Chancery: Petty Bag Office: Special Commissions of Inquiry

Special commissions and returns, mainly concerned with establishing the Crown's right to property.

Inquiries were made under certain circumstances when land held by individuals was liable to revert to the Crown. Returns were thus made to

• inquiries into the landholdings of alien friends, and the property of alien enemies, both of which could escheat to the Crown;
• inquiries into land which had escheated for want of an heir;
• inquiries into land which had escheated because of felony or treason.

Returns were also made in response to an inquiry into the extent of enclosure and depopulation in 1607, and as a result of perambulations made to determine forest boundaries under an act of 1640.

There is too a 1696 survey of the manor of East Greenwich, and a 1708 commission for the purchase of land for the fortification of Portsmouth, Chatham and Harwich harbours, as well as some miscellaneous material.