Assizes is a term chiefly used in England to signify the sessions of the courts held at Westminster prior to Magna Carta, but thereafter appointed by successive enactments to be held annually in every county. Twelve judges, who are members of the highest courts in England, twice in every year perform a circuit into all the counties into which the kingdom is divided (the counties being grouped into seven circuits), to hold these assizes, at which both civil and criminal cases are decided. Occasionally this circuit is performed a third time for the purpose of jail-delivery. In London and Middlesex, instead of circuits, courts of nisi prius are held. At the assizes all the justices of the peace of the county are bound to attend. Special commissions of assize are granted for inquest into certain causes.
Among the more important historic uses of the term assize are its application to any sitting or deliberative council, and its transference thence to their ordinances, decrees, or assessments. In the latter sense we have the Assizes of Jerusalem, a code of feudal laws formulated in 1099 under Godfrey of Bouillon; the Assizes of Clarendon (1166), of Northampton (1176), and of Woodstock (1184) ; also the assisoe venalium (1203), for regulating the prices of articles of common consumption; the Assize of Arms (1181), an ordinance for organizing the national militia, etc. Research Assizes
British Boroughs originated as Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman towns from the ninth century. The Anglo-Saxon invaders who arrived in Britain in the fifth to seventh centuries were farmers, not interested in repairing the roads or maintaining the Roman towns which fell into partial disuse. The Angle-Saxons at first regarded towns as 'the defences of slavery and the graves of freedom... the work of giants seen from afar'. However, when the Vikings from Scandinavia overran the east and north of the country in the ninth century, they turned to town life in the area which they conquered, the Danelaw. The commercial life of York, their headquarters from 876, was revived by Vikingenterprise, the Roman walls of Chester were rebuilt by a Viking chief, and the East Midlands came under the jurisdiction of the five newly-created Scandinavian boroughs of Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Stamford and Lincoln.
The Angle-Saxons, under their kings Alfred the Great and Edward the Elder, not to be outdone, also created boroughs similar to those of the Scandinavian invaders, at places such as Northampton, Huntingdon, Bedford and Tamworth, and despite many setbacks, re-conquered all the territory which the Scandinavians had acquired. In 1066, the Normans in their turn came to Britain as conquering invaders, and also built new boroughs and enlarged old ones.
The Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and Norman borough had varied functions. It was foremost a defended place or strong point surrounded by an earthen bank of oval or square shape, or by the patched-up wall of an older Roman town. In each new borough, the King settled a permanent garrison with ample reserves, sustained by landowners on whom was laid the obligation of defending the borough in time of need. In return for this, the borough and its burgesses were protected by the King's special peace. The borough was also a trading centre, with a market place and often a mint for coins. When King Edward the Elder ordained that all buying and selling should take place in a market town in the presence of a town-reeve, he ensured the concentration of trading in the growing boroughs. The borough was also an administrative centre. Indeed, many British modern counties came into being as the territories allocated by the King to the support of the defences and trading facilities of a borough, e.g. Nottinghamshire was the support for the county town of Nottingham, as its name shows. Research Boroughs
The Constitutions of Clarendon were a code of laws made by a general council of nobles and prelates, held at Clarendon in Wiltshire, in 1164 during the reign of Henry II, to check the power of the Church and restrain the prerogatives of ecclesiastics. There were sixteen ordinances defining the limits of the patronage and jurisdiction of the Pope. The power of the ecclesiastical courts was restricted, the crown secured the right of interference in elections to ecclesiastical offices, appeals to Rome were made dependent on the king's leave, ecclesiastical dignitaries were deprived of their freedom to leave the country without the royal permission, etc. Becket signed them, but retracted his signature on the refusal of the PopeAlexander III to countenance them. Becket's murder followed, and to effect a reconciliation with the popeHenry II promised the amendment of the Constitutions of Clarendon. They were accordingly modified in 1176 at Northampton in favour of the church, but they are not the less to be regarded as containing the germ of the ecclesiastical policy of Henry VIII. Research Constitutions of Clarendon
The Gunpowder Plot was a terrorist conspiracy formed in England in 1604, the second year of the reign of James I, by some Roman Catholics, to blow up the King and parliament in revenge for the severities against their religion that they had suffered by the government. The time ultimately fixed for the execution of the plot was the 5th of November, 1605, when parliament was to be opened by the king in person. The plot originated with Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, and John Wright, and was at once made known to Guy Fawkes, a zealous Catholic, who had served in the Spanish army in Flanders, and to Thomas Percy, a relation of the Earl of Northumberland. These five were the original conspirators, but the plot was subsequently communicated to Sir Everard Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, Francis Tresham, Thomas Keyes, Christopher Wright (a brother of John), and to some Jesuit fathers and others.
The conspirators took a house next to the Parliament House, and their original plan was by digging under this house to undermine the House of Parliament. They latterly discovered, however, that there was a cellar right under the chamber of parliament, which was occupied by a coal-dealer. They at once hired this cellar, and filled it with gunpowder, faggots, and billets. The plot was discovered by means of a letter sent to Lord Mounteagle, a Catholic peer in favour with the court, who laid it before the secretary of state, Cecil. The letter was a warning couched in mysterious terms, not to be present at the approaching meeting of parliament. Cecil showed it to some of the council, and did nothing until the return of the king from a hunting party. On hearing the letter James at once worked out its meaning, and declared that it referred to gunpowder. This led to investigation and to the arrest of Fawkes in the cellar, where a hogshead and thirty-six barrels of gunpowder were discovered.
It generally thought that Tresham, the reputed author of the letter to Lord Mounteagle, had previously informed bis lordship of the plot, and that the sending and publication of the letter were merely intended as blinds. It seems also that Cecil, knowing the king's vanity, wanted to make him the discoverer of the plot.
Guy Fawkes was arrested at the scene, tortured and revealed the names of his co-conspirators, Catesby, Percy, and the two Wrights were killed while defending Holbeach House, in which they had taken refuge, against the sheriff. Sir Everard Digby was tried and executed at Northampton, Tresham died in prison., Rookwood, Winter, and others were arrested, confessions extracted under torture, and subsequently condemned at Westminster on the 27th of January 1606, and executed on the 30th and 31st.
There is serious doubt about the plot - it was for example too conveniently discovered in the nick of time, and the accused were not tried, but all confessed under torture, and it has been suggested that the entire plot was fabricated by the English authorities to discredit the catholic church and the Pope. Certainly following the alleged plot, persecution of the Catholics within Britain not only continued, but also increased in intensity. Research Gunpowder Plot
The half-way covenant was a concession made on the part of the Church by the New England Synod convened at Northampton in 1657, mainly in order to secure a more facile working in relation to the State. The requirements for church membership were relaxed in order that certain civil privileges might be obtained by those who had neither the ability nor willingness to make profession of religious experience. Such persons were admitted on grounds of baptism, but were still denied the lord's Supper. This half-way covenant aroused much controversy, and was later opposed by Jonathan Edwards and his followers. Research Half-way Covenant
Charles Bradlaugh was an English secularist and republican. He was born in 1833 and died in 1891. He published many pamphlets advocating republicanism, one of the more famous being entitled 'Fruits of Philosophy', published in 1876. Although being elected as member for Northampton, he was continually barred from sitting because he refused to swear the oath of allegiance - he claimed the right to make affirmation simply instead of taking the oath which members of parliament take before they can sit and vote, but being a professed atheist this right was denied him. Eventually in 1885 he was allowed to take his seat in a new parliament without swearing the oath. He was also editor of the National Reformer. Research Charles Bradlaugh
John Clare was an English poet known as the 'Northamptonshire Ploughboy Poet' or the 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'. He was born in 1793 in a gypsy camp at Helpstone and died in 1864. The son of a farm-labourer. He led a rambling, unsteady life until 1818, when he was obliged to accept parishrelief. In 1820 his Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery met with a favourable reception, and the issue of his Village Minstrel in 1821 won him many friends. A subscription furnishing him with 45 pounds annually was, however, dissipated by 1823, and his Shepherd's Calendar (1827), which he hawked himself, was not a success. He brought out a new work, the Rural Muse, in 1835, but became insane shortly afterwards, the remainder of his life, from 1837 to 1864, being passed in the Northampton Lunatic Asylum. Clare was a genuine poet, and his pictures of rural life are eminently truthful and pleasing. Research John Clare
Jonathan Edwards was an American theologian and metaphysician. He was born in 1703 and died in 1758. He entered Yale College in 1716, and studied until 1722, when he received a license as preacher. In 1723 he was elected a tutor in Yale College, but resigned in 1726 to be ordained as minister at Northampton, Massachusetts After more than twenty-three years of zealous service here he was dismissed by the congregation owing to the severity with which he sought to exercise churchdiscipline. He then went as a missionary among the Indians at Stockbridge, in Massachusetts. Here he composed his famous work on the Freedom of the Will, which appeared in 1754. In 1757 he was chosen president of the college at Princeton, New Jersey, but died shortly afterwards. Research Jonathan Edwards
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Abbreviations
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