The Personal Expenses of Charles II. In the City of Worcester

Extract

He accounts of the city of Worcester are comprised in a series of foolscap folio volumes, commencing with the year 1540, from which time they are complete, with the exception of the twenty-two years from 1600 to 1623, and they exhibit the whole revenue and expenditure of the faithful city, as annually audited by the proper civic authorities. These ancient tomes throw much light upon historic events, which have had local effect, as well as upon customs and transactions more peculiarly confined to the citizens and their city, but many searches have been made by historians and antiquaries for information of the eventful period of the battle of Worcester, without any result beyond a few casual items which possess little direct interest. In another series of records, called “Chamber Orders,” possessed by the Corporation of Worcester, entries occur which relate to this stirring time so far as it affected the corporate body, but it is not with these I have now to deal. No doubt many records were abstracted by the troopers of Cromwell, as I find at the audit of 1652:—

“Item payed Steephen Fields, who had payed to a souldier to regayne some of the records that were taken out of the Treasurie 5 s.”

The civic state sword also seems to have disappeared, as £5 8s. 6d.