Colchester in the early fourteenth century had antiquity and chartered privilege strongly in its favour. Legend, unaware of any breach of continuity there since the time of the Romans, hallowed streets, churches, walls and wells with ancient associations. In recent centuries the borough had kept pace with major constitutional developments elsewhere; the burgesses elected their own officers, held their own courts of law, paid taxes on movables at the borough rate and sent members to parliaments. The court of pleas had come into existence to meet distinctive urban needs. The law administered in the borough courts had changed over the years in response to successive royal ordinances and statutes, so that business in 1310, the year of the first surviving court roll, was very different from what it would have been in 1178 when elected bailiffs first took over the hundred court. Moreover the urban economy had shown some response to the general commercial expansion of the thirteenth century, chiefly at Hythe. The number of inhabitants had increased, woods had been cleared and there were more enclosures than there had been. Colchester had moved with the times in predictable fashion.

But in some respects the borough's circumstances had become less favourable during this period. Administrative autonomy carried little power to mould the commercial and industrial environment to the burgesses' advantage. Ipswich, rather than Colchester, was the chief beneficiary of growing international trade, and new ports had been created at Harwich and Manningtree.