When the citizens of London, as the custom is, met together for the election of Mayor in the Guildhall, ... and the Aldermen and more discreet citizens would have chosen Philip le Tayllur, the mob of the City, opposing such election and making a great tumult, cried aloud, “Nay, nay, we will have no one for Mayor but Walter Hervi,” who before was Mayor; and against the will of the rest, with all their might, placed him in the seat of the Mayoralty. The Aldermen, however, and many discreet men who sided with them, being unable to make head against the vast multitude of a countless populace, immediately went to his lordship the King and his Council at Westminster; and Walter Herevy, taking with him the populace, proceeded thither in like manner, promising them, as he before had promised, that he would preserve them, one and all, throughout the whole time of his Mayoralty, exempt from all tallages, exactions and tolls, and would keep the City acquitted of all its debts, both as towards the Queen as towards all other persons, out of the arrears in the rolls of the City Chamberlain contained....
The populace, however, ... making a great tumult in the King’s Hall—so much so, that the noise reached his lordship the King in bed, to which he was confined by a severe illness—was continually crying aloud, “We are the Commons of the City, and unto us belongs the election of Mayor of the City, and our will distinctly is, that Walter Herevy shall be Mayor, whom we have chosen.” But on the other hand, the Aldermen shewed by many reasons, that unto them belongs the election of Mayor, both because they, the Aldermen are the heads, as it were, and the populace the limbs, as also because it is the Aldermen who pronounce judgments in pleas moved within the City. Of the populace on the other hand there are many who have neither lands, rents, nor dwellings in the City, being sons of divers mothers, some of them of servile station, and all of them caring little or nothing about the City’s welfare.
ACCUSATIONS AGAINST A MAYOR
A.D. 1271
Firstly, this Walter had unrighteously attested that a certain person had by writ of his lordship the King been admitted attorney in the Court of his lordship the King as to Pleas of Land; whereas it was afterwards ascertained that no writ thereupon had ever been issued from the Chancery....
Also, in the time of his Mayoralty, he received a writ of his lordship the King, commanding him to appear at Westminster on a certain day there to shew by what right the citizens were to give seizin of the Moor to Walter de Merton. Whereupon he, who was head of the City, and ought to be the City’s defender, made default, and did not return the writ; by reason whereof, the said citizens are in danger of losing the said moor.
Also whereas he ... was bound to maintain and cause to be observed all assises made by the Aldermen and discreet men of the City, and proclaimed throughout the whole City, he allowed ale to be sold in his Ward for threehalfpence the gallon, and confirmed such a sale setting the seal of his Aldermanry to a certain unfair measure made against the statutes of the City, which contained only the sixth part of a gallon.
Also, whereas he ought not to take any part or receive any salary, contrary to his oath he takes fees throughout all the City and receives yearly a sum of money from the community of the fishmongers, upon the understanding that he shall support them in their causes whether just or unjust.
Also as to the letters patent which certain persons of the trades made, ordaining statutes to their own proper advantage only and to the loss of all the City and all the realm; to such letters while he was Mayor, he set a part of the seal of the Community....