Medieval London (Vol. 1&2). Walter Besant

      KING RICHARD II. IN GREAT DANGER IN THE CITY OF LONDON

       From Froissart’s Chronicles.

      In the year 1392 the King, wanting money as usual, ordered every London citizen who possessed an estate worth £40 at least to take up the honour of knighthood for which heavy fees would have to be paid. The Sheriffs reported, however, that all tenements and rents in the City were “held of the King in capite as for burgage at a fee farm (ad feodi firmam); that the tenements were constantly in need of repair, and that it was impossible to make such a return as the King desired. The King had to withdraw the order. But he had a new quarrel with the City: he offered some jewels as security for a loan; the citizens said they were too poor to advance the money; therefore the King sent to a certain Lombard who promised to find the money; in order to get it, he himself borrowed of the citizens. Another version of the story is that the citizens learning that this Lombard, one of the Pope’s licensed usurers, had advanced the money, fell upon him and beat him grievously. If this story is true the reasons were probably the general ill feeling towards foreigners always existing in the City, and next, a special rage that this man should have become so rich. Richard heard of this; for the moment he said nothing, for he was in some respects a most self-restrained prince, though at all times most revengeful. Moreover, he had another quarrel with the City on account of the side they took in the late troubles. His chance came. It began with a loaf of bread snatched from a baker’s tray by a servant of the Bishop of Salisbury, named Roman, in Fleet Street. The baker, as the tale is told, naturally resented the robbery and tried to recover his loaf: in the scuffle he was wounded by the said Roman—probably they had both drawn their knives. A crowd collected; Roman’s fellow-servants rescued him, dragged him into the house and refused to give him up. The crowding people round the gates bawled that they would set fire to the place in order to get the man out. The Mayor and Sheriffs hurried to the spot and with some difficulty persuaded the people to go home, before violence was done. Here the affair, really a trifle, should have ended. But the Bishop of Salisbury, who is said to have desired an opportunity to do the City a bad turn, hurried to the King and asked if the Londoners were to be allowed with impunity to insult the Church and defy the State.” “Certainly not,” said Richard; “if necessary I will raze the City to the ground.” He ordered the Mayor, the Sheriffs, the Aldermen, and four-and-twenty principal men of the City to attend him to Nottingham there to answer for these grievous disorders.

      It was very soon discovered that the King meant mischief. The citizens threw themselves upon his mercy as the shortest and perhaps the cheapest way out of the quarrel. He committed the Mayor to prison at Windsor, and the Sheriffs to Odysham and Wallingford. He then appointed a commission under the Great Seal—his uncles the Dukes of York and Gloucester being the Commissioners—to inquire into the misgovernment of the City. The prisoners had to pay a fine of 1000 marks for the first offence, whatever that was, of which they were convicted; 2000 marks for the second; and in the third the Liberties of the City were seized by the King, contrary to the Charters. The Mayor was degraded, the Sheriffs and Aldermen deposed and others appointed in their place, and a Custos was given to the City—Sir Edward Dalyngrigge. Richard then summoned the Aldermen to Windsor and imposed a fine of £100,000 upon the City. But it does not appear that he meant it to be paid, for in the following month he announced his intention of riding through the City. Then the citizens humbled themselves and made a very expensive effort to win back the King’s favour. They prepared a most magnificent reception for him. First, at St. George’s Church, Southwark, he was met by the Bishop of London, all the clergy, and five hundred choristers in surplices: at London Bridge he was presented with a splendid charger richly clad in cloth of gold, and to the Queen was given a stately white pad with rich furniture: the streets through which he passed were lined with the City Companies in order: the conduits ran wine: and the people shouted. At the Standard in Cheapside stood a boy in white raiment, representing an angel, who presented the King a crown of gold and the Queen with another: he also offered wine from a golden cup. Then the Mayor and the City Fathers rode with the King to Westminster. The next day, to complete this show of loyalty, they sent the King two silver gilt basins in each of which lay a thousand nobles of gold: and a picture of the Trinity said to have been valued at eight hundred pounds—one cannot believe there was then any picture in the world valued at so much. The King remitted the fine of £100,000 and restored the Charters.

      The citizens on receiving back their Charters proceeded to institute certain reforms. They resolved that their Aldermen should be elected for life, and not year by year: a measure which diminished the factious quarrels over the elections. They also divided the Ward of Farringdon into two.

      In the year 1394 the Queen Anne of Bohemia died. She had the reputation of being a good friend to the City. In the Latin poem of “Richard of Maidstone” (Camden Society, Deposition of Richard the Second), the Queen is represented as pleading with the King for the City:—

      Ingreditur Regina suis comitata puellis,

      Pronaque regales corruit ante pedes.

      Erigitur, mandante viro, “Quid,” ait, “petis Anna,

      Exprime, de votis expediere tuis.”

       Supplicatio Reginae pro eisdem civibus.

      “Dulcis,” ait, “mi Rex, mihi vir, mihi vis, mihi vita,

      Dulcis amor, sine quo vivere fit mihi mors.

      Regibus in cunctis similem quis possidet urbem?

      Quae velut haec hodie magnificaret eum?

      Et rogo constanter per eum quem fertis amorem

      Ad me, condignum si quid amore gero,

      Parcere dignemini plebibus, qui tanta dedere

      Munera tam prompte nobis ad obsequia.

      Et placeat veteri nunc urbem reddere juri,

      Ac libertates restituisse suas.”

      Two years later the King went through the form of marriage with the French princess Isabel who was brought over at the age of eight. The Mayor and Aldermen went out to meet the “little Queen” at Blackheath, and escorted her to Kennington Palace, and the next day from that Palace to the Tower, the roads and streets being crowded with an innumerable throng.

      The extravagance of the King had now become an intolerable burden to the country, especially to London. He is said to have maintained 10,000 persons at his Court. There were 300 employed in the kitchen alone. There was never any prince who clad himself more gorgeously: one cloak he had made of gold and silver cloth studded with jewels which cost him £2000, or about £40,000 of our money. He seems to have been unable to understand the meaning of money or the relation between things he desired, and the taxable wealth of the country. His last method of extortion was to issue blank charters which the merchants were to sign and he was to fill up at his pleasure. This proved too much for the long-suffering City. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had recently died; so they sent for his son Henry, Duke of Lancaster.