This proceeding was consequent upon the dissolution of monasteries ordered in the preceding year—the original grant of the fair having been made as we have seen to a religious house. The Corporation prayed for a new charter, and agreed to pay 1,000 marks for the same. The Charter was granted, but the money, on the authority of Cooper (“Annals,” i., 393), was not paid for many years afterwards. The fair however was regularly held. The Charter is a very lengthy document; and as the grant was confirmed half a century later by the charter of Elizabeth (1589), which I shall have occasion to notice in some details for reasons then appearing, I shall not dwell upon the present one. 1541. By 33 Henry VIII. c. 39—_The Bill for Town of Lynne towching the revoking of two Fairs_—it is recited For so much that as well the burgesses and inhabitants of the said borough of King’s Lynn, as many and divers other persons dwelling near the said borough have made regrated and gotten into their hands and possession great numbers of salt fish as ling, lob, salt salmon, shellfish and herring, “to the gret hindraunce and loss of many of the King’s subjects that yerely have repayred and com to _Styrbige fair_ Ely faire, & other Fayres & marketts in the Countie of Cambryge & Huntyngton and other shyres for the provysion of salt fyshe, & Heryng for theire householdes, & for the provision of dyverse other shires within this Realme of Englande, whiche regratyng is contrary to a comen welth and to dyverse statutes in that case providede, and contrari to the good entente and meanyng of the graunt of the said Fayres and marte” It is enacted that the grant of the said Fairs to King’s Lynn be and was thereby repealed. 1542. Leland in his famous “Itinerary” at this date records: “The brothers of Sturbridge possess an antient house in that part where is the Fair for the sale of woollens, commonly called the Duddery.” 1544. On 27 Sept. Thomas Bishop of Ely, the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely, and Christopher Fulneby, incumbent of the Free Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene called Styrrebrige in the County of Cambridge, demised to the mayor, bailiffs, burgesses, and commonalty of the town of Cambridge, the aforesaid free Chapel, with all glebe lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, booths, and booth grounds, standings, liberty of building booths, rents, hereditaments, oblations, commodities and profits (except the advowson, patronage, and donation of the said free chapel) for 60 years at the rent of £9 per annum. By means of this the entire temporal control of the fair merged into the Corporation of Cambridge.