The story of Coventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

But the discontent of the commonalty did not abate, and once more, in 1421, the officers in high place went through the form of consulting their fellow-townsmen. A hundred and thirty-four citizens, summoned at the mayor's requisition to S. Mary's Hall, gave the lie to popular discontent a second time, and approved of the giving over of the Mirefield, the Podycroft and Stivichall Hiron to the use of the guildsmen. But the anger of the townsmen became so hot that in the following year they destroyed certain gardens at Cheylesmore, which, it appears, had been enclosed by well-known townsmen, members of the mayor's council and justices of the peace.[189]

The mayor's council of Forty-eight, one of the most important of the constitutional expedients ever devised by the ruling class at Coventry, met apparently for the first time in 1423. In the previous year, no doubt with the notion of allaying the prevailing discontent, the idea of selecting a definite number of commoners from every ward to form a council to watch over the interests of the commonweal first took shape. There had been "dissentious stirrings" concerning enclosures, and there is little doubt that at the Michaelmas leet there was some speech of giving those outside the corporation some means of checking the alleged malpractices of the municipal rulers. The mayor had been charged to call forty-eight commoners, divers out of every ward, to hear the chamberlains' accounts for three years past, and to witness any grants made under the common seal.[190] But there is little or nothing to tell of the activity of this body of commoners.[191] On the other hand, at the first opportunity the corporation turned this idea of a council into a weapon for their own defence by providing at the election of the mayor in the following January that there should be one consisting of the staunchest supporters of the town rulers. "It was provided," the Leet Book says, "that the said mayor should call and take to him the same twenty-four worthy men, that were of his election, with other twenty-four wise and discreet men, chosen to them and named by the said mayor," and that this company should "put in rule all manner of good ordinances" for the benefit of the city.[192] And the worthy men were determined that this good ordaining should be followed by prompt obedience.

"It is and hath been accustomed," says an insertion in 1484 in the records of Leet, "that whatever the foresaid forty-eight persons ordaineth and establisheth for worship of mayoralty, bailiffs and commonalty of this city, according to the law, all the whole body of this city shall be bound thereby."[193] A certain latitude was allowed to the mayor as to whom summons should be sent "when he had need of forty-eight persons," save that he was always warned to require the attendance of "sufficient" men,[194] i.e. of suitable rank. After 1446 we find that the presence of a quorum of twelve persons was sufficient for the transaction of business, the whole body afterwards giving their assent to the measures ordained by this smaller company.[195] And it was most probably this small working body that was the ancestor of the inner council of the mayor and aldermen, which ultimately, by the charter of James I., gained complete and unchecked control over the municipal affairs of Coventry. The rule of this council gradually became a veritable tyranny. Even the official class rebelled against its dictates. We hear of a majority, "the most part" of the council, and this includes the idea of a dissentient minority. Those who transgressed the commands of this majority, if they had never filled the sheriff's post, lost the freedom of the city; while late mayors or sheriffs lost their official rank. He shall "be exempt," the order ran[196] in the sheriff's case, "from wearing scarlet among his company in all common assemblies, feasts, and processions"; and further, to be punished with fine and imprisonment at the mayor and council's discretion; on a late mayor the same penalty was laid, with the addition that he should be "exempt from his cloke and council"; while any citizens "comforting the disobedient" were to suffer the same penalties. When we learn that this order was framed in 1516 for the correction of John Strong, late mayor and ex officio member of the council, we may form some conception of the tyranny of this body, whose doings even divided the corporation against itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] Leet Book, 597. They were afterwards reimbursed when the suit was decided against the prior.

[162] Leet Book, 619.

[163] See Green, Town Life, ii. 256, for examples of the punishments of those who insulted officials. In Coventry two men—John Smith and John Duddesbury—for their ill-behaviour to "men of worship" were, in 1495, put under surety from session to session until their submission should content the justices of the peace (Leet Book, 569).

[164] Six of the mayor's council met every Wednesday. The sergeant kept the council-house doors so that no unauthorised person might enter (Ib., 516).

[165] Leet Book, 544. The mayor was to be deprived of his "cloke" (i.e. official rank) and council, of which body he was an ex-officio member.