Chester's Great Charter 1506
What is the Great Charter?
Chester's Great Charter confirms that Chester is a County in its
own right, to be considered quite separate from the County of
Cheshire. The Charter lays out the procedures for the election
of the City's Mayors, Sheriffs, Aldermen, Recorder, Coroners and
Murengers (overseers of the Walls). It establishes the Mayors
duties as Escheator, Clerk of the Market and Admiral of the Dee,
establishes the new County Court as well as the existence of the
Pentice, Portmote and Crownmote Courts. The Charter also allows the
carrying of the Civic Sword to be carried point upright in the
presence of all except for immediate Royal family.
The Great Charter - Background
Chester's Great Charter of 1506 was given to the City by King
Henry VII in the 21st year of his reign. Henry became
King in 1485 after the Battle of Bosworth Field and his victory
over King Richard III's Yorkist Army. Indeed, the Charter begins by
alluding to the great services rendered to him by Chester's
citizens on the battlefield.
Henry's claim to the throne was through his descent from John of
Gaunt's illicit affair with Catherine Swynford. As a Lancastrian,
his marriage to Elizabeth of York was designed to strengthen the
monarchy and eliminate further issues of succession by combining
the Lancastrian and Yorkist factions within the Tudor line.
The Great Charter
The value of the Great Charter lies in the way that it formally
recognises Chester's existing customs and practices as well as
re-confirming what had been written in earlier charters.
Importantly, the procedures laid out in 1506 were to form the basis
of government in Chester for the next 300 years, until the
Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.
The Great Charter is not the earliest of Chester's Charters nor
is it the most decorative. There survives an undated Charter from
Henry II, thought to date from circa 1176, and another from King
John dated 1201. Although Chester was by no means the first English
City to be made a County of itself by a Royal Charter, it was
certainly the first City in the north west to have that
honour.
The Charter itself, in the care of the Cheshire Archives, is
faded and almost illegible in parts, from being pored over in the
distant past. There is a blank space at the top left hand side of
the charter where space had been left for an illuminated capital
letter to be added, which never was.
The 1506 Charter was not the first time that Henry had showed
interest in the City of Chester. He was petitioned early in his
reign, in 1486, to alleviate the Crown Rent (fee farm) that the
City paid to the Crown. This was duly reduced from £30 to £20 per
year in recognition of the fact that Chester remained a very
important city despite the poverty caused by the silting up of the
River and the decline of the Port.