the chief magistrate of a city or town, chosen annually out of the aldermen. The word, anciently wrote meyr, comes from the British mirret, i.e. cylladire, or from the old English maier, viz. posthus, and not from the Latin major. King Richard I. in 1189, changed the bailiff of London into a mayor, and from that example king John made the bailiff of King's Lynn a mayor anno 1204. Though the famous city of Norfolk obtained not this title for its chief magistrate till the seventh year of king Henry V. anno 1419; since which there are few towns of note but have had a mayor appointed for government.

Mayors of corporations are justices of peace pro tempore, and they are mentioned in several statutes; but no person shall bear any office of magistracy concerning the government of any town, corporation, &c., who hath not received the sacrament according to the church of England within one year before his election, and who shall not take the oaths of supremacy, &c.

If any person intrudes into the office of mayor, a quo warranto lies against him, upon which he shall not only be ousted, but fined. And no mayor, or person holding an annual office in a corporation for one year, is to be elected into the same office for the next; in this case, persons obstructing the choice of a successor are subject to 100l. penalty. Where the mayor of a corporation is not chosen on the day appointed by charter, the next office in place shall the day after hold a court and elect one; and if there be a default or omission that way, the electors may be compelled to choose a mayor, by a writ of mandamus out of the king's bench. Mayors, or other magistrates of a corporation, who shall voluntarily absent themselves on the day of election, are liable to be imprisoned, and disqualified from holding any office in the corporation.