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should annually collect and receive a certain subsidy or custom in the said city, commonly called murage, as it had anciently been levied in the said city, for the upholding and building of the walls of the said city. And the said late King Henry the Seventh did moreover grant for himself, his heirs and successors, and by the said letters patent, confirm, that if perchance any customs or ordinances in the same city of Chester thitherto obtained and used, should be difficult or defective in any part of them, so that on account of any thing newly happening within the same city, wherein fit remedy did not clearly exist before, such ordinances might stand in need of correction, that then and in such case, the Mayor and Sheriffs of the said city for the time being, and the Aldermen, or the major part of them, for the time being, should have full power and authority to apply and ordain a new remedy, agreeable to good faith, and consonant to reason, for the common good of the citizens of his said city of Chester, and other his faithful people resorting to the said city, with the common assent of the aforementioned, and by the advice of the Mayor, Sheriff's, and forty other fellow citizens of the said city, for the Common-Council of the said city in form aforesaid to be annually elected, or the greater part of them, and to require due execution of such their ordinances, so often and at such time as need should require, or to them should seem expedient; provided those ordinances were beneficial to him and his people, and consonant to good faith and reason as by the said letters patent of the said late King Henry the Seventh (amongst other things) more fully appears. Which said last-mentioned letters patent, the said citizens and commonalty of the said city of Chester, afterwards, (to wit,) on the same day and year last above-mentioned, at the city of Chester aforesaid, in the county of the same city, did agree to and did duly accept. And the said Coroner and Attorney of our said Lord the now King, for our said Lord the now King, further saith, that our sovereign Lady Elizabeth, late Queen of England, by her letters patent under the great seal of England, bearing date at Westminster the 14th day of June, in the sixteenth year of her reign, reciting as therein is recited, did by inspeximus of the said letters patent of the said late King Henry the Seventh, holding as ratified the same letters patent, as also all and singular the [352] things contained and specified in them, for herself, her heirs and successors, allow and approve them, and did then ratify and confirm them to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs of the said city, and also the citizens and commonalty of the said city, their heirs and successors: and moreover the said late Queen Elizabeth did, by her said letters patent, for herself, her heirs and successors, confirm to the aforesaid Mayor, Citizens, and Commonalty of the city aforesaid, their heirs and successors for ever, that so oft as it should fall out that the Mayor or Sheriffs of the said city, or any of them, should die within the year of their offices, the Aldermen, Citizens, and Commonalty of the city aforesaid, who would be present at the new election, should assemble and meet together in the Common-hall of the said city, on the Friday next after the death of the deceased Mayor or Sheriff's, and then and there, after the death of every Mayor or Sheriff so departing, they might choose and appoint some one of the most discreet and fit persons in the number of the twenty-four Aldermen, in such manner and form as in the yearly election of the Mayor of the said city they were accustomed to do; which Mayor, so chosen and made, should before all the Aldermen present, take the same oaths which the Mayors before were wont to take; and if the Mayor so chosen and appointed, was not present at the election, then on the Friday next after his return home he should take the oaths before the aforesaid Aldermen, or at the least four of them, in the Common-ball of the said city and that after the death of every Sheriff, dying as aforesaid, they should elect and name one out of the forty who were the Common-Council of the said city for Sheriff, in such manner and form as in the yearly election of Sheriffs in the said city they were accustomed to do; which Sheriff so chosen should take the oaths before the then Mayor; and the Sheriff or Sheriffs so chosen, should continue in his or their offices from the day and time of the election aforesaid, until the Friday next after the feast of Saint Dennis, when they were wont to choose new officers of the said city as by the said letters patent of the said late Queen Elizabeth (amongst other things) more fully appears. Which said last-mentioned letters patent, the said Mayor, Citizens, and Commonalty of the said city of Chester did afterwards agree to, and did duly accept, (to wit,) on the same day and year last aforesaid, at the city