Mediæval London, Volume 2: Ecclesiastical

by Walter Besant

In 1240, the Aldermen were elected and changed yearly, “but,” says Stow, “that order lasted not long.” (See Appendices II. and III.)

In the same year, following Fabyan’s Chronology, the King began to side with the popular party, intending in this manner to break up the privileges of the City.

At this point it is necessary to seek more closely into the reasons of the weakness which made London an almost unresisting prey to the exactions of this insatiate and insatiable King. The City, which could lend Simon de Montfort a fully equipped army of 15,000 men, might surely at any moment close its gates, keep the mouth of the Thames clear, and defy the King. But for many years it offered no resistance at all. The reason will immediately appear. A change so slow and gradual that it only at this juncture became important was passing over the City of London and its institutions, or to put it more accurately, the institutions themselves remained unchanged, yet assumed new meanings. It was, as has been already advanced, the happiness of London that, except for a very brief episode, its over-lord was the King and none other. The reeve of the borough was the bailiff or steward of this lord. In the name of the lord he was the magistrate; he collected rents, tolls and dues; he called the burgesses to their mote; he took care that the rights of the lord were properly executed. These duties observed, the burgesses were left at liberty to govern themselves. Naturally, when the town became prosperous it began to buy out the privileges of the over-lord. Thus, the Charters of the City of London are the recognition by king after king, that a certain portion of the rights of the over-lord have been bought out or conceded. And the reign of such a king as Henry the Third is a continual disregard of these concessions or purchases, by the assertion over and over again of the rights and powers of the over-lord, never, however, going so far as to give the City to any other over-lord. Thus Henry, as we shall see, in spite of the Charters, held courts in the City by his own justiciar, and called the citizens to plead their own cases at Westminster.

These Charters, then, granted their liberties to the citizens. But who were the citizens? “Land was from the first the test of freedom, and the possession of land was what constituted the townsman.... In England the landless man who dwelled in a borough had no share in its corporate life: for purposes of government or property the town was simply an association of the landed proprietors within its bounds.” (Green’s History of the English People.)

These words explain the whole position. In the twelfth century the government of London was entirely in the hands of certain families who held the land. As we have seen, the wards were their own property, named after them: the heads of these families were hereditary Aldermen of the wards. The members of this corporation or association were themselves, for the most part, engaged in trade. They were the wholesale traders—mercers, drapers, merchant adventurers. They would not admit within their body the craftsmen, who began, however, to form guilds for themselves. And the efforts of the governing body were directed against the formation of the craft guilds which, they plainly saw, would lead to the destruction of their own power. In the reign of Henry the Third this struggle of the Prud hommes or the “wise men”—the men of the ruling class—against the craftsmen was at its fiercest. In the reign of John, they had secured the suppression of the comprehensive weavers’ guild. Slow and difficult is the process and many are the lessons which must be learned, great are the oppressions which must be endured, before men so far overcome their suspicion of each other as to unite for the common good. The Londoner—the man of the commonalty—of Henry the Third could unite for fighting purposes; he could trust his brother to stand by him shoulder to shoulder; what he could not do was to trust his brother-craftsman not to overreach him, or to undersell him. Do we not see the same thing to-day? We think we are better educated and wiser; and we are even now exhorting men to do exactly what these popular leaders of the thirteenth century exhorted them to do, namely—to combine. The commonalty, at first, were galled, not so much by having no share in the administration, for they had never looked for any, but by the suspicion that the real burden of taxation fell upon themselves instead of on the wealthy. The names of the Mayors of this reign sufficiently indicate the side on which the power lay from time to time. Thus Basing, Blunt, Bukerel, Frowyk, FitzWalter are names of the old families: Le Fullour and Grapefig are the names of craftsmen.

Early in the long reign of Henry the Third we find a certain Symon FitzMary, whose name perhaps indicates an origin so obscure that it was only derived from his mother, yet he was one of the Aldermen, one of the popular party, and—which is significant—in the service of the King. Henry, therefore, was playing off the popular against the aristocratic side. Symon was elected Sheriff in the year 1233, but in the first term of his shrievalty he was charged with “wasting the property that formed the issues of the Sheriffwick.” He was, therefore, set aside,—surely a very strong step,—and his clerks were ordered in his place to collect the money that formed the Firma. Six years later, in 1239, Symon presents himself at the election of sheriffs. He has letters from the King commanding the City to elect him. Here we have a deliberate attempt of the King to trample on the Charters. The City refused to obey, and repaired to Court in hopes of conciliating the King’s favour, but could not, “so that,” says FitzThedmar, “the City was without a Mayor for three months, when Gerard Bat, one of the aristocratic party, was elected.” At the next election he was again chosen. Then follows a very curious story. With him “certain of the citizens proceeded to Wodestok, for the purpose of presenting him; and his lordship the King declined to admit him [to the Mayoralty] there, or before he had come to London. And on the third day after, upon the King’s arrival there, he admitted him; and after the oath had been administered to him, that he would restore everything that had before been taken and received, and would not receive the forty pounds which the Mayors had previously been wont to receive from the City, the Mayor said, when taking his departure:—‘Alas! my Lord, out of all this I might have found a marriage portion to give my daughter.’ For this reason the King was moved to anger, and forthwith swore upon the altar of Saint Stephen, by Saint Edward, and by the oath which he that day took upon that altar, and said:—‘Thou shalt not be Mayor this year, and for a very little I would say, Never. Go, now.’ The said Gerard, hereupon, not caring to have the King’s ill-will, resigned the Mayoralty, and Reginald de Bunge was appointed Mayor of London.” (Riley’s edit. FitzThedmar’s Chronicles of Old London, p. 9.)

At the same time we find this oppressive King calling the citizens together at Paul’s Cross, and asking their leave to pass over-seas to Gascony!

On his return, the King took the City into his own hand for harbouring a certain Walter Bukerel without warrant, yet it was proved that Bukerel had been pardoned. He “took the City into his own hand,” i.e. he suspended all the Charters and Liberties; but he gave it to the Mayor, Ralph Aswy, for safe keeping. He then marched north to fight the Scots, but on his return he forbade the sheriffs to perform any of their functions. The City bought their pardon by paying a fine of £1000.

Again we find Symon FitzMary active at the election of the Sheriffs. It was in 1244. Now in 1229 the Aldermen had all taken oath that at no time would they allow the same man to be Sheriff for two consecutive years. Symon, therefore, understanding that it was proposed to re-elect Nicholas Bat, rose in his place and called him a perjurer. Reading between the lines, we understand that the self-denying ordinance of 1229 was a concession to the popular party, and the re-election of Bat in 1244 was due to the return to power of the other side. There was certainly a warm debate, and in the end Symon had to resign his Aldermanry, and Nicholas Bat was re-elected. The case, however, was taken before the King, who refused to admit Nicholas Bat.

To this time belongs a series of determined attacks upon the liberties of the City by the King. There was first the case of Margery Vyel; then the claims of the Abbot of Westminster; and thirdly, the Fair of Westminster. The Fair was granted to the Abbot of Westminster for fifteen days, to be held in Tothill Fields. During its continuance, trade of all kinds was to cease in London. Consider the intolerable nature of this enactment. The City bought off the latter regulation for the sum of £2000. As regards the claims of Westminster Abbey, they were complicated by questions of mediæval law and rights; for a long time they were advanced as a means of worrying the City. Thus, in 1249, the King appointed a “day of love” (i.e. reconciliation) between the City and the Abbot of Westminster. The meeting was held at the Temple. The Mayor, being accompanied by a “countless multitude,” met the Abbot, who had with him certain of the King’s Justices. But there was no conference; the whole of the people, with one consent, declared that they would have no conference, but would abide by their Charters. The case was taken before the King, but nothing seems to have been decided.