continued to be an exempt place or 'liberty', an enclave within the walls of the City, but not part of it, and with a somewhat loose and ill-defined organization of its own. The inhabitants agreed together and appointed a porter and a scavenger. A constable was appointed for them by the justices of the verge.[1] The precinct was constituted an ecclesiastical parish, known as St. Anne's after a chapel which had once served its inhabitants; and was provided with a church.[2] Petty offences were tried, and any exceptional affairs managed, as might have been done in a rural parish, by the justices, and it was to these that any administrative orders thought necessary by the Privy Council were ordinarily addressed.[3] It perhaps goes without saying that the City were not content with a single rebuff. They attempted to interfere at the time of a riot in 1551, and were snubbed by the Privy Council.[4] Under Mary they promoted legislation with a view to annexing the liberties, but without success.[5] In 1562 a sheriff, who entered the liberty to enforce a proclamation, was shut in by the prompt action of the constable, and faced with an inhibition which one of the justices hurried to obtain from a privy councillor.[6] The city remained persistent. In 1574 the Council had again to intervene.[7] In 1578 a controversy arose as to the right of the City to dispose of the goods of felons and other escheats. It was referred to two chief justices, who made a report to the effect that, while the inhabitants of both the Blackfriars and
- ↑ B. M. Lansd. MS. 155, f. 80^v.
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 2, 5, 103, 127; Stowe (1598), i. 339 Athenaeum (1886), ii. 91; Dasent, xxvi. 448; xxvii. 13.
- ↑ In 1585 the Lord Mayor asked that the Blackfriars might contribute to the musters (Stowe, ed. Strype, i. 3. 180). In 1588 and 1593 requisitions for a levy were sent to the chief officer, i. e. the constable, and the inhabitants (Dasent, xv. 428; xxiv. 30). But in 1589 similar action was taken through the Lord Mayor (Dasent, xvii. 118). A local dispute was referred to Richard Young and another Middlesex justice in 1591, with whom the Lord Mayor was joined because a City company was involved (Dasent, xx. 245, 283). Young and others again received the Council's instructions, after they had heard the inhabitants, on a building matter in 1591 (Dasent, xxi. 337). At a time of danger in 1592 the keeping of a midsummer watch was committed to Lord Cobham (Dasent, xxii. 551).
- ↑ Stowe (1720), i. 3. 183; Dasent, iii. 235 (Letter of 14 March 1551 'to the Maiour of London to suffer the Lorde Cobham, the Lorde Wardein, and others dwelling within the Blacke Freres t'enjoye their liberties there'). The riot was put down by Sir Thomas Saunders, Sir Henry Jerningham, and William More.
- ↑ Stowe (1720), i. 3. 183.
- ↑ Stowe, ed. Strype (1720), i. 3. 184. The Blackfriars papers added by A. Munday in 1618 appear to be all notes and examinations taken by Sir Thomas Saunders, who appealed to the Earl of Arundel for support.
- ↑ Dasent, viii. 240, 257.
