Borough

The market town of Reigate was a mesne borough controlled by successive lords of the manor. The burgesses had no court of their own but attended the court leet of the manor where their bailiffs, constables and fishtasters were elected. On the death of Lady Anne Mowbray in 1481 the manor was divided between her four coheirs. The 1st Duke of Norfolk’s share escheated to the crown in 1485 but those of the Berkeleys and the Wingfields and that of Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, were acquired by his descendants early in the 16th century.

Guildford owed its commercial pre-eminence in Surrey to its position on the Great Way, at a gap in the chalk ridge traversing the county where there was a fording place across the river Wey. It was the county town and its castle served as the gaol for both Surrey and Sussex. The medieval palace was repaired by Henry VIII who was a frequent visitor, and it was there that in 1545 the Duke of Suffolk died.

In 1539 the 3rd Duke of Norfolk included Gatton in a list of boroughs where ‘in times past I could have made burgesses of Parliament’, but in this he was mistaken. One of his Mowbray predecessors had let the manor during Henry VI’s reign to John Timperley, whose son conveyed the remainder of the lease to the Copley family; the Copleys later bought the manor.

The manor of Bletchingley belonged to the 3rd Duke of Buckingham until his attainder in 1521 when it escheated to the crown. In July 1522 Henry VIII granted it to his master of the horse Sir Nicholas Carew, who in 1539 was himself executed for treason. In 1540 the King settled it on Anne of Cleves, who made Thomas Cawarden keeper, and six years later he granted the reversion to Cawarden. Cawarden took up residence at once and paid rent for his occupancy to Anne of Cleves until her death in 1557.

In 1510 Henry VIII confirmed Orford’s medieval charters granting the inhabitants the town and mill. The town was governed by two constables assisted by a council of 12 of the leading burgesses. No municipal records survive from the early 16th century. The castle, with property in Orford itself worth £20 a year, was held of the crown by William, 11th Lord Willoughby. On his death in 1526 his widow’s interest in the crown lease was contested by the heir male, her brother-in-law Sir Christopher Willoughby of Parham.

The borough of Ipswich was governed by two bailiffs and 12 portmen assisted by 24 of the commonalty; the bailiffs and four portmen were justices of the peace, and the bailiffs served as coroner and escheator and exercised admiralty jurisdiction within the liberty. This constitution, developed from privileges first obtained in 1200, had been included in a charter of incorporation of 1446 which was confirmed in 1463, 1512, 1518 and 1547. The municipal records for the early 16th century survive almost complete.CChR, vi. 54-55; LP Hen. VIII, i. g. 1123(33); iii, g.

In spite of its progressive erosion by the sea, Dunwich in the early 16th century still had some 230 taxable persons. Its status as a royal borough, dating from a charter of John, had earlier been threatened on the renewal of the fee-farm by a proviso that the burgesses should pay whatever any purchaser was prepared to give for it. This proviso was repeated at the next renewal in 1506 but was omitted in 1525 when the amount was fixed at £12 6s.8d. In 1547 the borough obtained a confirmation of the rights set out in an inspeximus of 1463.

Situated at the junction of several roads between London and the north, Stafford was a market town which had little industry of its own. By the 16th century it was in decline and in 1540 it was included in the Act for re-edification of towns (32 Hen. VIII, c.18). The castle and manor belonged to the 3rd Duke of Buckingham until his attainder in 1521, when they escheated to the crown, to be restored to Buckingham’s son, Henry Baron Stafford, in 1531.

Leland described Newcastle-under-Lyme as a market town, with a castle ‘all ... down save one great tower’. The castle, manor and borough formed part of the honor of Tutbury in the duchy of Lancaster, to which the borough paid a fee-farm of £20; the stewardship of the manor was held in the early 16th century by the earls of Shrewsbury as stewards of the honor. Government was by a mayor and 12 aldermen, known as the ‘council of the town’, assisted by 24 burgesses and several officers. The jurisdiction of the duchy was exercised by the mayor, who presided over the ‘great and small inquests’.

Before the Reformation the city of Lichfield, with its shrine to St. Chad and its other cults, was a place of pilgrimage. It had few crafts but provided a market for the district. Deprived in 1547 of the means of self-government by the abolition of the guild of St. Mary and St. John the Baptist, the city availed itself of the help of Secretary Paget to achieve incorporation by letters patent of July 1548 as the bailiffs and citizens, with a governing body consisting of two bailiffs and 24 burgesses.