After this, consultations being held between the King and his Council, the City was restored to the citizens, and day was given them until the Translation of St. Edward (13 October).
A.D. 1250
... it was enacted by the citizens, that the Wardens of the Bridge, from that day forward, should have, take or claim nothing from the ships or property of citizens passing through the middle of the Bridge [drawbridge]; whereas before they had been wont to take twelve pence for every ship belonging to a citizen, the same as foreigners.
A.D. 1253
In this year, it was enacted by the community, that no one of the franchise of the City should in future pay scavage [due paid for right to display] for his beasts sold on the field of Smethefield, as before they had been wont. In this year, about the season of Lent, the Sheriffs of Middlesex, by precept of his lordship the King, caused all wears to be destroyed that stood in the Thames towards the west; and at this time many nets which were injurious, were burnt in Westchep. Afterwards and before Pentecost, the Sheriffs of London, seeing that the water of Thames pertains to London, by precept of his lordship the King destroyed all the other wears from London to the sea.
A.D. 1254
In this year Ralph Hardel was elected Mayor of London.... And immediately after this, the Barons (of the Exchequer) shewed a writ of his lordship the King, by which precept was given unto them that they should take the City into the King’s hands, for non-observance in the City of the assize of bread and ale. And although the citizens ought not to be molested for such a default as this, but only the Sheriffs, if convicted thereof; still the City was taken into the King’s hands, and delivered into the custody of John de Gyseorz, the said John being sworn before the Barons; after which the clerks and all the serjeants of the Sheriffs, as also the Wardens of the Gates, the Thames and the Gaol, were there sworn. And all this had been discussed in the Parliament aforesaid, because the citizens, being divided among themselves, would not appear there before Earl Richard, as they had promised him, to put an end to a matter on which they had frequently entreated him before, namely, the Exchange.
Afterwards the citizens waited upon the Earl to entreat his favour; whereupon he named to them a day at London, saying that he would do nothing therein without counsel of the King, to whom a moiety of the issues of the Exchange belonged. After this, on the third day after the Feast of St. Edmund the Archbishop, the citizens of Westminster made fine to the said Earl before the Council of his lordship the King, in a sum of 600 marks; whereupon all claims were remitted on account of the Exchange, and the Mayor and Sheriffs were restored to their bailiwicks.
(King Henry attempts to make the City answerable for a felon escaped from Newgate).
To this the citizens made answer, that the custody of the Gaol does not belong to them, but to the Sheriffs only. Whereupon answer was made to them by the King, that as they make the Sheriffs, they themselves ought to be answerable for them. To this the citizens said, that they do not make the Sheriffs, but only have to choose them, and present them to the Barons of his lordship the King; and that such Sheriffs can do nothing in respect of their office, before they have been admitted at the Exchequer; that in no point ought they to be answerable for the Sheriffs, save only as to the ferm due from the Sheriffwick, and only then, when the Sheriffs themselves are not of sufficient means to pay the ferm.