514 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
A Catalogue of all the Mayors of Plimmouth, with 
the most remarkable occurrences of their times. 
Divers endeavours, were long used, by the inhabitants of Sutton 
alias Plimmouth, to obtain a Chartar, and be incorporated into a 
Mayor &f Commonalty, in order to w ch , when the writs ad quod 
damnum, were executed, the Prior of Sutton (who was the prin- 
ciple man here) fearing the diminution of his power, did still 
obstruct it, till about * the midle of the reign of Henry the Sixth, 
y e french having beaten him out of all that his father had won in 
france, did come over, and plunder, and burn y e small, and weak 
places on our coast, this made the inhabitants petition the parlia- 
ment for a chartar. an Act was framed the 18th yeare of y* King 
[1439-40], and they were incorporated 1440. (The old Audit 
Book s th 1641.) 
* [In the margin is here written :] This proves a mistake for y* 
was not done in many yeares after, tho at this tyme the Brittains 
did pillage the weak and unfortifyed places on our coast. 
Yonge is in error here. There is abundant evidence that the corporate 
history of Plymouth begins at a date far more remote than that of the Act 
Charter of Henry VI. Three centuries ago, the then town clerk made entries 
in the White Book of copies of a number of deeds which, bearing the names of 
mayors of Plymouth as witnesses, proved that it was a "mayor town" long 
before 1440. It is, in fact, very clear that what the Act Charter effected was 
an extension — or rather, perhaps, an amalgamation — of existing authorities. 
Under the Charter the town of Sutton Prior, the tything of Sutton Kalf, 
part of the hamlet of Sutton Yalletort, and part of the tything of Compton, 
were combined into the one borough of Plymouth, by which name indeed 
they had been long commonly known. Sutton Prior had been governed for 
the Prior of Plympton by a portreeve. I believe the ancient corporation, 
the extension of the borders of which the Act Charter effected, held juris- 
diction in that part of the borough which from time immemorial has been 
called by the name of Old Town, now known by the modern term Old Town 
Street. Here stood Sutton Yalletort, or Yawtier ; and as Baldwin de Redvers 
in 1241 chartered the town of Plympton Earle, so I believe that one of the 
Yalletorts chartered his town of Sutton Yawtier, or as it came to be com- 
monly called, Plymouth. Browne Willis avers that the Yalletort estates 
escheated to the Crown on the death of Roger de Valletort, 1290. The 
"Nomina Yillarum," 7th Edward II., assigns Sutton Rauff to John de Dale- 
curta, and Burgus de Sutton to the Prior of Plympton. The earliest mention 
with which I am acquainted of a corporation of any kind in Plymouth, is a 
letter written in May 31, 1289, by the bailiffs and commonalty to the king, 
