Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/663

 KINGSTON HUNDRED

��corporation from this time has been the Mayor, Alder- men, and Burgesses of the Borough of Kingston-upon- Thames, and the town was divided into three wards with six aldermen and eighteen councillors. In 1855, by the Kingston-upon-Thames Improvement Act, a fourth ward was added, and the corporation increased to a mayor, eight aldermen, and twenty-four councillors, the present governing body.

Kingston sent representatives to the Parliament of 1311, 1313, 1353, and 1373," but no further writs have been found. It is said that the townsmen begged to be excused the responsibility and obtained their wish." 1 At the same time they refused, in 1378,10 bear a part in contributions towards the expense of knights of the shire, and succeeded in upholding their exemption.* 71 In 1591 they obtained a royal declar- ation of indemnity, as tenants in ancient demesne, from this expense and from serving as jurors.

The first charter of King John, granted in 1 200, gave to the freemen, as has already been mentioned, the town with all its appurtenances, and in 1 208 this was expanded by the clause ' with all the liberties and free customs thereof.' >71 The prescriptive rights thus obtained included not only the hundred court but other liberties. One such right was that of amend- ment of the assize of bread and ale; this, though recognized in 12923,*" was disputed by the Crown until 1441, when Henry VI granted that the clerk of the market should not exercise his office within the town, but that the freemen should have correction of the assize of bread and ale in the town and liberty and be clerks of the market there."* The office of ale-taster owed its origin to the right under which the body corporate had the custody of certain standard measures. As tenants in ancient demesne the freemen were quit of toll throughout the kingdom and of service on juries outside the manor. These rights were disputed in 1581 when us. were paid 'for writin a copie or note owte of the Booke of Domesdeye ' *** in proof, and Queen Elizabeth confirmed these privileges in 1592.*"

It was in accordance with this prescriptive right that the freemen claimed the purprestures. They established their rht by I292-3, 178 though not without conflict with the Crown, for in 1274 they were accused of occupying and appropriating the king's lands, 17 * and at a date previous to 1 3 1 2 the king claimed 6"ji. l id. yearly rent from a purpresture which had been inundated by the Thames.* 8 * The Court of Assembly asserted their right in 1680, when they proposed proceeding against one Rymer whose pales encroached on the highway.* 81

By the third charter granted to Kingston in 1256, which gave the freemen that privilege from arrest which was the aim of every trading town at this period, no man of Kingston might be arrested for debts for which he was not the surety or principal debtor, unless the debtors were solvent or the men of

��KINGSTON- UPON-THAMES

the town had failed to give the aggrieved persons justice. 18 *

This charter was followed three days later by one of greater importance, by which the freemen realized the ambition of all mediaeval towns and succeeded in ousting the sheriff and other royal officers by getting into their own hands the return of Exchequer and other writs, unless by default.** 3 The right to exclude the sheriff was confirmed in 1628, but had fallen into abey- ance fifty years later, for in 1682 the Court of Assembly sought counsel's opinion ' whether an action did not lie against the sheriffs who entered this liberty and executed an execution without any warrant directed to the bailiffs of the town ' ^ the answer being in the affirmative. Six weeks later the suit had begun,* 8 * and was only abandoned in November 1683 at 'the request of Sir Edward Evelyn, Sir James Clarke, and others of the neighbouring gentry."** By 1835 the right was no longer exercised. 187

The charter of 1 2 5 6, confirming the freemen in their gild merchant, granted that they should not lose goods which they could prove their own for the trespass or forfeiture of the servants who might hold them, and also freedom of inheritance. 188 The charter of 1441 granted to the freemen all kinds of escheats and for- feitures of land or chattels, with treasure trove, deo- dands, goods and chattels of felons and suicides. 18 * Yet in spite of this the Privy Council in 1553 demanded such plate perhaps the property of the church or gild as they pretended to be theirs by way of escheat, 1 *" and in 1635 process was discharged in the Crown office against the bailiffs for a deodand.*"

The jurisdiction of the borough courts was very complicated, and was exercised within such varying boundaries that in 183; doubts as to both powers and area were entertained. 1 " At that date the courts held were the hundred court, court of record, court leet or law-day, court baron, petty sessions, and sessions of the peace. The hundred court of Kingston was a court of ancient demesne, and in 1 199-1200 was said to be and always to have been appurtenant to the vill, rendering to the king a farm of 28 io/., to which the hundred of Emleybridge contributed l6/.*" It passed into the hands of the freemen as a prescriptive right under the charter of 1208. Under their prescriptive right of infangenthef the bailiffs would hold such a court as that which in 1235 tried and hanged Sarah wife of Stephen de Meudon, a villein, who was arrested while cooking stolen grain.* 05 The men of Kingston did not however obtain the right of choosing coroners until 1256,*** the hundred being amerced in 1224-5 because the bailiffs had permit- ted the burial of Henry de Heandon, who had died from an accident, without view of the king's coroner.* 97 The right of choosing two coroners was confirmed by James I in 1603,*" and is still exercised. The coroners were elected by the Court of Assembly from its members, and in 1835 it was usual for the town-

��R,t. ofMemb. of Par 1. 171 Prynne, Reg. Parl. ffrits, pt. iv, 1176.

Exch. Pleas, Mich, 2 Ric. II. Cart. Antiq. SS, 8. W* Chart. R. 19 Hen. VI, m. 31. V! Roots, Charters, 82. f Cal. Pat. 1272-81, p. 71.
 * < Assize R. 907, m. 5; 902, m. 3.
 * Hiit. AfSS. Com. Rep. iii, App. 332.
 * Assize R. 902, m. 3.

��*" Cal. Clue, 1307-13, p. 470.

181 Ct. of Assembly Bk. 1680-1724, fol. 2k.


 * " Roots, Ckarttrt, 23. * Ibid. 26.

584 Ct. of Assembly Bk. 21 Dec. 1682.

385 Ibid. 8 Feb. 1682-3.

886 Ibid. 15 NOT. 1683.

987 Munie. Corf. Cm. Rep. iv, 2899.

188 Roots, Chartert,

m. 31.
 * Chart. R. 1-20 Hen. VI, no. 17,

499

��**> Acti of P.C. (New Ser.), 1552-4,

P- 373-

" l Doc. of Corp. Chamberlains' Accts. 1635.

JM Munie. Corp. Com. Rep. iv, 2892 n,

Ibid. 2899,


 * Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 4, 25.

195 Maitland, Braeton'i Note Bit. no. 1138. " Roots, op. cit. 17.

997 Assize R. 863, m. 4, 8.

288 Roots, Char ten, 122 et scq.

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