Pagina 330 de 2651

Upon paying a fine to the king, the charter seems generally to

have been readily granted; and when any particular class of

artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation,

without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called,

were not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged to

fine annually to the king, for permission to exercise their

usurped privileges {See Madox Firma Burgi p. 26 etc.}. The

immediate inspection of all corporations, and of the bye-laws

which they might think proper to enact for their own government,

belonged to the town-corporate in which they were established;

and whatever discipline was exercised over them, proceeded

commonly, not from the king, but from that greater incorporation

of which those subordinate ones were only parts or members.