LONDON UNDER THE EARLY STUARTS (1642).
The following passage from Clarendon's History states very clearly the relations between Charles I. and the City in 1642, when the King's general attitude was anything but conciliatory, and London was definitely attaching itself to the Parliamentary cause. The royal policy was not in the least calculated to induce a friendly feeling on the part of the metropolis; neither Charles nor his father appeared to have realised the immense importance of gaining the good-will of the citizens, and Clarendon quite fairly and impartially sets forth the facts when he refers to the wealth of the City, and the unjust treatment which it experienced at the hands of the first Stuart monarchs.
Source.—Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion, iv. 178.
The city of London, as the metropolis of England, by the situation the most capable of trade, and by the not [un]usual residence of the Court, and the fixed station of the courts of justice for the public administration of justice throughout the kingdom, the chief seat of trade, was by the successive countenance and favour of princes strengthened with great charters and immunities, and was a corporation governed within itself; the mayor, recorder, aldermen, sheriffs, chosen by themselves; several companies incorporated within the great incorporation; which, besides notable privileges, enjoyed lands and perquisites to a very great revenue. By the incredible increase of trade, (which the distractions of other countries, and the peace of this, brought,) and by the great license of resort thither, it was, since the access of the crown to this King, in riches, in people, in buildings, marvellously increased, insomuch as the suburbs were almost equal to the city; a reformation of which had been often in contemplation, never pursued, wise men foreseeing that such a fulness could not be there without an emptiness in other places, and whilst so many persons of honour and estates were so delighted with the city, the government of the country must be neglected, besides the excess and ill husbandry that would be introduced thereby. But such foresight was interpreted a morosity, and too great an oppression upon the common liberty; and so, little was applied to prevent so growing a disease.
As it had these, and many other, advantages and helps to be rich, so it was looked upon too much of late time as a common stock not easy to be exhausted, and as a body not to be grieved by ordinary acts of injustice; and therefore it was not only a resort in all cases of necessity for the sudden borrowing great sums of money, (in which they were commonly too good merchants for the Crown,) but it was thought reasonable upon any specious pretences to avoid the security that was at any time given for money so borrowed.
So, after many questions of their charter, (which were ever removed by considerable sums of money,) a grant made by the King in the beginning of his reign, in consideration of great sums of money, of good quantities of land in Ireland, and the city of Londonderry there, was avoided by a suit in the Star-Chamber, all the lands (after a vast expense in building and planting,) resumed into the King's hands, and a fine of £50,000 imposed upon the city. Which sentence being pronounced after a long and public hearing, during which time they were often invited to a composition, both in respect of the substance and the circumstances of proceeding, made a general impression in the minds of the citizens of all conditions much to the disadvantage of the Court; and though the King afterwards remitted to them the benefit of that sentence, they imputed that to the power of the Parliament, and rather remembered how it had been taken from them than by whom it was restored: so that at the beginning of the Parliament the city was as ill affected to the Court as the country was, and therefore chose such burgesses to sit there as had either eminently opposed it or accidentally been oppressed by it.
A PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE CITY (1643).
On the outbreak of civil war it soon became clear that many of the trading centres of the country, including London, would take up arms against the King. The commercial interests of the country had been so persistently assailed, royal interference in matters of trade had been so marked, that this situation was not at all surprising. It is hardly necessary to point out that the King, in the preamble to this proclamation, shows either insincerity or ignorance. The citizens of London and of the other towns had no particularly strong object in their resistance beyond obtaining reasonable security for their interests, and the attempt to isolate London from intercourse with the rest of the country was as ill-advised as it was futile.
Source.—Rushworth's Collections, part iii., vol. ii., p. 365.
His Majesty having, with unwearied patience, hitherto expected that the City of London, and the Citizens and inhabitants thereof, should at last return to their obedience; having used all the endeavours he could to reduce them thereunto; but finding that, by the malice of their misleaders, they are so obdurate, that the very name of peace and reconciliation is with them accounted a crime, and that that City is both the seat of rebellion, and the pattern to all ill-affected subjects of the kingdom, by whose example and assistance some other cities and towns do also stand out against his Majesty in open rebellion, not only to the disturbance, but even to the destruction of the whole kingdom, if God in his mercy do not entirely timely it; his Majesty therefore, by his Royal Proclamation, dated at Oxford the seventh day of July now last past, for the many reasons in that proclamation mentioned, did prohibit all persons, with any of their goods, victuals, or merchandize whatsoever, to travel to or from the City of London, or suburbs thereof, without his Majesty's express licence for the same, under his Sign Manual, under the pains and penalties in the said Proclamation mentioned.