Government in Tudor Shrewsbury in depth

This was written by Bill Champion, author of "Everyday Life in Tudor Shrewsbury" and is a finely researched look at this theme for those who wish to explore it in great detail.
© W.A. Champion (2006)

II. Government and politics, 1540-1640.

Guild Hall, The Square, Shrewsbury (image) [+]
The Guild Hall shown in this view was the third one recorded on this site. Two others were to follow in the 18th and 19th Centuries. This frequency of rebuilding may have been due to their construction over an ancient bog. The central block, on the site ...

Although the abbey franchise had been granted to the borough in 1542, it was administered separately until 1586 when a new charter, costing over £94 to obtain, united it to the borough as part of the Stone Ward.(1) To cement the new jurisdictional arrangements the charter also incorporated the bailiffs and burgesses, a formal privilege only since a corporate identity had long been assumed.(2) Other new grants obtained in the charter included probate of wills (though this is not known to have been used), and possession of the castle.(3) To accommodate the increase in local civil litigation (the number of suits had more than doubled since 1540), the charter also appointed weekly rather than fortnightly sittings of the Small Court (curia parva).(4) The number of attorneys attached to the court had also risen since the 1540s from three or four to nine in 1582, a number which the attorneys themselves complained was too high. Their number was then limited in that year to eight, reduced further to six in 1586.(5)

Court practice in the curia parva had experienced great changes in the previous 50 years with the rapid adoption of Common Law innovations, and as a result compurgation was largely ousted by jury as the principal mode of trial.(6) In conjunction with the litigation boom, this was to produce a great increase in the use of the civil jury: the average number of inquests rose from about 35 per year in 1505-33 (n=15) to 180 in 1570-1601 (n=10).(7) In the civic year 1586-7 at least 249 townsmen, or about one quarter of all streeters (male householders) at that date, served on an inquest in the curia parva.(8) Although drapers and mercers were under-represented, as (conversely) were labourers at the other end of the economic structure, jury participation was otherwise closely matched to the proportional distribution of male occupations. Greater use of trial by jury, however, together with rising fees and more frequent employment of counsel, was to lead to a radical increase in legal costs between 1520 and 1650 – in real terms as much as five-fold for actions determined by jury. That by 1586 poorer litigants were already being priced out of the market for legal services is suggested by the further grant in the charter of a 'Court of Chancery', with a simpler legal procedure, for actions worth less than 40 shillings. The experiment, however, was short-lived, and by 1610 the rate of litigation in the curia parva had begun to fall, while the proportion of suits pressed as far as trial also fell by half between 1580 and 1630. Nonetheless, the number of actions entered in the court books did not show an absolute decline until the 1630s.

The volume of business in Shrewsbury's other courts also soared after 1540. Thus in the Great Court (curia magna), which dealt with communal offences, the average number of fines imposed for affrays or bloods rose from 36 per year in 1500-40 to 143 in 1580-89 and 220 between 1610 and 1640. Even after adjusting for the inclusion from 1586 of the Abbey Foregate, the increase was significantly higher than the rise in population. Since most of these fines stemmed from petty brawls, often drink-related, it is possible that the higher incidence was related to an increase in residential density and resulting interpersonal tensions, although more vigilant court intervention may also have been implicated.(9) Failure to pay fines imposed for affrays was a common cause of imprisonment. Of the 44 prisoners listed in the annual inventory of the three gaols in 1584, 18 lay there for that reason.(10) It was customary in such circumstances to submit formally to the bailiffs and petition for release, the petitions usually being drawn up in stereotypical form by the borough attorneys.(11) There is little doubt that the number of such petitions, together with those seeking redress for particular grievances, also rose sharply in this period. By 1612-13 the bailiffs were receiving petitions from prisoners alone at a rate equivalent to one every four days.(12)

The mounting administrative burden of the bailiffs was accentuated by their duties as justices of the peace, six of whom were permitted by the 1586 charter, co-opted from the ranks of serving and former bailiffs.(13) Five-year samples show that whereas the bailiffs were approached on 60 occasions in 1512-17 by individuals seeking sureties of the peace, that number had risen to 182 in 1580-5, while the number of recognizances taken of all kinds rose from 47 to 296.(14) Almost certainly the number of criminal indictments at the sessions, mostly for larceny, also rose,(15) although regular quarter sessions were not held until the latter part of the the 17th century, and monthly petty sessions not until the 1630s,(16) evidently in response to Charles I's Book of Orders (1631). In later decades the petty sessions were to be concerned largely with supervising the parochial administration of poor relief.(17) As elsewhere Shrewsbury's magistrates were also burdened with the new statutory duties placed on JPs during the 16th century, principally supervision of vagrants and poor relief, upkeep of the highways, and assessment of wages.(18) Anticipated by proposals in c. 1520,(19) formal licensing of alehouses was also operating by 1569 and probably by 1552-3,(20) doubtless as a result of the Act of 1552.(21) Such control was to prove useful in view of the growing number of alehouses, increasingly seen as a threat to public order. In 1592 lists of alesellers were drawn up with a view to suppressing 'the great nomber of ale houses being one of the great fears of this Comen wealth', and in 1625 an attempt was made to restrict aleselling to burgesses only.(22) In practice totals of all bribsters continued to outnumber those who were actually licensed.(23)

In the early 16th century offenders had frequently been bound over to appear at future sittings of the curia parva, but later recognizances always specified the sessions. By the 1580s such bonds had come to include those taken from parties engaged in illicit sexual liaisons, with the maintenance of bastard children now requiring magisterial order.(24) Resulting punishments ordered at the sessions could involve carting or public penance in church, the JPs thus acting in concert with the moral reformation instigated by the then public preacher, the puritanical John Tomkys.(25) However, rigorous enforcement of social and moral order in Shrewsbury appears to have been only intermittently sustained after Tomkys’s death in 1592, partly due perhaps to the irregularity of the borough sessions – as noted above there were at this date no quarter sessions as such. In 1618 it was even said (remarkable if true) that none had been held for three years.(26)

Greater magisterial responsibility was supported by a revival of the prestige of the stewardship. In the early 16th century the post had been held by the town clerk, with the recorder acting as the chief legal advisor.(27) By 1549, however, it was held by Sir Adam Mytton of the Council in the Marches, and thereafter by other local gentlemen.(28) Although both steward and recorder are known to have attended borough sessions,(29) by Elizabeth's reign the recorder concentrated on civil litigation, in particular by giving his opinion on demurrers (pleadings raising a point of law),(30) while the steward was recognized as the main source of advice on criminal proceedings.(31) Mytton's successor, William Fowler of Harnage Grange (steward 1562-1597 and another member of the Council in the Marches), was to closely supervise the borough's criminal jurisdiction including capital felonies.(32) These were still tried at the Shrewsbury sessions, not being turned over to the county assizes until after the mid 17th century.

In contrast to the higher profile of the borough magistrates, the administrative role of the curia magna began to lose some of its communal resonance. The proportion of streeters fined for failing to make suit of court without an excuse, rose from about 10 per cent in 1500-1560, to 22 per cent in 1600, and 43 per cent in 1640; while the proportion of those who actually attended the twice-yearly meetings of the court fell from about half in the mid 16th century to less than one quarter by 1620.(33) The social status of the Great Inquest also declined. Although it had once been common for aldermen and assistants to serve (23 sat on five inquests in 1501-03),(34) in 1531 it was agreed that town councillors should not be empanelled on any inquest except to try title of land.(35) By 1600 élite participation on Salopian inquests was largely confined to the Grand Jury at the borough sessions. From the late 16th century too streeters became progressively less inclined to present common nuisances, a change due perhaps both to the difficulty in monitoring petty obstructions etc. as the town’s population rose, and to despair at the insouciance of persistent offenders.(36) The streeters' negligence was complained of by the borough attorneys in 1619,(37) and by 1650 the Grand Jury of the borough sessions had probably become as effective in presenting nuisances in the town.(38)

To some extent too the streeters' traditional role was supplanted by the constables, two of whom by 1664 served for each of the suburbs or intra-mural wards, with the exception of Abbey Foregate (four), and Coton and Coleham (one).(39) Thus, although the streeters were responsible for presenting inmates by the 17th century, some of this work after 1631 was being carried out by the constables at monthly meetings,(40) and by the 1650s the constables were also providing separate lists of alesellers.(41) At the same time, although in legal theory a presentment at a court leet could not be traversed (i.e. denied or countered), by the 1630s it was possible in Shrewsbury to plead 'not guilty' to a presentment and have the matter withdrawn from the Great Inquest and tried instead by a special jury of twelve.(42)

Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the decay of leet jurisdiction before 1640. The Great Inquest was still employed (to at least 1619) to resolve disputes over boundaries and rights of way,(43) and traverses were uncommon, probably because they required legal expertise.(44) Pig-keeping and market infringements were presented as before, and new statutory duties were also implemented including licensing of maltsters and the presentment of hare-coursing and game-shooting.(45) In such cases the court complemented the sessions where similar presentments were brought by the constables or the Grand Jury. Above all, the curia magna remained the principal forum for dealing with presentments for assault, registered beforehand either at the biannual streeters' meetings or by private complaint to the bailiffs.(46) Moreover, if suit of court itself was in decline, attendance at the prior streeters' meetings may have remained much more robust. In Spring 1633 only 14 streeters were presented for non-attendance (Mardol, for example, recording 'a full apparance'),(47) and 67 in Autumn – perhaps five per cent of all male householders.(48) Another ancient communal obligation also retained some vitality. The watch, organized on the basis of a ward rota or 'turn', was still encumbent on every householder, although substitutes could be found. Confronting 'nightwalkers' breaking curfew (10 p.m. in summer, 9 p.m. in winter), remained a common occurrence in the 1630s.(49)

Thus the extent to which by 1640 participation in the old modes of communal regulation had begun to unravel presents a mixed picture. Doubtless population growth and legal changes had begun to place the system under stress, but provided costs were kept low, the function of the borough’s courts to deal with personal interactions could still operate with some effectiveness. Significantly, when after mid-century that function began a remourseless decline, it was not primarily due to any shift in jurisdiction (e.g. to greater magisterial control), but to a growing reluctance to expose private disputes to communal scrutiny at all.(50)

Shrewsbury's political structure also for long resisted change. Apart from a few honorary and ex gratia admissions, and those by patrimony, access to the burgesship continued to depend on the corporation's revenue needs. In 1552, for example, 107 new burgesses were sworn in, mostly to pay for the foundation of the Free School and the preparation of its buildings;(51) and another 121 burgesses were admitted in 1556-7 to pay for the construction of the town conduit.(52) These were exceptional totals, and by 1560 up to 80 per-cent of the streeters may have possessed the freedom.(53) Thereafter the long-term rate of admission by purchase was fairly static (373 in 1560-99; 358 in 1600-39).(54) The number of burgesses stood at c. 230 in 1534;(55) 'at least' 300 in 1572;(56) and c. 420 in 1584 (57) after 72 burgesses were admitted in 1582 to secure the maintenance of the public preacher.(58) Taking into account the rise in population, however, the proportion of streeters with the freedom fell from about one half to one third between 1584 and the 1630s.(59) As a result, some of the lesser crafts may have had difficulty in fulfilling the condition, imposed in 1593 and reiterated thereafter,(60) that company wardens must be burgesses and not tensors (i.e. non-burgesses permitted to trade).(61)

The decline in the proportion of burgess streeters was also a function of the corporation's ability to finance much of its expenditure through normal revenue and the burgesses' own desire to control their numbers.(62) The size of the entry fine, for example, had been doubled to £5 in 1564,(63) although plans in 1582, 1584 and 1596 to raise it further to £10 proved abortive.(64) In 1631 the Commons agreed to limit the freedom to candidates who had served an apprenticeship and were free of one of the companies, or otherwise had been born in Shrewsbury or had lived there for seven years.(65) The latter condition was removed in 1638, although aspiring burgesses who could not satisfy the others could now be taken in for a fine of £10.(66) The practical effect of such restrictions, however, was modest and with perhaps 300 400 resident burgesses at any time during the period 1600-1640, the political presence of the Commons remained substantial. By Elizabeth's reign agreements of the 12 and 24 were regularly submitted to that body for assent, and although approval was usually a formality, proposals or suggested corporation leases were occasionally rejected.(67) Above all, the participation of the Commons remained a key feature of the civic elections, 310 burgesses for example serving on the electoral 25 between 1600 and 1619.(68)

That some of the borough élite came to look upon the burgesses' political role with distaste is suggested by submissions of the bailiff Thomas Nichols to the Privy Council in 1637.(69) Nominations of the electoral 25 in the Guildhall were said to be so unruly that few of the 'better sort' deigned to attend, most of the 25 consisting as a result of 'very meane persons', prone to bribery. The conclave was notorious for its longevity, the election of the common sergeant proving particularly contentious. Meanwhile, the streets outside were given over to the 'boyes and baser sort of people', gambling and singing obscene songs. Ordinary assemblies in Common Hall too were said to have been so beset by demagogues that 'civil' burgesses were again discouraged from attending, while the votes of others were influenced by unscrupulous landlords. Such claims were not without substance. Protracted elections, some lasting over twelve hours, were not unknown,(70) and the association of election night with ritual misrule was well attested, participants including boys, scholars and apprentices, the custom evidently surviving a ban introduced in 1583 – significantly the year after the arrrival of John Tomkys, the puritanical public preacher who was opposed to many such festive customs.(71) In 1594 the election night was the occasion for a notorious murder,(72) and in the following year for a mass affray in the Cornmarket.(73) Ritual mock elections in the days beforehand may also have occurred.(74)

Of equal concern to Nichols was the prevalence of political faction, usually centred around elections to the bench. Serious conflict had occurred in 1622-3, with gross manipulation of the rule that elections must be held within 20 days of a vacancy, while Nichols himself had been at loggerheads with his fellow bailiff Simon Weston over the election of an assistant (common councillor) in 1637. Problems of this kind had become increasingly common after 1560. Electoral disputes, often entangled with attempts to eject benchers for non-residence (prohibited by the 1444 composition), had taken place throughout the 1560s, 1570s and 1580s, with parties taking their grievances to Star Chamber or to the Council in the Marches.(75) In 1568 the Lord President of the Council had complained of the corrupt practices employed by 'strong factions',(76) and further intervention was again required in 1587.(77) An opportunity to cure these faults and to suppress the demotic elements of the constitution arose in 1637. A dispute between the corporation and St. John's College, Cambridge over the appointment of a new headmaster at the School had led, at Archbishop Laud's instigation, to a writ of Quo Warranto being brought to question the borough's liberties.(78) Nichols and supporters then petitioned for a stay of proceedings, asking that all aspects of misgovernment in the town should be examined by the Privy Council.(79)

The resulting submissions show the depth of division within the borough.(80) Yet support for change among the borough élite was by no means solid. In particular the town clerk Thomas Owen (said to entertain election night misrule as a 'priviledge of the people'), and Nichols's former colleague as bailiff Simon Weston, were at first both strongly opposed. The prevalence of faction was probably linked in part to the increasing number of rich burgesses competing for vacancies on the borough council,(81) but by the 1630s disputes were also closely imbricated with religious divisions, at that time centred on the appointment of a curate to St. Chad's, with Owen and his supporters resisting the candidate of Shrewsbury's godly party including Nichols.(82) Ironically the main impetus for altering the constitution in a more oligarchic direction, a policy otherwise supported by the Crown,(83) appears to have come from the town’s puritan faction. Nichols's fellow petitioners included the benchers Richard Hunt, Thomas Wingfield, Thomas Knight and John Proude – all recognizably of that group.(84) Later at Laud's trial it was Nichols's fellow godly ally, alderman Humphrey Mackworth, who was to allege that only after Owen had pointed out to the archbishop Laud that the advocates of reform were 'puritans', were clauses inserted into the new charter to safeguard the interests of the church.(85)

The 1637 inquiry also exposed the novel political power of the town clerk, a common development in corporate towns in this period and one fostered by the great increase of administrative business since 1540. One result was the appearance of a town clerk's office keeping its own accounts.(86) Adam Mytton (who with Thomas Owen virtually monopolized the post between 1568 and 1645),(87) was the last town clerk to immerse himself in clerical work, a task almost entirely delegated to an under-clerk by the late 1590s. Greater expertise was also needed. In 1560 the town clerk's legal competence had been denounced by the recorder John Throckmorton,(88) and although previous clerks probably had some training in the law,(89) after 1583 future holders of the office were obliged to have qualified as barristers.(90) The status of the office rose in line. After 1572 the town clerk sat with the aldermen at council dinners, and from 1650 gave precedence at public meetings only to the mayor.(91) Unlike their predecessors both Mytton and Owen were also closely related to landed families in the county.

The Quo Warranto proceedings of 1637-8 were eventually resolved by the grant to the borough of a new charter in 1638, its contents being argued out before referees from the Privy Council.(92) The constitutional model adopted was that of Worcester.(93) The two bailiffs were replaced by a single mayor, and the borough council was doubled in size to 24 aldermen and 48 assistants. (Significantly, the Nichols party would have preferred a smaller council of just 48.)(94) For this occasion only the additional assistants were to be chosen by the Commons from a list of 50 candidates drawn up by the bailiffs and vetted and ranked by the recorder.(95) In return for a contribution towards the repair of St. Paul's cathedral,(96) the draper Thomas Jones was made first mayor. Thereafter the office was held on rota by the senior alderman yet to exercise it – an effective means of muting faction – although a formal election by the 24 and 48 still had to take place on the Friday after St. Bartholomew's day. The mayor was then sworn in on the old election day, at which date the chamberlains (now two in number) and the three sergeants were also chosen by the borough council. The election of the other civic officers was also left to the council, although accounts show that the old post of sessor (six in number) was now dispensed with. As at Worcester, a civic swordbearer was provided, the sword to be lowered on entry into the town churches. It was this condition, together with the inclusion of the diocesan bishop and his chancellor among the borough's JPs ('to the end the orders & canons of the Church may be the better looked unto'),(97) that was later to be held against Archbishop Laud.(98) Finally, the opportunity was taken to obtain a grant of two new fairs.(99)

Costs of the new charter had come to £521 19s. 2d., raised initially by a loan from the town clerk himself (who had acted for the borough) and by diverting monies from some of the town charities.(100) A Privy Council order (1638) that the money should be discharged by a general assessment faced considerable resistance, particularly among the anti-Owenite faction who pointed out the town clerk's obstructive role in the negotiations.(101) To forestall the examination of defaulters at Ludlow, the corporation agreed (July 1639) to sell its scholarship lands in Coton in order to reimburse Owen and those who had already paid their assessments.(102) But the plan proved abortive and disputes continued, with the Privy Council again ordering an assessment in May 1640.(103) The principal result of the new charter was to drastically reduce the institutional role of the Commons. After 1638 the burgesses played no further part in civic elections and the demotic customs of election day became a thing of the past. Doubling the number of assistants to 48 was scant compensation, not even off-setting the growth in population since 1540. Equally important, burgess assemblies to ratify council agreements were brought to an abrupt end.(104) Thereafter a Common Hall was convened only for parliamentary elections, although 24 burgesses were still required to be present at any affixing of the common seal.

The long term consequences were profound. Not only did the burgesses lose control over admissions to their number, but they were no longer able to monitor council policy, a change of (arguably) particular importance in relation to the town charities on which they had previously been consulted. In 1593, for example, objections by the Commons to loans under the terms of Sir Thomas White's will had taken much effort to pacify;(105) and in 1635 a proposal to employ charity monies for urgent repairs to the civic fabric had also required their agreement.(106) By contrast, after 1638 the charities were supervised by a select committee drawn from the borough council, increasing the risk of corporation embezzlement.(107) One result, it may be suggested, was the great 'Charity Cause' of the 18th century which arose after the borough charities had been misappropriated by the Whig corporation.(108)

In contrast to the diminished role of the Commons, the public status of the town's governors, as elsewhere,(109) continued to be enhanced. Although the seven ‘scarlet days’ appointed in 1569 for the aldermen and assistants (common councillors) to attend the bailiffs had earlier origins, the office of civic bill-bearer was a new creation of that year.(110) In 1638 the scarlet days were similar, although All Saints' Day had appropriately been replaced by Guy Fawkes Day, as protestant-national identity slowly became entrenched. Representatives of the 24 and 48 also waited every Sunday in their second gowns to accompany the mayor to church, preceded by liveried sergeants and bill-men.(111) By that date seats for the aldermen and assistants had also been erected in all the churches (beginning probably with St. Mary's in 1582),(112) and a mayor's pew and sword-holder were also set up in St. Julian's church in 1640.(113) The heightened symbolic charge attached to civic authority was demonstrated by the astonishing salary of £20 voted for the swordbearer,(114) almost as much as those for the mayor (£12), chamberlain (£5), and town clerk (£4 6s. 8d.) combined. As the 1638 charter put it, his duty – to carry a sword before the mayor on public occasions – was intended that ‘the said town may shine and be increased, as well in honour and dignity as in privileges and authority’.(115) In all these respects then, Shrewsbury can be taken as another instance of the contemporary advance of urban oligarchy.

Shrewsbury’s experience might also seem to reflect the contemporary weakening of municipal autonomy, a process exemplified by the appointment of external lawyers or county justices as borough recorders.(116) In the town itself it had been claimed in 1553 that the return of the recorder as one of the borough's M.P.s was incident to that office,(117) and from 1584 neighbouring gentry families increasingly began to establish hereditary links with the parliamentary representation, although interference from greater magnates was largely kept at bay.(118) By Elizabeth's reign the respect accorded to some of the leading local gentry representatives seems clear enough,(119) members of the Corbet, Bromley and Leighton families, or their nominees, all being given honorary burgesships.(120) The growing influence of the shire is also suggested by arrangements for the militia. In 1559 and 1563 the corporation had asserted its right against the county to raise its own soldiers,(121) and in 1613-16 insisted on having them trained within the town’s jurisdiction.(122) In practice this may not have meant separate arrangements, but only that the shire and borough militias were trained together within the town, as they had been earlier in the ‘pasture behind the walls’ (the Quarry park) under the captaincy of Thomas Leighton of Wattlesborough Hall (d. 1600).(123) Nonetheless, by the 1660s the town’s soldiers were going out into the country to join the county militia at their annual training camp.(124)

It is arguable, however, if gentry patronage at least, any more than in the 15th century, represented a decline in civic independence so much as a valued source of support for borough interests.(125) Nor was outside influence in itself new. Shrewsbury had earlier long genuflected to the power of the marcher lords, and in the 15th century several of its stewards and M.P.s (albeit resident in the town) had both roots in county society and connections with marcher administration.(126) Although the social presence of the county gentry was more visible in the town by the early 17th century,(127) its political influence was to an extent merely the result of its emergence from beneath the carapace of marcher lordship and its acquisition of interests and influence in Shrewsbury formerly exercised by the marcher lords.

The process is best illustrated by the rise of the Newport interest. Through the division in 1501 of the inheritance of the Burghs (once the leading Shropshire retainers of the Talbot family) the Newports of High Ercall had secured the Burgh estates in Shrewsbury;(128) and by the marriage of Sir Richard Newport to the heiress of the judge Thomas Bromley (d. 1555), they were also to acquire Shrewsbury properties of the Greys, Lords Powys, left to Bromley by alderman Robert Dudley, kinsman to Lord Dudley.(129) Himself elected an alderman in 1529, Bromley was to serve as the borough’s recorder from 1533 to c. 1547,(130) his legal prowess and position at court (he was one of Henry VIII's executors) making him a vital member of the corporation. The link was maintained by his son-in-law whose death in 1570 was greeted with 'much moan' in Shrewsbury. Sir Richard's second son was M.P. for the borough in 1588, and the burial in 1598 at Wroxeter of his widow was marked by the tolling of the town bells.(131) The interest was transmitted to Sir Richard Newport, M.P. for the borough in 1621, who mediated in the borough charter disputes of 1638, (132) and in turn to his son Francis, M.P. for Shrewsbury in 1640, who, as Lord Newport, was in later decades to head the Shropshire Whigs.(133)

By contrast, greater discontinuity marked the old modes of articulating the relationship between Crown and borough. Following the union with Wales (1536, 1543) and the reduced political significance of the Marches, the projection of the Welsh as the 'other', and the self-image of the borough as 'on off the keyes for the good ordre off the marches' (1504),(134) lost much of its historic import. By 1616 the Shrewsbury mercer Oliver Mathews, of Welsh origin, could even assert that the statue on the Welsh Bridge (of the Black Prince) was that of Llewelyn the Great, and reflect on Shrewsbury's alleged British origins with pride.(135) The borough’s fee-farm too, which had once encapsulated the relationship with its royal overlord, came to be seen as a tenurial relict, though inflation had also increasingly made it a less important item in the borough’s expenses. After c. 1575 the corporation ceased to retain an attorney at the Exchequer to supervise payment,(136) and in 1609 proposed to buy the farm out.(137) Success eventually came about during the Republic in 1651, although the buy-out was later rescinded at the Restoration.(138) Instead relations with royal authority were mediated to an important extent through the Council in the Marches, intervening either directly or as the legal forum for issues involving the corporation, including the 1638 charter.(139) Periodically the bailiffs were also obliged by the Council to certify peace bonds and take depositions from parties involved in litigation at Ludlow.(140)

Through the Council the borough also aimed to advance its interests to the central administration. Its help was sought in 1556-7 to confirm the tax exemption of the new liberties granted in 1495;(141) to resist Chester's claim to the Welsh cloth staple in 1582;(142) to commend Shrewsbury's petition to the Privy Council for warrants to transport grain during the dearth of 1596;(143) and to oppose the free market for Welsh cloth in 1622.(144) Approaches were assisted by the fact that several of Shrewsbury's stewards and leading citizens, such as alderman Thomas Sherer, the chief registrar, were officials or members of the Council, interactions being lubricated through gift exchange.(145) Prior to the Dissolution visits by the Lord President were accommodated at the abbey,(146) but afterwards (by 1559) at the 'Council House' in the old outer bailey, the former town house of the Newtons of Petton, purchased by alderman Humphrey Onslow in c. 1539. The corporation then negotiated leases to employ the house for the Council's use, and it continued to be kept for that purpose after the Owens of Condover had acquired the estate in 1596, despite an alternative proposal to fit up the castle in 1590. (147) The Council had held intermittent terms at Shrewsbury during the second half of the 16th century, a prospect much desired by the townsfolk,(148) with seven terms being kept there between 1581 and 1603.(149) But the practice was afterwards discontinued despite a Privy Council order of 1612 to bring the Council to the town for the occasional law term. However, the Lord President sometimes still paid a ceremonial visit.(150)

Few signs exist of resentment towards the Council,(151) though when terms were held in Shrewsbury a few townsmen could prove hostile to its hangers-on.(152) Shrewsbury's own courts too were little threatened by its jurisdiction, although craftsmen could be punished for taking suits to Ludlow without a prior hearing before the bailiffs.(153) Instead visits of the Council in Elizabeth’s reign served to draw Salopians into celebrations of the emerging protestant-national identity, notably in 1581 when a martial display was mounted before the Lord President Sir Henry Sidney by the boys of Shrewsbury School and the craft fellowships participated in ceremonies of the Order of the Garter at a feast of St. George's.(154) In fact expenditure on honouring the Lord President became increasingly lavish. Whereas visits in 1525 and 1554 had cost between £1 and £5,(155) and just £21 was spent on two visits in 1573-4,(156) £87 was laid out in 1615 and £42 in 1617.(157) In 1634, however, even buoyant civic finances were unable to prevent the corporation from over-reaching itself and a sum of £180 spent on entertaining the Lord President for a week could only be defrayed after a lease of the borough’s Kingsland estate.(158)

How much the Council's proximity continued to modulate relations between borough and Crown into the 17th century is less clear, although it was not until the novel demands made during Charles I's personal rule that the role of the central government became controversial. Estreats due to the Crown for 'post fines' (final concords) and other amercements arising from proceedings in the central law courts had been turned over to the borough by the charter of 1445.(159) But although the grant of the post fines had been reiterated in the charter of 1586, the claim to other amercements, including respites of homage (payments by Crown tenants to commute homage), was challenged by the Attorney General in 1631.(160) Forced to pay £115 to the Crown by way of composition, the borough later in 1633-4 renounced its claim to respites altogether.(161) Shrewsbury's privileges relating to purveyance were also questioned. In 1637 the borough complained that the 1586 charter exempted it from the king's provision, and that in any case their allotment, relative to the county, was too high.(162) A similar objection to the allotment was raised during the Ship Money controversy, an example of the way in which the levying of the tax tended to challenge local usage.(163) The borough's reaction to Ship Money itself was a typical one: the initial assessment of 1635 was raised relatively easily, despite criticism of the sheriff's proceedings, followed thereafter by increasing resistance.(164) In 1639 the activities of the agents of the tobacco monopolist, the earl of Norwich, also provoked opposition within the borough.(165)

It is arguable, however, if friction arising from the Crown’s fiscal policies in the 1630s led to a clear-cut breach in relations between Shrewsbury and the Crown. At the parliamentary election of 1640 indeed the burgesses voted as one of their representatives Francis Newport, a supporter of Lord Strafford.(166) In 1637 the sheriff Sir Paul Harris had stated that the collection of Ship Money in the town had in fact been distracted by the preacher dispute, i.e. over the appointment of a curate for St. Chad's,(167) and it seems more likely that it was religious issues that were to prove most potent in determining attitudes towards the Crown and, in the case of Shrewsbury’s godly party, to the eventual fracture of loyalty. Certainly the leaders of that party, despite pitching their case during the Quo Warranto debate in a manner likely to appeal to royal prejudices, were to prove resolute in their opposition to the King during the Civil War. The town's divisions were to be signalled by the election in 1640, to accompany Newport as M.P., of William Spurstowe, a draper and citizen of London but with strong Shrewsbury roots, who was not only a member of the puritan congration of St. Stephen’s, Coleman Street, but a parliamentary radical who served on the Committee for Scandalous Ministers.(168) His co-religionist Thomas Hunt, a Shrewsbury lawyer and leading member of the town’s godly party,(169) was to train the Shrewsbury militia in support of parliament in July 1642, three months before being declared a traitor by the King.(170) In August, by contrast, Francis Newport was to help muster the king’s supporters. The efforts of Francis’s father to reconcile the parties failed, and ‘The stage was set for civil war.’(171)

Sources
1 Revs. H. Owen, J.B. Blakeway, A history of Shrewsbury (2 vols. 1825), i. 378-83; Shrewsbury School Library (Sh. Sch. Lib.), Taylor MS, fo. 165.
2 Cf. Shropshire Archives (SA) 3365/1011; 3365/76, fo. 245v.
3 For the castle see Victoria County History (V.C.H.) Shropshire, iii. 79.
4 As proposed earlier in 1577: SA 3365/76, fo. 215r.
5 SA 3365/1795, 1802, 2643 (court books indicating numbers of working attorneys); 3365/76, fo. 369v.
6 Except where indicated, the next three paras. are based on W.A. Champion, ‘Recourse to the law and the meaning of the great litigation decline 1650-1750: some clues from the Shrewsbury local courts’, in C. Brooks, M. Lobban (eds.), Communities and Courts (1997), 186-94.
7 Calculated from court books, SA 3365/1793-5, 1800-02, 1805-07, 1809.
8 SA 3365/1897.
9 Cf. SA 3365/1152/42, 1198/42, 1232 (Mardol presentments).
10 SA 3365/2773.
11 W.A. Champion, Everyday Life in Tudor Shrewsbury (1994), 13-14 (a TS copy, with the footnotes not provided in the book, is at SA qD64.5, Acc. 46/1).
12 SA 3365/2634.
13 Two evidently for each of the town’s wards: Transactions Shropshire Archaeological Society (T.S.A.S.), xi. 176 (1628).
14 SA 3365/1793, 1803.
15 Cf. 23 indictments brought at 12 sessions between March 1555 and September 1559, and 15 at just two sessions in 1579: SA 3365/64, fos. 228v-237r; 3365/2207.
16 Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1633-1634, 455.
17 SA 3365/2430.
18 T.S.A.S. lv. 136-42.
19 T.S.A.S. xi. 155.
20 SA 3365/64 (victuallers’ bonds), 1039, 1061/1/29, 1061/1/55-7.
21 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 25.
22 SA 3365/2621/8/-, 2629; Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 12, fo. 196r.
23 P. Clark, The English Alehouse: a social history 1200-1830 (1983), 47-8.
24 E.g. SA 3365/2207, 2211.
25 SA 3365/2208, 2500. For Tomkys, see below, pt. III, text to notes 79-81.
26 T.S.A.S. xi. 170.
27 ’Government and politics, 1340-1540’.
28 SA 3365/486, fo. 23v; Hist. Parl. Commons 1509-1558, ii. 653-4; Owen & Blakeway, op. cit, i. 539-40.
29 SA 3365/64, fo. 237r; T.S.A.S. xi. 170.
30 SA 3365/2695; 3365/1847-1920 (pleadings, passim).
31 See e.g. SA 3365/1890/1/23; Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 539.
32 SA 3365/76, fo. 245v; T.S.A.S. lvi. 273-21.
33 W.A. Champion, 'The Frankpledge population of Shrewsbury, 1500-1720', Local Population Studies, xli. 53.
34 SA 3365/1842, box 1, no. 1. Names of aldermen and common councillors are taken from SA 3366/67, fos. 68v-69r.
35 SA 3365/75/2, fo. 42r.
36 SA 3365/1152/2 (1610).
37 SA 3365/1198/10.
38 Cf. SA 3365/1205/2/8-9; 3365/1280/5.
39 SA 3365/1342 (constable lists).
40 SA 3365/1230 (Abbey Foregate), 1232 (Under the Wyle).
41 SA 3365/1300/37-45; 3365/1314.
42 Champion, ‘Recourse to the law’, 195.
43 SA 3365/1046/1/1, 4; 3365/1141, 1198/2, 1804 (1582); National Archives (NA) STAC 8/213/8.
44 SA 3365/2643 (petition of Adam Davyes).
45 Cf. F.J.C. Hearnshaw, Leet Jurisdiction in England (1908), 366-7.
46 Champion, ‘Recourse to the law’, 192.
47 SA 3365/1230.
48 SA 3365/1232. It is possible, however, that not all streeters received a summons to attend their neighbourhood meeting: cf. SA 3365/1152/26.
49 For the watch, see Champion, Everyday Life in Tudor Shrewsbury, 3-5.
50 Champion, ‘Recourse to the law’, 194-7.
51 SA 3365/486, fos. 42v, 44v, 45v.
52 SA 3365/486, fo. 68v; 3365/76, fo. 19r.
53 W.A. Champion, Population change in Shrewsbury (unpubl. TS, 1983), copy at SA 6001/6821, 186.
54 SA 3365/68, fos. 41v-118r.
55 Everyday Life in Tudor Shrewsbury, 21 (with refs. at SA qD64.5, Acc. 46/1, 69, n. 48.)
56 NA STAC 5/P61/9 (rejoinder of William Peers et. al.).
57 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fo. 153v. The franchise was restricted to resident ‘contributory’ burgesses keeping watch and ward: SA 3365/76, fo. 5v (1553).
58 SA 3365/68, fos. 67v-73r; 3365/76, fos. 300v-302r.
59 Champion, Population change, 186.
60 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 1, fos. 157v, 161r, 166r, 176r; T.S.A.S. xi. 195, 199.
61 SA 3365/2623/2, 5; 3365/2639 (petition of Robert Bell).
62 E.g. Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 1, fo. 158v; Gough Shropshire 12, fo. 197v.
63 SA 3365/76, fo. 251r.
64 SA 3365/76, fos. 301v, 302r; Taylor MS, fos. 151v, 153v; Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 1, fos. 153, 158v.
65 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 12, fo. 201r.
66 SA 3365/2537/1 (by-laws, undated but of 1638: cf. T.S.A.S. xi. 180). It was stated that qualified candidtates ‘shall be’ admitted burgesses, but this was not meant to indicate a right, and was corrected to ‘may be’ in 1706 at a time when admission to the burgesship was becoming an increasingly political issue: ibid.
67 SA 3365/76, fos. 263v; Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 12, fos. 168v, 197r.
68 SA 3365/76A.
69 NA SP 16/366/48.
70 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fos. 105r, 206v, 221r, 228r.
71 bid. fo. 149r.
72 P. Collinson, ‘The Shearmen’s Tree and the Preacher: the Strange Death of Merry England in Shrewsbury and Beyond’, in P. Collinson, J. Craig, The Reformation in English Towns, 1500-1640 (1998), 205-07.
73 SA 3365/1122/6-7.
74 J. Alan. B. Somerset (ed.), Records of Early English Drama. Shropshire (Toronto, 1994), i. 314 (1624).
75 W.A. Champion, The Economy of Shrewsbury 1400-1560/1660 (unpubl. TS, 1987, copy at SA 6001/6866), 214-18, 224-8; SA 3365/1912; 3365/2617/134; NA STAC 5/P9/34, P61/9; STAC 7/2/20.
76 SA 3365/76, fos. 106-108r.
77 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fo. 169r.
78 NA SP 16/500/7, 13.
79 NA SP 16/361/24.
80 NA SP 16/366/48.
81 Champion, Economy of Shrewsbury, 209, 227.
82 Coulton, ‘Rivalry and Religion: The Borough of Shrewsbury in the Early Stuart Period’, Midland History, xxviii. 1, 43-47. See also pt. II. ‘Religion and culture, 1540-1640’.
83 P. Clark, P. Slack, English Towns in Transition 1500-1700 (1976); R. Cust, ‘Anti-puritanism and urban politics: Charles I and Great Yarmouth’, Historical Journal, xxxv. 22-3.
84 Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1639-1640, 161, 257. For the connections among this group, see B. Coulton, ‘Thomas Hunt of Shrewsbury and Boreatton 1599-1669’, Trans. Shropshire Arch. and History Society, lxxiv. 34.
85 NA SP 16/500/7.
86 National Library Wales (N.L.W.) Castle Hill 931; T.S.A.S. xi. 171.
87 SA 3365/76, fos. 113v-114r, 245v; Owen and Blakeway, A history of Shrewsbury, i. 543.
88 SA 3365/1851.
89 Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 537-8, 543.
90SA 335/76, fo. 375r.
91 Ibid. fo. 163r; T.S.A.S. xi. 183.
92 The original charter is retained by the borough, Shrewsbury Borough Records, no. 41; SA 6001/10, pp. 137 77; NA SP 16/366/48; Privy Council Registers, ii. 369-70.
93 Privy Council Registers, ii. 390.
94 ;Ibid.
95 Ibid. 407-08.
96 Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1637-1638, 306; Owen and Blakeway, i. 411.
97 Privy Council Registers, ii. 390. The other JPs for the borough were to include the previous mayor, the three most senior aldermen, the borough steward, and the borough recorder.
98 NA SP 16/500/7, 13; Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 410-11.
99 Above, text to pt. I, n. 10.
100 SA 3365/582.
101 Privy Council Registers, ii. 631; iii. 339-40; iv. 567-8; v. 86; viiii. 47, 182-3, 193.
102 Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1639-40, 257; Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 577; Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 1, fo. 179r. For the scholarship lands in Coton, see below, text to pt. III, n. 74.
103 Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 578; Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1639-40, 257; ibid. 1640, 239-40.
104 Despite the loss of the council assembly books between 1584 and 1736, this conclusion can be drawn from 18th century extracts from the lost books, and from those that survive after 1736.
105 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fo. 194.
106 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shrop. 12, fos. 205v, 206r.
107 SA 3365/2537/1.
108 A proper account of this episode, which extended over thirty years, has yet to be published.
109 Clark and Slack, English Towns in Transition 1500-1700, 131.
110 SA 3365/76, fos. 119v, 123v.
111 SA 3365/2537/1.
112 SA 3365/2620 (petition of John Tomkys et. al.); P257/B/3/1, fo. 85v.
113 T.S.A.S. x. 185.
114 T.S.A.S. xi. 180.
115 My thanks to Angus McInnes for information on this point. In later years the provision by the corporation of dignified accoutrements for the sword-bearer became a sine qua non.
116 Clark and Slack, op. cit. 134-5.
117 Hist. Parl. Commons 1509-1558, i. 700.
118 For details see V.C.H. Shropshire, iii. 239-42; T.S.A.S. lix. 272-7.
119 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fos. 129, 148r, 169r, 194r.
120 T.S.A.S. 2nd ser. x. 306.
121 SA 3365/76, fos. 37v-38r, 61v.
122 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 1, fo. 170v; ib. 12, fo. 179v; Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 571.
123 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fos. 219v, 220v; SA 3365/2617/137; Somerset (ed.), Records of Early English Drama. Shropshire, i. 299.
124 SA 6001/2486, pp. 28, 39.
125 R. Horrox, ‘Urban patronage and patrons in the 15th century’, in R.A. Griffiths (ed.), Patronage, The Crown And The Provinces In Later Medieval England (1981).
126 'Government and politics, 1340-1540'.
127 Above, text to pt. I, notes 213-221.
128 Montgomeryshire Collections, i. 100-01.
129 NA Prob 11/27, 27 Dyngeley; 11/37, 34 More.
130 SA 3365/75/2, fo. 28r; 75/4, fo. 5v; Hist. Parl. Commons, 1509-1558, 508-09.
131 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fos. 108v, 215v; T.S.A.S. 4th ser. xii. 195-6.
132 T.S.A.S. 4th ser. xii. 207-08; NA SP 16/366/48; Hist. Parl. Commons, 1604-1628, forthcoming (my thanks to Simon Healy for sight of his draft contributions to this volume).
133 V.C.H. Shropshire, iii. 254.
134 Select Cases in Star Chamber, Selden Soc. xvi. 179.
135 Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 2, 225-6; T.S.A.S. viii. 314-15. Cf. E. Thornes, Encomium Salopiae (1615/16), Sig. B. 2.
136 SA 3365/486, fo. 154v; 3365/2632 (petition of Richard Powell et al.).
137 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire, 1, fo. 167v; ib. 12, fo. 166v.
138 Bodleian Lib. Blakeway 16, p. 203.
139 E.g. SA 3365/486, fos. 3v, 23r, 43r; 3365/2762; 3365/76, fo. 93r; Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 577; above, text to n. 102.
140 E.g. SA 3365/2621/2/-.
141 SA 3365/486, fo. 69r.
142 Above, text to pt. I, notes 62-4.
143 SA 3365/2706.
144 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 1, fo. 178.
145 Hist. Parl. Commons 1509-1558, i. 179; P. Williams, The Council in the Marches of Wales (1958), 188-93; SA 3365/438, fos. 220v-221r.
146 Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 311 and n.
147 For the Council House, see the notes on that building on this site (forthcoming).
148 Williams, ibid. 188-9; Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fo. 217r.
149 Sh. Sch. Lib. Taylor MS, fos. 140-1, 147v, 156v, 183v-184v, 206r, 217r, 230r.
150 Simon Healy, ‘Shrewsbury’, in Hist. Parl. Commons, 1604-1629 (forthcoming).
151 Williams, op. cit. 181-93.
152 Champion, Everyday Life, 98.
153 W.A. Champion, ‘Litigation in the boroughs: The Shrewsbury Curia Parva 1480-1730’, The Journal of Legal History, 15 (1994), 210; SA 3365/76, fo. 184v (1574).
154 Somerset (ed.), Records of Early English Drama. Shropshire, i. 228-32. Cf. similar occasions at Ludlow, ibid. 93-104.
155 SA 3365/438, fo. 133v; 3365/486, fos. 59v-60r.
156 SA 3365/438, fos. 143v, 144v.
157 SA 3365/562-3. Cf. Williams, op. cit. 189.
158 Sh. Sch. Lib. Escutcheons of the bailiffs, fo. 88v; Owen and Blakeway, op. cit. i. 576.
159 The borough’s rights were vigorously asserted in the 1560s: SA 3365/76, fos. 58v, 96v, 98v, 103r.
160 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 12, fo. 201v. Cf. London, R. Ashton, The English Civil War (1978), 93.
161 SA 3365/576; Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 12, fos. 201v, 204r, 217r.
162 Bodleian Lib. Gough Shropshire 12, fo. 208r. For the allotment system, see V.C.H. Shropshire, iii. 85-6, 102.
163 Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1635, 515-16; Ashton, op. cit. 64.
164 T.S.A.S. xlix. 27-41.
165 Salopian Recorder, xxii. 6.
166 T.S.A.S. 4th ser. xii. 208.
167 Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1637, 13.
168 T.S.A.S. 4th ser. xii. 209-10; Coulton, ‘Rivalry and Religion’, 46.
169 See pt. II, ‘Religion and culture, 1540-1640’.
170 B. Coulton, ‘Thomas Hunt of Shrewsbury and Boreatton 1599-1669’, Trans. Shropshire Arch. and History Society, lxxiv. 35.
171 Coulton, ‘Rivalry and Religion’, 47.