5 - The corporations and their charters, 1660–1682

Summary

It was the spring of 1661. Leicester's senior aldermen carried their charters to London for “the manifesting of the liberties of the corporation.” If they were not nervous, they should have been. Like aldermen across England, Leicester's had acquiesced in the destruction of monarchy in the 1640s and 50s when they sold off the fee farm rents long paid to the crown in return for the privileges granted to them by Charles II's ancestors. This and other sins provided ready grounds for forfeiting their charters. Leicester's corporate life hung from a slender thread, one that could be broken by the slightest legal tug.

But in the first years after the Restoration, the King was more concerned with good behavior than with good law. The question of Leicester's legal status was put aside while the Corporation Act commissioners did their work. With new members in place by the autumn of 1662, Leicester's corporation again tended to its legally suspect charters. Work proceeded slowly; not until the following June did a corporate committee recommend “the renewing of the town charter with such liberties as formerly and such other additions as Mr. Recorder shall advise.” Despite this intention, continued dithering over the charter ultimately provoked crown impatience. Word arrived in town that if they did not hasten their efforts, an information in the nature of a quo warranto would be sued against them, forcing them to renew the charter on less favorable terms. But no quo warranto was needed to inspire the corporation; the prospect of clarifying old privileges and perhaps gaining new ones gave incentive enough.