London and the Kingdom Volume I Part 1

London and the Kingdom.

Volume I.

by Reginald R. Sharpe.

PREFACE.

Of the numerous works that have been written on London, by which I mean more especially the City of London, few have been devoted to an adequate, if indeed any, consideration of its political importance in the history of the Kingdom. The history of the City is so many-sided that writers have to be content with the study of some particular phase or some special epoch.

Thus we have those who have concentrated their efforts to evolving out of the remote past the munic.i.p.al organization of the City. Their task has been to unfold the origin and inst.i.tution of the Mayoralty and Shrievalty of London, the division of the City into wards with Aldermen at their head, the development of the various trade and craft guilds, and the respective powers and duties of the Courts of Aldermen and Common Council, and of the Livery of London a.s.sembled in their Common Hall. Others have devoted themselves to the study of the ecclesiastical and monastic side of the City's history-its Cathedral, its religious houses, and hundred and more parish churches, which occupied so large an extent of the City's area. The ecclesiastical importance of the City, however, is too often ignored. "We are p.r.o.ne," writes Bishop Stubbs, "in examining into the munic.i.p.al and mercantile history of London, to forget that it was a very great ecclesiastical centre." Others, again, have confined themselves to depicting the every-day life of the City burgess, his social condition, his commercial pursuits, his amus.e.m.e.nts; whilst others have been content to perpetuate the memory of streets and houses long since lost to the eye, and thus to keep alive an interest in scenes and places which otherwise would be forgotten.

The political aspect of the City's history has rarely been touched by writers, and yet its geographical position combined with the innate courage and enterprise of its citizens served to give it no small political power and no insignificant place in the history of the Kingdom.

This being the case, the Corporation resolved to fill the void, and in view of the year 1889 being the 700th Anniversary of the Mayoralty of London-according to popular tradition-instructed the Library Committee to prepare a work showing "the pre-eminent position occupied by the City of London and the important function it exercised in the shaping and making of England."

It is in accordance with these instructions that this and succeeding volumes have been compiled. As the t.i.tle of the work has been taken from a chapter in Mr. Loftie's book on London ("Historic Towns" series, chap.

ix), so its main features are delineated in that chapter. "It would be interesting"-writes Mr. Loftie-"to go over all the recorded instances in which the City of London interfered directly in the affairs of the Kingdom. Such a survey would be the history of England as seen from the windows of the Guildhall." No words could better describe the character of the work now submitted to the public. It has been compiled mainly from the City's own archives. The City has been allowed to tell its own story. If, therefore, its pages should appear to be too much taken up with accounts of loans advanced by the City to impecunious monarchs or with wearisome repet.i.tion of calls for troops to be raised in the City for foreign service, it is because the City's records of the day are chiefly if not wholly concerned with these matters. If, on the other hand, an event which may be rightly deemed of national importance be here omitted, it is because the citizens were little affected thereby, and the City's records are almost, if not altogether, silent on the subject.

The work does not affect to be a critical history so much as a _chronique pour servir_, to which the historical student may have recourse in order to learn what was the att.i.tude taken up by the citizens of London at important crises in the nation's history. He will there see how, in the contest between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, the City of London held as it were the balance; how it helped to overthrow the tyranny of Longchamp, and to wrest from the reluctant John the Great Charter of our liberties; how it was with men and money supplied by the City that Edward III and Henry V were enabled to conquer France, and how in after years the London trained bands raised the siege of Gloucester and turned the tide of the Civil War in favour of Parliament. He will not fail to note the significant fact that before Monk put into execution his plan for restoring Charles II to the Crown, the taciturn general-little given to opening his mind to anyone-deemed it advisable to take up his abode in the City in order to first test the feelings of the inhabitants as to whether the Restoration would be acceptable to them or not. He will see that the citizens of London have at times been bold of speech even in the presence of their sovereign when the cause of justice and the liberty of the subject were at stake, and that they did not hesitate to suffer for their opinions; that, "at many of the most critical periods of our history, the influence of London and its Lord Mayors has turned the scale in favour of those liberties of which we are so justly proud"; and that had the entreaties of the City been listened to by the King and his ministers, the American Colonies would never have been lost to England.

There are two Appendices to the work; one comprising copies from the City's Records of letters, early proclamations and doc.u.ments of special interest to which reference is made in the text; the other consisting of a more complete list of the City's representatives in Parliament from the earliest times than has yet been printed, supplemented as it has been by returns to writs recorded in the City's archives and (apparently) no where else. The returns for the City in the Blue Books published in 1878 and 1879 are very imperfect.

R. R. S.

THE GUILDHALL, LONDON, _April, 1894._

CHAPTER I.

The wealth and importance of the City of London are due to a variety of causes, of which its geographical position must certainly be esteemed not the least. The value of such a n.o.ble river as the Thames was scarcely over-estimated by the citizens when, as the story goes, they expressed to King James their comparative indifference to his threatened removal of himself, his court and parliament, from London, if only their river remained to them. The mouth of the Thames is the most convenient port on the westernmost boundary of the European seaboard, and ships would often run in to replenish their tanks with the sweet water for which it was once famous.(1)

After the fall of the Western Empire (A.D. 476), commercial enterprise sprang up among the free towns of Italy. The carrying trade of the world's merchandise became centred for a time in Venice, and that town led the way in spreading the principles of commerce along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, being closely followed by Genoa, Florence, and Pisa. The tide, which then set westward, and continued its course beyond the Pillars of Hercules, was met in later years by another stream of commerce from the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic.(2) Small wonder, then, if the City of London was quick to profit by the continuous stream of traffic pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing its very door, and vindicated its t.i.tle to be called-as the Venerable Bede had in very early days called it the Emporium of the World.(3)

But if London's prosperity were solely due to its geographical position, we should look for the same unrivalled pre-eminence in commerce in towns like Liverpool or Bristol, which possess similar local advantages; whilst, if royal favour or court gaieties could make cities great, we should have surely expected Winchester, Warwick, York, or Stafford to have outstripped London in political and commercial greatness, for these were the residences of the rulers of Mercia, Northumbria, and Wess.e.x, and the scenes of witena-gemots long before London could boast of similar favours.

Yet none of these equals London in extent, population, wealth, or political importance.

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We must therefore look for other causes of London's pre-eminence, and among these, we may reckon the fact that the City has never been subject to any over-lord except the king. It never formed a portion of the king's demesne (_dominium_), but has ever been held by its burgesses as tenants _in capite_ by burgage (free socage) tenure. Other towns like Bristol, Plymouth, Beverley, or Durham, were subject to over-lords, ecclesiastical or lay, in the person of archbishop, bishop, abbot, baron or peer of the realm, who kept in their own hands many of the privileges which in the more favoured City of London were enjoyed by the munic.i.p.al authorities.

In the early part of the twelfth century, the town of Leicester, for instance, was divided into four parts, one of which was in the king's demesne, whilst the rest were held by three distinct over-lords. In course of time, the whole of the shares fell into the hands of Count Robert of Meulan, who left the town in demesne to the Earls of Leicester and his descendants; and to this day the borough bears on its shield the arms of the Bellomonts.(4) The town of Birmingham is said, in like manner, to bear the arms of the barons of that name; the town of Cardiff, those of the De Clares; and Manchester, those of the Byrons. Instances might be multiplied. But the arms of the City of London and of free boroughs, like Winchester, Oxford, and Exeter, are referable to no over-lord, although the borough of Southwark still bears traces in its heraldic shield of its former ecclesiastical connection.

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The influence of an over-lord for good or evil, over those subject to his authority, was immense. Take for instance, Sheffield, which was subject, in the reign of Elizabeth, to the Earl of Shrewsbury. The cutlery trade, even in those days, was the main-stay of the town, and yet the earl could make and unmake the rules and ordinances which governed the Cutlers'

Company, and could claim one half of the fines imposed on its members.(5)

When, during the reign of Charles II, nearly every munic.i.p.al borough in the kingdom was forced to surrender its charter to the king, the citizens of Durham surrendered theirs to the Bishop, who, to the intense horror of a contemporary writer, reserved to himself and his successors in the See the power of approving and confirming the mayor, aldermen, recorder, and common council of that city.(6)

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The commercial greatness of London can be traced back to the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. From being little more than a stockaded fort, situate at a point on the river's bank which admitted of an easy pa.s.sage by ferry across to Southwark, London prospered under the protection afforded to its traders by the presence of the Roman legions, but it never in those days became the capital of the province. Although a flourishing centre of commerce in the middle of the first century of the Christian era, it was not deemed of sufficient importance by Suetonius, the Roman general, to run the risk of defending against Boadicea,(7) and although thought worthy of the t.i.tle of Augusta-a name bestowed only on towns of exceptional standing-the Romans did not hesitate to leave both town and province to their fate as soon as danger threatened them nearer home.

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For military no less than for commercial purposes-and the Roman occupation of Britain was mainly a military one-good roads were essential, and these the Romans excelled in making. It is remarkable that in the Itinerary of Antoninus Pius, London figures either as the starting point or as the terminus to nearly one-half of the routes described in the portion relating to Britain.(8) The name of one and only one of these Roman highways survives in the city at the present day, and then only in its Teutonic and not Roman form-the Watling or "Wathelinga" Street, the street which led from Kent through the city of London to Chester and York, and thence by two branches to Carlisle and the neighbourhood of Newcastle. The Ermin Street, another Roman road with a Teutonic name, led from London to Lincoln, with branches to Doncaster and York, but its name no longer survives in the city.

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The same reasons that led the Romans to establish good roads throughout the country led them also to erect a bridge across the river from London to Southwark, and in later years to enclose the city with a wall. To the building of the bridge, which probably took place in the early years of the Roman occupation, London owed much of its youthful prosperity; whenever any accident happened to the bridge the damage was always promptly repaired. Not so with the walls of the city. They were allowed to fall into decay until the prudence and military genius of the great Alfred caused them to be repaired as a bulwark against the onslaughts of the Danes.

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"Britain had been occupied by the Romans, but had not become Roman,"(9) and the scanty and superficial civilization which the Britons had received from the Roman occupation was obliterated by the calamities which followed the northern invasions of the fifth and following centuries. A Christian city, as Augusta had probably been, not a vestige of a Christian church of the Roman period has come down to us.(10) It quickly lapsed into paganism.

Its very name disappears, and with it the names of its streets, its traditions and its customs. Its inhabitants forgot the Latin tongue, and the memories of 400 years were clean wiped out. There remains to us of the present day nothing to remind us of London under the Roman empire, save a fragment of a wall, a milestone, a few coins and statuettes, and some articles of personal ornament or domestic use-little more in fact, than what may be seen in the Museum attached to the Guildhall Library. The long subjection to Roman rule had one disastrous effect. It enervated the people and left them powerless to cope with those enemies who, as soon as the iron hand of the Roman legions was removed, came forth from their hiding places to harry the land.

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Thus it was that when the Picts and Scots again broke loose from their northern fastnesses and threatened London as they had done before (A.D.

368), they once more appealed for aid to the Roman emperor, by whose a.s.sistance the marauders had formerly been driven back. But times were different in 446 to what they had been in 368. The Roman empire was itself threatened with an invasion of the Goths, and the emperor had his hands too full to allow him to lend a favourable ear to the "groans of the Britons."(11)

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Compelled to seek a.s.sistance elsewhere, the Britons invited a tribe of warriors, ever ready to let their services for hire, from the North Sea, to lend them their aid. The foreigners came in answer to the invitation, they saw, they conquered; and then they refused to leave an island the fertility of which they appreciated no less than they despised the slothfulness of its inhabitants.(12) They turned their weapons against their employers, and utterly routed them at Crayford, driving them to take refuge within the walls of London.

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"A.D. 457 (456). This year Hengist and aesc [Eric or Ash] his son fought against the Britons at a place called Creegan-Ford [Crayford] and there slew four thousand men, and the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great terror fled to London."(13) So runs the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and this is the sole piece of information concerning London it vouchsafes us for one hundred and fifty years following the departure of the Romans. The information, scant as it is, serves to show that London had not quite become a deserted city, nor had yet been devastated as others had been by the enemy. Its walls still served to afford shelter to the terrified refugees.

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When next we read of her, she is in the possession of the East Saxons. How they came there is a matter for conjecture. It is possible that with the whole of the surrounding counties in the hands of the enemy, the Londoners were driven from their city to seek means of subsistence elsewhere, and that when the East Saxons took possession of it, they found houses and streets deserted. Little relishing a life within a town, they probably did not make a long stay, and, on their departure, the former inhabitants returned and the city slowly recovered its wonted appearance, as the country around became more settled.

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Christianity in the country had revived, and London was now to receive its first bishop. It is the year 604. "This year," writes the chronicler, "Augustine hallowed two bishops, Mellitus and Justus; Mellitus he sent to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose king was called Seberht, son of Ricula, the sister of Ethelbert whom Ethelbert had there set as king. And Ethelbert gave to Mellitus a bishop's see at London." This pa.s.sage is remarkable for two reasons:-(1) as shewing us that London was at this time situate in Ess.e.x, the kingdom of the East Saxons, and (2) that Seberht was but a _roi faineant_, enjoying no real independence in spite of his dignity as ruler of the East Saxons and nominal master of London, his uncle Ethelbert, king of the Cantii, exercising a hegemony over "all the nations of the English as far as the Humber." (14)

Hence it is that London is spoken of by some as being the _metropolis_ of the East Saxons,(15) and by others as being the princ.i.p.al city of the Cantii;(16) the fact being that, though locally situate in Ess.e.x, it was deemed the political capital of that kingdom which for the time being happened to be paramount.

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After the death of Seberht, the Londoners became dissatisfied with their bishop and drove him out. Mellitus became in course of time Archbishop of Canterbury, whilst the Londoners again relapsed into paganism.(17) Not only was the erection of a cathedral in the city due to Ethelbert, but it was also at his instigation, if not with his treasure, that Seberht, the "wealthy sub-king of London," was, as is believed, induced to found the Abbey of Westminster.(18)

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When the Saxon kingdoms became united under Egbert and he became _rex totius Britanniae_ (A.D. 827), London began to take a more prominent place among the cities of the kingdom, notwithstanding its having been three times destroyed by fire between 674 and 801.(19) It became more often the seat of the royal residence, and the scene of witena-gemots; nevertheless it was not the seat of government, much less the capital. Then and for a long time to come it had a formidable rival in Winchester, the chief town of Egbert's own kingdom of Wess.e.x. To Winchester that king proceeded in triumph after completing the union of the Saxon kingdoms, and thither he summoned his va.s.sals to hear himself proclaimed their overlord. From Winchester, Alfred, too, promulgated his new code of Wess.e.x law-a part of the famous _Domboc_, a copy of which is said to have been at one time preserved among the archives of the City of London(20)-and the Easter gemot, no matter where the other gemots of the year were held, was nearly always held at Winchester. When it came to a question of trade regulation, then London took precedence of Winchester. "Let one measure and one weight pa.s.s, such as is observed at London and at Winchester,"(21) enacted King Edgar, whose system of legislation was marked with so much success that "Edgar's Law" was referred to by posterity as to the old const.i.tution of the realm.

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