If a murder is committed in the city, its suburbs or on its river, "englishry" cannot be claimed because the king's charter has exempted the city from "murdrum".

[The royal charter of 1194, in a single clause, exempted the citizens from murdrum and trial by combat. The Norman Conquest had introduced into England new judicial procedures different from, if not at odds with, Anglo-Saxon customs; trial by combat was one such, and not appropriate to non-militarized borough society – towns preferred to resolve cases through the taking of oaths. Similarly, murdrum was a Norman introduction prompted by reprisal killings of Normans by English in the years following the Conquest; this law required that if the killer could not be identified, the hundred in which the corpse was found had to pay a substantial murder-fine. Hundreds sought to evade the fine by proving "englishry", i.e. that the murdered person was English, not Norman. By the close of the twelfth century, Normans and English were intermarrying and a once bicultural society was beginning to find it hard to demonstrate "englishry" and murdrum was becoming increasingly applied to any unsolved homicide (whether murder or accidental death). Consequently, this was one of the onerous burdens of which boroughs might seek to rid themselves via their charters of liberties. Not until 1340 were englishry and murdrum abolished throughout the country.]