There is associated evidence for murage, dated 29/3/1451, concerning Act of Resumption (a complaint by Commons).
Wording
March 1451. Westminster. Parliament {Act of Resumption}
17. The commons assembled in this your present parliament pray you to consider: whereas your chancellor of your realm of England, your treasurer of England, and many other lords of your council showed and declared by your high command the state of this your realm to your said commons at your parliament held at Westminster and concluded at Winchester;{1} which was that you were in debt for £372,000, which is a great and grievous sum, and that your annual income was only £5,000; and considering that this £5,000 is insufficient for your high and noble estate to be maintained and to pay your said debts, that your high estate might be therefore granted relief. And it was further declared that the necessary expenses of your household, without all other ordinary charges, come to £24,000 a year, which necessary expenses exceed your income by £19,000 every year. May it also please your highness to consider that the commons of your said realm have been as well-disposed in their own limited capacity to relieve your highness as ever were people to any king of your progenitors who ever reigned in your said realm of England; but your said commons are so impoverished, what with the taking of victuals for your household and other things in your said realm, which are not paid for, and the fifteenths too frequently granted by your said commons in the past, and by the grant of tonnage and poundage, and by the grant of the subsidy on wool, and other grants to your highness, and for the lack of execution of justice, that your poor commons have been almost completely destroyed, and if such a great burden should continue any longer it could not be supported or borne in any way.
Wherefore may it please your highness graciously to consider the foregoing, and that, by the advice and assent of your lords spiritual and temporal, and by the authority of this your present parliament, for the maintenance of your high estate, and in support and help of your poor commons, you will take, resume, seize and retain in your hands and possession all honours, castles, lordships, towns, townships, manors, lands, tenements, wastes, rents, reversions, fees, fee-farms and services with all their appurtenances in which you had estate in fee in England, Wales and in its marches, Ireland, Guines, Calais and in its marches which you have granted by your letters patent or otherwise since the first day of your reign. And all the honours, castles, lordships, towns, townships, manors, lands, tenements, wastes, rents, reversions, fees, fee-farms and services with all their appurtenances which were of the duchy of Lancaster, and passed from you by your grant or grants: and you to have, hold and retain all the foregoing, in and of such estate as you held them at the time of such grants of them made by you. And that all letters patent or grants made of the foregoing to any person or persons by you or by any other person or persons at your request or will, or of any of them, in what has been mentioned above, shall be made void and invalid. And in addition, that all manner of grants of rents, charges or annuities made by you by title of inheritance, for a term of life, or a term of years, or during pleasure to any person or persons to be taken from any of these aforementioned things, or from any other of your possessions, or from your customs or subsidies or alnage, or from your hanaper, or at or in your receipt, or in other ways, or in any other place, or in any of them, or from the profits arising from them or any of them within this your realm, Ireland, Wales, Guines, Calais, and the marches of the same, shall be made void and invalid. And that all manner of grants made by you to any person or persons by title of inheritance for a term of life, or a term of years, or during pleasure of any herbage or pannage, fishing, pasture, or common pasture, warren, wood, wine, clothing, or fur belonging or pertaining to any office since the said first day of your reign or before, who do not yield to you the true value of them, or who make no service to you for the value of it, shall be made void and invalid. And that all letters patent made by you on or for any of the foregoing to any person of which any recovery has been made against the said letters patent, or any other by deception or collusion; that both the recovery thereof and the letters patents shall be void and invalid.
And in addition that it might please your highness to take, resume, seize and retain in your said hands and possession all manner of liberties, privileges, franchises, hundreds, wapentakes, leets, rapes, views of frankpledge, sheriffs' tourns, sheriffs' guilds, fines, amercements and the issues and profits of the same granted by you since the said first day of your reign to any person or persons, abbot, prior, dean, chapter, master or warden of a college, fraternity, craft or guild, and all manner of such grants to be void and invalid: ...
...
Provided also that this act shall not extend to any manner of grant of murage or anything granted for the same by you to any mayor and community, or to the bailiffs and community, or the citizens or burgesses of any city, town or port of this your realm of England.
Granted by Henry VI. Granted at Westminster.
Primary Sources
Curry, A. (ed), 2005, 'Henry VI, 1450 November, Text/Translation', in
The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. C. Given-Wilson et al., item 17. Internet version, at
online copy, accessed on 24/04/2009. (Scholarly Digital Editions, Leicester)
Comments
see comments regarding previous .
I have dated this act from the earliest of two dates given for end of the second session of this parliament (see Curry 'Henry VI, 1450 November, Introduction' PROME)
Record created by Philip Davis. This record created 24/04/2009. Last updated on 20/01/2013. First published online 9/01/2013.
