Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Alice Stopford Green

The oligarchy thus established was however no more in absolute possession of the field than an oligarchy of the thirteenth century. The people’s right to hold a general assembly was admitted by the governing class as late as 1480, and claimed by the commonalty a century later. The jurors of the Court Leet long acted as representatives of the general body of burgesses for purposes of criticism and remonstrance. For certain kinds of business touching the community the custom of electing special juries was maintained; as in 1458 when “twenty-four upright and lawful men from the aforesaid town of Nottingham, as well as twenty-four upright and lawful men from each wapentake of the county aforesaid”[676] were summoned to report on the state of the bridge. It seems probable that at least six burghers took part in the election of municipal officers; and in 1511 the inhabitants claimed some share in the elections by virtue of “the statute of free elections in such cases ordained.”[677] Above all the burghers exercized their ancient rights over the common property of the people. For in those days Nottingham boasted of great possessions[678] in land. From the low cliff of red sandstone which lifted it out of the floods that constantly swamped the lower grounds, the townsmen looked out over the common fields and closes and Lammas lands that stretched round it on every side, and formed until the Act of 1845 a broad belt of open country which cut off the borough from its surrounding dependent villages, and might in no way be used for building. These wide reaches of pasture were yearly distributed in due proportion among the burghers by common consent of the mayor and the whole community. In the division, and in questions of boundaries and fences and fields, the commonalty were all directly interested; and they never consented to hand over to the undisputed management of a council rights which touched them so nearly.[679] They asserted their claim to attend the meetings when the lands were divided or let out on lease, to take part in all decisions, and to keep a close watch on the councillors lest these should be tempted to pass over their own names when the poor lands were divided and to distribute among themselves all the best closes.[680] At the very end of the fifteenth century their verdict was still decisive. In 1480 the commons being called together to the Common Hall by the mayor on a question as to the common lands, “the said commons would in no wise agree” to his proposal.[681]

It is therefore probable that the charter of 1448 did not mark for Nottingham the moment of a serious constitutional revolution. Such little evidence as we have seems to show that the state of affairs was singularly like that which we have already seen in Southampton at the same date; that things went on pretty much as they had done for years past, and that the burgesses neither suffered, nor thought they suffered, any usurpation of their rights, or any grave loss of customary liberties. The system established in 1448 had been in full working for over half a century before any struggle, so far as we know, took place between the governing class and the people; and even then it was not suggested that the disturbance was caused by any change in the legal form of government.[682] For in 1500 Nottingham was in as sorry a plight as Norwich had been in 1300. It was practically handed over to the rule of publicans and licensed victuallers, who, with or without the law, held their own bravely against all opposition. When brewers and bakers and vintners rose to power they took care that the assize of bread and beer and wine should not be brought to mind; when butchers and cattle-dealers became aldermen and chamberlains they encouraged a confusion which was most profitable to themselves as to the limits of the common pastures, letting gates and bridges fall into ruin, and “although they have been often required by the whole community of the whole town of Nottingham to make common boundary marks, as their predecessors had done, have hitherto refused to do so;”[683] even as common trespassers they put their cattle and sheep in the meadow in the night time unto the great harm of their neighbours.[684] The officers appointed by the council dutifully served the interests of their masters: “We often complain of his demeanour, and have no remedy”[685] is the comment of the Mickletorn jury about the common serjeant. Year after year the protests of the commonalty were heard at the local courts. Jurors of the quarter sessions laid their grievances before the justices of the peace, themselves the main offenders; while the jury of the Mickletorn or Leet asserted their right to address the town council (when they could be persuaded to take their places at the court) and “in the name of the burgesses and commonalty of this town,” to declare the wrongs of the people.[686]

It was in 1511 that the struggle between rulers and burghers culminated. In the August of that year the council seems to have violated the ancient custom, and leased common pastures by the authority of “the mayor and burgesses,” the witnesses being six aldermen and six of the common council[687]—a style which had not been used before in dealing with these lands. This meddling with the rights of the community apparently heralded an outbreak of revolt. At the next Court Leet, in October, 1511, the Mickletorn jury presented the mayor who had been in power when the lease was granted, and charged him with encroaching on the common lands, and making his servants “riotously break off our common pasture hedges; it is thought contrary to right and to the common weal.” Six months later, in April, 1512, the jury extended their attack, and the actual “Master Mayor” was presented for being the first beginner of a muck-hill, for misusing the time of the common serjeant, and for selling unfit herrings in the market and excluding other men who would have brought as good stuff and sold eight for a penny where he sold five, though as clerk of the market he should have increased and bettered it instead of impairing it, “and upon this runneth a great slander in the country and a great complaint.” He was charged, along with “all his brethren,” with failing to account for money in his charge “to the great hurt of the town and commons.” Further the mayor and chamberlains together were presented for not repairing the two gates of the town; and the chamberlains for not looking after a public well; and the mayor’s clerk, “the which takes our wages not as a beneficial servant unto us in no matter that any burgess of this town hath to do, but he repugnes and maligns against the burgesses and commons that they be not content with his demeanour.”[688]

The commons went further than this, however, and raised the question of their ancient rights of assembling in the common hall and taking part in the election of officers.[689] At this point the authorities became genuinely alarmed. A month later, May 21, the Recorder or legal adviser of the corporation wrote a formal letter of advice to the governing body on these crucial matters of election and assembly. “I am informed,” he says, “that divers of the commons of your town confederate themselves together and make sinister labour to do others to take their part and say as they do, and intend thereby to make aldermen and other officers at their pleasure; and if that should be suffered it should be contrary to all good politic order and rule, and in conclusion to the destruction of the town. Wherefore now at the beginning wisely withstand the same and call your brethren and the council together, and if ye by your wisdom think that by calling of these confederates every of them severally before you ye cannot order them without further help, then my advice is that ye send some wise person to Mr. Treasurer[690] that it would please him to see reformation, if he be in England, and else that he would write to my Lord Privy Seal, or to my Lord Steward, now in his absence to see this matter redressed, ascertaining you have spoke with my Lord Steward in this matter, and he gave me advice thus to write to you; for if ye shall suffer the commons to rule and follow their appetite and desire, farewell all good order. For if they be suffered now they will wait to do in like case hereafter.” In a postscript he adds, “In any wise beware of calling of any common hall at the request of any one of them that make this confederacy. I doubt not but divers of you remember the saying of Mr. Treasurer of the inconveniences that had ensued upon the calling of the commons together in the city of London and in other cities and boroughs.”[691] The sympathies of Mr. Treasurer were duly enlisted, according to the Recorder’s advice, and on the very day when a new mayor took the place of the last, he wrote urging him to stand firm against those commons who would “combine themselves to subvert the good rule of the town and would make aldermen and put them out at their pleasure, contrary to the good order of your charter and privilege of your town.” He begs them, if there be any of such “wilful disposition to subvert the good rule of the same your said town, that with all diligence certify me of their names, and I trust to see such remedy for them as shall not be to their contentment, but I shall see them shewn condign punishment as they have or shall deserve.”[692]

The shibboleth of “good order” had its accustomed effect, and the governing body carried their point, though in leases of the common lands they presently returned to the old style.[693] The new mayor, John Rose, known to the people as the butcher chamberlain who in 1500 had let their landmarks be removed, and who since then had grown into innkeeper and victualler, ruled for eighteen months.[694] His successor, appointed in January, 1515,[695] was Master Thomas Mellers, an alderman who had a very bad reputation in the presentments of the Court Leet; after he had reigned two years, a mercer of Nottingham tried to kill him with a dagger while he was joyfully dining with an alderman; but he survived to rule again in 1522.[696] Again the jury returned to the charge. In 1524 the outgoing mayor was presented at the July sessions for not keeping the assize of bread,[697] and in October the matter was pressed on the attention of the newly-appointed mayor. Two years later, however, Nottingham was for the third time put under John Rose, who in the interests of firm government determined to suppress once for all the importunate presentments of the jury. During the whole time of his mayoralty, “in the default of the said Master Rose there was no verdict given of the jurors sworn for the body of this present town ... to inquire of things inquirable afore you justices of record,” nor was the assize of victual ever put in execution; and by this the town had not only been greatly disordered but had been put in danger of forfeiting its liberties and franchises.[698] The next year (1527) the jury were again roused by the fact that three aldermen, one of them being Rose, the last year’s mayor, had by their united efforts filled all vacancies with victuallers; and a formal petition was addressed to the mayor and his brethren in the name of the whole town. They called to remembrance the law that “No victualler should be chosen to no such rooms as judge of victual,” and told again the long tale of their grievances. They declare that these elections were illegal, “the burgesses and commonalty of the said town not being made privy, nor thereunto consenting, contrary to the corporation of the said town, and also contrary to the statute of free elections in such case ordained,” and that therefore the whole town might be made to suffer the loss of their liberties and franchises for non-using or misusing the same. In the lately elected aldermen “the want of discretion and debility of reason” was well known to the whole town, so that the common voice and fame of it ran through the shire; and the jurors thought “that the most wisest and discreetest men ought to have been chosen to such rooms by you and the burgesses and commonalty.”

Further the jury, “in their most humble manner,” observed that the king had been deceived in the matter of the last subsidy; for in addition to their other crimes the three aldermen, when their substance was assessed for a subsidy at £50 or £55, had “embezzled” the record, and changed the figures to a nought.

Finally they pray “by the whole minds and agreements” that the present counsel of the town might use and continue in his place “like as he unto the same was elect and sworn, and that according to right and good conscience he may have his fees that is behind to him contented and paid.”[699] All this the jury spoke in the name of the people, “whereunto we, the aforesaid jurors, in the name of the burgesses and commonalty of this town and borough are fully content and agreed.”

In these troubles, it does not seem that the revolt of the people was excited by any definite constitutional change, nor was the charter of 1448 called in question or brought forward as the origin of later evils, nor was any protest made against the election of councillors for life. Complaints multiply against corrupt administration of the law, or the holding of office by unfit and illegal men. But the claim of the people to a share in elections is vague and indefinite, and neither in 1511 nor in 1527 do the commons appeal to precedent. Opinions as to their rights are tossed to and fro, balanced by contending winds of doctrine. In defence of the system of close election the council call to witness the charter and privileges of the town; while on the other hand the commons declare that elections are illegal if the commonalty as well as the burgesses are not “made privy nor thereunto consenting.” Possibly the explanation lies in a common tendency of practice to drift away from the theory with which it had first kept company, and finally to disown its old accomplice. No doubt the commons inherited theoretically an inalienable right to take part in elections; but it had apparently become the practice that the people should only exercise that right in a certain definite way through the half-dozen representatives who attended the elections, and not through a common gathering; and thus the situation was one in which either side might indefinitely urge law and custom without ever bringing conviction to their opponents.

It is indeed conceivable that the true peril to popular liberty was of a far more subtle character than the words of any charter would suggest, and rather grew out of developements in the unwritten constitution of the borough, than in the written law. Not only in elections, but in the meeting of the general assembly, insidious changes may have been brought about by the mere growth of common custom. In the institution of “the Clothing” there were latent possibilities which time alone could bring to light. For over half a century sheriffs and chamberlains were quietly bowed out of office, and transferred with all their fur and finery to the brilliant company of the liveried ex-officials to await a happy re-election. But in due course, as its numbers multiplied, the Clothing was made manifest to all men in its stately ranks or “clene scarlet” as the very body-guard and sworn defenders of the central group of high officials, the traditional depositories of power. Surrounded and shielded by a band of forty or fifty friends who had already held office and might hold it again, men dedicated to their interests and disciplined to their methods, the mayor and his brethren were no longer left face to face with the whole community. Under the established custom by which any burgesses who were present at an assembly were taken to represent the whole body, it was evidently easy even while outwardly observing constitutional form, to summon to the meeting only members of the Clothing; and the decrees of the council having been submitted to this loyal gathering were assumed to have obtained the assent of the commonalty. Popular control might thus be absolutely extinguished, and that without revolution or going beyond the letter of the law, when a council chamber crowded with the official class[700] replaced the assembly of the commons, and exercized its powers simply by preserving its name.