In the same year the City recovered the right of the Great Beam. The King had taken over this important right with all the profits belonging to it and had conveyed it to Sir William Sidney. For ten years the City had been endeavouring to recover their rights even by bribing, but without success. In 1531 a compromise was arrived at, by which Sir William Sidney continued to hold the Beam at an annual rent, and by Royal Charter the right was once more conveyed to the Mayor and Corporation, the Grocers’ Company having the privilege of appointing the weighers.
Another attempt was made to regulate the price of food. It was complained that butchers who were not freemen had put up stalls along Leadenhall Street where they sold their meat before the doors of the houses. The Mayor made them all go into Leadenhall Market, where they had to pay rent to the Corporation. He also fixed the price of beef at a half-penny a pound, and of mutton at three-farthings. As a whole sheep could be bought for 2s. 10d., it would seem as if the whole sheep weighed only 45 lbs. It was discovered, however, that the regulation only made meat dearer. Therefore it was not enforced. At this time French wine was sold at 8d. a gallon; Malmsey and other sweet wines at a shilling.
In 1542 occurred the business of George Ferrers. He was M.P. for Plymouth, and he was arrested for debt in the City and lodged in the Compter, a manifest infringement of the privileges of the House. The Serjeant-at-Arms was therefore ordered by the House to proceed to the City and to demand the release of the prisoner. The Sheriffs—Rowland Hill and Henry Suckley—in their zeal for the privileges of Parliament, not only refused to obey, but abused the serjeant and maltreated him. Upon which he returned to Westminster and informed the House of what had been done. The House therefore ordered the serjeant to return and to demand the prisoner without writ or warrant. Meanwhile the Sheriffs had learned the meaning of their action and were beginning to feel uncomfortable. They released the prisoner and, accompanied by the creditor, one White, they attended at the Bar of the House. The Sheriffs and the creditor and one of their clerks were sent to the Tower; the arresting clerk and four others to Newgate. And in this melancholy plight they continued for some days, until they were released by the intercession of the Mayor. This was an example to all future Sheriffs not to take too much upon themselves.
About this time also the principal streets of the suburbs were first completely paved: viz. Holborn, High Street, Aldgate as far as Whitechapel Church, Chancery Lane, Gray’s Inn Lane, Shoe Lane, Fetter Lane, White Cross Street, Chiswell Street, Grub Street, Shoreditch, Goswell Street, St. John’s Street, Cannon Street, Wych Street, Holy Well Street (by Clement Danes), the Strand; Petty France in Westminster; Water Lane in Fleet Street; Long Lane in Smithfield; and Butcher Row without Temple Bar. The paving was not yet the flat slab of stone introduced later, but the round cobble stone, with a channel or gutter running down the middle.
In 1543 an Act was passed empowering the City to bring water from Hampstead and Muswell Hill, and two years later a conduit was set up in Lothbury with water from Hoxton Fields. ([Appendix I.])
The death of Henry left the City in a condition of the greatest confusion and disorder. The streets were full of returned soldiers, and of the idle vagabonds who follow the army: in holes and corners there were lurking unfrocked friars and people turned out of their work in the Religious Houses; there were no hospitals for the sick; none for the blind; none for the insane. If these were the fruits of the King’s supremacy, then, men whispered to each other, it were better to return to the old superstitions.
CHAPTER III
EDWARD VI
The City presents few points of interest during this reign which do not belong to the national history. The Progress of the Reformation is the subject which more especially belongs to and interests the world in this young King’s short reign.
