Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1554-1556)
The Privy Council of queen Mary was responsible for internal security in England and Wales, and dealt with all manner of special and urgent matters.
HILL. Cost: £4.00.  | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Tradesmen of York
(1272-1558)
No man or woman could trade in the city of York without having obtained 'freedom' of the city.Their names were recorded on the 'Freemen's Roll', or Register of the Freemen of the City of York, which contains about 19,900 names for this period. A list of names was prepared for each year, the year being here reckoned as starting at Michaelmas (29 September) until 1373, and thence at Candlemas (2 February). Each annual list starts with the name of the mayor and the camerarii or chamberlains. The chamberlains were freemen charged with the duty of receiving the fees of the new freemen; of seeing that only freemen traded in the city; and of preparing this roll, which was compiled from the names on their own account books from the receipts for the fees. There are three groups of freemen: those who obtained freedom after serving out an apprenticeship to a freeman; the children of freemen; and those who claimed freedom by 'redemption', i. e. by purchase or gift from the Mayor and Court of Aldermen.
HILL. Cost: £2.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Inhabitants of Lancashire
(1547-1558)
Pleadings and depositions in the Duchy Court of Lancaster from the 1st year of Edward VI to the 5th and 6th of Philip and Mary were edited by lieutenant-colonel Henry Fishwick for the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society and published in 1899. The records include some long and detailed depositions about the precise facts of the cases: whereas plaintiffs and defendants were by and large from the landed gentry, deponents were often of much humbler stations in life, people who otherwise hardly appear in surviving records.HILL. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Fines: Shropshire
(1558)
Fines for fictitious actions of covenant in the Common Pleas were a way of registering the transfer of landed property. The originals, entered on the Common Roll for Michaelmas term, 5 & 6 Philip & Mary and 1 Elizabeth, 1558 are here abstracted into English by David Bethell: the grantee is in each case the person named in the third line, covenanting with the grantor(s). The description of the estate names the number of messuages (houses), acres of (arable) land, pasture, meadow, &c. CP 40/1176 mm.1-100.HILL. Cost: £10.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Kent clergy
(1559-1560)
Ordinations of deacons, priests and lectors, for the diocese and jurisdiction of Canterbury, recorded in the register of archbishop Matthew Parker. HILL. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Kent clergy
(1560-1562)
Lists of clerks admitted to benefices in Canterbury diocese and jurisdiction, recorded in the register of archbishop Matthew ParkerHILL. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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London funerals and other news
(1550-1563)
Henry Machyn was a citizen and merchant-taylor of London. He had a professional interest in the lavish funerals of his fellow citizens, and in October 1550 started a note book giving brief details of these occasions. Soon he added political news, and (in an age before newspapers) he had a journalist's eye for accidents, hangings, the preachings and suppression of heretics, and the fortunes and misfortunes of dissidents. He lived in interesting times; the early death of Edward VI; the failed attempt to install Jane on the throne; the succession of queen Mary, and a lurch towards Catholicism; her marriage to Philip of Spain; her death, and the accession of queen Elizabeth. Machyn's humble journal, written for his own amusement and with a resolute indifference to orthography, became in its time an important historical source, used by Strype, and then edited by John Gough Nichols for the Camden Society and published in 1848.HILL. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Inhabitants of Suffolk
(1568)
By Act of Parliament of December 1566 a subsidy of 8d in the £ on moveable goods and 4s in the £ on the annual value of land was raised from the lay (as opposed to clergy) population. These are the returns for Suffolk, printed in 1909 in the Suffolk Green Book series.HILL. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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London and Middlesex Feet of Fines
(1485-1569)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in London and Middlesex.HILL. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Scottish litigants, rebels and cautioners
(1545-1569)
The Privy Council of Scotland exercised a superior judicial authority in the kingdom, and consequently received and dealt with a constant stream of petitions, as well as dealing with the internal security of the state. This register of the council from June 1545 to July 1569, in the reigns of Mary queen of Scots and king James VI, was edited by John Hill Burton, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, and published under the direction of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland in 1877. Some of the individuals mentioned are the complainants, those of whom they complained, and the sureties on both sides: at this period, some of the complainants are alleging serious attacks, often of a feuding nature. Many of the bonds entered into by the cautioners are promises to keep the peace towards such enemies. Failure to answer to the council when summoned was a serious contempt, leading to being denounced a rebel, with serious consequences. But 'horning' was also used in the pursuit of debts: there was no imprisonment for debt in Scotland, but a creditor could have an obstinate debtor ordered, in the sovereign's name, to pay what was due, failing which, the debtor could be put to the horn, denounced as a rebel, and imprisoned as a rebel. In his preface to this volume, Burton remarked that "There might perhaps be objections to the abundance of names of persons and places unknown to fame; but it was considered that in such a work the proper names of all persons and places occurring in the Register should be preserved, to be at the service of genealogical as well as historical investigators".
HILL. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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