A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



and style of ' the mayor and burgesses ' or ' the 

 mayor and commonalty,' but most probably their 

 right was prescriptive. Mr. Illingworth, deputy- 

 keeper of the records in the Tower, made a careful 

 search in the various depositories of public records in 

 the early part of the eighteenth century, but failed to 

 find any royal charter of incorporation, although the 

 draft of a charter from James I incorporating the 

 inhabitants was for many years in the possession of 

 the Gibbon family, and is possibly still extant. It is 

 probable that Thomas Han bury, lord of the borough 

 at that date, to whose advantage it was that the bur- 

 gesses should receive no charter of incorporation, 

 exerted his influence as an auditor of the Exchequer 

 to prevent the completion of the grant. From the 

 Petersfield court rolls of the latter part of the sixteenth 

 century it appears that the various officers of the 

 borough were elected in the court leet of the manor, 

 and at that time included a mayor, a constable, a 

 bailiff, two aldermen or tithing men, ale-tasters, and 

 sometimes two leather sealers.* 8 The burgesses of 

 Petersfield undoubtedly enjoyed many privileges and, 

 besides exercising the elective franchise, acted in a 

 corporate capacity by taking and making grants of 

 lands and of rents charged on lands." Under the 

 Tudors, especially, the borough seems to have grown 

 steadily in importance, its increase in prosperity no 

 doubt being due to the development of its cloth and 

 leather manufactures, to both of which industries its 

 cattle market gave rise. A significant entry occurs in 

 the account of the reeve of Petersfield for 1428 to 

 the effect that he had received nothing from the 

 miller of ' Wadeleshall,' near Petersfield, for licence 

 to carry corn from the borough to his mill, because 

 the mill had recently been turned into a fulling- 

 mill. 28 



Most of the court rolls give evidence of the indus- 

 tries of the burgesses, particularly with regard to the 

 trade of tanning,' 9 and in nearly every roll occurs a 

 list of tanners fined ' for using fraud in their trade.' 

 The manufacture of cloth, however, was the principal 

 industry of the inhabitants, and by the reign of 

 James I had grown to such dimensions that it main- 

 tained i ,000 poor people in work without begging. 80 

 The general prosperity of the place at this time may 

 be judged from the fact that ' forty men for the 

 service of the realm in the wars were maintained at 

 the public charge, besides every man's private charge.' 31 



With this increase in prosperity came a desire for 

 greater independence on the part of the burgesses. 

 During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it seems 

 to have become the rule for the lords of the borough 

 to accept from the mayor and burgesses j is. id. for 

 the rent of the borough, i6/. for fairs and markets, 

 and diverse sums of money, sometimes more and 

 sometimes less, for profits and perquisites of court. 31 

 These sums came to be looked upon by the burgesses 

 as a fee-farm rent. 33 Further, the mayor and burgesses 

 caused houses to be erected on fit and convenient 

 places in the borough, which they let for money- 

 rents, and held the three weeks' courts themselves. 

 They also sometimes seized felons' goods to their 

 own use. 34 The mayor and burgesses moreover came 

 to be accounted owners of the fairs and markets, and 

 collected toll, picage, and stallage from those resorting 

 to them. In short, they seem to have acted very 

 much as they pleased while Sir Henry Weston and 

 Sir Richard Weston, who were members of a Surrey 

 family, and never seem to have lived near Petersfield, 

 were lords of the borough. However, everything 

 was changed when Thomas Hanbury, who lived in the 

 neighbouring parish of Buriton, purchased the borough 

 in 1597. He determined to maintain his rights, 35 

 and appointed William Yalden steward for the keep- 

 ing of courts and leets within the borough, and 

 Anthony Rouse and Lawrence Patrick collectors of 

 picage and stallage. 36 Naturally the burgesses resisted, 

 and on 20 October, 1 60 1, when William Yalden 

 went to the town hall to keep the three weeks' court 

 in the name of the lord of the borough, ' he was 

 prevented from doing so by Robert Tolderton alias 

 Pynner, the mayor, who commanded Francis Clement 

 to thrust him out of the room, which he did with 

 great violence once or twice." The collectors of 

 picage and stallage were moreover hindered in the 

 execution of their duties by the burgesses, who, in 

 addition, refused to pay any rents for the borough 

 save as a fee-farm rent. At length, in Easter, 1608, 

 Thomas Hanbury filed his bill in the Court of Exche- 

 quer, setting forth that Roger Tirrell, John Cole- 

 brooke, William Pagglesham, Gregory Triggs, James 

 Mills, John Salter, Gregory Page, and William Ford, 

 who ' unjustly pretended themselves to be burgesses of 

 the borough of Petersfield,' having got into their 

 possession sundry documents belonging to him, had 

 unlawfully entered upon waste grounds in the borough 



86 Add. R. 28010 and 28017. No 

 earlier court rolls of Petersfield seem to 

 have been preserved. 



*7 The rents and profits of these estates 

 were appropriated to the general use of 

 the inhabitants of the borough. In the 

 offices of the Urban District Council is 

 still preserved a deed of 1373 whereby 

 Robert la Vowel of Langrish and Alice 

 his wife granted in fee to the burgesses of 

 Petersfield a rent of I2</. issuing out of a 

 tenement held by Nicholas Colebrooke at 

 Stoneham. Several other deeds also are 

 preserved whereby the mayor and bur- 

 gesses leased out lands to various persons. 



28 Add. R. 26871. 



M On a court roll of 1603 occurs a 

 presentment against certain persons for 

 polluting the river and throwing their 

 sheepskins into it (Add. R. 28012). A 

 similar entry occurs on a court roll of the 

 same year. Again in 1605 John Mylls, 

 Roger Terrell, and others were warned 

 not to wash their inwards and Lawrence 



Gudge his dossers, * to the great annoyance 

 of a great many poor men,' in the brook 

 in the Brook Lane under penalty for each 

 offence 31. 4</. (Add. R. 28015). 



80 Exch. Bills and Answs. Hants, Jas. I, 

 No. 220, m. 2. 



81 Ibid. 



a Add. R. 27679. 



88 They asserted that the borough 

 and markets. &c., had been granted to 

 them at fee-farm by charter. The state- 

 ment on an inquisition of 1 307, that the 

 burgesses of Petersfield rendered every 

 year j u. 6d. rents of assize, 2 los. 

 toll, and 51. pleas and perquisites of court, 

 rather supports this (Inq. p.m. 35 Edw. I, 

 pt. 2, No. 47). On the other hand, in 

 other documents of the thirteenth, four- 

 teenth, and fifteenth centuries, the value 

 of the borough varies between j and 



*9- 



M Once it came to Sir Henry Weston's 

 knowledge that Thomas Westbrooke, 

 while mayor of Petersfield, had seized a 



114 



mare as felon's goods. He thereupon 

 wrote a letter to Thomas demanding the 

 mare as his property, and Thomas was 

 forced to surrender it to him (Exch. Dep. 

 Hants, 6 Jas. I, Mich. No. i). After this 

 the mayor seems, as a matter of course, to 

 have delivered all felons' goods to the 

 lord of the borough. Thus on a court 

 roll of 1607, occurs an entry to the effect 

 that, William Fyske, having killed himself 

 feloniously within the jurisdiction of the 

 court, his goods and chattels to the value 

 of ,18 4J. 9</. had been seized by Thomas 

 Osborne, late reeve or mayor of the 

 borough, to the use of Thomas Hanbury, 

 lord of the borough, and afterwards de- 

 livered over by him to Thomas Hanbury 

 at his dwelling-house in Buriton (Add. R. 

 28016). 



85 Probably the burgesses were petition- 

 ing for their incorporation charter at this 

 date. 



" Exch. Dep. Hants, 6 Jas. I, Mich. 

 No. I. "7 Ibid. 



