It to the paviers for 200 & forti yards of pavine at jd. ob the yard ... It allowanc the 12 October for a dyn Disburse'ts. of the Sergeants ... ... ... RECEYTES ... ... ... Xxvs. vjd. xxijs. ijd. vjs. viijd. ... of Birde fore 3e pewter dishes distrayned by xviijd. xid. £12 12 5 Charge is Disbursemt allowed... Soe resteth due to the accompt whereoff payd in the tyme of m' coupp and m' prytchard Rd: Powis and Thomas Heath wth others beinge then syx men... 5 6 6 HISTORICAL RECORDS OF NEWPORT, CO. SALOP. BY EDWARD JONES. ROBERT DE BELESME, eldest son of Roger de Montgomery, who succeeded his younger brother Hugh in the earldom of Shrewsbury, was of a rash and discontented disposition, and with others of the nobility supported the claim of Robert Duke of Normandy to the crown of England in the stead of Prince Henry. Even after King Henry was crowned he proved a turbulent and disaffected subject. In 1102 he rebelled against him, and fortified all his castles in Shropshire; whereupon King Henry declared him a traitor, and marched with a considerable force against him, and having taken Bridgnorth, advanced upon Shrewsbury. Upon his Majesty's approach, and his threatening to hang all whom he should take therein, the Earl implored the King's mercy, acknowledged his crime of treason, and presented the keys of the town, which the King graciously accepted. The King, however, banished the Earl to Normandy, and seized all his possessions, including Shrewsbury, to which town he soon afterwards granted its first charter. As the extensive manor of Edgmond formed part of the estates then forfeited, it is but fair to infer that it was about this period, while the King was in this neighbourhood, and probably staying within the limits of this manor, that he founded the Borough of Novusburgus, Newborough, now Newport, and granted to it its first charter. What VOL. VIII. AB franchises and privileges this grant embodied can only be gathered incidentally from subsequent records, there being no written charter extant. Indeed, it may not unreasonably be surmised that, like some other grants, notably that of the same king to Shrewsbury, it may never have been reduced to writing, for search has been made in the Public Record Office and elsewhere without any result. It is a matter of history that to Henry, notwithstanding the arbitrary power he exercised after the suppression of the Belesme rebellion, is to be ascribed the merit of relaxing the chain of servitude and easing the galling yoke of oppression under which his subjects had laboured. Moreover, his own sovereignty was so notably an usurpation in itself, that he, no doubt, deemed it a prudent policy to conciliate all classes alike by conferring liberal privileges and substantial benefits upon individuals and communities both in Church and State. For several generations after the Conquest the very name of Norman was an odious and unwelcome sound. One of the reasons which induced King Henry to select the site of the present town of Newport as a suitable place for a new royal borough, seems to have been its position on a branch of the Roman Watling Street-the great highway between London and Chester, at the head of the Wealdmoors--then a wide and swampy morass across which troops could not be transported; the rivulet, too, could there be easily forded. There was also a water mill, a valuable adjunct to a town, and a fishery of more than average value, and perhaps of more than average quality. To this fishery Newport is certainly indebted for its corporate privileges, and probably for its existence. The Rev. R. W. Eyton, in his "Antiquities of Shropshire," appears to take this view, for he says:-"The arms of Newport (three fishes in pale) are allusive to the famous Vivary which adjoined the town, and to a certain service by which the Burgesses seem to have held their liberties. They had to convey the fish taken in this vivary to the So that the ser King's court, wherever it might be.' vice does not appear to have been a merely nominal acknowledgment, like the rendering of a pepper corn or a rose, but a substantial rent. The vivary had its keepers or superintendents. One of these was Reiner de Novo Burgo, evidently an important personage in his day, as were his descendants afterwards, two of whom were among the early Provosts of Shrewsbury, and held property in that town. Newport must have been enfranchised prior to the year 1160. In the list of imposts or tallages levied on royal manors and boroughs in that year, it is charged £1. In the year following, this levy, entitled a "Donum Burgorum," amounted to £2 13s. 4d., and the same levy was made in various sums for eight years subsequent. This tax, although apparently heavy, was, doubtless, very necessary and beneficial, since so small a number of townspeople, unprotected by a royal patron, would be certainly exposed to robbery and outrage from vexatious neighbours. It was a greater thing then than can easily be imagined to be allowed to live and work quietly, well and in peace, and such liberty our fathers hoped to enjoy under the powerful defence of their sovereign. Nevertheless, on King Henry II.'s visit to the neighbourhood between the years 1163 and 1166, the Burgesses reminded him of his grandfather's charter, and obtained a confirmation thereof, which, freely translated, is as follows: "Henry, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Earl of Anjou, to the Sheriff and all his ministers of Shropshire, greeting. Know ye that I have granted to my Burgesses of New Borough all their liberties and good customs, as they the better and more freely had in the time of King Henry my grandfather. And therefore I prohibit every one on this account from doing them injury or contempt thereof. And if any one shall injure them in their liberties and customs, or in any of them, you shall without delay do them full justice. Witness, Walter Archbishop of Canterbury, John Cummin, and Ralph de Tam. At Breuwode. (Breewood, or Breud, as it is usually pronounced, is situated near the Watling Street, and was a halting station for persons of distinction travelling from London to Shrewsbury or Chester; if to the latter place, travellers had to leave the main road some two miles distant at Weston, and take the highway passing through Woodcote, Pave Lane, Newport, and Whitchurch. Henry fitz Empress is said to have halted at Breewood, and his son John Sansterre, or Lackland, dated many of his warrants and charters from the same place.) This charter seems to bear out the idea before expressed that the former grant of Henry I. might not have been a written document, as the word charter does not occur. This also does not specify what the liberties and customs were; no doubt they were of the usual class, such as murage, cheminage, pannage, and lastage. One of the privileges in the reign of Henry II. was that, if a bondman remained in a borough a year and a day, he was by that residence made a free man, and Coke says that a borough was anciently taken for those communities of ten families each, that were one another's pledges, from the Saxon word Borhoe. If burgesses exceeded their privileges they were quickly reminded of the fact, and were called upon to pay something in addition to the usual fee or ferm demanded by the King or Lord of the place. So in 1176 the Justices in Eyre, Bertram de Verdon, Simon, son of Thurston, and William, son of Stephen, discovered three houses in Newport built in such a place or manner as that they were in the nature of a pour presture, and were not protected by the general ferm£12 2s. 8d., for which the liberty of Edgmond and Newport was responsible. They therefore imposed an extra ferm of 3s. on these houses. This is mentioned in the following entry in the Pipe Roll 22 Henry II.: -Idem Vicecomes r. c. de III. sol de III. domibus in |
