Mediæval London, Volume 2: Ecclesiastical

by Walter Besant

FitzThedmar here remarks that some of the persons who had sided with the Earl of Gloucester took to flight, and there were among them some who, in the time of the late Mayor, FitzThomas, styled themselves the “Commons of the City.” On the election of a citizen “to attend to the duties of Sheriff of Middlesex and Warden of London,” the people clamoured for FitzThomas, who was probably by this time lying in his grave.

The citizens petitioned, but in vain, for the right of electing their Mayor and Sheriffs. In the following year, 1266, John Adrian and Luke de Battencurt were chosen Bailiffs instead of Sheriffs.

Out of the confusion and trouble of the time we can gather that the trade of London was brought to a standstill; that there were massacres of Jews; that there were riots in the streets, quarrels between trades, in one of which as many as 500 men went out armed and fought in the streets; that the trades continued to combine and to form companies, but without rule and supervision, so that they claimed work belonging to other trades, and caused ill-feeling; that there was no order kept in the wards, and no authority of the Aldermen. The Mayors, during the period following the Battle of Evesham, were appointed by the King. Fabyan says that there is uncertainty about this time, some being of opinion that there were no Mayors but only custodes. Fabyan also says that Thomas FitzThomas was released. He enters his name as Mayor for 1269-70. But his dates do not agree with those of Stow. In the latter year Prince Edward took the City into his own hands and appointed Hugh FitzOtho Constable of the Tower and Custos of the City. A few months of despotic and military rule smoothed the troubled waters of faction and restored order to the distracted City. The last years of King Henry’s reign were years of peace and rest. But he had done what he wished to do—he had deprived the proud City of its wealth, its liberty, and its rights.

The first phase of the contest between the oligarchy and the populace comes to an end. The former party is greatly broken up; the wards cease to be called by the names of their Aldermen.

In December 1269 an order was issued by the King that all those persons who, on the restoration of the City to him, had withdrawn, should be proclaimed publicly, and should be forbidden ever to return to the City under pain of life and limb. Their names were read out in the Guildhall and afterwards cried in the streets. There were fifty-seven of them; the list has been preserved by FitzThedmar. All, with a few exceptions, were craftsmen. Cofferer, Baker, Cook, Goldsmith, Ironworker, Fuller, Plumer, Broker, Butcher, Armourer, Chaloner, with a few mercers and others belonging to wholesale trades.

This act of justice accomplished, the citizens were once more granted the right of electing their Mayor and Sheriffs, but with the increase of the firma from £300 to £400.

They proceeded to exercise this right, apparently, with sadness and soberness, and with a compromise. The Mayor was John Adrian, of the aristocratic party; the Sheriffs were two craftsmen. The following year Walter Hervey, a man of the people, was Mayor, and two of the other side were Sheriffs.

The election of the Mayor of the following year is a most interesting and instructive story. Fabyan, we may observe, puts the election in the second year of Edward’s reign; Arnold FitzThedmar, one of the Aldermen concerned, and therefore an eye-witness, assigns it to the last days of King Henry and the earliest days of King Edward.

On the 28th of October, the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, the citizens met at the Guildhall for the election of the new Mayor. The Aldermen and the more “discreet” citizens—it is one of them who tells the tale—proposed the name of Philip le Tayllor. According to usage, their nominee ought to have been accepted; but the people in the body of the Hall refused to accept him, and cried out with a great tumult, “Nay, nay, we will have no one but Walter Hervey,” and against the will of the Aldermen—one pictures a good deal of hustling and pushing—they placed their own man in the seat of the Mayor.

It is not surprising that the same kind of accusations, which had formerly been brought against William Longbeard and Thomas FitzThomas, were now brought against Walter Hervey. He is said to have persuaded and promised the people that he would keep them free from all tallages, extortions, and tolls, and that they believed his word, and followed him by thousands, even in multitudes, without number. We remember that 50,000 are said to have followed Longbeard. The charge of gaining over the people by grand promises is very likely true; the demagogue has always resorted to the same methods of persuasion; in the end to the detriment or the ruin of the cause. One understands that the more popular leaders of London between 1190 and 1272 were men who desired, above all things, to render impossible the burden of unequal taxation, and to give the commons a voice in the management of their own affairs. This twofold aim is really one, because it was believed that the people, if they had the power, would exercise it wisely and justly. The leaders, however, did not realise that the average man understands by justice the shifting of his burden to the shoulders of some other man, and he is quite careless who that other man is.