WILTSHIRE – SWINDON FAIR AND MARKET

Letters Patent issued by Charles I under the Great Seal, granting Thomas Goddard "to have & to hold within the town of Swindon one Markett every Monday in the week", [1626]

Letters Patent issued by Charles I under the Great Seal, and embellished with an initial letter portrait of the King, granting Thomas Goddard "to have & to hold within the town of Swindon one Markett every Monday in the week" for ever "& two Faires there yearly" for ever, the fairs to be held on the second Monday in May and December respectively, "Together with the Court of Piepowder to be helde & kept & to be continued the whole day at the said Markettes & Faires with all Liberties, Free Customs Tollage Stallage Pickage Fines Amerciments, And all other proffitts or any other profit whatsoever belonging hapning & arriseing to the Said Markett or Court of Piepowder", the grant itself in Latin, together with a late seventeenth century legal transcript in English (quoted); bearing a good clear intact impression of the Great Seal in brown wax, suspended by plaited red and white silk cords; the initial letter portrait of the King executed in plumbago over brown pen-and ink, the crowned Charles I shewn half length, holding orb and sceptre, with historiated first line, decorated with a lion holding the flag of St George and unicorn holding that of St Andrew, crowned Tudor rose at centre, the whole enlivened with floral sprays; contemporary docket "A Perpetuity graunted to Thomas Goddard Esq.r/ Wolseley" [Robert Wolseley, Clerk of the Patents in Chancery], plus later seventeenth century docket "The Charter for Swindon" (expanded into "The Charter for the Marketts & Fairs att Swindon in Com. Wilts."); with the original leather-clad wooden box and cover, lined with printed law reports, eighteenth century tag attached "Faiers & Marketts A Charter with Lease", and further early transcript, the deed on one skin of vellum, dust-stained, with other minor signs of use, but overall in fine, sound and attractive condition, 450 x 740mm., Westminster, 20 July in the second year of the King's reign [1626]