ROYAL LETTERS TO OXFORD.* Mn. OGLE explains that the term
"Royal Letters" is used, as being a fairly approximate description, for a variety of documents, such as Charters, Inquisitions, Warrants, Orders in Council, &e. Even private letters on matters of public in- terest are included. The whole collection is one of great value, and Mr. Ogle deserves great credit for the patience and skill with which he deciphered the documents and elucidated the obscurities that occur in them. They range, it must be understood, over a period of more than five centuries and a half. The earliest is a Charter of King Stephen (circa 1136), containing the gift of two meadows by the Burgesses of Ox- ford to the religious house of St. Nideswide ; (it is interesting to note that one of the two is still called by the same name); the latest is an Order of Council, dated June 19th, 1700, relating to a disputed appointment to the office of town•clerk. The earliest deed is followed by six charters. The first of these belongs to the reign of Henry II., but refers to a document probably assignable to Henry I. The later charter itself has not been preserved, but is recited in one of Elizabeth. For an actually existing charter, we must come down some forty years later, to the first year of John. It confirms the town of Oxford in the possession of the privileges previously granted. Such confirmations frequently occur, and doubtless were not given without some consideration. The latest in date was issued by James II. about three months before his flight from Whitehall in December, 1688. The City had been compelled early in the year to surrender its old charter, and the Corpo- ration was dissolved by Order of Council on June 6th. The new "Letters Patent" cost the City a thousand pounds, and as they remained in force for little more than five weeks, must be considered to have been dear at the price. It is easy to understand why " no Ceremony was observed nor Injoined upon the occasion," as a contemporary writer observes.
Among the most interesting " Letters " printed are those which relate to the dealings, mostly of a more or less contro- versial kind, between the City and the University. The earliest of these concerns a payment out of the fee-farm of the City of a sum of £23 Os. 5d. per annum, as account of St. Bartholomew's Hospital for lepers. The City disputed its obligations, and the "fee-farm rent" continues to appear at intervals for centuries. The difference between Oriel and the City still, we believe, exists. It would be almost a pity if so venerable a quarrel should be terminated. Eleven years later (in 1355) a more serious matter occurs,—the riot on St. Boholastica's Day. Among the ten documents relating to this time is an Order of Council that the City should pay £250 to the University in respect of damages done, besides restoring all the property that could be recovered. This payment did not acquit the transgressors for the deaths caused by the riot, nor did it terminate their liability. Payments on this account continued to be made awn to the reign of Elizabeth. The oath to observe the privileges of the University for which these penalties were ultimately commuted, was itself abolished about forty years ago. Twenty-seven years after the dreadful day of St. Scholastica, which, however, finally established the University privileges, William of Wykeham laid the foundation-stone of his "new .College." A few months before, he had bought from the City eertain lands and a lane (oat° placeas vacuas et quandam venellam), the Xing granting a licence for the sale. The Bishop paid £80 for the property, and we have an " inquisi- tion " to inquire into the question of the loss which would accrue from the sale (the land belonged to various corpora- tions, the Convent of Godstow being among them). The result of this inquisition was to estimate the loss at ten .shillings per annum. The land was of very little value, a place where rubbish was shot, dead dogs, for instance (cada- • Royal Letters to Oxford. Transcribed and Edited by Octavio Ogle, M.A. 'Oxford : James Parker and CO. 1892. vera fetancia), and haunted by bad characters. " Ibidem fuit magnus concursns malefactorum, murdrornm, meretricum et latronum," to the great loss, it is explained, of the whole town and the peril of scholars and other passers-by. The City, in fact, seems to have made an excellent bargain, which, nevertheless, they were provokingly slow in completing. Two letters of the Bishop, addressed " a nos tree chers et tree fiables amys le Mair, Bears, Aldermen, et as entree bones gentz at comunes de la ville Doxenford," are given, in which he urges the completion of the affair. Three years afterwards the workmen engaged in building the College have protection given them by Royal Letters Patent, together with an ex- emption from tolls. About the same time the City fell out with the scholars at Merton. Merton had employed a body of armed men to throw back into the town ditch the soil which had been removed at its cleansing, and the Xing promises to look into the matter.
The City had other difficulties besides its chronic quarrd with the University and the Colleges. Some lands at Wolver- cot, belonging to Godstow Nunnery, were sold to Dr. Owen, physician to the Xing; one result of this transaction was a quarrel between the inhabitants of Wolvercot and the City. Rights of pasture were invaded, and the ford was " digged "— i.e., made unfordable.. We find " an olde husbandman" giving evidence to this effect, affirming among other things " that he hath knowne common droyvers and other travelinge men with beasts hath used to put in their (Jetties for the space of ij or iij dayes in Portemeade, without any lett or contradiecion of the said Mayor or any other," and farther, that "even soe hath the &hollers of the Universitie used to put their hackneys or geldings without lett or inter- ruption." This quarrel, too, has attained a venerable age, for early last year, the Mayor, while beating the bounds in Port- meadow, was attacked by the injured commoners of Wolver- cot. Portmeadow figures a little later in another way. We find King Charles I. politely, but with an air of command, asking " for the Grasse and Hay of Port Medow, which for this year also will be of very great use to Us."
A reader will have gained some idea of the wide range of subjects which this volume touches upon. We must not for- get to mention the commendatory preface which Bishop Stubbs has prefixed to it, and the four admirable fac-similes (the English Proclamation of Henry III., dated October, 1258, King John's Charter, Grant of a Guildhall by Henry III., and a Letter of William of Wykeham). The separate summaries are very useful, and the indices complete.
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