The document, with its very specific request for the procedures to be taken, indicates how such things were done. It requests letters patent with a writ of liberate. Letters patent were formal proclamations delivered open and a writ of liberate was a letter authorising spending from the Exchequer. This petition would have initiated a trail of communication which passed from the office of the signet to the office of the privy seal, to the office of the great seal, and thence, by letters patent to the Exchequer. With a bit of luck, a copy of the letters patent may be entered on the Liberate Rolls. It seems that the bureaucratic process was as tortuous for a barrel of wine as it was for funding a war in France.

This exercise was originally produced from an old Public Record Office photocopy. I have replaced it with a photograph from the splendid online service of the National Archives for a better idea of what it actually looks like, but apologies for the fact that the interactive exercises are still in the old format. They may be replaced in a decade or so, when I run out of new material to put on the site.

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