Note 448 — Chapter VII

Norwich Doc. Stanley v. Mayor, &c. p. 3. In the great majority of cases this grant was made once for all; but occasionally it was renewed from time to time. Thus Henry the Sixth in 1437 gave the mayor and burgesses of Bristol a lease of the town and its profits for a term of twenty years. In 1446 he granted a new lease for sixty years. In 1461 Edward the Fourth renewed the lease, not for a term of years, but for ever. (Seyer’s Charters of Bristol, 105.) The ferm was granted in the same way for a term of years in the case of Dunwich, a royal town, where it was let out to the highest bidder. Here, however, the collection of rent was peculiarly uncertain from special circumstances (Madox, 235-8, 241); and in 1325 Dunwich, ruined by the filling up of its port, prayed to have the town taken into the King’s hand and a guardian appointed. (Rot. Parl. i. 426.) For the inconvenience of this letting out to the highest bidder, see Madox, 251.