A HISTORY OF SURREY 



measures taken away from them, and their pro- 

 ceedings forcibly restrained. A series of actions 

 for assault and battery followed, in which the 

 townspeople allowed judgment to go by default. 

 They were in a difficulty, for their charters had 

 been ' mislaid in the late troublesome time,' and 

 they could only allege that they were a corporation 

 by prescription, and had always collected and en- 

 joyed the tolls themselves. Meanwhile Duppa 

 died, and George Morley became bishop. Public 

 spirited and liberal though he was, he stood by 

 Mr. Kilvert, accepted a surrender of his lease of 

 the toUs, but granted him a new one. The towns- 

 people managed to find their charters, and the 

 security of the lease became more doubtful. In 

 1665 Kilvert was negotiating for its transfer to 

 Mr. Matthew Roydon, and naturally made as little 

 as possible of the difficulties. On 23 October, 

 1665, he wrote to Roydon, ' as for the grant they 

 talke to have, it is so lame and blind a cheate (having 

 neither signe, scale, nor witnesse to it), as they are 

 ashamed to show it anybody.' In 1667 he induced 

 Matthew Roydon to accept the transfer of his 

 lease. But it was not the bishop and his lease- 

 holders who were proceeding directly against the 

 corporation. In Hilary Term, 1665, a Quo 

 Warranto was brought by the Attorney-General 

 against the ' borrougholders ' of Farnham for 

 usurping upon the rights of the Crown in taking 

 tolls in the market. The reason is given by both 

 leaseholders ; Kilvert writing in 1665 that a Quo 

 Warranto will force the inhabitants to exhibit their 

 title, if they have any ; and Roydon in 1667 saying 

 that he has been advised that it wrill be more diffi- 

 cult for the inhabitants to defend a Quo Warranto 

 than an action by the bishop. If the town had 

 been worsted, then the bishop could have pro- 

 duced charters of the Crown granting him the 

 market, and the leaseholder would have been 

 secured. 



In Michaelmas Term, 1666, the inhabitants were 

 still pleading that they were a borough by pre- 

 scription. But they were preparing their evidence. 

 They were doubtful about appealing to a record 

 which they had of Bishop Home's charter, of 1567 

 they call it, which by its reference to bailiffs and 

 burgesses implies a corporation. They only men- 

 tion a record, showing that they had not got that 

 document itself. But they were fully furnished 

 with weighty proof that the market was granted 

 by the Crown to the bishop, that the bishop had 

 granted it to them, and that the grant had been 

 confirmed several times. The case was finally 

 tried before Chief Baron Hale, the rest of the 

 Barons of the Exchequer, and a special jury in 1669. 

 Roydon's counsel fell back upon captious objec- 

 tions, such as that the grant was to the original 

 burgesses and their heirs {heredibus suis), and that 

 if the present corporation could not show that they 



were the heirs of the bodies of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury burgesses their claim was worthless. How- 

 ever, the jury found for the defendants, the town, 

 and thereupon the Attorney-General signed a 

 non ulterius prosequi, and the corporation emerged 

 victorious in the contest with the Crown, the form 

 which the proceedings had taken. In 1671 the 

 corporation paid to the bishop j(^66, being five and 

 a half years' arrears of the £\2 rent. They had 

 paid nothing since the dispute began, but up to 

 1 666 the bishop had received payment from his 

 lessee. But to obviate further questions about 

 the validity of the lease, an arbitration was con- 

 cluded in 1672, by which Roydon surrendered his 

 really worthless lease to the bishop, receiving £iio 

 from the town on consideration of waiving all 

 claims for the future.^" 



It is rather melancholy to contrast the public 

 spirit of the inhabitants in the seventeenth century 

 with their supineness in the eighteenth. About 

 the time of the lawsuit the value of the tolls was 

 rising continually, as is set forth above. In the 

 eighteenth century it had declined to a trifle. 

 But the decline may have been not altogether 

 disconnected with a want of enterprise. The 

 parish registers and churchwardens' boob show 

 that in the eighteenth century the vestry had 

 really taken the place of the corporation as the 

 ruling body of Farnham. They repaired roads 

 and bridges in 1738, took measures against vagrants 

 in 1750, and sold the old school building in 1758. 

 The corporation was a close one, supposed to fill 

 up its own numbers. This they neglected to do, 

 and the two bailiffs and twelve burgesses dwindled 

 to six or seven in the latter part of the century. 

 At last, in 1789, Mr. William Shotter, an attorney, 

 was the sole remaining member. He was indicted 

 for neglecting the repairs of Tilford bridges. The 

 last surplus recorded in the hands of the corpora- 

 tion had been ^^3 10^. ^\d. in 1778. There was a 

 bridge-rent of 13/. \d. annually set apart for this 

 particular purpose in 1574, from land called Bridge 

 Land,6' which was not sufficient, and Mr. Shotter 

 had to pay out of his own pocket. Consequently, 

 on 27 July 1789, he ' dissolved himself,' and 

 surrendered the charters and all the documents of 

 the corporation into the hands of the Rt. Rev. the 

 Hon. Brownlow North, the then bishop. s' The 

 records are, as a consequence, preserved at Farn- 

 ham Castle, in place of being in all probability 

 mislaid again by the town. Some have been 

 eaten by mice, others torn, some probably lost, 

 but the most ancient are in a good state of pre- 

 servation. 



In 1 81 2 there is record of the collection of tolls 

 by the bishop's agent ; they amounted to £20 16/., 

 representing very nearly the surplus of revenue 

 over expenditure that year in the various town 

 receipts and charges, which was ^^20 fs. 2^i. The 



^ An account of the case, and a 

 great deal of correspondence about it 

 from both sides, are preserved among 

 the Corporation papers at Farnham 

 Castle. 



" Corporation books at Farnham 

 Caatle, 1574. In 1666 the town was 



prepared to argue that they must be an 62 Mr. shotter died in 1795 it 



exceedingly ancient corporation from Farnham. « Mr. Shotter'i Papers,' re- 



the smallness of this sum, which ferred to in Manning and Bray, seem 



shows that though the ijj. 4,/. appeared to be those which he surrendered, but 



annually in their accounts, they had they were very partially used by Mr. 



then mislaid the old book in which the Manning, 

 origin of the payment is recorded. 



588 



