The two boroughs referred to as within the town of Nottingham were: the pre-Conquest settlement, whose development was spurred by its use first as a base by the Danish army and then as one of burhs in Edward the Elder's programme of defensive fortifications; and a new foundation settled by French immigrants shortly after the Conquest and lying between the English borough and the Norman castle (similar to that at Norwich, not least in the extension of the existing town centre, in relation to the construction of a castle). The cultural differences explain the divergence in some customary laws; legal cases during the reign of Edward III indicate that dower rights and inheritance were among those affected. One of the witnesses to a land grant of 1312 is described as the bailiff of the English Borough; this appears to be because he was the only bailiff witnessing – where both are named they are not identified with either borough. The distinction between the two boroughs persisted into the early fifteenth century, although there is no indication it had any practical implications by that time.

The charter of Edward I to which the letters patent refer was granted in 1284; the letters extract some of the terminology from that charter almost verbatim. The charter had followed a suspension of borough liberties, with direct royal government imposed and lasting for several years because of unspecified offences committed by the community – they had in some way over-extended their authority. When restoring the borough liberties, in return for an increase in the fee farm, the king also gave his recognition to the mayoralty:

On behalf of ourself and our heirs, to help the burgesses and other men of the town return to normalcy, we have granted that henceforth they may have a mayor [to be chosen] from among themselves. Whom, let them elect, each year at Michaelmas at an assembly of burgesses of each of the boroughs of that town, to be in charge over the bailiffs and others of that town in all matters pertaining to the government and improvement of either borough of the town."

It is not until this document of 1284 that we have reference to the town being divided administratively into two boroughs, and this may provide a clue as to the nature of the problem that led to the seizure of the liberties. It is in 1279 that we hear of the king handing custody of Nottingham over to a warden, Robert de Tybetot, or perhaps one should say farmer since he was said to be renting the town for £60 annually, initially for a year. At different times in 1280, the king sent orders to the sheriffs of Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire to release, upon mainprise, various Nottingham burgesses from the gaols of Northampton, Lincoln, Nottingham and York; the charges against them were unspecified "diverse trespasses" committed at Nottingham and it seems not unlikely that these were associated with the reason for the suspension of borough liberties. Whether that reason was internal political strife cannot be said, but it is notable that the accused were forbidden to return to Nottingham until the king had heard their case. Still less can we say whether any political conflict might have had its roots in the separation of the boroughs. It is not impossible that the difficulties at Nottingham were in part a spill-over from the more general unrest of the 1260s, which gave rise to disturbances in several towns, or to hostilities not purely internal in nature – the burgesses of Newcastle-on-Tyne also, in 1279, were in trouble, in this case for assaulting the king's officers of the county who were trying to collect sums of money owed the king.

If, however, the problem were internal division, the introduction of a mayor would have been perceived as a way to unify the two parts of the town. Unlike at some other towns, where the mayoralty existed informally for some years before being afforded official recognition (e.g. Lynn, Leicester) or disappearing (e.g. Canterbury), this grant of mayoralty appears to represent the beginning of the office in Nottingham. Under the charter of Prince John, ca.1189, there is reference to a single reeve to be elected by the townsmen, although also indication that the burgesses were tenants of more than a single fee (tenurial lordship). Witness lists to deeds prior to 1284, where witnessed by town officers, indicate only a single bailiff, although this may itself be evidence of the separation of the boroughs administratively. Those after 1284 are witnessed by mayor and two bailiffs, even when the property involved is specified as being in one or the other of the boroughs, indicating amalgamation.

Before 1284 the king had not explicitly licensed any other English town to have a mayor, except London, suggesting that Nottingham's problem was felt to require an unorthodox solution. Yet we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of the mayoralty existing earlier. In a series of writs sent out by Chancery in 1273, directed at executive officers of 22 towns, 20 were addressed to the mayor (including that to Nottingham) and only 2 to bailiffs, suggesting that at Westminster it was assumed mayors were commonplace; while the bureaucrats were known to be somewhat sloppy in such matters, many towns did have mayors by this time.

The grant of May 1, 1330 was, in essence, a postscript to Edward III's confirmation on the same date of his predecessors' charters of liberties to Nottingham, with new additions. The town had been for some years contesting with the castle, administered by an unpopular agent of the unpopular Edward II, over jurisdictional matters; the new charter settled that quarrel in the town's favour. The charter also represented another restoration of liberties, for in 1328 these had been seized into the king's hands following a deadly confrontation between the townsmen and soldiers quartered in the town. Yet the town was an important strategic centre, both military and provisioning, in regard to the war with Scotland; furthermore, it was a stronghold of Roger Mortimer, from whom Edward was now planning to seize the reins of power. In 1329 the justices in eyre arrived, with a mandate that included a review of borough liberties. The outcome was the charter of 1330. The problem of the unpopular constable of the castle was resolved when, in October, Edward's supporters arrested Roger Mortimer in the castle and a local man was subsequently made constable.

If in the thirteenth century the mayoralty was a rallying point for burgesses – or at least those who aspired to some measure of local self-determination – by the fifteenth century it had become a focus for internal conflict.

Although the disturbances of 1412-13 are portrayed in the verdicts of the two inquisition juries, of which one is given above (the second being almost identical), the account is essentially an endorsement of the complaint laid by the ruling group and so presents their perspective. However, this was not a mere mob rioting against the authorities, as the ruling group would have it, but a division between political parties. For one thing the opposition was clearly organized, involving a effort to set up a coordinated resistance and even a parallel government. One is reminded of the contemporary conflict at Lynn where opposing parties had elected rival mayors, and of that at London a generation earlier when both sides used force to try to determine the election results.

The inquisitions were held on 4 September 1413, but the complaints had been laid before the king earlier in the year, for when Henry V had appointed on 3 April a commission of investigation into the "many trespasses, rebellions, insurrections and unlawful conventicles", it referred to Nottingham men Robert Sutton, Thomas Sutton and William Couper having already appeared to answer before Chancery during Henry IV's reign (i.e. probably in February or March) but having withdrawn without permission – perhaps during the inevitable disruption of affairs of state occasioned by the king's death – and then gone into hiding. Others had been, or were about to be, arrested; for on 27 April the warden of Fleet prison, London, was instructed to release William Pomfret, William del Stabelle, Richard Estwayte, John Wyrale, John Crophille, Nicholas Fossebroke, John Reynalde, John Bowere, William Cook, Reynold Geffecoke, and William del Rodes of Nottingham, on condition they make no more insurrections or illegal assemblies to disturb the town and terrorize its inhabitants; they having found guarantors for good behaviour towards the mayor, bailiffs and good men of Nottingham, in Thomas Strelly, Nicholas Stapelforde, and Reynold Shaw of Nottinghamshire and William Aston of London, as well as standing guarantors for each other.

Some of the opposing party were important townsmen. The party's nominee for mayor, John Alestre, was a member of one of the families that would become prominent in Nottingham during the century, thanks to the wool-trade. He had entered the franchise in 1395 as an ironmonger, with Nicholas de Alastre (his father, and the borough's parliamentary representative in 1393) as his surety; it was to be investigated whether he had the right to enter without fee, by patrimony. Nicholas was also an ironmonger and had dabbled in the production of woollen cloth, but held no office in borough government. By the opening of the fifteenth century, John was also involved in the production and export of woollen cloth; he can be considered a merchant, and his will indicates associations, probably commercial, with Rotherham and Sheffield. He also held several properties in town and connections with local gentry – as supervisor of his will he named a man who was several times county sheriff. In that will, drawn up in 1422, several years before his death in early 1431, his wealth is demonstrated by his monetary bequests totalling over £615, most left to his widow Cecily, his underage children Thomas, Robert and Joan, a married daughter and her four children. About the same time he served as bailiff (1402/03) and mayor (1409/10); he was to become mayor again in 1414/15, 1420/21, 1426/27, and 1430/31 and to serve as parliamentary representative in 1416. We do not know whether he was an active member of the opposition party, but it seems not unlikely he would have been one of its leaders. If not, he was evidently well respected by the populace; in his will he left the unusually high amount of £100 to be distributed among the poor.

The party's nominee for bailiff, John Braidsall (or de Bridessalle, i.e. of Breadsall, Derbyshire), is found in 1393, 1396, 1397, 1403 and 1410 acting as an attorney in the town court; these being the principal references to him, it seems likely that he was in the legal profession. In 1395 he was a tenant of Thomas Mapurley. He never seems to have attained the political office his supporters sought for him.

As shown by the notes below on identified members of the opposing party, several had been or were to be office-holders in the borough and were therefore men of some standing in the community.

Much of the evidence we have related to the careers or family background of those identified from the opposing party is too slight or flimsy to allow for confident interpretation. But it does suggest that rather than a popular rebellion, this was at least in part a struggle between different economic interests in the town – perhaps between groups of crafts, or perhaps between industrial and commercial interests; there seem to have been a number of participants in the leather and metalworking trades among the opposing party. In fact, the impression I have is of a group of men whose craft-based families were once powerful in the borough, but had been eclipsed or displaced by a new group with mercantile interests; more in-depth research would be required to test this hypothesis.

A possible sign of tensions within the community comes in the form of the presentments in the Great Tourn, or Mickletorn (Nottingham's version of the leet court) in 1395. Most such presentments are directed at individual offenders; occasionally one finds blanket presentments against a particular class of offenders. At the 1395 leet there was an unusual number of the latter:

• the bakers were presented en masse for charging too much for baking services;
• all the butchers were presented for selling meat that had been kept around too long;
• the fishermen for the same regarding fish, and for forestalling;
• the taverners for infringing the assize of ale;
• the hucksters (a female occupation) for selling various victuals at too high a price, for forestalling, and for making false candles (lacking wicks);
• the tanners for not tanning their leather properly, and for selling from their houses instead of the marketplace, where goods were more easily subject to inspection;
• the shoemakers for mixing lower-grade with better-grade leather in their products, and for selling too dear;
• the cooks for selling meat and fish either not properly prepared or reheated (a health risk), as well as for forestalling victuals;
• the hostelers for breaking the assize, including selling provisions that had not been inspected;
• the weavers for charging too much for their services, and for demanding a surcharge for delivery of their products to the fullers;
• the fullers for charging too much for their services;
• the hosiers for using cloth poorly made, or mixing old cloth with new, in their products;
• the dyers for blocking the streets with their equipment and dirtying the streets by emptying from their vats the water used in the dyeing process;
• the carpenters, plasterers, stonecutters, and all labourers, for asking too much by way of daily wages;
• the apothecaries for using non-standard weights by which to sell, and for mixing old spices with new

These sweeping condemnations reflect either a general malaise in Nottingham society or an attempt by the authorities to bring the crafts under closer control and also to tap into their profits by general fines on trades, acting almost like a licensing process. The same kind of presentations were made the following year, although the list was less extensive. It may be that we see here an expression of mercantile influence on local government policy.

During the same year, a separate set of presentments reveals what seems to be a rather high number (38) of assaults in what was a population of only about two to three thousand; several of the assaults being premeditated. John Odynges was the target of one, launched by a draper, Thomas Fox, who was separately accused of ambushing and beating a messenger of the sheriff of Nottingham. Fox was himself the victim of an assault the following year, although there is nothing to indicate that any of these three bouts of violence was connected with each other. These may again reflect tension within the community, although this could have been occasioned in part by the national conflict.

In 1399 the citizens acquired an important new charter from the new king, grateful no doubt for support given him against Richard II. This gave the borough government expanded judicial powers, notably establishing powers of Justices of the Peace, to be held by mayor, recorder and four other suitable townsmen. This would have helped establish an elite within the ruling class that could have exacerbated political jealousies. This inner clique of power-holders was later to evolve into a slightly larger group of aldermen, forming the borough's inner council. Such trends towards elitism were serving to reduce the involvement of the community at large in decision-making, even though that may have been previously limited to approvals.

During his mayoralty of 1409/10, John Alestre introduced some reforms; what they are has been lost to us – for the core of the surviving records of this period are the town court rolls and they appear silent on the disturbances – but they may have had some relation to expanding the franchise. In his subsequent mayoralty, we find the practice of selling licences to non-burgess residents allowing them to retail. These reforms may give a hint as to some of the grievances that provoked the events of 1412-13, or at least may have won the opposing party's leadership some backing from the unenfranchised section of the population. The licencing programme – a compensation prize? – continued throughout the century; in 1478/79, 68 persons purchased such licences, both men and women, and they included weavers, shermen, capmakers, spurriers, minstrels, barbers, cobblers and other leather-workers, along with a large number of tipplers (alehouse keepers).