the lord’s next court. On the other hand the bailiff might hold a trial of measures whenever he judged that he could do the business better. So also the assize of bread was given to the lord’s bailiff sitting with the provost of the town; all suspected bread and weights were to be seized by him, the offenders to be fined in the lord’s court, all punishments by tumbril or pillory inflicted by his orders, and all proceeds of fines given over to him. Lastly when small thefts and riots were to be judged the bailiff sat by the town officers and as many burgesses as chose to come, and took his share in the proceedings—though occasionally in his absence the town officers might act by common consent of the community.[471]