THE rule of . in the city was stern. The citizens of all parties had welcomed him home from the Crusade with a display of enthusiasm which told at once of their sufferings in the past and of their hopes for the future. The reorganisation of the municipality must have been their first care. The establishment of the livery companies on the one hand, was balanced by the final division of the wards. Sokes of all kinds ceased to exist. The suburbs were benefited by the extension of city privileges and city order. The completion of the new bridge led eventually to the incorporation of , and its enrolment among "wards without." But all these changes and reforms required time. Trade was increasing, and with it a wider distribution of the wealth which had previously been in the hands of a few. The king insisted chiefly that order should be preserved: and the first years of his reign were passed without any serious infringement of the civic liberties.

Under the year we have for the first time the names of the members sent to represent London in a parliament. The king had summoned the estates of the realm to meet him at Shrewsbury. The city sent six men, namely, the Mayor Waleys and his friend Rokesley (of whose history we shall have much to say), with Philip pb id="p.183" n="183"> Cissor (or "the Tailor"), Ralf Crepyn, Jocele (or Jocelyn) le Acatour (or "the Buyer"), and John of Gisors. [1] They sat in judgment on David, the brother of the last prince of Wales, and, as the chronicle grimly adds, they carried his head back with them to London. Before the year was out, one of them, Ralf Crepyn, was wounded in Cheap, as before narrated, when the strange murder of Laurence Duket was perpetrated. [2]  As no returns to the writs of parliament of this early period are known to exist, these names are well worth recording. The legislative measures of Edward's reign were of the utmost importance in moulding the future destinies of the city, and both in the codification of the old laws and the regulations now framed for the action of the hundreds, London was interested. The statute known as Quia Emptores, in particular, may be named as having had a direct influence on the development of civic institutions. Every district was now held responsible for crimes committed within its bounds: the system of compurgation which had been in force in London for so many generations, in short, now became universal. "The gates of each town were ordered to be shut at night; and all strangers were required to give an account of themselves to the magistrates of any borough which they entered." [3]  In London, the order which Edward elsewhere enforced was frequently endangered. The tragedy of Duket did not stand alone: similar tumults were not infrequent. We do not read of any such oppressions as those of Edward's father; but it may have seemed necessary to the orderly mind of the " Greatest of the Plantagenets," as he

It so happened that London was just then under the rule of two remarkable men, of both of whom I have already spoken. Gregory Rokesley and his friend Henry le Waleys,[4]  or Galeys, had, one or other, held the mayoralty from the time of Walter Hervey's suppression, in which they were so largely concerned. Hervey's successor as Alderman of Cheap was Stephen Aswy,[5]  who must have been a mere creature of Rokesley. There does not appear to have been any rivalry between Waleys and Rokesley, but sometimes one, and sometimes the other, would hold office for a year or two. They had been sheriffs together in the reign of the king's father. Waleys traded in wine, and Rokesley also had great foreign dealings, being both a goldsmith and also a wool merchant. In their benefactions to the they were rivals. Waleys built a portion of

Although a small part of the Tower precinct was within the imaginary boundary formed by the old Roman wall, it was wholly without the liberties of the city. Close to the border stood, and stands, the old church of Allhallows, distinguished from other churches of the same dedication by its connection with the great Abbey of Barking, a few miles farther down the river beyond the Tower. Here, no doubt, from the days of good St. Erkenwald, came the Lady Abbess,[7]  whenever she had business in London, with her bailiff, her chamberlain, her treasurer, her chaplain, and other attendants, and landing at her private wharf, heard mass in the church before proceeding farther into town.

On this fateful 29th June, the mayor put on his robes at the house in Milk Street, which he had long rented from the Prior of Lewes,-one of the first private houses we hear of as standing in the market place-and prepared to obey the summons. Followed by his sheriffs and the aldermen in full civic procession, he passed along Cheapside, by the great cistern his friend Waleys had that very year filled with water from the distant , and threading the narrow lanes to Tower Street he dismounted at" Berkyngechurche." A commodious vestry-room for the use of the Lady Abbess adjoined the church, and entering it Rokesley divested himself of his robes of office, took the seal ring of the city off his finger, and the chain off his neck, and handed them to Stephen Aswy. Then he went out through the postern, over the little drawbridge, and so to the Tower, and came

Rokesley seems to have quietly retired,[11]  but the next day, attending with the citizens on Edward at , he and a large number of the principal persons were placed under arrest, and those who had been with him at Barking Church were actually imprisoned for a few days. Aswy, to whom he had delivered his chain and ring, was not let out so soon as the rest.[12]  Meanwhile,

Apart from the immediate causes of this course of action, Edward may have been influenced by several considerations which are but dimly hinted at in contemporary history. He may have feared that the influence of Rokesley and Waleys was becoming too great and that a new oligarchy of wealth was being gradually established in the place of the old oligarchy of the landowners. The craft guilds had now attained a position which made their recognition and regulation a necessity. The wards of the city required to be defined and limited. The landing-places along the river's bank were out of repair, and so filthy that no well-dressed person could pass from his boat into Street without risk of contamination. The king himself, with the great schemes he was nourishing of bringing the whole island of Britain under his government, could not allow anything like disorder in its principal city. Sir Ralf de Sandwich showed indefatigable activity. He put everything into military order. Yet he always acted with the advice and co-operation of the aldermen, and the annual election of the sheriffs went on as usual. The king, in short, only appointed the warden as a permanent mayor, and did not in any other way infringe the liberties of the citizens.

At this period the city records commence to be regularly kept, and their publication, in part at least, under the editorship of the late , has both revealed the sources from which Stow made the collections which have immortalised him, and also enabled us to correct his account and to form our own opinion as to the course of events. Whether the keeping of records

Foremost among them was the definition and naming of the wards. The year is celebrated in the annals of England for the passing of the famous statute known from its opening words as "Quia Emptores." [14]  By it certain feudal restrictions on the subdivision of land were removed, and the increase of manors was checked. The influence of the new statute on the geography of London is at once apparent when we note that in the same year the list of wards became substantially what it remains to the present day. One of the earliest collections of city records [15]  contains a very curious list of aldermen and their respective wards which must be assigned to this year . It is simply headed "The names belonging to the wards of the city of London, with the names of the aldermen." [16] Its insertion shows that some arrangement or rearrangement had just been made, and this is further evident from another list, [17]  written some thirty

The twenty-five councillors who advised the mayor in the reign of King John had gradually become identified with the aldermen: and this title, which at first was applied to the heads of trade guilds and other functionaries, was henceforth confined to the rulers of the wards.[18]  The city was parcelled out into twenty-four divisions. Each division was to elect its alderman, except Portsoken of which the Prior of was ex officio alderman. There are many signs in other wards that the old hereditary system was long in dying out, and the aldermanry of Farringdon, which then comprised both the modern wards of that name, continued to be vested in William Farringdon, who had bought it, and his son Nicholas, for no less then eighty-two years. Their rent was the presentation of a gillyflower annually at Easter. Nevertheless, election now became the rule, and hereditary succession the exception; and, but that two of the larger wards were afterwards divided, no important change has since been made in their number or name.[19] 

Sir Ralf de Sandwich's activity showed itself in other ways. It may be worth while to look into the old minute books of the corporation and examine a few of the entries which relate to this period, for they give us some of the earliest contemporary notices of London life.Riley's ' Memorials,' p. 25, &c.

On Friday, the feast of St. Margaret the Virgin, (20th July), in , for example, we find Sir Ralf inquiring as to the condition of the bridge over the at Bucklersbury. He had previously made a very stringent order as to the cleansing of the course of the stream, from where it entered the city, close to the modern site of the three railway stations in , to the at . The bridge, which was close to St. Mildred's Church, at the eastern end of Cheapside, was in a dangerous state. It had been repaired many years before by "the then improver of the city," Walter Hervey, who had charged the cost against the occupiers of four adjacent houses, probably those which stood at the four corners of the bridge. One of them was the old mansion of the Bukerels, from

In ascertaining the duties to be paid on certain kinds of goods two public weighing machines were used. Of the " small beam," as one of them was called, we have a curious notice under this same year . It appears that a certain citizen called Imgram de Betoyne had, at the request of Queen Eleanor, been appointed custodian of the " beam " for his life. It probably stood by the riverside in the ward of Queenhithe, a ward called from the old landing-place which had belonged to Eleanor, the mother of King John, and which, in , had been leased by her heir, Richard, earl of Cornwall, to the city at fifty pounds a year, with sixty shillings to the hospital of St. Giles. When Imgram died, the warden and aldermen promptly put William de Betoyne, who was probablyhis son, into the office. William was himself alderman of the ward, and it may be believed that the custody of the "beam" was lucrative. Meanwhile, Jacobina la Lumbard, a lady of whom we have no further knowledge, obtained from King Edward, whowas then at Berwick-upon-Tweed, a letter, dated 28th June, in which he requested the warden and aldermen to give her the keeping of the "small beam." To which they sent a reply stating respectfully that they had given the place away already and could not comply with the king's wishes. From Jacobina's

An amusing incident occurred a month later, and is duly entered in the records.[20]  Roger de Portlaunde, who was clerk to the sheriff, occupying a position analogous to that of sub-sheriff in our own day, was a gentleman who entertained very strict notions as to his own dignity as the representative when in his court of the sheriff, and through him of the warden, and through the warden of "our lord the king " himself. On a certain Thursday in July, Portlaunde was holding the sheriff's court, when Robert de Suttone "cast vile contempt upon him." Suttone's contempt was expressed by repetitions of a syllable which the chronicler spells as "Tprhurt" or "Tphurpt," "to his damnifying, and in manifest contempt of our lord the king." Portlaunde had refused him leave to plead in the court' on account of some previous offence, and Suttone had vented his discontent by these utterances, which Portlaunde with evident effort endeavours to spell for the benefit of the warden and the aldermen. [21]  Suttone, whatever his moral shortcomings, understood the rhetorical value of the direct negative, and wholly denied the truth of the deputy sheriff's complaint. But when Savage the armourer, and Marescalle the surgeon, and German de St. Giles, and Goddard the attorney, and other reputable citizens had been formed into a jury, they found that Robert de Suttone

In another note we are told of the election of three citizens to be killers of swine " found wandering in the king's highway, to whomsoever they might belong, within the walls of the city and the suburbs." A night fair, or "evecheping," as it was called, in Soper Lane, was put down in , "by reason of the murders and strifes arising therefrom." In the same year new regulations were made as to the guarding of the city gates. . was anxious to go to war with France, and though he was restrained by his councillors, and by the breaking out of Wallace's rebellion in Scotland, London was placed in a state of defence. During this year, indeed, news must constantly have reached London of the atrocities committed in the north of England by the Scottish freebooter, and "could not but have filled the English with horror something akin to that which the English in India must have felt at the outbreak of the Mutiny." [22]  Many Londoners were in the army which Wallace defeated at Stirling [23] in , including a canon of St. Paul's, Sir Hugh de Cressingham,[24]  who was among the slain, and whose body the savage Scots flayed. The story even came to London that Wallace himself had a sword-belt made of the skin.

Meanwhile, the king, who probably was in great want of money, offered to restore their mayor to the citizens of London on payment of a fine of 23,000 marks. Henry Waleys stepped at once, as if naturally, into the office, and everything went on without a break. John le Breton had been warden for the four last years of this period of sequestration. Following the mayor's restoration was the grant of a charter in which it was arranged that for the future in case of the absence of the king and his court from the mayor should be admitted at the Tower by the constable.

The impression made in London by Wallace's rebellion must have been very strong. All the chronicles speak with horror of his atrocities. He "destroyed Northumbarlond and brent and robbet it, and kylled both man and womon and chyldryn that lay in cradylles, and brent also holy chyrche," says one of them.[25]  In consequence of these crimes Scotland was placed under an interdict; " all the world spake of the wykkednesse that thai diddyn throghe crystendome." The terror inspired by these stories was not lessened by an earthquake which occurred in January . At length the king crushed the rebels in the terrible slaughter at Falkirk, and when Wallace himself was taken he was sent to London for execution. He arrived on the 22nd of August, , and having been lodged for a night at a private house in Fenchurch Street, he was duly hanged and beheaded on the 23rd, to the great satisfaction of an immense throng of the citizens, to whom he appeared as the Nana Sahib of his time. The next three years witnessed the deaths by the same process of Simon Fraser, Herbert Morham, Thomas Boys, the Earl of

These scenes, horrible as they appear to us, were probably thought very proper at that time. We have already seen how the Jews were treated. In , not fewer than 500 of them were massacred, and the Jewry burnt. Yet we do not read that any one was punished for this atrocity. In , as mentioned above, 293 Jews were hanged for clipping the coin. The chronicle is so precise as to the number that we cannot doubt an execution of the most shocking character must have been carried out, a judicial massacre, in fact. A few years later we read that " all the Jews of England were taken and imprisoned and put to ransom." This was in . They had objected to a tallage, laid upon them by the king's mere motion, no doubt, for the Jews were reckoned as royal chattels, and all they had was his. It was said that they paid 12,000£. to appease the king's indignation on this occasion, and if we remember that at this time a good lamb could be bought for 6d. and a goose for 4d. the amount appears prodigious. But the respite thus purchased did not last long. Edward wanted a grant of a fifteenth from his subjects in , and his subjects, on the other hand, prayed him to expel the Jews from the realm altogether. After some hesitation, due no doubt to the fact that the Jewries of some of the large towns were a source of regular revenue as well as an always ready scene for irregular exactions, he

In the reign of Edward we have the first distinct mention of the modern Livery Companies. The king's second marriage and the victory which delivered England from the fear of Wallace occurred so nearly together that we are not surprised to find that the double occasion was celebrated in an unusual manner. On Edward's first visit to the city after these events a magnificent pageant was organised, and every citizen according to his trade took part in it. [29]  The fishmongers especially distinguished

It has been asserted that . gave charters to some of the companies. The fishmongers, in particular, are named among those who were thus recognised, and their historian, Herbert, mentions the fact vaguely. No such charter has, however, been preserved. It is true that . recognised the existence of the fishmongers, but only to censure them for misconduct in their trade. Nevertheless we can have no doubt that during the whole of this reign the companies were gradually attaining to a more perfect system of organisation, and though still unchartered were already engaged in making regulations for the conduct of their respective misteries. [31] 

Edward of Carnarvon appears on the city records before the death of his father as obtaining for one of his servants, Thomas de , who had been serjeant to the Mayor, the custody of the gate-house of Cripplegate, on condition that he was "to well and honestly behave himself, and keep the said gate roofed at his own expense and protected from wind and rain." [32]  Thomas was very soon afterwards promoted to some other civic office, it does not very clearly appear what, but letters from both . and his favourite, Gavestone, remain in the records recommending one Albon, who had been Gavestone's "vadlet," for the post, together with the city reply that it was already given to . These are only

In an attempt to extend the fortifications of the Tower had led to a serious outbreak, and in ,

There is some difficulty in unravelling the events of the last few years of Edward's reign. The citizens were strong partizans, and opposed the Despencers with all their might. Popular outbreaks occurred frequently. Obnoxious persons were seized and beheaded or hanged by armed mobs. The king made and unmade mayors. Hamo de Chikewell, or Chigwell, appears to have been a rival of Nicholas Farringdon, and to have supported the king's side. Farringdon, a goldsmith, and enormously wealthy, was, of course in himself a host to the queen's faction. In the confusion we read of escapes from , of murders, robberies and street fights, of conspiracies and executions, and, in short, of all possible evidences of bad government. In , Nicholas Farringdon was mayor, when the king, on a trumped-up charge, made, not against Farringdon, but against one of his predecessors

Meanwhile, the king turned Chigwell out and put Farringdon in his place, while Chigwell and some other citizens were called upon to attend the court in its wanderings, perhaps as councillors, but more probably as hostages. Mortimer had escaped from the Tower and fled to Flanders, and the king was much displeased with the citizens, who were not unreasonably suspected of having favoured his escape. The queen, under pretence of making peace between France and England, also withdrew from the realm, and before long was joined by the young " Sir Edward de Wyndsore," her son. Chigwell was now mayor again, not by election, but merely on the king's nomination, and in a proclamation was made in the city that no Frenchman should be allowed to trade in England. At the same time the queen's lands were seized, she was put on "wages " at twenty shillings a day, and finally, her title

This miserable condition of public affairs is marked by many entries in the records. The city was perambulated by bands of marauders, "the ancestors of the Mohawks of queen Anne's days." [41] Some of the new associations of workmen fell out, and street-fighting ensued between the saddlers and the joiners. The joiners obtained assistance from the lorimers[42]  and from the painters, and there was a pitched battle in Cripplegate. The efforts of the mayor, moreover, were not sufficient to keep the people from showing sympathy with the cause of the queen,[43]  and great satisfaction was expressed when one of her strongest partisans, Stratford, Bishop of Winchester, took up the freedom of the city. He may have been connected with London by birth, as his name would import. He signalised the occasion by giving some lead for the repair of Guildhall Chapel, and the record of this gift is the last entry under the reign of the unfortunate .

Isabella and her "gentle Mortimer" had been in constant correspondence with their friends in England, and especially in London. The city chronicler records with sympathy, under the year , [44] that she wore the garments of widowhood. The common people, he says, greatly pitied her. At length news came that she had landed at Harwich, with her son and the Mortimer, to

A nobler victim was at hand. Walter Stapleton, bishop of Exeter, and formerly treasurer under the Despencers, had, in addition to the Outer Temple, a house in Old Dean's Lane.[45]  He was among those proscribed by the reluctant mayor; but knowing nothing of the revolution which was taking place a few yards off, he rode into the city to his hostel to dine.[46]  The mob, having wreaked their fury on the unhappy Marshall, had only to turn round when they beheld the bishop fleeing

Towards evening the choirmen of St. Paul's ventured forth, and raising the headless body of the bishop, bore it into their church; but the commons gave them to understand that "he had died under sentence," or, in other words, as a traitor, and they, terrified, conveyed the corpse to his parish church, St. Clement Danes, close to his suburban house.[47]  But the people there were as unwilling to receive it as the citizens, and it was cast out with that of William Walle. At length, "certain women and persons in the most abject poverty took the body, which would have been quite naked had not one woman given a piece of old cloth to cover the middle, and buried it in a place apart without making a grave, and his esquire near him, without any office of priest or clerk." [48]  Eventually, about six months later, when a settled government had again been established, the bishop's body was conveyed to the cathedral church of his see and duly interred with

The had warmly espoused the cause of Edward and the Despencers. Their newly-finished house by the riverside, at the extreme south-western corner of the old city wall, stood on the site of Montfitchett's Tower, of which mention has been made more than once already. [49] It must have been a fine building. Henry VI. afterwards held a parliament in the hall. But on the news of Bishop Stapleton's murder the friars fled, "seeing that the commonalty entertained great enmity against them by reason of their haughty carriage,"-" lour orgelousse port," as the chronicler calls it -" they not behaving themselves as friars ought:" and with them also fled Segrave, Bishop of London, and various other functionaries who might be suspected of friendship with the Despencers. The commons, making a rendezvous at the Leaden Hall on Cornhill, received there the constable of the Tower, who gave up to them various political prisoners, including John of Eltham, the king's second son, a mere child. The tablet of Thomas of which the king had removed was replaced in St. Paul's: and, in short, for a month, the mob seem to have been masters of the whole city.

At length the queen's party sent Bishop Stratford to see how things were going on, and at Guildhall he was solemnly admitted to the franchise, and read letters from the queen and her son calling upon them to elect a mayor, Chigwell being described as not lawfully mayor,

The rioting, however, went on as before. It is possible that the queen's party, even if they could have stopped it, found it a very easy way of disposing of their enemies. Arnold [50]  of Spain, a wine merchant, for instance, was carried out, barefooted and half naked, to No Man's land,[51]  where the Charterhouse now stands, and was there beheaded. News came daily from the west, where the Despencers and others of the king's party were being hanged, one by one, and Baldock, Bishop of Hereford, the chancellor, who was well known in London, having been prebendary of Vynesbury, or Finsbury, [52]  was taken in Wales with the king and was forwarded to the city, where he received such rough treatment on his way to that he died in a few days. His body was buried in St. Paul's.

This disorderly state of things continued for a whole year, during which the consistorial courts did not sit, nor did the mayor dare to hold his hustings. At the beginning of , the timid Chigwell being once more mayor, the queen came to and parliament met. The city sent six representatives, two to sit, the others to be

The continued to intrigue for ., and fell therefore into great disfavour at the time besides precipitating his murder, which took place at Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, the same year. Before many years were over he was looked upon as a martyr, his oppressions and vices forgotten, and the reinstated in the public favour.

One of the young king's first acts was to grant a charter to the city. It considerably enlarged the privileges of the citizens. The mayor was constituted a justice of the gaol delivery at : he still takes his place beside the judge at the Old Bailey, and it is possible that this provision first gave rise to the alteration of his title into the modern form of " Lord " Mayor, though it did not come into ordinary use before the time of ., as we shall have occasion to notice further on. The annual rent of the sheriffwicks of London and [55]  was fixed at 300£., at which it has

With these concessions . commenced his long and glorious reign. A sort of golden mist hangs over it. We do not know as much about city politics under . as under . True, there was not so much to record. But we read of tournaments and processions, of gorgeous pageants and conduits running wine. Knights in harness clank over the pavement, and armorial banners float from the windows. There is fighting and feasting. Expeditions are fitted

The very first event recorded is typical. When the king was only sixteen years of age, Philippa of Hainault, who was still younger, came over to be his wife, and was received in London with the loudest acclamations of welcome. The commercial treaty with Flanders, of which this union was one result, made it popular with the traders; and the young queen was conducted in gorgeous state through the city on her way to the north. The boy-king met her at, and the wedding ceremony was made more joyful by the conclusion of peace with Scotland. The Londoners presented the bride " with a service of plate worth 300£." [58]  When the newlymarried couple arrived at they received a further present, which is carefully described in the records.[59]  It reminds us of the present Jacob sent to

The boy-king and his wife came into the city after the birth of their eldest son, and a tournament was held in Cheap.[60]  Edward, though he had already gone through a campaign and was already a father, cannot have been eighteen at the time. Yet we are told that when the scaffolding or stage, from which the queen and her ladies watched the tilting, fell down, he would have had the unfortunate carpenters that made it hanged, though no one was killed. The oldest version of this story hardly admits of the embellishiments sometimes given to it [61]  The lists were set up between the cross and the conduit: that is, opposite Soper Lane, which is now

A tangible memorial of the tournaments in Cheap still exists. As we walk under the steeple of St. Mary's we may observe a window and balcony looking upon the street. From this balcony queen Anne is said to have seen a city procession in , and it is alluded to, soon after it was built, in contemporary memoirs.[62]  It is the successor of a stone building which . caused to be made on the north side of the old church in the place of the wooden "seld " or shed which had fallen down. Stow tells us that it "greatly darkeneth the said church, for by means thereof all the windows

Edward's revolt from the tutelage of his mother and Mortimer took place in , when the Londoners, who had so warmly received the queen and her paramour a few years before, went out along the great western highway over to see the earl hanged. The gallows were set up in a valley by a brook known as the : [63] and here a few days later also suffered Mortimer's confidential adviser, Sir Simon Beresford.[64]  Mortimer's body, by the special grace of the king, was interred in the church of the , now Christ Church, Street, where, after twenty-eight years, the body of the guilty queen was also laid, with the heart of Edward "her murdered mate," as if in mockery, in a gold vase upon her breast. Her son had always ignored the reports of his mother's connection with Mortimer. He always treated her with the highest respect. Castle Rising was assigned to her as her chief residence, but she was much at Leeds Castle-where the ghosts of the Badlesmeres should have haunted her, had she been susceptible of such impressions-and she died at Hertford Castle, which became afterwards the residence of her grandson, John of Gaunt. She spent enormous sums on jewelry. She entertained foreign ambassadors. She was much in London, where she hired a house in Lombard Street from the Prioress of St. Helen's, at the rent of 2£. 10s. 4d. a year. Here she received her son and his queen, her grandson, the Black Prince, and others of the royal family: and here she was constantly visited by the grandson of Mortimer, whom . had restored in blood and admitted to the earldom of

Meanwhile, Chigwell had fared but badly. He had endeavoured but too successfully to trim his course so as to appear to belong to both parties. In the abortive rising of against Mortimer in , he was deeply implicated. An inquiry set on foot by Mortimer found a suitable charge with which to commence the prosecution of Chigwell, who was accused of having connived in a felony. The abbot of Bury St. Edmund's had been robbed and abducted by a malefactor named Cotterell, a skinner, who was hanged for his misdeeds. Chigwell, it was alleged, had received two silver basins as his share of the abbot's property. He was convicted, and, in all probability, would have shared the fate of the unhappy skinner, had he not pleaded that he was in orders. This plea brought him under the jurisdiction of the bishop. It is possible that during his sojourn among the friars he had been admitted to minor orders, in anticipation of his declining years: for he must at this time have been already an aged man. The bishop, Stephen of Gravesend, who was himself under more or less suspicion, as he had refused to consent to the deposition of ., was powerful enough, nevertheless to protect so munificent a churchman as Chigwell, and kept him for a while at his country-house at Orsett, in . Early in the following year, deeming

In , Edward made his first expedition against France. In , he won a great naval victory in which he derived, according to the London chroniclers, considerable assistance from a ship which belonged to William Hansard, who had been sheriff in . The Londoners, in fact, were much interested in this war. Froissart specially commends their martial spirit, which seems to have impressed him so much that he reckons 24,000 men completely armed, and 30,000 archers, as being in the city and neighbourhood, an exaggeration probably born of what he saw of their conduct in the field, where, as he says, "the more blood is spilled, the greater is their courage." The records contain among other entries regarding the war one or two of interest, but the events of Edward's reign are very fully detailed by all the historians, and for my present purpose it is only necessary to refer in passing to the wars, and then go on to notice the newly-chartered companies, the regulation of trades, the enforcement of sanitary precautions, the sufferings of the people from famine and pestilence, the increase of ecclesiastical and monastic foundations, and many topographical points which do not concern the general history of England.[68] 

In , we find a list of the munitions of war provided

Another part of the city preparations consisted in putting the into a state of defence, and the king, on each expedition, exhorted the citizens to this effect, and solemnly charged them with the preservation of peace in the city. When, in , he had to raise the siege of Tournay, and suddenly returned home to obtain or hasten supplies, he sent first for the mayor and confided to him the task of apprehending the careless guardians on whom he had depended.[70]  They were speedily taken, except Sir John de Molins. Edward's journey to St. Albans, and his seizure of Sir John's treasure in the keeping of the abbot, have been often described, and the punishment of the judges at belongs to a later chapter.[71]  The mayor above mentioned was succeeded by John de Oxenford, who

"Audax, formosus, pulcher, cives animosus, Pauperibus fomes, piscenarius, vice comes."

This brave, handsome, beautiful and courageous citizen, the warmer of the poor, fishmonger and sheriff, was one of a large family of the same name, and died two years after his mayoralty. I have already mentioned Richard de Bettoyne, who was mayor in the year of Edward's coronation. A curious petition was made by him in , the year of the outbreak of the French war. He was by trade a goldsmith, and represented the city in parliament, so that we may presume him to have been wealthy. But in his petition, which is addressed "To our lord the king, and his council," he sets forth that he attended at the coronation as mayor, and performed the office of butler, with three hundred and sixty valets, each carrying a silver cup: but he complains that the

Each of these great merchants, it will have been perceived, belonged to a company. In addition to the goldsmith Betoyne, and the fishmonger Turk, and the draper Poultney, we have among the lists of mayors and sheriffs, Grantham, a pepperer, or grocer; Swanlond, a draper; Lancer, a mercer; Ely, a fishmonger; Conduit, or " de Conductu," M.P. in and , a vintner; and at last, after , the companies were so universally recognised that every mayor or sheriff's name was followed by that of the trade or craft to which he happened to belong. It is evident, then, that a great change had occurred in the condition of these bodies since the days of Walter Hervey, and that the arrangements in progress under Sir Ralf de Sandwich had now been completed.

The city companies have, in fact, from that day to this, been, so to speak, the very city itself. We have already mentioned as among the early guilds the weavers and saddlers. There is no kind of proof now to be found which connects the companies formed under . with the guilds which existed before the time of his grandfather,[73]  yet it would be rash to say the

The work of incorporation went on merrily during this and several succeeding reigns. Eight of the twelve great companies were chartered before the end of Edward's life. Exclusiveness and monopoly were, of course, the objects of each society thus formed. They desired to regulate trade and also to regulate traders. They fixed the prices. They fixed the methods of manufacture. They made rules as to the conduct and even the dress of their members. It is apparent that to do this effectually they required to have power to forbid all interference from without. No one must carry on their trade who was not of their mistery. It will be remembered how the charters of Walter Hervey were superseded by the want of this power. The royal charters conferred it-though it may be doubted whether the mayor's charter might not legally have been quite as efficient-and every new company as it was formed sought for the distinction of a grant from the king himself. Edward's constant wars made every windfall welcome, and batches of charters seem to synchronise with great expeditions. What ., seeking money for his crusade, did for English cities, Edward III., gathering armies against Scotland and France, did for the mercantile communities.[77]  The companies

The power in the city constitution assumed by the twelve livery companies, became, in the reign of Edward's feeble successor, the cause of many troubles. In each ward elected its alderman, and a number of the inhabitants, four, six, eight, according to the size of the ward, to be members of the common council. All elections were made by a similar number of six, eight, or twelve as the case might be. In a few years it was found that this arrangement would not work. The governing body had been able to summon what electors it pleased. In , accordingly, it was superseded, and the great companies were recognised in an ordinance by which the power of nomination was taken from the wards and given to the companies, and by which the persons so nominated were to be summoned both to the council and the elections. It will be seen at once that this deprived a large body of citizens of all municipal power except that of electing their aldermen, and was a fruitful source of contention and disorder, as we shall observe further on.[78] 

The halls of the companies speedily rose in various parts of the city, and were conspicuous among the

The regulations made by these new bodies for their respective trades were solemnly confirmed at the Guildhall. There are numerous entries on the subject in the city records. Some of them were afterwards included in the royal charters: and on the whole the rules set forth in the Letter-books of the corporation are earlier than the grants from the crown. The grocers, described as " the good folks of Soper Lane," [81]  for example, register their regulations as early as , and the armourers as early as . Edward's charters to the pellipers or skinners, and to the girdlers are set down in the same collection, and the bye-laws of the cutlers, spurriers, pewterers, heaumers,[82]  hatters, glovers, and other minor traders are also to be found.[83]  The companies thus, by union among themselves, attained enormous power, which in too many cases they wielded very tyrannically. The general tendency of their action was, however, for the benefit of the city; and this was especially the case when they set themselves to reform abuses and prevent adulteration and frauds upon purchasers.[84]  Whittington, who became so famous, was particularly noted for his sternness to the brewers who made bad beer. If the laws of the companies were fairly carried out, they must have produced excellent results; but unfortunately, it does not seem

While Edward and his family were engaged abroad in fighting the French, these changes were quietly going on at home. Not that the citizens failed in patriotic sentiment. On the contrary they were equally ready to pay for men-at-arms to go with the king and to devise grand pageants when the city was honoured by a visit from some royal guest or captive. Edward took care to interfere as little as possible with the affairs of the citizens, and in return he was as popular as any English king before him, and as able to obtain a loan or gift when money ran short. He gave them leave in to have silver maces carried before their mayor and his sheriffs, an honorary favour, which yet produced in the following year a vote of twenty-five men-at-arms and five hundred archers, "all clad in one livery." This

[1] The names are given in the "Chronicle," lately published by Canon Stubbs in the Rolls Series (' Annales Londonienses,' Introduction, xxxiii.).

[2] See above, chap. iv.

[3] Green, 'English People,' i. 335.

[4] Rokesley's family was long seated at Rokesley, a village in Kent, which gives its name to the hundred, though it is now a mere hamlet and was united in 1557 to North Cray. The Italian origin of the family is extremely doubtful. See Hasted's 'Kent,' vol. ii. 51, and Thorne's 'Environs,' i. 129; also ' Arch. Cant.', vol. ii. Gregory's heir was his nephew, Roger Rislepe, who seems to have assumed the name of Rokesley. Henry le Waleys was probably a Gascon by birth.

[5] Mr. Stubbs in his " Chronicles" (p. xxvi.) spells the name Ascwy.

[6] He was probably son of a citizen of the same name who had been sheriff and even warden under Henry III .

[7] The Abbess of Barking ranked, like the Abbesses of Wilton, Shaftesbury, and St. Mary's at Winchester, as a baroness of the realm. She was very frequently a princess of the blood, and seldom less than the daughter or sister of a peer.

[8] They probably sat in a hall near the gate.

[9] ' Liber Albus,' Riley's Translation, p. 15.

[10] He was Bishop of Ely, and the first, as we shall see (vol. ii.), to inhabit Ely Place in Holborn. He may be commemorated in the name of Kirby Street.

[11] There is great difficulty in piecing together the few notes we have of this event. I have endeavoured here to make the narrative straightforward, but the reader is referred for the official account to the Record Series, 'Liber Albus,' i. 16.

[12] This exception is mentioned in the ' Liber Albus.' Aswy was alive and at liberty in 1291, but died soon after and was succeeded as alderman by "Joh's Blound," according to Lansdowne MSS. 558, fo. 204. Blund became mayor in 1301.

[13] In 1288 and part of the following year Sir John de Bretton was warden, Sandwich being probably in attendance on the king abroad. Sir Ralf was second son of Sir Simon de Sandwich, of Preston in Kent ( Archaeologia Cantiana,' v. 190).

[14] The Third Statute of Westminster. Green, 'History of the English People,' i. 335.

[15] Letter Book A, fo. 116. I am indebted to Dr. Sharpe of the Town Clerk's office for the discovery of this list. It was very incorrectly printed in 1839 by Allen (i. 94), who referred it to the 'Liber Albus.' Mr. Riley had seen it, but does not seem to have been aware of its importance. He dates it "about 1292," I presume because Gregory Rokesley is mentioned in it. But Rokesley died on the 13th July, 1291 (' Arch. Cant.,' ii. 234). The date above mentioned, 1290, also accords best with other facts.

[16] "Nomina propria Wardarum civitatis Lond. cum noia. Aldermanorum.'

[17] Lansdowne MSS. 558.

[18] It has been suggested that the twenty-five councillors came from the twenty-five wards, but a chronological arrangement of the facts disposes of this idea. There were not twenty-five wards then in existence-more-over, it would be necessary to account for twenty-six, if the mayor is reckoned.

[19] These two lists present a few curious variations. In 1290 Langborn is called "Langford." By 1320 it has obtained its present name. Broad Street is called " Lodyngeberye." It is " Brade strete "in the later list. Before each name in the older list is the word Warda, until we come to "Portsokne" which is without it. We therefore err in speaking of the "ward of Portsoken," but we might say the " Soke of the Port." Aldgate is Alegate in the earlier list, and Algate in the later. Our modern form is certainly wrong, and never occurs in ancient documents. If it did we should have it as " eald," or " old," as in the case of " Ealdstrete," which survives as Old Street. Certain wards were called after trades, which shows the growing influence of the guilds. Bread Street, Vintry, and Cordwaner Street are among them. Cheap is called " Warda Fori," and Queenhithe " Ripa Regine." Farringdon obtains its modern name in 1320, but in 1290 is called " Warda de Lodgate et Neugate." The bishop has surrendered his hold on " Cornhulle," which has become a ward and is ruled by Martin Box. Baynard's Castle has an alderman, one of the Aswys, and the name of Lord Fitzwalter does not occur. There must, however, have been some question as to the position of these two ancient sokes, for in 1320 neither of them is named in the list (Lansdowne MSS. 558, fo. 204. " Nomina Aldermanorum London. post ultimatujter justic. apud Turrim London."). Fitzwalters claim was not finally disposed of till 1347.

[20] Riley, p. 27, from Letter-book A, fo. 96.

[21] The syllable also appears in a political song, printed in the Camden Society's volume by Wright, p. 223.

[22] Bright, ' English History,' i. 189.

[23] ' French Chronicle' (ed. Riley), 244.

[24] He is not mentioned by Newcourt, unless he may be identified with Hugh de Kersington, who was prebendary of Neasden about this time. Aungier, in a note, speaks of him on the authority of Prynne as Canon of St. Paul's and "an insatiable pluralist." He was Treasurer of Scotland.

[25] Egerton MSS., quoted by Aungier. Fr. Chron.' p. 25.

[26] The writer of 'The Greatest of the Plantagenets,' p. 315, somewhat strangely remarks upon Edward's clemency in only hanging one Scot. But seven at least besides are mentioned in all the contemporary chronicles. The same apologist carefully, and perhaps wisely, avoids all mention of the expulsion of the Jews.

[27] A hospital for converted Jews had been established in the previous reign. When converted Jews grew scarce it became as it is still, the Rolls Court. By the revolutions of time it chances that the present master of this house is himself a Jew, but unconverted.

[28] i. 341.

[29] Herbert, i. 89. The date cannot have been 1298, as the battle of Falkirk was fought on 22nd July, 1300.

[30] Two days, April 16 and August 19, are assigned to St. Magnus in the calendar. There is considerable difficulty about assigning a date to this procession: it may have taken place in honour of the king's marriage in 1299.

[31] There can be no doubt that this word originates in " master," or as we pronounce it " mister," not in mystery.

[32] Riley, ' Memorials,' p. 59. S Riley, p. 69, 70.

[33] Riley, p. 105.

[34] Allen, p. 98.

[35] Riley, p. 108.

[36] In 1315 the rains lasted, we are told, from Pentecost to Easter. 'French Chron.' p. 251.

[37] Sir Thomas Culpeper.

[38] 'French Chron.' (Riley), p. 252.

[39] Aungier, 'French Chron.' p. 43. Mr. Stubbs ('Chronicles,' p. lxxviii.) speaks of the "bitter quarrel between the mayor and citizens." The mayor was summoned in 1319 before the regent, in the chapter-house of St. Paul's, and peremptorily commanded to make peace with the commons.

[40] Queen Isabella endeavoured to obtain the pope's acknowledgment of his sanctity, but failed. See ' Memorials of the Savoy,' 34-36, for further particulars.

[41] Stubbs, p. lxxxvii.

[42] Who made bits and other objects in iron and in copper.

[43] Mr. Stubbs ('Chronicles,' p. lxxxvi.) suggests that the fishmongers and pepperers took different sides. John de Gisors, in whose mill Mortimer took refuge on his escape from the Tower, was a pepperer. Chigwell was a fishmonger.

[44] ' French Chron.,' p. 49. "En cele temps la reyne usa simple apparaille come dame de dolour qe avoit son seignour perdue."

[45] Eldedeaneslane ('French Chron.,' p. 52), afterwards Warwick Lane, led out of Newgate Street, opposite the house of the Greyfriars.

[46] Mr. Aungier gives a somewhat different account of this tragedy in a note, p. 53. But the story in the chronicle is very simple and circumstantial.

[47] Exeter House adjoined the modern EssexStreet .

[48] Riley's 'French Chron.,' p. 263. Walsingham says the body was thrown into the river. The two stories are not absolutely inconsistent. Godwin says the body was buried in a heap of sand at the back of the house. This must have been close to the water's edge, and there was, moreover, the little tidal creek commemorated in the modern Milford Lane.

[49] For some account of the introduction of the mendicant orders, see next chapter.

[50] He is called " Bernard " in the ' French Chronicle,' and " Anthony" by Carte.

[51] Mentioned in Domesday Book; see above, chap. iv.

[52] He let his manor to the corporation in 1315, on a lease which only expired in 1867, when it reverted to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's.

[53] Their names were Gisors, Secheford, "de Conductu," Leyre, Cosyn, and Steere.

[54] It is interesting to observe that his temporary absence from the realm is assigned as a reason for his deposition. A similar reason may have governed the case of Richard II. as it certainly did that of James II.

[55] Norton (p. 346), says "the sheriffwick of London," but the text of the charter is in a collection published in 1793, and is as above, the two being thus united.

[56] See the very curious story of the attempted suicide and subsequent death of Anthony Joyce, in Pepys's 'Diary,' vol. iii. 355, etc. (Bohn's edition).

[57] Sir John Ayloffe was the first alderman of the ward of Bridge Without (' Stow,' Thoms's edition, p. 156).

[58] Strickland's ' Lives of the Queens' (i. 547), not very good authority.

[59] Riley, ' Memorials,' p. 170.

[60] This story, which has often been regarded as apocryphal, is given in the ' Chronicles' edited by Mr. Stubbs, p. 335, but without the incident of the queen's intercession. It is detailed by Stow, ' Annals,' p. 230. The tournament in Cheap, held in September 1331, may be this one.

[61] Thus Miss Strickland :-" When the young king saw the peril of his wife, he flew into a tempest of rage, and vowed that the careless carpenters who had constructed the building should instantly be put to death. Whether he would thus far have stretched the prerogative of an English sovereign," &c., &c., i. 550.

[62] See Cunningham, under Cheapside. In the 'French Chron.,' p. 62, we read: "En cele an nostre joevene roy ... a Caunterbury fit faire solempne joustes et puisse après à Loundres en Chepe."

[63] For identification of the site, see vol. ii.

[64] Or Bereford.

[65] Beltz, ' Order of the Garter,' 41.

[66] They rest principally on some lines in Froissart. See ' Archæologia,' vol. xxxv., for an interesting paper relating to the "Last Days of Queen Isabella," by Mr. E. A. Bond.

[67] Stubbs, ' Chronicles,' p. lxxxiv.

[68] The details of Edward's foreign campaigns are very pleasantly given in Miss Yonge's ' Cameos.'

[69] See a long and interesting note on the subject, Riley, 'Memorials,' p. 205.

[70] French Chron.' (Riley), p. 283. Andrew Aubrey, "three times mayor and member for the city in 1337," p. 275.

[71] See vol. ii.

[72] Note in Aungier's edition of the ' French Chron.,' p. 64.

[73] Herbert's valiant struggle to connect them must be considered a failure. He does not adduce a single fact which can be accepted as satisfactory.

[74] It has been carefully detailed in a volume by John B. Heath, of which the second edition appeared in 1854.

[75] See Riley, ' Memorials,' p. xviii., as to the origin of this street name. Stow is mistaken in attributing it to Alan le Soper. It has long been merged in Queen Street.

[76] The name of grocer, or rather "grosser," was applied to the pepperers because they sold their goods in gross (see Skeat's 'Dictionary,' p. 245). Retail dealers were called " regrators."

[77] The more carefully the history of the companies is studied, I venture to think, the more clear it becomes that in identifying them with the older guilds a serious obstruction has been placed across the course of the investigator. The only guild which now survives, even in name, is the guild merchant, that is, the corporation. All the others, if they lasted till the Reformation, must then have been dissolved. Many, no doubt, had meanwhile merged in the companies, or more correctly had been superseded by them in the exercise of their secular, as distinguished from their religious, functions. An example of the confusion of guilds and companies is afforded by the history of the Skinners as given in Strype's ' Stow,' where we are told that Edward III . addressed them as the "Guild or Fraternity of the Skinners of London." But the charter really runs-to the king's "beloved men of the city of London called Skinners." (See Herbert, p. 301.)-

[78] Stubbs, 'Constitutional History,' iii. 575.

[79] Chapter iv.

[80] They are said to have had a licence from Henry III . to hold land, an early recognition of a company, if we could accept it. There is probably here a confusion between guild and company. I assume this in the text.

[81] This description of the pepperers or grocers does away with any idea that they were already a company, though long before there had been at least one guild of pepperers (see chap. vi.).

[82] Makers of helmets.

[83] All are printed in Riley's ' Memorials.'

[84] Most of these notes are from Herbert's first volume.