, together with the uniformity of their tenure,
continued to hold them apart from the boroughs of the old English type,
where all varieties of personal relationship between the lords and their
groups of tenants might subsist. The royal charters granting the right
to retain old customs prevented the systematic introduction into the old
boroughs of some of the incidents of feudalism. Rights of the king took
precedence of those of the lord, and devise with the king's consent was
legal. By these means the lords' position was weakened, and other
seignorial claims were later evaded or contested. The rights which the
lords failed to keep were divided between the king and the municipality;
in London, for instance, the king obtained all escheats, while the
borough court secured the right of wardship of burgess orphans.

From Norman times the yearly profit of the royal boroughs was as a rule
included in the general "farm" rendered for the county by the sheriff;
sometimes it was rendered by a royal farmer apart from the county-farm.
The king generally accepted a composition for all the various items due
from the borough. The burgesses were united in their efforts to keep
that composition unchanged in amount, and to secure the provision of the
right amount at the right time for fear that it should be increased by
way of punishment. The levy of fines on rent arrear, and the distraints
for debt due, which were obtained through the borough court, were a
matter of interest to the burgesses of the court, and first taught the
burgesses co-operative action. Money was raised, possibly by order of
the borough court, to buy a charter from the king giving the right to
choose officers who should answer directly to the exchequer and not
through the sheriff of the county. The sheriff was in many cases also
the constable of the castle, set by the Normans to overawe the English
boroughs; his powers were great and dangerous enough to make him an
officer specially obnoxious to the boroughs. Henry I. about 1131 gave
the London citizens the right to choose their own sheriffs and a
justiciar answerable for keeping the pleas of the crown. In 1130 the
Lincoln citizens paid to hold their city in chief of the king. By the
end of the 12th century many towns paid by the hand of their own reeves,
and John's charters began to make rules as to the freedom of choice to
be allowed in the nomination of borough officers and as to the royal
power of dismissal. In Ric