[337] See von Ochenkowski, Die wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 66. Stubbs’ Charters, 107, 159. The monopoly was sometimes the privilege of the Merchant Guild. “So that no one who is not of that Guild shall make any merchandise in the said town, unless with the will of the merchants.” (Hist. of Preston Guilds, Custumal, 73. Gross, ii. 122, 127, 129.) In other towns where we do not hear of a Merchant Guild it belonged to the whole body of burgesses. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425.)
[338] An alien living in Romney paid double Scot to the town. (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 332.)
[339] English Guilds, 392, 384. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 332.
[340] Boys’ Sandwich, 521. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 365, 366, 367, 386; Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Soc. 137.
[341] An Act to prevent Mayors from levying shewage from denizens. Statutes 19 Henry VII., Cap. 8.
[342] “The Mayor of the city of York and his brethren made great instance” to Lord Surrey to see that their fellow citizen, Thomas Hartford, bower in Norwich, should not be annoyed by Thomas Hogan, a shoemaker. (Paston Letters, iii. 366.) This protection however was only given on the condition of his renouncing all other aid. The mayor of York and his brethren aldermen in 1488 were applied to by Sir Robert Plumpton to protect some “servants and lovers” of his dwelling in York from annoyance by certain York citizens. The mayor answered in the name of himself, the aldermen, and the common council, that these dependants of Plumpton’s had been franchised and sworn to keep the customs of the city of York, that they were therefore bound to show any variance or trouble to the mayor “and to none other, and he to see an end betwixt them.” The mayor plainly intimates that these men must either go home and live under the protection of their master there, or else if they stay in York must submit their affairs to the mayor alone “as their duties had been.” (Plumpton Correspondence, 57-58.)
[344] Preston Guild Rolls, xxiv.; Freeman’s Exeter, 144; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 241, 242, 246. For instances of royal pressure brought to bear on the town courts, see Proc. Privy Council, ii. 152; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104.
[345] There was a hot dispute on this question between Wycombe and the Abbot of Missenden under Edward the First, and the jury was finally formed of seven burgesses and five foreigners, “thus saving to the said burgesses their liberty aforesaid.” (From Pleas de Quo Warranto, Bucks, Rot. i. Edw. I., 1286. Parker’s Hist. of Wycombe, 23-4.)