VI

A BRIEF VIEW OF

his solemn oath, and to other foreign potentates for military aid. With this assistance he commenced a civil war against the Barons, who sought and found protection within the walls of the city. He then fulminated against all concerned a thundering anathema from Rome, which was received with indifference. The citizens, although exempted by their charter from going to war, raised, it is said, a numerous army, both of horse and foot, besides fitting out a powerful fleet to protect their com

merce.

On Henry III. succeeding to the throne, his first public act was to confirm the great charter. The citizens of London received their young king with every possible demonstration of attachment; but between them and the courtiers, who had been the supporters of John, there was any feeling but that of cordiality to each other.

On the death of his wise and liberal minister, the Earl of Pembroke, Henry threw himself into the entire guidance of Hubert-de-Burgh, who, as chief minister and justiciary of the kingdom, acted with cruel and arbitrary measures. He suspended the operations of the great charter, and hanged Fitz-Arnulp (a citizen who had been engaged in a tumult against the abbot of Westminster), and two other citizens, without any trial. He also usurped the city authorities into his own hands, caused the king to amerce them in a large sum, and appointed a custos over it instead of their own chief magistrate. When the citizens remonstrated against this infraction of a solemn charter, he demanded a fifteenth of all their moveables for granting a restoration of it. He also prohibited all schools of law to be held in London, where the articles of the great and the forest charters were taken as subjects for discussion.

On the king's coming of age, De Burgh incurred his displeasure, and, with a fickleness natural to him, the discarded minister was first given up to the mayor and citizens to be dealt with as he deserved; but on the remonstrance of Ranulph, Earl of Chester, the order was recalled, to the great disappointment of the ill-treated citizens.

Great as was the displeasure of the citizens, against the king's measures, they would not omit their usual splendour and liberality at the coronation of queen Eleanor at Westminster; for the mayor, aldermen, and chief citizens went out with much splendour to welcome the royal consort. The king's extravagance and misrule brought him into such distress that he was compelled to pawn the crown jewels to relieve his necessities. These national pledges were accepted by the citizens, to prevent their deposit with the Burghers of Antwerp, or the Jews of Amsterdam, the usual money lenders of that day. But, when the king heard who were the lenders of the money, he expressed great contempt for and displeasure at the party.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF LONDON.

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The king therefore bore no great good will towards his good citizens of London, and proved his regard by most exorbitant exactions, and the various schemes of pillaging he resorted to so disgusted the citizens, that they joined cordially in the league made by the Barons against him.

In this king's reign is the first recorded instance of supplying the city with water, by means of pipes; which was brought from six fountains in the village of Tyburn.

The enmity between the king and the city daily increased, and he exhibited his wrath by fines and curtailment of their ancient privileges; which however they recovered by their wonted energy and perseverance. Henry, on the birth of his son Edward, affected to be reconciled to the city, that he might induce the corporation to take oaths of fealty to the new-born prince; and at the same time he made additional and expensive fortifications to the Tower of London, hoping thereby to overawe the rebellious citizens.

In the twenty-fifth year of this king's reign, according to the chronicles of Sir Richard Baker, aldermen were first chosen to rule the wards of the city, but they were changed annually in the manner of the sheriffs; the houses were mostly covered, or thatched with straw, and a former edict that all future buildings should be of stone, with party walls, and covered with slates or tiles, was renewed. In the same year, the king granted a considerable sum towards building the new abbey church at Westminster. A common seal, which in fact, if not in name, now first incorporated the city as a body, was likewise granted in this reign.

Notwithstanding the readiness of the citizens to comply with all the king's reasonable demands, he still continued to oppress them under various pretences; in consideration however of receiving a large sum of money, he granted them a new charter, which confirmed all they had hitherto enjoyed. Yet his craving for money, and enmity to the city, continued unabated; and after numerous acts of tyranny, and conferences, he violated and granted in succession no less than nine different charters. So much had he drained the city by his continual extortions, that the most eminent citizens found difficulty in procuring provisions for their families, and the poor were reduced to a dreadful state of famine.

In consequence of prince Edward breaking open the treasury of the knight's Templars, in 1263, and robbing it of a large sum deposited there by the citizens, the inhabitants commenced retaliation upon the court by assaulting and plundering the houses of Lord Gray and others of the nobility. The barons being engaged in hostilities with the king demanded aid of the Londoners; but Henry, who came and resided in the Tower, endeavoured to cajole them with fair words and promises; finding however they could no longer submit to the arbitrary will of so faithless a monarch, they marched to give him battle, when it was agreed to refer all their

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After

differences to the king of France: the latter deciding in favour of Henry, the citizens headed by the constable of the Tower marched to Isleworth, where they destroyed the palace of the king of the Romans, and on their return pulled down the king's summer residence near Westminster. this they returned in triumph, and further hostilities continued with various fortunes. The king, having routed the barons, called a parliament at Westminster, which enacted "that the City of London, for its late rebellion, should be divested of its liberties, should have its posts and chains taken away, and its principal citizens imprisoned and left to the mercy of the king." In consequence of this act, he imprisoned several of the leading citizens, who went to Windsor to implore his clemency, and dismissed the whole of their magistracy. The corporation at length obtained pardon and a new charter, on payment of 20,000 marks.

It was in this reign the city watching and warding were first established. Westminster Abbey was completed, and many privileges were conferred on the city by prince Edward the king's son, who, being appointed governor by his father, obtained for the citizens a recognition of their right to choose their own chief magistrate and other immunities, according to ancient charter.

On the death of Henry, his son, then engaged in the Crusades, succeeded to the throne as Edward I., and testified his regard for the citizens of London, by transmitting to them a letter, wherein he ordered the expulsion of the Flemings. This mark of the king's personal regard for a city whose chief magistrate he had been whilst prince, was accepted with such gratitude by the citizens, that they received him on his arrival from Palestine with unbounded joy and magnificence. In return the king acted as moderator, in a violent dissension which broke out as to the choice of a mayor; and in the third year of his reign he honoured the city by appointing its mayor his ambassador beyond seas, and directed four citizens chosen by their fellows to supply the place of mayor during his absence.

In this year the convent of the Black-friars was founded and built by a license from the crown, and also a wall and tower at the head of it for his Majesty's reception. This wall reached from Ludgate westward, behind the houses to Fleet ditch, and thence southward to the river Thames; for the completion of which the king granted the citizens a duty on certain merchandizes for three years.

At this period of Edward's reign, the city first began to be governed by wards as at present, and elected a select body from among themselves called the lord mayor's common council, and were first summoned to parliament by the king's writ. In 1281 London Bridge had become so dangerous from decay that the citizens applied to the king for aid, which he granted by authorizing a toll to be collected for its repair, and shortly after gave them certain other duties for the reparation of the public buildings

and enclosure of the city. Five of the arches of London Bridge having been carried away, a subsidy was granted to the corporation for its repair.

In the twelfth year of this reign, the mayor, aldermen and sheriffs, having been summoned to appear before the justices in Eyre at the Tower, the former refused to appear in his magisterial capacity, but attended as a private citizen: the king was so incensed at this conduct that he immediately deprived the city of all its franchises, and appointed a custos, who held the authority of the mayor for above twelve years; but which was afterwards restored to the citizens in consideration of a moderate fine.

The city, says Mr. Norton, was never after in this reign molested in its rights; and so firmly does the supreme authority of the law appear to have been established, that upon a mandate coming from the king, directed to the mayor and sheriffs, which appeared to infringe the privileges of the citizens, they did not hesitate to return for answer-that they could not be charged to obey it; and they actually refused so to do, with impunity.

In the twenty-eighth year of this reign, the Goldsmith's company of London was invested with the privilege of assay; and in 1304, we first read of a recorder of London, when Geoffrey de Hartlepole, alderman, was chosen to that dignity.

On the death of Edward I. the sceptre was transferred to the feeble hands of his son, Edward II., who began his reign by acts of severity against the city. Part of the fine due from the city to his father being unpaid, he issued a writ of fieri facias, from the exchequer, and distrained the goods of the citizens. He was guilty of many other similar acts of tyranny, yet the citizens received him on his first solemn entry, in 1308, with a degree of magnificence that sufficiently testified their loyalty. In this reign, we find the first authentic mention of the mercantile constitution of the civic corporation, and of the mercantile qualifications requisite in candidates for the freedom of the city. A number of articles of regulation were drawn by the citizens, approved by the king, and afterwards confirmed to them by a deed known by the title of the first charter of Edward II.

In 1310 the order of knights Templars in London was subverted, their persons having been arrested in England as well as all over the continent. They were however allowed trifling pensions by the king, during their imprisonment in the four city gates.

The citizens, in resentment of some indignity received from the king, levelled to the ground a mud wall that had been erected by Henry III. to enclose the Tower, and which encroached within the city walls. The king in punishment for this act of indiscretion fined them in 1000 marks, but renewed to them their former privileges of recovering their rents by gavelot. In 1317 the king summoned a parliament at York, and directed the sheriffs

to return two of their fellow citizens, but in the return to the court, the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs and commonalty returned three.

The king having resigned the government entirely into the hands of his tyrannical favourites, the two Spencers, the barons resented this conduct, and summoned a parliament to meet in the city, where the nobility repaired with such a train of attendants, that they equalled in number a considerable army. The conduct of the barons and the citizens was so prudent that the king was compelled to assent to their terms, and gave them many additional privileges, and another charter. The rest of this reign was spent in continual squabbles between the court and the city; both the Spencers were hanged, and the head of the younger one stuck upon London Bridge. The king, who had taken refuge in Wales, was sent to London, and confined in the Tower. The parliament voted his deposition in 1327, and his son Edward, then only fourteen years of age, was chosen to succeed him.

The young king Edward III. was received by the Londoners with great enthusiasm, and, with the constitutional consent of his parliament, granted them an ample charter comprising the power of trying prisoners within their own jurisdiction, and of trying citizens convicted of crimes in other parts within the city, called the rights of infang-theft and outfang-theft. He also added by a second charter the village of Southwark to the jurisdiction of the city.

In 1329, several ambassadors from foreign kingdoms having arrived, the king ordered a grand tournament to be performed in Cheapside, in honour of his illustrious visitors, which is a proof of the estimation in which he held the citizens, whose foreign trade had increased to such an extent, that in 1331 the customs of the port of London, at the very low rate of duty at that period, amounted to above £8000 a year.

In 1338 an expedition was formed against France; and the prince of Wales, afterwards known by the title of the Black Prince, who was regent during his father's absence, issued a precept to the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs of London, commanding them to shut up and fortify their city next the Thames, against a French fleet, that had already invaded the realm in several places. In the following year the citizens advanced to the king the sum of 20,000 marks, raised by a general assessment on each ward. In this king's reign another dispute arose between him and the Londoners, concerning an encroachment on their liberties, by the judges holding an inquisition in the Tower, which ended in a general enquiry, and a new charter.

The king, wanting money to carry on the war with France, endeavoured to raise some, by compelling every citizen possessed of £40 a year to take upon himself the order of knighthood, and a writ was accordingly issued to the sheriffs; but the citizens, not being so fond of honours as in