On the other hand, Peter of Blois replied to the gentle Bishop of Coventry with a letter which must have awakened in the mind of that prelate something of the ungovernable wrath which belonged to his time. He says: “The Bishop of Ely [Longchamp], one beloved by God and men, a man amiable, wise, generous, kind, and meek, bounteous and liberal to the highest degree, had by the dispensations of the Divine favour, and in accordance with the requirements of his own manners and merits, been honoured with the administration of the State, and had thus gained the supreme authority. With feelings of anger you beheld this, and forthwith he became the object of your envy. Accordingly, your envy conceived vexation and brought forth iniquity; whereas he, walking in the simplicity of his mind, received you into the hallowed precincts of his acquaintanceship, and with singleness of heart, and into the bonds of friendship and strict alliance. His entire spirit reposed upon you, and all your thoughts unto him were for evil.” (Roger de Hoveden, Riley’s trans., vol. ii. p. 238.)
We have not to determine the guilt or the innocence of the Chancellor; it is enough to learn that there were opposite views.
The Barons and Bishops were headed by John, Earl of Mortain,[2] brother of the King.
It was notorious that of all those who went out to fight the Saracen, few returned. Richard, in the Holy Land, was not sparing himself; it was therefore quite likely that he would meet his death upon the battlefield. Then, as the heir to the crown was a child, and as a man, and not a child, was wanted on the throne, John had certainly every reason to believe that his own accession would be welcomed. He prepared the way, therefore, by joining the popular cause, and put himself at the head of the malcontents.
And now, at last, the citizens saw their chance. They offered to use the whole power of the City for John and the barons, but on conditions. J. H. Round, in his Origin of the Mayoralty of London, p. 3, says:—
“It was at about the same time that the ‘Commune’ and its ‘Maire’ were triumphantly reaching Dijon in one direction, and Bordeaux in another, that they took a northern flight and descended upon London. Not for the first time in her history, the Crown’s difficulty was London’s opportunity, and when in October, 1191, the administration found itself paralysed by the conflict between the King’s brother John, and the King’s representative, the famous Longchamp, London, finding that she held the scales, promptly named the concession of a ‘Commune’ as the price of her support. The chroniclers of the day enable us to picture to ourselves the scene, as the excited citizens who had poured forth overnight, with lanterns and torches, to welcome John to the capital, streamed together on the morning, of the eventful 8th October, at the well-known summons of the great bell, swinging out from its campanile in St. Paul’s Churchyard. There they heard John take the oath to the ‘Commune,’ like a French King or Lord, and then London for the first time had a municipality of her own. What the English and territorial organisation could never have brought about, the foreign Commune, with its commercial basis, could and did accomplish.
And as London alone had her ‘Commune,’ so London alone had her Mayor. The ‘Maire’ was unquestionably imported with the ‘Commune,’ although it is not till the spring of 1193 that the Mayor of London is first mentioned. But already in 1194 we find a citizen accused of boasting that ‘come what may the Londoners shall never have any King but their Mayor.’”
“Not for the first time.” Remember that in 1066, after the battle of Hastings, London only admitted William as King on conditions. London elected Henry the First King on conditions. London made Stephen King on conditions. London received the Empress on conditions; a week later the Queen also on conditions; and now, once more, London saw its chance—such a chance as might never occur again—for getting what it wanted—on conditions.
Let us, however, enter more fully into the details of this victory, and into the causes which led to concession.
Longchamp gave the barons an opening by his attempted exclusion of Geoffrey, Archbishop of York (natural brother of the King), from the kingdom, and his forcible seizure of the Archbishop from the very horns of the Altar. Geoffrey complained to John, who gave orders that the Chancellor should stand his trial for the injury he had done to the Archbishop. Remembering the position of Longchamp, as the actual representative of the King, this summons was in the nature of an ultimatum. As regards the City, Longchamp had alienated many of the citizens by his exactions and by the great works which he carried on at the Tower, a point on which the citizens were always extremely jealous.