[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.