The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

John of Northampton was Mayor for two years, and had held the office of sheriff in 1377 (M.P. for the city, 1378). He was head of John of Gaunt’s supporters and a prominent follower of Wyclif in London. He was leader of the party which sought to gain the favour of the populace, and he encouraged the citizens to set at naught the jurisdiction of their bishop.

He would probably have been returned again in October 1383 as the champion of cheap food if the King had not carried the election of Brembre by force.

Brembre was the chief supporter of Richard II. in the city, and he was the King’s financial agent in 1381. He was first elected Mayor in 1377, and at the Parliament of Gloucester in 1378 Thomas of Woodstock, the King’s uncle, demanded his impeachment as Mayor.

From 1379 to 1386 Brembre was one of the two collectors of customs for the Port of London, with Chaucer for his controller. He was M.P. for London in 1383.

When he succeeded Northampton, in 1383, he set himself to undo the evil caused by the action of his predecessor. Northampton was arrested in 1384, when returning from a riotous demonstration at Whitefriars. He was tried at Reading, before the Council over which the King presided. After a brief imprisonment, the condemned man was brought up for a fresh trial, before Chief-Justice Tresilian, in the Tower of London, and was imprisoned in Tintagel Castle, Cornwall.

Brembre was also opposed to Nicholas Twyford, who would probably have been elected Mayor but for the high-handed proceedings of Brembre. Twyford’s party was confident of victory, and shouted at the election ‘Twyford, Twyford!’; but when the voting commenced the soldiers placed by Brembre behind the arras in the Guildhall rushed out and drove Twyford’s followers from the building. Brembre’s party were allowed to remain, and they carried the election for their candidate.

It is worthy of note that during Brembre’s mayoralty, in 1378, Nicholas Twyford, one of the sheriffs, was brought up for contumacy towards the Mayor, and punished for the same. There had been a conflict in Cheapside between the goldsmiths and the pepperers (grocers), and John Worsele, one of the sheriff’s suite, was brought before the Mayor as a principal mover in the strife. Twyford refused to do the Mayor’s behests as to the imprisonment of his follower after arrest.[231]

With the fall of the King, Brembre also fell, and there was a revolution in the government of the city as well as in that of the country. Northampton was released from Tintagel Castle, and restored to his property; and Brembre was tried for his life, condemned to death, and executed in the Tower in February 1388. The companies who petitioned for Brembre’s punishment were Mercers, Cordwainers, and eight others, all opposed to the victualling trades.

In 1387 a proclamation was made in the city, by the King’s command, forbidding, on pain of death and forfeiture of goods, all true lieges of London to speak evil of the King and Queen. The issuing of this proclamation in the city formed one of the charges of high treason against Brembre and his followers.

In this same year, 1387, a book of civic regulations called Jubile, promulgated by John de Northampton and his party, was ordered to be burnt. Mr. Riley refers to the petitions in Parliament for 1386-1387,[232] where we learn from the petition of the Cordwainers against Nicholas Brembre and his adherents that in this book of Le Jubile ‘were comprised all the good articles pertaining to the good governance of the said city, and that Nicholas Extone, the Mayor, and all the aldermen and good Commons of the city had sworn for ever to maintain them, to the honour of God and the profit of the common people; but that the said Nicholas Extone and his accomplices have burnt it without consent of the good Commons of the city, to the annihilation of many good liberties, franchises and customs of the city.’[233]