And now we may ask what it was that the City got with its new form of government. The Mayor took over the whole control of trade, which had been in the hands of the mysterious Guild Merchant; but with this vast difference, that he was provided with powers to enforce his ordinances. He took over, in addition, the administration of justice, the maintenance of order in the City, the subjection of all the various Courts and Ward Motes under one Central Court, with its Magistrates, its Bailiffs, its Officers, and its Servants. London as a corporate body actually began in 1191. The Sheriffs lost a great part of their importance; the Aldermen became, but not immediately, Magistrates of the City and not of the Wards only; the citizens themselves began to elect their representatives to rule the City; the regulations of the various crafts passed under the licensing authority of a Judge and his Assessors, who enforced their commands by penalties. In a word, the Commune abolished the ancient treatment of the City as an aggregate of private properties, each of which had its own Lord of the Manor, or Alderman, and substituted one great City, presided over by a representative possessed of power and authority, and backed by the strong arm of the law.
KING JOHN SIGNING MAGNA CHARTA
After the painting by Ernest Normand in the Royal Exchange, London. By permission of the Artist.
The step, in fact, made the future development of London possible and natural. Wherever there is self-government there is the power of adjusting laws and customs to meet changed conditions. Where there is no self-government there is no such power. A long succession of the wisest and most benevolent Kings would never have done for London what London was thus enabled to do for herself, because, to use the familiar illustration, it is only the foot which knows where the shoe pinches.
We must not claim for the wisdom of our ancestors that London advanced at once, and by a single step, to the full recognition of the possibilities before her. I admit that there were many failures; we know that there were jealousies and animosities; that there were times when the Mayor was unable to cope with the difficulties of the situation—for example, when Edward the First suppressed the Mayoralty altogether, and for eleven years ruled the City strongly and wisely,—but we can claim for the City that there was continuous and steady advance in the direction of orderly and just administration, and that the unity of the City, thus recognised and conceded, became a most powerful factor in the extension and expansion of the City and its trade.
To return to the changes made possible. The chief officer of the City was called a Mayor, after French custom; the Mayor was not appointed by the King; he was elected by the citizens from their own body; his powers were at first indefinite and uncertain; thus, the first act of Edward the Third, a hundred years later, was to make the Mayor one of the Judges of Oyer and Terminer for the trials of criminals in Newgate; the citizens’ right of electing the Mayor was always grudgingly conceded and continually violated. I suppose, next, that the practice of electing the Aldermen, which came in gradually, was accelerated by the natural desire of the citizens to elect all their officers. Another cause was undoubtedly the fact that the manors, or wards, of the City did not continue in the hands of the original families. The holders parted with their property; perhaps they retained certain manorial rights, which were afterwards bought out. The wards in which this happened began to elect their Aldermen; by the year 1290 there were only four wards still named after the Lords of the Manor. And it seems reasonable that, as soon as the City had a recognised head and chief under the King, he would be considered first, so that the Bishop’s Aldermanry naturally fell into abeyance. Certainly we find no more Charters addressed to the Bishop. The first Mayor remained Mayor for twenty-five years; that is to say, for life. It is natural to suppose that he was at first put forward on occasion as the City’s spokesman, as well as its chief officer. It is not absolutely certain that the Mayor was first appointed in 1191, when John granted the “Commune.” In some French towns the Mayor, as we have seen, came after the Commune, but he is mentioned in 1193. In 1194 Richard’s Charter makes no mention of the Mayor; he existed, certainly, but he was not yet acknowledged. In 1215—May 8th—John conceded the citizens the privilege of electing their Mayor.
This concession to London was followed by the same concession to other cities and towns of England. The Commune or municipality of London became the model for all other municipalities granted to other towns. It is also the model for all municipalities created wherever our race settles itself, and wherever an English-speaking town is founded. This fact makes the history we have just considered of the most vital interest and importance to every citizen or burgess in whatever town is governed by Mayor, Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council.
I cannot do better than sum up these notes on the changes effected by the Commune with another quotation from Dean Stubbs:—
“The Communa of London, and of those other English towns which in the twelfth century aimed at such a constitution, was the old English guild in a new French garb; it was the ancient association, but directed to the attainment of municipal rather than mercantile privileges; like the French communa, it was united and sustained by the oaths of its members and of those whom it could compel to support it. The mayor and the jurati, the mayor and jurats, were the framework of the communa, as the aldermen and brethren constituted the guild, and the reeve and good-men the magistracy of the township. And the system which resulted from the combination of these elements, the history of which lies outside our present period and scope, testifies to their existence in a continued life of their own. London, and the municipal system generally, has in the mayor a relic of the communal idea, in the alderman the representative of the guild, and in the councillors of the wards, the successors to the rights of the most ancient township system. The jurati of the Commune, the brethren of the guild, the reeve of the ward, have either disappeared altogether, or taken forms in which they can scarcely be identified.”