Thayre false tresoun brougte hem in woo,
Thus in every thynge, Lorde, thy wille be doo.”
(Political Poems and Songs, Ed. III.—Rich. III., p. 277;
edited by Thomas Wright.)
These tumults appeased, and the Civil Wars apparently ended, the City got itself to work upon a question of morals.
William Hampton, Mayor in 1473, hit upon a notable device of terrifying evil-doers. Until then, one pair of stocks had been considered sufficient for the whole City. Hampton set up a pair in every Ward. He also hunted out the women of loose conduct; “he corrected”—i.e. flogged—
“strumpets and causyd them to be ladde aboute the towne with raye hoodes upon their heddes divers and many; and spared none for mede nor for favour, that were by the law atteynted, notwithstanding that he might have taken xl pounds of redy money to hym offerid for to have spared one from that jugment.” (Fabyan.)
Henry’s remains lay in state at St. Paul’s and at Blackfriars. It was necessary that people should understand that he was really dead and out of the way. They were then carried to Chertsey where they were buried. Edward knighted all the Aldermen. Sharpe gives the list, in which one is grieved to find neither Robert Basset nor Ralph Jocelyn.
In the year 1475 by an Act of Common Council the election of the Mayor was ordered to be made henceforth by the Mayor, Aldermen, Common-Councilmen, and Liverymen of the City. And so it has remained ever since. Only while the City gave the election to the Liverymen it included all those who had the freedom of the City, excluding any other residents, tenants, foreigners, great Lords, or their followers. The house called “Gildhalla Teutonicorum,” the Steelyard, was in this year granted to the Hanseatic League. The history of this house will be considered separately.
Two more charters were obtained from the King. One granted permission to hold lands in mortmain to a limited extent: the other gave the City the privilege of package, portage, garbling of spices, gauging, wine-drawing, etc., a charter of a commercial and technical kind.