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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
The limiting dates of this paper are those of the first surviving minute book of the Corporation. Though Bedford is a borough by prescription and its earliest charter, granted by Henry II, confirms the privileges enjoyed under Henry I, there is evidence in the muniments of the Corporation generally, as well as in the character of the first minute book itself, that its beginning marked a significant stage in the evolution of the governing body. It certainly marked also the opening of a period of constitution-making which may fairly be described as eventful, even in comparison with other English boroughs of the seventeenth century, for between 1649 and 1660 the rules for the election of the Common Council were comprehensively revised four times. Antagonisms which belong to national politics are clearly involved in these short-lived reforms, but there are also others, local in origin, which cannot well be understood without some knowledge of the relations between the governing body and the freemen in the reigns of the first two Stuarts.
page 151 note 1 Bedford Corporation Muniments, Box 8, no. 1.
page 152 note 1 Fos. 67V.–72V.
page 152 note 2 In this period the term Common Council is usually applied to the whole governing body, the elected representative being called The Representative, The Thirteen or The Council of the Commonalty. Common Council is sometimes used of the representative, as here; an alternative name for the whole assembly is the Council Chamber.
page 153 note 1 Victoria County History, Bedfordshire, iii. 4.Google Scholar
page 154 note 1 Minute book, p. 9.
page 154 note 2 Ibid., p. 15.
page 154 note 3 Ibid., pp. 15–17.
page 155 note 1 Ibid., pp. 22–5.
page 155 note 2 Box 8, no. 2.
page 155 note 3 Ibid., no. 1.
page 156 note 1 Box 8, no. 2.
page 157 note 1 Minute book, p. 9.
page 157 note 2 Ibid., p. 190.
page 157 note 3 Ibid., pp. 22–5.
page 158 note 1 Minute book, p. 28.
page 158 note 2 Ibid., pp. 47–8.
page 158 note 3 Ibid., pp. 189–91, 205.
page 159 note 1 Ibid., p. 26.
page 159 note 2 Ibid., pp. 14–15.
page 160 note 1 Minute book, p. 29.
page 160 note 2 Ibid., p. 73.
page 160 note 3 Ibid., pp. 75–6.
page 160 note 4 Ibid., p. 87.
page 160 note 5 Ibid., p. 84.
page 160 note 6 Ibid., p. 51.
page 160 note 7 Ibid., pp. 108–10; Thurloe's State Papers, iv. 632.Google Scholar
page 160 note 8 Minute book, p. 111.
page 161 note 1 Ibid., pp. 112, 113.
page 161 note 2 Ibid., pp. 115–16.
page 161 note 3 Ibid., pp. 135–6.
page 162 note 1 Minute book, pp. 172–3.
page 162 note 2 E.g., ibid., pp. 187, 194.
page 162 note 1 Ibid., pp. 189–90.
page 163 note 2 Ibid., p. 205.
page 163 note 3 Ibid., pp. 94–5.
page 163 note 4 Ibid., p. 222.
page 164 note 1 Minute book, p. 186.
page 164 note 2 Ibid., pp. 114, 153.
page 164 note 3 Ibid., pp. 213–14.
page 164 note 4 Victoria County History, Bedfordshire, ii, 58–9.Google Scholar
page 165 note 1 Minute book, p. 225; Charter 16 Car. II; Sacret, J. H., ‘The Restoration Government and Municipal Corporations’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xlv. 242.Google Scholar
page 165 note 2 I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Corporation of Bedford, for permission to photostat and edit the minute book; to the Town Clerk, Mr. H. Darlow, M.A., LL.M., for his interest and assistance; to the Bedford shire Historical Record Society, and in particular to its Chairman, Mr. F. S. Manning, for whose publications the text is being prepared; and to Miss Joyce Godber, Clerk of the Records to the County of Bedford, her assistant, Miss Crook, and the Assistant Solicitor to the Corporation, Mr. M. D. Gilmore, who together furnished the notes and transcripts of miscellaneous documents in the Corporation archives cited in my paper.