Kildare was possibly incorporated by a Tudor charter: certainly there was a partly destroyed earlier charter than that of James II under which the corporation consisted of a sovereign, two portreeves, 20 burgesses, freemen, a recorder, a town clerk, and two serjeants-at-mace, or town bailiffs. The borough was completely controlled by the Duke of Leinster and the £15,000 for its disfranchisement at the Union was paid to the trusts of his marriage settlement.