Note 138 — Chapter VIII

The name of Cheveley is associated with what Professor Maitland calls "the curious if disgraceful story of the decline and fall" of the ancient Corporation of Cambridge.[138] When the Revolution of 1688 had put a final end to the old Royal prerogatives over local administration, "the Corporation stood free from national supervision"; and Parliament, as time went on, appointed Commissioners to undertake the duties of police and hygiene, which had formerly been entrusted to it. With the cessation of recognised responsibilities the Corporation also ceased to have a conscience, and shamelessly squandered the corporate property on the personal greediness of its members. The Duke of Rutland, from his great seat at Cheveley, became, till the flood of nineteenth century reforms cleansed the Augean stable, its absolute master, and his nominees only were chosen into it, and thus, after a thousand years of strenuous, and mostly beneficent life, "first as a knot of heathen hidesmen,[139] then as a township of early English burg-men, then as a corporation of mediæval burgesses," it finally dwindled to a small dining club, "with good wine, and plenty of it," absolutely dominated by one great Tory magnate, and claiming "the right to expend their income on themselves and their friends, without being bound to apply any part of it to the good of the Town." Reform came none too soon.