London in the Time of the Stuarts

by Walter Besant

When a really clever thing is done in the name of the King he always gets the credit of the cleverness. The reduction of the City into a collection of men and women without rights, liberties, or government, other than what the King might grant and allow, was a piece of work which reflects the highest credit on whoever devised it, designed it, or carried it out.

The last years of Charles’s reign were occupied in a determined and a successful effort to reduce the Corporation to submission and to make it, so to speak, a pocket borough. In these efforts he completely succeeded. Where the first Charles had failed, the second Charles succeeded.

The petitions of the Corporation were counterbalanced by others from the Borough of Southwark, from the Lieutenancy of London, and from 20,000 ’prentices to the opposite effect.

The last of these petitions gave the greatest pleasure to the Court. The loyal ’prentices were rewarded with a splendid banquet given to them in the Merchant Taylors’ Hall. The Duke of Grafton, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Hyde, and Sir Joseph Williamson acted as stewards, and 1500 tickets were given away among those who had signed the petition. The tickets contained the following invitation: “You are invited, and desired, by the Right Honourable and others of the stewards, elected at a meeting of the loyal young men and addressers, July 28, 1682, to take a dinner (together with other loyal young freemen and apprentices of the City of London) at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, on Wednesday the 9th of this instant August, at 12 o’clock.” The King himself, to grace the board, sent a brace of “very good bucks.” They were carried into the City upright in a cart, stuck with boughs. Three thousand sat down to this entertainment.

Charles, in fact, discovered with joy that there were two parties in the City, and that the loyal party was apparently of strength nearly equal to the “country” party He resolved, therefore, so to manage the conduct of the City as to bring the election of all the officers into the hands of the Royalists—that is to say, into his own hands. The contest began with the election of the Sheriffs.

There had been many attempts made from the commencement of the fourteenth century to take away the election of the Sheriffs from the Commonalty. But in 1347 the Mayor obtained the right, or took the right, of nominating and electing one of the Sheriffs, while the Commonalty elected the other. For 300 years this right was exercised, either without opposition or with faint grumblings.

The Lord Mayor continued to exercise this right for 300 years. In the year 1641, when everything began to be questioned, the Commonalty protested against this custom. The question was referred by the King to the House of Lords, who refused to settle it, ordering that for that year the Mayor’s nominee should be chosen by the Commonalty, without prejudice to the Mayor’s right in the matter.

Here, then, was established a very pretty ground of quarrel. For the next nine years the Mayor continued to nominate and the Commonalty continued to protest. Then for the following nine years the Mayor abandoned his privilege. But it still remained open for him to claim it and to exercise it. In fact, in 1662 he did both. The Commonalty protested but elected his man. For seven years after this the Mayor continued to exercise his right. In 1674, however, the Common Council appointed a Committee to investigate the case. The Mayor drank, as usual, to the man whom he chose. The Committee recommended an Act of Common Council to settle the question. No such Act was passed.

In 1680 the question proceeded to the acute stage. It was just before the discovery by Charles of the strong Court party in the City.

The Mayor nominated one Hockenhall, who refused to serve, and paid his fine. The Commons therefore elected Slingsby Bethel and Henry Cornish, both men of the Puritan party, and the former a strong republican and an enemy to everything that looked like feasting and joy. The nominees of the Court party who suffered defeat were Box and Nicholson. Cornish refused, for instance, to give the customary dinner to the Aldermen. He was regarded with great aversion by the Court party for his republican tendencies.