Burgesses of Scarborough. King and council. The burgesses of Scarborough make three...

Petitioners

Burgesses of Scarborough.

Addressees

King and council.

Nature of request

The burgesses of Scarborough make three requests:1) They state that they hold their town, and the manor of Falsgrave, at fee farm, by charters of the king's progenitors which he has confirmed, he has now seized it into his hand, for no apparent reason, and leased it to various keepers and farmers, who have let it go to ruin. They ask that they may be able to pay their farm personally at the Exchequer, according to the tenor of their charters, paying the king a tenth of all their goods for this.2) As their town and its harbour depend on quayage for their upkeep, and the keepers and bailiffs of the town, whom the king assigned to collect this, have not spent it properly, they ask that they may have it by commission to the community as they used to, so that they can appoint collectors, and oversee how the money is spent, or that they might have a counter-roll for the community of the receipts and expenditures of the quayage.3) As all the streets leading to the sea are so damaged that horses and carts cannot pass, because the keepers and farmers took what they could from the farm and did nothing for the town, they request pavage and murage for seven years, to be collected by the community as above, by a fine at the king's pleasure.

Nature of endorsement

Coram rege.1) With regard to the first: they are to come to chancery and show their charters, and the reason why the town is in the king's hand is to be established and the king informed etc.2) With regard to the second: Certain people are to be assigned to audit the account of all those who have had quayage etc., and henceforth a comptroller is to be appointed at the nomination of the community, as in the petition etc.3) With regard to the third: It seems that it would be too heavy a burden on the people to have murage and pavage where there is quayage.

Places mentioned

Scarborough, [North Riding of Yorkshire]

Wallesgrave (Falsgrave), [North Riding of Yorkshire].

For a petition formerly enclosed to this one, see SC 8/143/7105

• Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edw II, vol. V, 1324-1327, (Public Record Office, 1904), p.227 (commission of oyer and terminer to enquire into the accounts of the collectors of quayage in Scarborough) & p.159 (another [vacated] copy of the same commission)
• Rotuli Parliamentorum; ut et Petitiones, et Placita in Parliamento, vol. I, Edw I and Edw II, (Record Commission, 1783), p.423a, no.24 (full edition of a later copy of the original document)
• The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, Ed. Paul Brand, Anne Curry, Chris Given-Wilson, Rosemary Horrox, W.M. Ormrod and J.R.S. Phillips, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Appendix of Unedited Petitions, 1307-1337, Rot. Parl. vol. I, pp. 416-429, no. 24 (summary of references)