SubSubSeries 01 - Royal charters and grants: original records

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The Company's original Charter was granted by Mary Tudor in 1557. It was the final step towards incorporation, which allowed the Company to act as a collective legal entity. Following incorporation, the Company as a unit could enter and contest contracts, own land, and acquire printing privileges which could outlive the individual members of the Company. This original Charter was lost at some point in the seventeenth century. In 1661, as part of the Restoration Settlement, the reconstituted Parliament passed the Corporation Act, designed to remove from office any town official suspected of disloyalty to the Crown. Under this, the Stationers were required to produce evidence of their corporate status, in the form of inspeximus documents. In the 1680s Charles II enforced a policy of seizing and regranting borough charters, which extended to the London livery companies, and reissuing them to give the king power over the appointment of senior corporation officials. On their ascent to power, William and Mary revoked the Charters issued by Charles II, and reissued them in their original form.