[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 18d. 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.)