of these divisions with some success, and in 1261, shortly before the outbreak of the Barons' War, Fitz Thomas was elected Mayor, apparently with the temporary approval of the King, against Fitz Richard, the representative of the aristocratic burghers. In any case Fitz Thomas soon broke with the King and voiced the cause of the lower people. To the indignation of the Alderman chronicler Fitz Thedmar, Fitz Thomas encouraged them to style themselves the commons of the people, and followed their will without consulting the Aldermen or chief citizens. He acquiesced in an attack made on the French merchants, to whom Henry III had shown favour, and in still more questionable deeds. The people leagued themselves together by oath by the hundred and by the thousand under colour of keeping the peace, and went about reclaiming public land and rights of way which had been encroached upon." I In 1263 Fitz Thomas was again elected by popular vote, the votes of the Aldermen being excluded, but in 1264-5 the King refused to confirm his third election, an act to which Fitz Thomas responded by siding with de Montfort on the outbreak of war.2 The victory of Lewes (May 1264) made Fitz Thomas and his party complete masters of London.3 Nevertheless, according to Fitz Thedmar, instead of strengthening the City government against the King, as the Aldermen would have done, he told the men of each Craft to make such provision as should be to their own advantage, and that he himself would have the same proclaimed and observed'. Accordingly, 'individuals of every Craft made new statutes and provisions, or rather what might be styled abominations, and that solely for their own advantage, and London from the accession of Henry III from the names of the Mayors and Sheriffs. Loftie, i. 129. I 1 Riley, Chronicles of Mayors, p. 59. 2 Cf. Beaven, Aldermen, p. 369. On the King's side there were two ex-Mayors, six Aldermen, one of them Fitz Thedmar, and two who became. Aldermen shortly after. On the side of de Montfort were three Aldermen and the Mayor Fitz Thomas. 3 It should be remembered that in 1265 two burghers from each town were for the first time summoned to attend Parliament. Unfortunately the names of the representatives for London are not given. Right of electing the Mayor re stored to the citizens, 1270. A disputed election, 1272. The Mayor Hervi supports the Crafts, but his policy is reversed by to the intolerable loss of all merchants coming to London and visiting the fairs of England, and the exceeding injury of all persons in the realm'. 1 The death of Simon de Montfort at the fatal battle of Evesham, on August 4, 1265, was followed by the immediate overthrow of Fitz Thomas, only just in time to prevent a massacre of the best and foremost of the City which, if we may believe Fitz Thedmar, was being prepared by the revolutionary Mayor. That Fitz Thomas, however, found some support among the upper classes is proved by the fact that among those proscribed after his fall are found two or three of the oldest names in the City. The truth is that the old oligarchy was breaking up, and the City, deprived of its head, was once more taken into the King's hands. Five years afterwards, in the year 1270, owing to the good offices of the young Prince Edward, the aged King restored to the Londoners their right of electing their Mayor and their Sheriffs and confirmed their privileges, although, as usual, the King's favour had to be bought with money. The first two elections following this concession appear to have passed quietly, but in 1272, when the ex-Mayor, Walter Hervi, sought re-election, the old contentions between the more discreet' citizens and the commoners broke out once more. The more discreet' were in favour of Philip le Tailleur, but the commons' or mob of the City cried out, Nay, nay, we will have no one for Mayor than Walter Hervi'. The Aldermen at first asked for arbitration,3 but as the King died at this moment they gave way and Hervi was elected. Hervi pursued the policy of Fitz Thomas. Fresh ordinances for various crafts were drawn up, and the position of the Craft 1 Liber de Antiquis Legibus, translated Riley, pp. 58, 60, 65. 3 On the side of Hervi we find: Robert Gratefige, Robert Hauteyn, his successor. a Mercer (?), Alland le Hurer (Cap-maker), Bartholomew le Spicer (Grocer?), Henry de Wyncestre. Two apparently were members of Craft Gilds, and all, except perhaps the last, men apparently of the middle class; while those on the side of the Aldermen were apparently men of higher standing-John Adrian, late Mayor; Henry le Waleys, subsequently Mayor; Walter le Poter; Henry de Coventre; Thomas de Basinge. Riley, Chronicles of Mayors and Sheriffs, P. 157. Gilds was improved. Yet Hervi did not succeed in getting re-elected again, and no sooner was his successor in power than the Charters he had granted were revoked as being solely for the benefit of the wealthy men of the trades to which they were granted, as also to the loss and undoing of all the other citizens, and the members of the crafts were ordered to pursue their crafts as before. It is unfortunate that the actual trades to which Charters had been given are not mentioned, and it is somewhat confusing to find that Hervi was accused of favouring the wealthy men of the trades. We must, however, remember that the only account we have is from an avowed enemy, Fitz Thedmar, and his own statement that Hervi 'had, when accused, appealed' to a great multitude of those trades to which he had granted Charters and to the populace, as well as the popular support which he evidently secured, furnishes the best answer to the charge that he favoured the rich.3 From the date of Edward I's return to England till the year 1285 we know nothing of the internal politics of London. Our interesting though partial chronicler, Fitz Thedmar, fails us, and there is no one to take his place adequately.* In that year, however, owing to the refusal of the then Mayor, The GovernGregory de Rokesly, to appear, as Mayor, before the King's ment of Justices, then sitting at the Tower, he was deposed, and for London in I Riley, Chronicles of Mayors, pp. 170, 171. 2 Ibid., p. 170. 3 Hervi declared that his object in becoming Mayor had been that he might support the poor against the rich, who wished to oppress them in the matter of tallages and expenditure of the City. Cf. Chronicles of Mayors and Sheriffs, P. 156. 4 Our authorities now are mainly: 1. The Chronicles of Ed. I-II, Rolls Series, ed. W. Stubbs. 2. The series of Letter Books, now published under the title Letter Books, A to K: these are of especial value. 3. Sharpe, Calendar of Wills in the Court of Husting. 4. Liber Albus, translated by Riley. 5. Liber Custumarum, Rolls Series. 5 Rokesly held that he was not bound to appear for judgement beyond the Liberties of the City, unless he had received fully forty days' notice. Apparently the City wall passed through the precincts of the Tower, and all the part which lay to the west of the wall was therefore in Tower Ward, all to the east belonged to the special jurisdiction of the King. The Ward of Portsoken, however, lay the hands of a Custos, 1285-98. True meaning of the past con. troversy. I thirteen years the City was in the hands of a 'Custos', whilst the Sheriffs were sometimes appointed by the Exchequer, sometimes chosen by the citizens.' It was not till 1298 that the right of election was again restored to the City, when Henry de Waleys was chosen Mayor by the Aldermen and twelve men selected by them from each Ward — an important departure from the old close system,' says Dr. Stubbs, although, since the selection of the twelve lay in the hands of the Aldermen, this can scarcely be called a triumph of the elective principle. The exact meaning of the struggle that had been going on in London since the reign of Richard I is difficult to unravel. Some would represent it merely as one between the richer and outside the Tower to the east, and thus was also part of the City. Cf. Map in Kingsford's ed. of Stow, vol. ii; Coke, Institutes, iii. 135. It should, however, be understood that the privileges of Londoners to be tried in their own courts did not, since the disappearance of the 'Justiciar', extend to criminal cases. The Charter of 12 Edward II promised that the King should not, except in cases of grave emergency, assign Justices to sit in any part of the Liberty of the City, except the Justices Itinerant who sat in the Tower, the Justices for gaol delivery who sat at Newgate, and for correction of errors at St. Martin's le Grand. By the Charter of Edward III the Mayor was constituted, ex officio, one of the Justices of gaol delivery at Newgate. In criminal cases the preliminary inquest of recognition was held before the Sheriffs or Coroner by a Jury of the Ward in which the offence had been committed, and the accused was either acquitted or presented for final trial to the Justices sitting in the Tower. Felons arrested in the City were committed to Newgate by the Sheriff to await the next gaol delivery at Newgate. No freeman could be arrested or punished except by the officers of the City, and no freeman could be impleaded before the King's Marshal. Of civil cases the Sheriffs also had cognizance in their court. Appeals 'in error' were returnable from that court to the Hustings Court of Common Pleas, and thence to the Justices or Commissioners sitting at St. Martin's le Grand. (This was a liberty originally belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who in early days possessed a Court of Record, distinct from the City of London.) From these Justices the final appeal lay to the House of Lords. Since Henry VIII the Justices have sat at the Guildhall. No citizens could plead outside the City walls except in pleas of outside tenure. I poorer citizens, or of the members of the Wards against their aristocratic Aldermen, who by this time often held some of the minor royal offices, such as Chamberlain, farmer of taxes, and the like; others look upon it as the first move on the part of the Craft Gilds to gain control of the municipal government. It is not without significance that it is about this time that the Wards are no longer called by the names of their Aldermen, and that the Aldermen become in all cases, except in the case of Portsoken, where the office was held by the Prior of Holy Trinity, elected officers. Further, it is in 1285 that we find the Aldermen acting with the aid of an elected council in each Ward, and, as just mentioned, twelve men selected by the Aldermen from each of their Wards taking part in the election of the Mayor in 1298. All these indications might lead one to infer that the quarrel was nothing more than one between the 'magnates and the commoners', as Bishop Stubbs is inclined to think. Yet, on the other hand, the frequent mention of the Craft Gilds as the supporters of Fitz Thomas and of Hervi leads one to the conclusion that these two men were attempting to organize the Crafts more thoroughly against the patrician party as represented by the Aldermen of the Wards, and, if so, we here see the beginning of the movement which before the end of the fourteenth century was to end in the triumph of the Gilds. Mr. Loftie,+ indeed, would have us believe that Henry, by his policy of granting charters to the Gilds, first gave them the idea of corporate unity, which many of them were eventually to gain from the Crown. In any case it must be remembered that, though the distinction between the masters and the journey men was not as yet so marked as it became in the fifteenth century, yet the real control of the Crafts always lay in the hands of the masters, and that the journeymen and apprentices had little power. 1 Cf. note on Wards, p. 2, note 3. 2 It is of course true that, as the Aldermen selected the twelve, they can scarcely be called elected. 3 Stubbs, Constitutional History, iii. 571; Unwin, Gilds and Companies of London, p. 65. * Loftie, London, i. 60. |