Catalogue description Court of Common Pleas: King's Silver Books, Series II

Books compiled by the Clerk of the King's Silver in the Court of Common Pleas to record the amount, known as the king's silver or post-fine, paid by the plaintiff in a collusive suit to levy a final concord, for the licence to agree and terminate the suit. The series probably started either in the reign of Henry VIII or Edward VI, from which the earliest surviving examples, badly damaged, come.

The same information was also entered, much more neatly, on special rotuli which became part of the plea roll or, from 1583, the recovery roll, for the term when it was made up. The entries in the king's silver books may simply be drafts for those entered on the plea or recovery roll.

The books undamaged in the 1838 fire are in CP 34

Recovery rolls are in CP 43

Rolls of post-fines are in E 374