The Corporation of Bedford, 1647–1664

Abstract

The limiting dates of this paper are those of the first surviving minute book of the Corporation. Though Bedford is a borough by prescription and its earliest charter, granted by Henry II, confirms the privileges enjoyed under Henry I, there is evidence in the muniments of the Corporation generally, as well as in the character of the first minute book itself, that its beginning marked a significant stage in the evolution of the governing body. It certainly marked also the opening of a period of constitution-making which may fairly be described as eventful, even in comparison with other English boroughs of the seventeenth century, for between 1649 and 1660 the rules for the election of the Common Council were comprehensively revised four times. Antagonisms which belong to national politics are clearly involved in these short-lived reforms, but there are also others, local in origin, which cannot well be understood without some knowledge of the relations between the governing body and the freemen in the reigns of the first two Stuarts.