THE DELIBERATIONS OF MAYOR AND COUNCIL, WHILE LORD WARWICK MARCHES
UPON LONDON.
It was a clear and bright day in the first week of October, 1470, when
the various scouts employed by the mayor and council of London came
back to the Guild, at which that worshipful corporation were
assembled,--their steeds blown and jaded, themselves panting and
breathless,--to announce the rapid march of the Earl of Warwick. The
lord mayor of that year, Richard Lee, grocer and citizen, sat in the
venerable hall in a huge leather chair, over which a pall of velvet
had been thrown in haste, clad in his robes of state, and surrounded
by his aldermen and the magnates of the city. To the personal love
which the greater part of the body bore to the young and courteous
king was added the terror which the corporation justly entertained of
the Lancastrian faction. They remembered the dreadful excesses which
Margaret had permitted to her army in the year 1461,--what time, to
use the expression of the old historian, "the wealth of London looked
pale;" and how grudgingly she had been restrained from condemning her
revolted metropolis to the horrors of sack and pillage. And the
bearing of this august representation of the trade and power of London
was not, at the first, unworthy of the high influence it had obtained.
The agitation and disorder of the hour had introduced into the
assembly several of the more active and accredited citizens not of
right belonging to it; but they sat, in silent discipline and order,
on long benches beyond the table crowded by the corporate officers.
Foremost among these, and remarkable by the firmness and intelligence
of his countenance, and the earnest self-possession with which he
listened to his seniors, was Nicholas Alwyn, summoned to the council
from his great influence with the apprentices and younger freemen of
the city.
As the last scout announced his news and was gravely dismissed, the
lord mayor rose; and being, perhaps, a better educated man than many
of the haughtiest barons, and having more at stake than most of them,
his manner and language had a dignity and earnestness which might have
reflected honour on the higher court of parliament.
"Brethren and citizens," he said, with the decided brevity of one who
felt it no time for many words, "in two hours we shall hear the
clarions of Lord Warwick at our gates; in two hours we shall be
summoned to give entrance to an army assembled in the name of King
Henry. I have done my duty,--I have manned the walls, I have
marshalled what soldiers we can command, I have sent to the deputy-
governor of the Tower--"
"And what answer gives he, my lord mayor?" interrupted Humfrey
Heyford.
"None to depend upon. He answers that Edward IV., in abdicating the
kingdom, has left him no power to resist; and that between force and
force, king and king, might makes right."
A deep breath, like a groan, went through the assembly.
Up rose Master John Stokton, the mercer. He rose, trembling from limb
to limb.
"Worshipful my lord mayor," said he, "it seems to me that our first
duty is to look to our own selves!"
Despite the gravity of the emergence, a laugh burst forth, and was at
once silenced at this frank avowal.
"Yes," continued the mercer, turning round, and striking the table
with his fist, in the action of a nervous man--"yes; for King Edward
has set us the example. A stout and a dauntless champion, whose whole
youth has been war, King Edward has fled from the kingdom. King
Edward takes care of himself,--it is our duty to do the same!"
Strange though it may seem, this homely selfishness went at once
through the assembly like a flash of conviction. There was a burst of
applause, and, as it ceased, the sullen explosion of a bombard (or
cannon) from the city wall announced that the warder had caught the
first glimpse of the approaching army.
Master Stokton started as if the shot had gone near to himself, and
dropped at once into his seat, ejaculating, "The Lord have mercy upon
us!" There was a pause of a moment, and then several of the
corporation rose simultaneously. The mayor, preserving his dignity,
fixed on the sheriff.
"Few words, my lord, and I have done," said Richard Gardyner--"there
is no fighting without men. The troops at the Tower are not to be
counted on. The populace are all with Lord Warwick, even though he
brought the devil at his back. If you hold out, look to rape and
plunder before sunset to-morrow. If ye yield, go forth in a body, and
the earl is not the man to suffer one Englishman to be injured in life
or health who once trusts to his good faith. My say is said."
"Worshipful my lord," said a thin, cadaverous alderman, who rose next,
"this is a judgment of the Lord and His saints. The Lollards and
heretics have been too much suffered to run at large, and the wrath of
Heaven is upon us."
An impatient murmuring attested the unwillingness of the larger part
of the audience to listen further; but an approving buzz from the
elder citizens announced that the fanaticism was not without its
favourers. Thus stimulated and encouraged, the orator continued; and
concluded an harangue, interrupted more stormily than all that had
preceded, by an exhortation to leave the city to its fate, and to
march in a body to the New Prison, draw forth five suspected Lollards,
and burn them at Smithfield, in order to appease the Almighty and
divert the tempest!
This subject of controversy once started might have delayed the
audience till the ragged staves of the Warwickers drove them forth
from their hall, but for the sagacity and promptitude of the mayor.
"Brethren," he said, "it matters not to me whether the counsel
suggested be good or bad, in the main; but this have I heard,--there
is small safety in death-bed repentance. It is too late now to do,
through fear of the devil, what we omitted to do through zeal for the
Church. The sole question is, 'Fight or make terms.' Ye say we lack
men; verily, yes, while no leaders are found! Walworth, my
predecessor, saved London from Wat Tyler. Men were wanting then till
the mayor and his fellow-citizens marched forth to Mile End. It may
be the same now. Agree to fight, and we'll try it. What say you,
Nicholas Alwyn?--you know the temper of our young men."
Thus called upon, Alwyn rose, and such was the good name he had
already acquired, that every murmur hushed into eager silence.
"My lord mayor," he said, "there is a proverb in my country which
says, 'Fish swim best that's bred in the sea;' which means, I take it,
that men do best what they are trained for! Lord Warwick and his men
are trained for fighting. Few of the fish about London Bridge are
bred in that sea. Cry, 'London to the rescue!'--put on hauberk and
helm, and you will have crowns enough to crack around you. What
follows?--Master Stokton hath said it: pillage and rape for the city,
gibbet and cord for mayor and aldermen. Do I say this, loving the
House of Lancaster? No; as Heaven shall judge me, I think that the
policy King Edward hath chosen, and which costs him his crown to-day,
ought to make the House of York dear to burgess and trader. He hath
sought to break up the iron rule of the great barons,--and never peace
to England till that be done. He has failed; but for a day. He has
yielded for a time; so must we. 'There's a time to squint, and a time
to look even.' I advise that we march out to the earl, that we make
honourable terms for the city, that we take advantage of one faction
to gain what we have not gained with the other; that we fight for our
profit, not with swords, where we shall be worsted, but in council and
parliament, by speech and petition. New power is ever gentle and
douce. What matters to us York or Lancaster?--all we want is good
laws. Get the best we can from Lancaster, and when King Edward
returns, as return he will, let him bid higher than Henry for our
love. Worshipful my lords and brethren, while barons and knaves go to
loggerheads, honest men get their own. Time grows under us like
grass. York and Lancaster may pull down each other,--and what is
left? Why, three things that thrive in all weather,--London,
industry; and the people! We have fallen on a rough time. Well, what
says the proverb? 'Boil stones in butter, and you may sup the broth.'
I have done."
This characteristic harangue, which was fortunate enough to accord
with the selfishness of each one, and yet give the manly excuse of
sound sense and wise policy to all, was the more decisive in its
effect, inasmuch as the young Alwyn, from his own determined courage,
and his avowed distaste to the Lancaster faction, had been expected to
favour warlike counsels. The mayor himself, who was faithfully and
personally attached to Edward, with a deep sigh gave way to the
feeling of the assembly. And the resolution being once come to, Henry
Lee was the first to give it whatever advantage could be derived from
prompt and speedy action.
"Go we forth at once," said he,--"go, as becomes us, in our robes of
state, and with the insignia of the city. Never be it said that the
guardians of the city of London could neither defend with spirit, nor
make terms with honour. We give entrance to Lord Warwick. Well,
then, it must be our own free act. Come! Officers of our court,
advance."
"Stay a bit, stay a bit," whispered Stokton, digging sharp claws into
Alwyn's arm; "let them go first,--a word with you, cunning Nick,--a
word."
Master Stokton, despite the tremor of his nerves, was a man of such
wealth and substance, that Alwyn might well take the request, thus
familiarly made, as a compliment not to be received discourteously;
moreover, he had his own reasons for hanging back from a procession
which his rank in the city did not require him to join.
While, therefore, the mayor and the other dignitaries left the hall
with as much state and order as if not going to meet an invading army,
but to join a holiday festival, Nicholas and Stokton lingered behind.
"Master Alwyn," said Stokton, then, with a sly wink of his eye, "you
have this day done yourself great credit; you will rise, I have my eye
on you! I have a daughter, I have a daughter! Aha! a lad like you
may come to great things!"
"I am much bounden to you, Master Stokton," returned Alwyn, somewhat
abstractedly; "but what's your will?"
"My will!--hum, I say, Nicholas, what's your advice? Quite right not
to go to blows. Odds costards! that mayor is a very tiger! But don't
you think it would be wiser not to join this procession? Edward IV.,
an' he ever come back, has a long memory. He deals at my ware, too,--
a good customer at a mercer's; and, Lord! how much money he owes the
city!--hum!--I would not seem ungrateful."
"But if you go not out with the rest, there be other mercers who will
have King Henry's countenance and favour; and it is easy to see that a
new court will make vast consumption in mercery."
Master Stokton looked puzzled.
"That were a hugeous pity, good Nicholas; and, certes, there is Wat
Smith, in Eastgate, who would cheat that good King Henry, poor man!
which were a shame to the city; but, on the other hand, the Yorkists
mostly pay on the nail (except King Edward, God save him!), and the
Lancastrians are as poor as mice. Moreover, King Henry is a meek man,
and does not avenge; King Edward, a hot and a stern man, and may call
it treason to go with the Red Rose! I wish I knew how to decide! I
have a daughter, an only daughter,--a buxom lass, and well dowered. I
would I had a sharp son-in-law to advise me!"
"Master Stokton, in one word, then, he never goes far wrong who can
run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Good-day to you, I have
business elsewhere."
So saying, Nicholas rather hastily shook off the mercer's quivering
fingers, and hastened out of the hall.
"Verily," murmured the disconsolate Stokton, "run with the hare,
quotha!--that is, go with King Edward; but hunt with the hounds,--that
is, go with King Henry. Odds costards; it's not so easily done by a
plain man not bred in the North. I'd best go--home, and do nothing!"
With that, musing and bewildered, the poor man sneaked out, and was
soon lost amidst the murmuring, gathering, and swaying crowds, many
amongst which were as much perplexed as himself.
In the mean while, with his cloak muffled carefully round his face,
and with a long, stealthy, gliding stride, Alwyn made his way through
the streets, gained the river, entered a boat in waiting for him, and
arrived at last at the palace of the Tower.