Note 515 — Chapter XI

There was also a “Great Court” of twenty-four. Hist. MSS. Com. x. part 4, pp. 425-7. At Melcombe Regis (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 578) there was an electing jury of twelve. In Preston the mayor chose in open court two ancient discreet and honest burgesses, who took an oath that they would at once select twenty-four burgesses who should not bear any office in the town during the next year. The twenty-four having been chosen and sworn, elected a mayor, a bailiff, and a sub-bailiff; these three at once took their respective oaths, and the mayor before he left the hall appointed a mayor’s bailiff and a serjeant. Laws were made by the “mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses, with all the commonalty, by a whole assent and consent.” Government seems to have been carried on by the mayor and “twelve of those who with him are ordained,” and who were known as aldermen or capital burgesses. By a guild law earlier than 1328 former mayors and bailiffs, though they might sit on the bench as aldermen, were not allowed to meddle with the twenty-four during the election, under penalty of a fine of twenty shillings or loss of citizenship. (Preston, Guild Record, xxiv. Guild ordinances in history of Preston Guild, by Dobson and Harland, 12, 17, 19-23.)