"Grievances which the burgesses and commonality of the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne have and do sustain, and for many years past have laid down the same to Mr. Mayor and Aldermen and Common. Council, by petition in open guild, and have not as yet received satisfaction nor redress therein." These grievances had been presented to the mayor in open guild in 1625, and again in 1629.

They complained that the old custom of three guilds or general assemblies in the year was neglected; that money derived from the sale of several municipal offices in the gift of the mayor and aldermen was converted to their own "proper use and benefit," instead of the general good of the town; that the £10 accustomed to be paid by the mayor to the auditors for a dinner to forty burgesses had not been paid the last year, "to the great discouragement of the auditors and the discontent of the grave, ancient, and discreet burgesses of the said town"; that only four, five, or six of the common burgesses were joined to the mayor and aldermen to form the common council, instead of the twenty-four ordained by charter; and they prayed His Majesty to grant an explanation of the charter, for they believed all the wrongs originated in the uniting of six aldermen to the mayor, "which are so of the quorum that nothing in the common council can be done without them." The last complaint was that non-freemen were allowed to trade, to the great prejudice of the poor freemen.

The four burgesses in charge of the petition had

a fruitless journey to London, as on arriving they found the king just starting for the North. He passed through Newcastle itself, but it was felt to be impossible to present the petition whilst he was the guest of the very men against whom it was directed, and the petitioners had to follow the royal cortège as far as Berwick before an opportunity was found. The king did not trouble himself much about the matter, but referred the whole. question to the President and Council of the North.

The poor burgesses, dismayed at the prospect of a costly suit, begged that the expenses might be paid out of the royal revenues, seeing that York was such a distance from Newcastle. Whether His Majesty was so far generous is not known, yet in any case the citizens must have been caused much inconvenience and expense by the dragging length of the proceedings. The decision given in August, announced that as the grievances were connected with the mode of elections fixed in Henry VIII.'s charter, "it would be too high and unbecoming an undertaking for the council to propound any alteration," consequently the matter was sent up to the Privy Council. As usual, the result of the proceedings is not known, and was probably unsatisfactory, for in the State Papers for 1638 a statement of very similar grievances occurs, namely, that coals were not supplied to the inhabitants at cost price, according to ancient practice, nor were burgesses willing to work mines at their own risk for the good of the town allowed to do so; that the water-supply

was diverted from the public conduits by a system of pipes into the houses of the great, which left the town occasionally dry; that foreigners were allowed to trade; the town revenues were badly managed, the town records not carefully preserved and some even lost, the yearly readings of the town evidences neglected; that non-residents were elected to the common council contrary to the charter; and that the petitioners were treated with insult and bad language by the corporation, who threatened "that the burgesses should be made to spend their last groat, and they and their posterity should be reduced to beggary." This last threat stung sharply, for the common purse was completely in the hands of the corporation, who could thus, as the burgesses themselves complained, "beat them with their own weapon to their utter undoing." The statement ends in bitterness, "For what misery will not these men be ready to expose us to, if we were quite thrown down and prostrate at their feet, that (now, whilst we have some vital spirit and power to cry out against them) adventure to deprive us of our fire, water, revenues, records, liberties, privileges, charters, evidences, and our good name?"

The master mariners had also their complaint to swell the chorus against the tyrannical corporation, but their emissary was not so wise as the four burgesses in charge of the citizens' petition. Instead of waiting till the king had left Newcastle well behind him, the steersman of the royal barge

pressed the petition into his hands while on the passage down the Tyne. It appears that the corporation punished this piece of insubordination by haling the unfortunate steersman before the Council of the North on a charge of complicity in the riot of the apprentices, and as he did not appear to answer the accusation he was fined 500 marks. He appealed to the king to have the fine remitted, on the ground that his temerity in presenting the petition was the real cause of the charge, and his failure to answer the summons was unavoidable and maliciously foreseen, as he was at the time on a voyage to Hamburg. Nothing came of this appeal, and after being in custody for three weeks, and generally bullied and badgered, he was so far reduced as to make an application to the Council of the North, in which he acknowledged the justice of his sentence, but begged to have the fine remitted, on the score of the great losses he had incurred through the piracy of the Dunkirkers; and having thus humbled himself, the fine was reduced to £40.

It has been seen that, so far, the life of a Newcastle burgher could not be charged with a tame monotony. Ample opportunity for agitation was afforded by the various broils and turmoils of the town; but by the middle of the seventeenth century we lose sight of these local dissensions in the constitutional struggle which troubled the whole realm.

CHAPTER V

GUILDS

Formation and Character of Merchant Guilds-All Burgesses not Members of Guild in Newcastle-"Open Guild"-Merchant Adventurers-Sumptuary Laws-Hostmen Company-Trinity House Fellowship-Craft Guilds-Their Composition and Regulations.

Town life owes its origin to the interests of trade. As soon as a number of men turned from tilling the soil to following some handicraft, the benefit of association, both for protection and for the easier interchange of commodities, became evident. Thus the first customs and laws in any infant community relate to trade. Those that Newcastle received from Henry I. decree that:—

(a) All merchandise ought to be brought to land, except salt and herrings, which may be sold on board.

(b) If a dispute arise between a burgess and a merchant, it must be settled within three tides. (c) No merchant, not being a burgess, can buy wool nor hides without the borough nor within it, except from a burgess.

(d) None but a burgess can buy webs for dyeing, nor make them up, nor cut them.