Catalogue description Trustees for the Sale of Crown Lands: Interregnum certificates

This series consists of certificates relating to the sale, during the Commonwealth, of Crown lands.

By an Act of 16 July 1649, thirteen trustees were empowered to dispose of royal lands in order to raise £600,000 to pay the army. Each sale produced a certificate, which stated the date of the contract, the number of years' purchase by which the value of the property was to be multiplied to constitute the sale price, and the terms of payment. Included also is the text of the particular, that is the detailed definition of the property being sold.

Commonly found annexed to the certificate is a copy of a statement of arrears due to military men, usually listed by regiment and often serving in the area covered by the sale. Other documents found include the debentures issued to the Military in token of their arrears; orders of the Committee of Obstructions set up in 1652 to remove obstacles to sales; and a few orders of the Trustees.

E 121/5/7 is an incomplete contemporary index to the certificates, by county, lacking the letters A, L to R, and T to W, Hampshire is included as Southampton

Some stray certificates are in SP 28/289

Trustees for the Sale of Crown Lands, 1649-1659

For an account of the process of sale during the Commonwealth, see S J Madge, The Domesday of Crown Lands (London, 1938) For an overview, see Confiscations, Sales and Restoration of Crown and Royalist Lands, 1642-1660: an introduction to sources in the Public Record Office (PRO Leaflet 88)