For some years Richard governed not unwisely. In 1392, however, he quarrelled with the city. Early in that year he called upon every inhabitant, whose property for the last three years was worth £40 in land or rent, to take upon himself the honour of knighthood. The sheriffs, Henry Vanner and John Shadworth, made a return that all tenements and rents in the city were held of the king in capite as fee burgage at a fee farm (ad feodi firmam); that by reason of the value of tenements varying from time to time, and many of them requiring repair from damage by fire and tempest, their true annual value could not be ascertained, and that, therefore, it was impossible to make a return of those who possessed £40 of land or rent as desired.[708]
The mayor summoned to Nottingham, June, 1392.
This answer was anything but agreeable to the king. But he had other cause just now for being[pg 241] offended with the city. Being in want of money, he had offered a valuable jewel to the citizens as security for a loan, and the citizens had excused themselves on the plea that they were not so well off as they used to be, since foreigners had been allowed to enjoy the same privileges in the city as themselves. Having failed in this quarter, the king had resorted to a Lombard, who soon was able to accommodate him; but when the king learnt on enquiry that the money so obtained had been advanced to the Lombard merchant by the very citizens who had refused to lend it to the king himself, his anger knew no bounds,[709] and he summoned John Hende, the mayor, the sheriffs, the aldermen, and twenty-four of the chief citizens[710] of the City to attend him in June, at Nottingham. They accordingly set out on their journey on the 19th June, and arrived in Nottingham on the 23rd; the government of the city being left in the meanwhile in the hands of William Staundon. On the 25th they appeared before the lords of the council, when the chancellor rated them roundly for paying so little attention to the king's writ—the writ touching knighthood—and complained of the defective manner in which the city was governed.[711]
The mayor and sheriffs committed to prison, June, 1392.
He thereupon dismissed the mayor from office, committing him to Windsor Castle. The sheriffs were likewise dismissed, one being sent to Odyham Castle,[pg 242] and the other to the Castle of Wallingford. The rest of the citizens were ordered to return home.[712]
Sir Edward Dalyngrigge appointed warden of the city, July, 1392.
At nine o'clock in the morning of the 1st July, Sir Edward Dalyngrigge appeared in the Guildhall, and there, before an immense assembly of the commons, read the king's commissions appointing him warden of the city and the king's escheator. The deposed sheriffs were succeeded by Gilbert Maghfeld, or Maunfeld, and Thomas Newton, who remained in office, by the king's appointment,[713] until the end of the year, when they were re-elected, the one by the warden and the other by the citizens.[714] Dalyngrigge was soon afterwards succeeded in the office of warden by Sir Baldwin de Radyngton.[715]
The City fined £100,000, July, 1392.
By way of inflicting further punishment upon the citizens, Richard had already removed the King's Bench and Exchequer from London to York;[716] but the removal proved so much more prejudicial to the nation at large than to the City of London that the courts were soon brought back.[717] He would even have waged open war on them had he dared.[718] Instead of proceeding to this extremity, he summoned the aldermen and 400 commoners to Windsor[719] and fined the City £100,000. This was in July (1392).[pg 243] In August the king notified his intention of passing through the city on his way from Shene to Westminster. The citizens embraced the opportunity of giving him a magnificent reception, which the king acknowledged in the following month by restoring to them their liberties and setting free their late mayor and sheriffs.[720] The fine of £100,000 recently imposed, as well as other moneys which the king considered to be due to him from the city, were also remitted.[721]
Municipal reforms, 1393.