A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



only had the importance of the manor in the hands of the new lords or the 

 king's bailiff entirely disappeared, but even in the numerous places where a 

 manor had been in the same family for successive generations it had ceased 

 in the same way to be the unit of local life. Its place had been taken by 

 the parish. Within the parish the churchwardens, and later the overseers of 

 the poor, were the responsible officials, while constables and petty constables 

 of the townships made their presentments at the quarter and petty sessions 

 rather than at the court-leet of the manor. The justices of the peace trace 

 their origin to a proclamation of 1195, appointing knights to receive the 

 oaths from all men over fifteen years of age for the maintenance of the 

 peace. Gradually as the sheriff's power was undermined and the hundred 

 and shire courts in consequence lost their importance, the justices of the 

 peace sitting in quarter sessions formed the chief court for criminal justice 

 below the jurisdiction of the judges of the assize and became the chief ad- 

 ministrative and executive body in the shire. There was practically no 

 department in local affairs which did not come under their supervision in 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The control of the police system, the 

 relief of the poor, and punishment of vagrants, licensing, the repair of the 

 highways, formed perhaps the chief duties of the justices. In I 562, 149 in a 

 letter to Sir William Cecil, William Tyldsley, a justice of the peace in one 

 of the Chiltern Hundreds, describes very fully the local condition of Bucking- 

 hamshire. The Privy Council had issued letters to the magistrates of various 

 counties, ordering them to inquire into the administration of certain statutes. 

 Tyldsley writes in a most desponding spirit : 



There came also with them an ernest letter from the Cownsell which I do perceive, 

 hath caused in some shyres, a littell to be done, and in some shyres nothing at all. Yea 

 and as farre as I can perceyve they that had begone to do pretelye well, begyn now to wax 

 so cold that as me thynks, they be rather sor for that they have so well begonne than mynded 

 to continue. 



In a postscript he adds : 



And yet me thynk I have forgotten one thing which I ought to tell you, which ys that in 

 all the hyther part of Berkshyr, they have done nothing at all, and hyt doith not onelye 

 hynder thys littill beginning that is here in Buckinghamshyre being so nere joyning 

 together, but also others that do border upon them. 



For the inaction of many of the justices he finds excuses however ; they had 

 been away or at court, while with regard to Middlesex he adds : 



I do think they had no letters or else if they had, then surelye I think, that coming unto 

 Sir Roger Chomeley, they be utterlye forgotten in the bag of his cote and so nothing done 

 ther, for sureley he and Mr. Chydley can better skyll of the affayres of the cite then of 

 the country. 



The writer had obviously the good government of his county very much 

 at heart, and the same may be said of all the justices for the next two cen- 

 turies. A great deal of time and trouble was expended by them on local 

 affairs, and the most celebrated men of the county sat on the commission of 

 the peace. In the further details of his letter Tyldsley gave a description 

 of the state of the county, and it was such as might be expected after the 

 long civil wars and weak government of the fifteenth century, followed by 

 the agrarian discontent and religious difficulties under the Tudors. The 



" S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 19, No. 43. 

 66 



