Chancery: Wine Licences

C 238

1583-1602

Counterparts of printed indentures issued by Sir Walter Raleigh for the sale of wine, under a monopoly granted by letters patent in 1583 and renewed in 1588.

The licence allowed its holder to buy and sell wine without restriction of quantity or quality, but with price restriction on wines from the Bordeaux region, sack and malmsey.

No fee was mentioned in the earlier licences; instead it was set out in a separate bond. However, within two years the terms of the bond were recited in the licence itself, securing an annual payment to Richard Brown, Raleigh's lessee.

After the renewal of the patent in 1588, the payments were increased and secured to Raleigh himself. The licences were granted to one or more persons in survivorship, normally to trade within their town of residence. Most early licence holders were vintners, but in later years, yeomen, gentlemen, merchants and various tradesmen occur.

The series is incomplete, the few documents which survive from the later years being particularly fragmentary.

By regnal year, and then chronologically within each county.

Public Record(s)

English and Latin

41 file(s)

Topics

Trade and commerce

Food and drink

In 1570 Sir Edward Horsey received a patent to grant licences to keep taverns and sell wine in York, Coventry, Exeter, Norwich, Bristol, Kingston upon Hull, Ipswich, Southampton, Sandwich, Harwich, Colchester, Worcester, Leicester, Brightlingsea and Greenwich to the number limited by statute in 1553. Additional taverns in London, Westminster, Chester and Oxford, together with new ones in every thoroughfare, clothing town, haven town and fisher town were permitted in 1576.

Abuses of these patents were alleged and in 1583 Sir Walter Raleigh received a new grant replacing Horsey's. It empowered him to approve Horsey's licences, replace those that were defective, and complete the number allowed, for a period of 21 years. Horsey had received only half of the fines imposed for breach of the licencing regulations, but Raleigh was granted an annual fee from each licencee as additional revenue. Raleigh leased his patent to Richard Brown; then alleging abuse of it, surrendered it and received another in 1588, this time for 31 years. He surrendered this in 1602.