CHARTERS, WRITS OF PRIVILEGE AND GRANTS OF ARMS

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CHARTERS, WRITS OF PRIVILEGE AND GRANTS OF ARMS

These charters and writs of privilege show how the Corporation of Chester gradually achieved a separate identity as successive generations of burgesses gained rights of self government from the Crown and from the Earls of Chester.

The earliest charters obtained from the Crown mainly related to external privileges, such as trading rights in Dublin, while the earliest charter from the Norman Earls of Chester related to internal privileges, such as the grant of the guild merchant. In 1237, on the death of the last of the Norman Earls, John the Scot, the earldom reverted to the Crown. In 1254 it was granted to the King's eldest son, and after this date charters were granted by the King or by the Prince of Wales as Earl of Chester.

Many of the charters are merely confirmations of earlier grants, but the successive privileges and rights granted in these early charters culminated in the charter of incorporation granted by King Henry VII in 1506 CH 32, and this, apart from some alterations made to the powers of the government of the Corporation in the seventeenth century, remained the basis for the government of the city until the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

With regard to the format of these documents, a change occurred towards the middle of the fourteenth century when letters patent under the great seal gradually replaced the charter. Letters patent proved to be a more convenient form, as they could be used to grant or confirm privileges or for more ephemeral purposes, such as the grant of pardon for treason committed during the Percy Rebellion

English