Borough

In the later middle ages the name Launceston was used, sometimes confusingly, to cover three separate townships, Launceston St. Stephen, Dunheved and Newport. The most important of these, Dunheved, was founded soon after the Conquest, and as head of the honor of Launceston became the judicial headquarters of Cornwall with the county gaol in the castle. But its position, so near the border with Devon, made it highly inconvenient of access, and by the early 16th century Lostwithiel had largely superseded it.

The borough of Camelford belonged with the manor of Helston-in-Triggshire to the duchy of Cornwall. It had received its first charter in 1260 and several confirmations of its privileges in the 14th and 15th centuries; the charter of 1475 was confirmed in 1553. In the absence of municipal records few details have come to light about its administration, but it had a reeve, whose title was changed to mayor during the financial year beginning at Michaelmas 1552: Richard Cock held the office throughout the 1550s.

The harbour and township of Bossiney lay within the manor of Tintagel, which with the borough and castle belonged to the duchy of Cornwall: the manor was sometimes called Bossiney. By the reign of Henry VIII the castle was ruinous and although served by a constable and other officers it barely sufficed for a prison. The erosion of the castle by the sea and its neglect by the duchy had contributed to the decline of the settlement beneath its walls and the migration of many inhabitants to the township a mile away to the east.

Bodmin, a stannary town whose Saturday market was described by Leland as ‘like a fair for the confluence of people’, but which was included in the Act of 1540 for the re-edification of towns westward (32 Hen. VIII, c.19), had returned Members to the Parliament of 1295. Until the dissolution of Bodmin priory in September 1538 the prior was lord of the borough; successive medieval charters were granted to the prior, convent and ‘their’ burgesses, but the mayor and townsmen often quarrelled with the priors about their rights.

In 1506 Henry VII granted Chester a charter of incorporation and the status of a county in itself: except for the castle no part of the city remained within the jurisdiction of the chamberlain of the county palatine. The governing body consisted of a mayor, 24 aldermen and 40 common councilmen, who were elected annually. The recorder was ex officio an alderman. One of the sheriffs was chosen by the mayor, aldermen and the retiring pair of sheriffs, the other by the commonalty.

The history of the town of Cambridge, particularly after the Peasants’ Revolt, is dominated by its long series of disputes with the university, often erupting into armed conflict. Of the Members in the early 16th century only Robert Chapman and Alexander Ray had any known connexion with the university, except a trading one; almost all are recorded to have acted as spokesmen or representatives of the borough against the university, and many committed acts of hostility to the university’s authority, or insolence towards its representatives, beyond the call of municipal duty.

Situated in rich pastoral country along a river which supported a large number of mills, Chipping Wycombe was a centre for the woollen trade. Although in 1500 the town had had its fee-farm reduced from £30 to £26, when taxed for the subsidy of 1524 it remained the wealthiest place in the county. The privileges of the free borough rested on an early 13th-century grant, several times confirmed by the crown. A confirmation at the beginning of Mary’s reign (15 Nov. 1553) was followed at its end by the incorporation of the borough (27 Aug.

In the early 16th century Buckingham was a country town of little significance. Its list of taxpayers for the subsidy of 1524 runs to only 111 names and it was to be one of the 11 towns to which the Act of 1542 for urban revival (33 Hen. VIII, c.36) applied. The castle of the dukes of Buckingham appears to have fallen into ruin and nothing in the neighbourhood was worth a comment by Leland.Subsidy Roll for Bucks. 1524 (Bucks. Rec. Soc. viii), 61-62; Browne Willis, Bucks. 49-50; Leland, Itin. ed. Smith, v. 111-12; VCH Bucks. iii.

The manor of Aylesbury, held by the Butler earls of Ormond, was inherited in the early 16th century by Margaret, widow of Sir William Boleyn. In 1538 her son Thomas, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, sold the manor to (Sir) John Baldwin, who already held of the King a manor there called Otters Fee. On Baldwin’s death in 1545 the property passed to his grandson Thomas Pakington, son of his daughter Agnes by Robert Pakington.

Wallingford owes its origin to a ford across the Thames. Having been held by the earls of Cornwall in the 13th century, the castle, town and honor formed part of the duchy of Cornwall until 1540, when they were annexed to the King’s Oxfordshire manor of Ewelme. The first charter was granted in 1156 and parliamentary representation began in 1295. The records, including the minute book of the corporation which starts in 1507, suggest that the right of election was exercised by the mayor and leading burgesses.