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The Royal Charters

The Charters of 1252 and 1439

Fourteen royal charters are known to survive for Huntingdon.

The earliest charter was granted by King John on Sunday 7 August 1205. It confirmed the town's status as a borough, and gave Huntingdon the right to hold a weekly market.

At least sixteen other charters were also granted to Huntingdon after 1205. Most of these charters simply confirmed and consolidated the town's existing rights, but occasionally new rights were granted. The 1349 royal charter, for instance, allowed the borough to build a prison. The 1363 charter allowed the town's officials to confiscate stolen property, a power they made much use of during the 1381 agricultural revolts, which were particularly serious in Huntingdonshire.

The most controversial charter was the one granted in 1630 by King Charles I. For the previous five years the town's annual elections had been marked by violent riots, fought over the issue of whether a bequest of £2,000 should be spent on a series of lectures by the local schoolmaster, or whether it should be spent on the poor. The 1630 charter therefore closed down all elections in Huntingdon on the grounds of public safety, 'to prevent and remove all occasions of popular tumult, and to reduce the elections into certainty and constant order.' No elections were held in the town for the next two hundred years.

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