The early Stuart crown took a keen, if not always systematic, interest in borough governments and the charters of incorporation that ruled them. A charter provided a specific instrument through which the crown delegated authority and (it was expected) received the benefit of peace and stability in provincial towns. Both local actors and central authorities had a significant stake in the orderly patterns that were meant to distinguish successful borough government, under the authority of the monarch. The corporate form and the charters that shaped borough liberties provided a specific blueprint for proper governance, in addition to the broad ideals of hierarchical order, obedience, and peace common to this society. Central authorities, urban magistrates, and regular townsmen alike could look to the charter to evaluate whether government functioned in the manner intended – though they might differ in its interpretation.

Despite the admonitions for order laid out in corporate charters, towns could also be sites of discord and disorder in their governance. While a corporation was a single (ideally unified) entity – a legal body acting as a fictive individual – it was also a group of real individuals who had their own interests and ideas. Divided elections, magistrates behaving badly, ejections from office or franchise, and conflicts between magistrates and common burgesses punctuated civic politics. The regular pattern of voting that characterized urban government was a prized liberty as well as a potential stimulus for disagreement and disorder. Such disruptions caused consternation among both borough governors and central authorities, as concern over “popularity” grew and bonds between borough magistrates and the state strengthened across the period. The crown expected borough elites to maintain control over their towns and unity among themselves; discord within governing bodies set a poor example to the urban populace. As the Privy Council, reproving a mayoral election gone wrong in Newcastle upon Tyne, declared “… division between the head and principal members of that politic body should, if not speedily be reconciled, may [sic] breed many other inconveniences, and finally disturb the peace and good government of the said town.” Towns experienced a persistent tension between the perceived necessity of order and the messier realities of urban government and community.