THE LORD MAYORS OF LONDON.
The First Mayor of London--Portrait of him--Presentation to the
King--An Outspoken Mayor--Sir N. Farindon--Sir William
Walworth--Origin of the prefix "Lord"--Sir Richard Whittington and
his Liberality--Institutions founded by him--Sir Simon Eyre and his
Table--A Musical Lord Mayor--Henry VIII. and Gresham--Loyalty of the
Lord Mayor and Citizens to Queen Mary--Osborne's Leap into the
Thames--Sir W. Craven--Brass Crosby--His Committal to the Tower--A
Victory for the Citizens.
The modern Lord Mayor is supposed to have had a prototype in the Roman
prefect and the Saxon portgrave. The Lord Mayor is only "Lord" and
"Right Honourable" by courtesy, and not from his dignity as a Privy
Councillor on the demise or abdication of a sovereign.
In 1189, Richard I. elected Henry Fitz Ailwyn, a draper of London, to be
first mayor of London, and he served twenty-four years. He is supposed
to have been a descendant of Aylwyn Child, who founded the priory at
Bermondsey in 1082. He was buried, according to Strype, at St. Mary
Bothaw, Walbrook, a church destroyed in the Great Fire; but according to
Stow, in the Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate. There is a doubtful
half-length oil-portrait or panel of the venerable Fitz Alwyn over the
master's chair in Drapers' Hall, but it has no historical value. But the
first formal mayor was Richard Renger (1223), King John granting the
right of choosing a mayor to the citizens, provided he was first
presented to the king or his justice for approval. Henry III. afterwards
allowed the presentation to take place in the king's absence before the
Barons of the Exchequer at Westminster, to prevent expense and delay, as
the citizens could not be expected to search for the king all over
England and France.
[Illustration: SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON. (_From an old Portrait._)]
The presentation to the king, even when he was in England, long remained
a great vexation with the London mayors. For instance, in 1240, Gerard
Bat, chosen a second time, went to Woodstock Palace to be presented to
King Henry III., who refused to appoint him till he (the king) came to
London.
Henry III., indeed, seems to have been chronically troubled by the
London mayors, for in 1264, on the mayor and aldermen doing fealty to
the king in St. Paul's, the mayor, with blunt honesty, dared to say to
the weak monarch, "My lord, so long as you unto us will be a good lord
and king, we will be faithful and duteous unto you."
These were bold words in a reign when the heading block was always kept
ready near a throne. In 1265, the same monarch seized and imprisoned the
mayor and chief aldermen for fortifying the City in favour of the
barons, and for four years the tyrannical king appointed custodes. The
City again recovered its liberties and retained them till 1285 (Edward
I.), when Sir Gregory Rokesley refusing to go out of the City to appear
before the king's justices at the Tower, the mayoralty was again
suspended and custodes appointed till the year 1298, when Henry Wallein
was elected mayor. Edward II. also held a tight hand on the mayoralty
till he appointed the great goldsmith, Sir Nicholas Farindon, mayor "as
long as it pleased him." Farindon gave the title to Farringdon Ward,
which had been in his family eighty-two years, the consideration being
twenty marks as a fine, and one clove or a slip of gillyflower at the
feast of Easter. He was a warden of the Goldsmiths, and was buried at
St. Peter-le-Chepe, a church that before the Great Fire stood where the
plane-tree now waves at the corner of Wood Street. He left money for a
light to burn before our Lady the Virgin in St. Peter-le-Chepe for ever.
The mayoralty of Andrew Aubrey, Grocer (1339), was rather warlike; for
the mayor and two of his officers being assaulted in a tumult, two of
the ringleaders were beheaded at once in Chepe. In 1356, Henry Picard,
mayor of London, was an honoured man, for he had the glory of feasting
Edward III. of England, the Black Prince, John King of Austria, the King
of Cyprus, and David of Scotland, and afterwards opened his hall to all
comers at cards and dice, his wife inviting the court ladies.
Sir William Walworth, a fishmonger, who was mayor in 1374 (Edward III.)
and 1380 (Richard II.), was that prompt and choleric man who somewhat
basely slew the Kentish rebel, Wat Tyler, when he was invited to a
parley by the young king. It was long supposed that the dagger in the
City arms was added in commemoration of this foul blow, but Stow has
clearly shown that it was intended to represent the sword of St. Paul,
the patron saint of the Corporation of London. The manor of Walworth
belonged to the family of this mayor, who was buried in the Church of
St. Michael, Crooked Lane, the parish where he had resided. Some
antiquaries, says Mr. Timbs, think the prefix of "Lord" is traceable to
1378 (1st Richard II.), when there was a general assessment for a war
subsidy. The question was where was the mayor to come. "Have him among
the earls," was the suggestion; so the right worshipful had to pay L4,
about L100 of our present money.
And now we come to a mayor greater even in City story and legend than
even Walworth himself, even the renowned Richard Whittington, the hero
of our nursery days. He was the son of a Gloucestershire knight, who
had fallen into poverty. The industrious son, born in 1350 (Edward
III.), on coming to London, was apprenticed to Hugh Fitzwarren, a
mercer. Disgusted with the drudgery, he ran away; but while resting by a
stone cross at the foot of Highgate Hill, he is said to have heard in
the sound of Bow Bells the voice of his good angel, "Turn again,
Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London." What a charm there is still
in the old story! As for the cat that made his fortune by catching all
the mice in Barbary, we fear we must throw him overboard, even though
Stow tells a true story of a man and a cat that greatly resembles that
told of Whittington. Whittington married his master's daughter, and
became a wealthy merchant. He supplied the wedding trousseau of the
Princess Blanche, eldest daughter of Henry IV., when she married the son
of the King of the Romans, and also the pearls and cloth of gold for the
marriage of the Princess Philippa. He became the court banker, and lent
large sums of money to our lavish monarchs, especially to the chivalrous
Henry V. for carrying on the siege of Harfleur, a siege celebrated by
Shakespeare. It is said that in his last mayoralty King Henry V. and
Queen Catherine dined with him in the City, when Whittington caused a
fire to be lighted of precious woods, mixed with cinnamon and other
spices; and then taking all the bonds given him by the king for money
lent, amounting to no less than L60,000, he threw them into the fire and
burnt them, thereby freeing his sovereign from his debts. The king,
astonished at such a proceeding, exclaimed, "Surely, never had king such
a subject;" to which Whittington, with court gallantry, replied,
"Surely, sire, never had subject such a king."
Whittington was really four times mayor--twice in Richard II.'s reign,
once in that of Henry IV., and once in that of Henry V. As a mayor
Whittington was popular, and his justice and patriotism became
proverbial. He vigorously opposed the admission of foreigners into the
freedom of the City, and he fined the Brewers' Company L20 for selling
bad ale and forestalling the market. His generosity was like a
well-spring; and being childless, he spent his life in deeds of charity
and generosity. He erected conduits at Cripplegate and Billingsgate; he
founded a library at the Grey Friars' Monastery in Newgate Street (now
Christ's Hospital); he procured the completion of the "Liber Albus," a
book of City customs; and he gave largely towards the Guildhall library.
He paved the Guildhall, restored the hospital of St. Bartholomew, and by
his will left money to rebuild Newgate, and erect almshouses on College
Hill (now removed to Highgate). He died in 1427 (Henry VI.). Nor should
we forget that Whittington was also a great architect, and enlarged the
nave of Westminster Abbey for his knightly master, Henry V. This
large-minded and munificent man resided in a grand mansion in Hart
Street, up a gateway a few doors from Mark Lane. A very curious old
house in Sweedon's Passage, Grub Street, with an external winding
staircase, used to be pointed out as Whittington's; and the splendid old
mansion in Hart Street, Crutched Friars, pulled down in 1861, and
replaced by offices and warehouses, was said to have cats'-heads for
knockers, and cats'-heads (whose eyes seemed always turned on you)
carved in the ceilings. The doorways, and the brackets of the long lines
of projecting Tudor windows, were beautifully carved with grotesque
figures.
In 1418 (Henry V.) Sir William de Sevenoke was mayor. This rich merchant
had risen to the top of the tree by cleverness and diligence equal to
that of Whittington, but we hear less of his charity. He was a
foundling, brought up by charitable persons, and apprenticed to a
grocer. He was knighted by Henry VI., and represented the City in
Parliament. Dying in 1432, he was buried at St. Martin's, Ludgate.
In 1426 (Henry VI.) Sir John Rainewell, mayor, with a praiseworthy
disgust at all dishonesty in trade, detecting Lombard merchants
adulterating their wines, ordered 150 butts to be stove in and swilled
down the kennels. How he might wash down London now with cheap sherry!
In 1445 (Henry VI.), Sir Simon Eyre. This very worthy mayor left 3,000
marks to the Company of Drapers, for prayers to be read to the market
people by a priest in the chapel at Guildhall.
It is related that when it was proposed to Eyre at Guildhall that he
should stand for sheriff, he would fain have excused himself, as he did
not think his income was sufficient; but he was soon silenced by one of
the aldermen observing "that no citizen could be more capable than the
man who had openly asserted that he broke his fast every day on a table
for which he would not take a thousand pounds." This assertion excited
the curiosity of the then Lord Mayor and all present, in consequence of
which his lordship and two of the aldermen, having invited themselves,
accompanied him home to dinner. On their arrival Mr. Eyre desired his
wife to "prepare the little table, and set some refreshment before the
guests." This she would fain have refused, but finding he would take no
excuse, she seated herself on a low stool, and, spreading a damask
napkin over her lap, with a venison pasty thereon, Simon exclaimed to
the astonished mayor and his brethren, "Behold the table which I would
not take a thousand pounds for!" Soon after this Sir Simon was chosen
Lord Mayor, on which occasion, remembering his former promise "at the
conduit," he, on the following Shrove Tuesday, gave a pancake feast to
all the 'prentices in London; on which occasion they went in procession
to the Mansion House, where they met with a cordial reception from Sir
Simon and his lady, who did the honours of the table on this memorable
day, allowing their guests to want for neither ale nor wine.
In 1453 Sir John Norman was the first mayor who rowed to Westminster.
The mayors had hitherto generally accompanied the presentation show on
horseback. The Thames watermen, delighted with the innovation so
profitable to them, wrote a song in praise of Norman, two lines of which
are quoted by Fabyan in his "Chronicles;" and Dr. Rimbault, an eminent
musical antiquary, thinks he has found the original tune in John
Hilton's "Catch That, Catch Can" (1658).
The deeds of Sir Stephen Forster, Fishmonger, and mayor 1454 (Henry
VI.), who by his will left money to rebuild Newgate, we have mentioned
elsewhere (p. 224). Sir Godfrey Boleine, Lord Mayor, 1457 (Henry VI.),
was grandfather to Thomas, Earl of Wiltshire, the grandfather of Queen
Elizabeth. He was a mercer in the Old Jewry, and left by his will L1,000
to the poor householders of London, and L2,000 to the poor householders
in Norfolk (his native county), besides large legacies to the London
prisons, lazar-houses, and hospitals. Such were the citizens, from whom
half our aristocracy has sprung. Sir Godfrey Fielding, a mercer in Milk
Street, Lord Mayor in 1452 (Henry VI.), was the ancestor of the Earls of
Denbigh, and a privy councillor of the king.
In Edward IV.'s reign, when the Lancastrians, under the bastard
Falconbridge, stormed the City in two places, but were eventually
bravely repulsed by the citizens, Edward, in gratitude, knighted the
mayor, Sir John Stockton, and twelve of the aldermen. In 1479 (the same
reign) Bartholomew James (Draper) had Sheriff Bayfield fined L50 (about
L1,000 of our money) for kneeling too close to him while at prayers in
St. Paul's, and for reviling him when complained of. There was a
pestilence raging at the time, and the mayor was afraid of contagion.
The money went, we presume, to build ten City conduits, then much
wanted. The Lord Mayor in 1462, Sir Thomas Coke (Draper), ancestor of
Lord Bacon, Earl Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Salisbury, and Viscount
Cranbourne, being a Lancastrian, suffered much from the rapacious
tyranny of Edward IV. The very year he was made Knight of the Bath, Coke
was sent to the Bread Street Compter, afterwards to the Bench, and
illegally fined L8,000 to the king and L800 to the queen. Two aldermen
also had their goods seized, and were fined 4,000 marks. In 1473 this
greedy king sent to Sir William Hampton, Lord Mayor, to extort
benevolences, or subsidies. The mayor gave L30, the aldermen twenty
marks, the poorer persons L10 each. In 1481, King Edward sent the mayor,
William Herriot (Draper), for the good he had done to trade, two harts,
six bucks, and a tun of wine, for a banquet to the lady mayoress and the
aldermen's wives at Drapers' Hall.
At Richard III.'s coronation (1483), the Lord Mayor, Sir Edmund Shaw,
attended as cup-bearer with great pomp, and the mayor's claim to this
honour was formally allowed and put on record. Shaw was a goldsmith, and
supplied the usurper with most of his plate. Sir William Horn, Lord
Mayor in 1487, had been knighted on Bosworth field by Henry VII., for
whom he fought against the "ravening Richard." This mayor's real name
was Littlesbury (we are told), but Edward IV. had nicknamed him Horn,
from his peculiar skill on that instrument. The year Henry VII. landed
at Milford Haven two London mayors died. In 1486 (Henry VII.), Sir Henry
Colet, father of good Dean Colet, who founded St. Paul's School, was
mayor.
Colet chose John Percival (Merchant Taylor), his carver, sheriff, by
drinking to him in a cup of wine, according to custom, and Perceval
forthwith sat down at the mayor's table. Percival was afterwards mayor
in 1498. Henry VII. was remorseless in squeezing money out of the City
by every sort of expedient. He fined Alderman Capel L2,700; he made the
City buy a confirmation of their charter for L5,000; in 1505 he threw
Thomas Knesworth, who had been mayor the year before, and his sheriff,
into the Marshalsea, and fined them L1,400; and the year after, he
imprisoned Sir Lawrence Aylmer, mayor in the previous year, and extorted
money from him. He again amerced Alderman Capel (ancestor of the Earls
of Essex) L2,000, and on his bold resistance, threw him into the Tower
for life. In 1490 (Henry VII.) John Matthew earned the distinction of
being the first, but probably not the last, bachelor Lord Mayor; and a
cheerless mayoralty it must have been. In 1502 Sir John Shaw held the
Lord Mayor's feast for the first time in the Guildhall; and the same
hospitable mayor built the Guildhall kitchen at his own expense.
Henry VIII.'s mayors were worshipful men, and men of renown. To Walworth
and Whittington was now to be added the illustrious name of Gresham. Sir
Richard Gresham, who was mayor in the year 1537, was the father of the
illustrious founder of the Royal Exchange. He was of a Norfolk family,
and with his three brothers carried on trade as mercers. He became a
Gentleman Usher Extraordinary to Henry VIII., and at the tearing to
pieces of the monasteries by that monarch, he obtained, by judicious
courtliness, no less than five successive grants of Church lands. He
advocated the construction of an Exchange, encouraged freedom of trade,
and is said to have invented bills of exchange. In 1525 he was nearly
expelled the Common Council for trying, at Wolsey's instigation, to
obtain a benevolence from the citizens. It is greatly to Gresham's
credit that he helped Wolsey after his fall, and Henry, who with all his
faults was magnanimous, liked Gresham none the worse for that. In the
interesting "Paston Letters" (Henry VI.), there are eleven letters of
one of Gresham's Norfolk ancestors, dated from London, and the seal a
grasshopper. Sir Richard Gresham died 1548 (Edward VI.), at Bethnal
Green, and was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Gresham's
daughter married an ancestor of the Marquis of Bath, and the Duke of
Buckingham and Lord Braybrooke are said to be descendants of his brother
John, so much has good City blood enriched our proud Norman aristocracy,
and so often has the full City purse gone to fill again the exhausted
treasury of the old knighthood. In 1545, Sir Martin Bowes (Goldsmith)
was mayor, and lent Henry VIII., whose purse was a cullender, the sum of
L300. Sir Martin was butler at Elizabeth's coronation, and left the
Goldsmiths' Company his gold fee cup, out of which the Queen drank. In
our history of the Goldsmiths' Company we have mentioned his portrait in
Goldsmiths' Hall. Alderman William Fitzwilliam, in this reign, also
nobly stood by his patron, Wolsey, after his fall; for which the King,
saying he had too few such servants, knighted him and made him a Privy
Councillor. When he died, in the year 1542, he was Knight of the Garter,
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
He left L100 to dower poor maidens, and his best "standing cup" to his
brethren, the Merchant Taylors. In 1536 the King invited the Lord Mayor,
Sir Raphe Warren (an ancestor of Cromwell and Hampden, says Mr.
Orridge), the aldermen, and forty of the principal citizens, to the
christening of the Princess Elizabeth, at Greenwich; and at the ceremony
the scarlet gowns and gold chains made a gallant show.
In Edward VI.'s reign, the Greshams again came to the front. In 1547,
Sir John Gresham, brother of the Sir Richard before mentioned, obtained
from Henry VIII. the hospital of St. Mary Bethlehem as an asylum for
lunatics.
In this reign the City Corporation lands (as being given by Papists for
superstitious uses) were all claimed for the King's use, to the amount
of L1,000 per annum. The London Corporation, unable to resist this
tyranny, had to retrieve them at the rate of twenty years' purchase. Sir
Andrew Judd (Skinner), mayor in 1550, was ancestor of Lord Teynham,
Viscount Strangford, Chief Baron Smythe, &c. Among the bequests in his
will were "the sandhills at the back side of Holborn," then let for a
few pounds a year, now worth nearly L20,000 per annum. In 1553, Sir
Thomas White (Merchant Taylor) kept the citizens loyal to Queen Mary
during Wyatt's rebellion, the brave Queen coming to Guildhall and
personally re-assuring the citizens. White was the son of a poor
clothier; at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a London tailor,
who left him L100 to begin the world with, and by thrift and industry he
rose to wealth. He was the generous founder of St. John's College,
Oxford. According to Webster, the poet, he had been directed in a dream
to found a college upon a spot where he should find two bodies of an elm
springing from one root. Discovering no such tree at Cambridge, he went
to Oxford, and finding a likely tree in Gloucester Hall garden, began at
once to enlarge and widen that college; but soon after he found the real
tree of his dream, outside the north gate of Oxford, and on that spot he
founded St. John's College.
In the reign of Elizabeth, many great-hearted citizens served the office
of mayor. Again we shall see how little even the best monarchs of these
days understood the word "liberty," and how the constant attacks upon
their purses taught the London citizens to appreciate and to defend
their rights. In 1559, Sir William Hewet (Clothworker) was mayor, whose
income is estimated at L6,000 per annum. Hewet lived on London Bridge,
and one day a nurse playing with his little daughter Anne, at one of the
broad lattice windows overlooking the Thames, by accident let the child
fall. A young apprentice, named Osborne seeing the accident, leaped from
a window into the fierce current below the arches, and saved the infant.
Years after, many great courtiers, including the Earl of Shrewsbury,
came courting fair Mistress Anne, the rich citizen's heiress. Sir
William, her father, said to one and all, "No; Osborne saved her, and
Osborne shall have her." And so Osborne did, and became a rich citizen
and Lord Mayor in 1583. He is the direct ancestor of the first Duke of
Leeds. There is a portrait of the brave apprentice at Kiveton House, in
Yorkshire. He dwelt in Philpot Lane, in his father-in-law's house, and
was buried at St. Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street.
In 1563 Lord Mayor Lodge got into a terrible scrape with Queen
Elizabeth, who brooked no opposition, just or unjust. One of the Queen's
insolent purveyors, to insult the mayor, seized twelve capons out of
twenty-four destined for the mayor's table. The indignant mayor took six
of the twelve fowls, called the purveyor a scurvy knave, and threatened
him with the biggest pair of irons in Newgate. In spite of the
intercession of Lord Robert Dudley (Leicester) and Secretary Cecil,
Lodge was fined and compelled to resign his gown. Lodge was the father
of the poet, and engaged in the negro trade. Lodge's successor, Sir
Thomas Ramsay, died childless, and his widow left large sums to Christ's
Hospital and other charities, and L1,200 to each of five City Companies;
also sums for the relief of poor maimed soldiers, poor Cambridge
scholars, and for poor maids' marriages.
Sir Rowland Heyward (Clothworker), mayor in 1570. He was an ancestor of
the Marquis of Bath, and the father of sixteen children, all of whom are
displayed on his monument in St. Alphege, London Wall.
Sir Wolston Dixie, 1585 (Skinner) was the first mayor whose pageant was
published. It forms the first chapter of the many volumes relating to
pageants collected by that eminent antiquary, the late Mr. Fairholt, and
bequeathed by him to the Society of Antiquaries. Dixie assisted in
building Peterhouse College, Cambridge. In 1594, Sir John Spencer
(Clothworker)--"rich Spencer," as he was called--kept his mayoralty at
Crosby Place, Bishopsgate. His only daughter married Lord Compton, who,
tradition says, smuggled her away from her father's house in a large
flap-topped baker's basket. A curious letter from this imperious lady is
extant, in which she only requests an annuity of L2,200, a like sum for
her privy purse, L10,000 for jewels, her debts to be paid, horses,
coach, and female attendants, and closes by praying her husband, when he
becomes an earl, to allow her L1,000 more with double attendance. These
young citizen ladies were somewhat exacting. From this lady's husband
the Marquis of Northampton is descended. At the funeral of "rich
Spencer," 1,000 persons followed in mourning cloaks and gowns. He died
worth, Mr. Timbs calculates, above L800,000 in the year of his
mayoralty. There was a famine in England in his time, and at his
persuasion the City Companies bought corn abroad, and stored it in the
Bridge House for the poor.
[Illustration: WHITTINGTON'S ALMSHOUSES, COLLEGE HILL (_see page 398_).]
In 1609, Sir Thomas Campbell (Ironmonger), mayor, the City show was
revived by the king's order. In 1611, Sir William Craven (Draper) was
mayor. As a poor Yorkshire boy from Wharfedale, he came up to London in
a carrier's cart to seek his fortune. He was the father of that brave
soldier of Gustavus Adolphus who is supposed to have privately married
the widowed Queen of Bohemia, James I.'s daughter. There is a tradition
that during an outbreak of the plague in London, Craven took horse and
galloped westward till he reached a lonely farmhouse on the Berkshire
downs, and there built Ashdown House. The local legend is that four
avenues led to the house from the four points of the compass, and that
in each of the four walls there was a window, so that if the plague got
in at one side it might go out at the other. In 1612, Sir John
Swinnerton (Merchant Taylor), mayor, entertained the Count Palatine, who
had come over to marry King James's daughter. The Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and many earls and barons were
present. The Lord Mayor and his brethren presented the Palsgrave with a
large basin and ewer, weighing 234 ounces, and two great gilt loving
pots. The bridegroom elect gained great popularity by saluting the
Lady Mayoress and her train. The pageant was written by the poet Dekker.
In this reign King James, colonising Ulster with Protestants, granted
the province with Londonderry and Coleraine to the Corporation, the
twelve great and old Companies taking many of the best. In 1613, Sir
Thomas Middleton (Goldsmith), Basinghall Street, brother of Sir Hugh
Middleton, went in state to see the water enter the New River Head at
Islington, to the sound of drums and trumpets and the roar of guns. In
1618, Sir Sebastian Harvey (Ironmonger) was mayor: during his show Sir
Walter Raleigh was executed, the time being specially chosen to draw
away the sympathisers "from beholding," as Aubrey says, "the tragedy of
the gallantest worthy that England ever bred."
[Illustration: OSBORNE'S LEAP (_see page 401_).]
In 1641 Sir Richard Gurney (Clothworker), and a sturdy Royalist,
entertained that promise-breaking king, Charles I., at the Guildhall.
The entertainment consisted of 500 dishes. Gurney's master, a silk
mercer in Cheapside, left him his shop and L6,000. The Parliament
ejected him from the mayoralty and sent him to the Tower, where he
lingered for seven years till he died, rather than pay a fine of L5,000,
for refusing to publish an Act for the abolition of royalty. He was
president of Christ's Hospital. His successor, Sir Isaac Pennington
(Fishmonger), was one of the king's judges, who died in the Tower; Sir
Thomas Atkins (Mercer), mayor in 1645, sat on the trial of Charles I.;
Sir Thomas Adams (Draper), mayor in 1646, was also sent to the Tower for
refusing to publish the Abolition of Royalty Act. He founded an Arabic
lecture at Cambridge, and a grammar-school at Wem, in Shropshire. Sir
John Gayer (Fishmonger), mayor in 1647, was committed to the Tower in
1648 as a Royalist, as also was Sir Abraham Reynardson, mayor in 1649.
Sir Thomas Foot (Grocer), mayor in 1650, was knighted by Cromwell; two
of his daughters married knights, and two baronets. Earl Onslow is one
of his descendants. Sir Christopher Packe (Draper), mayor in 1654,
became a member of Cromwell's House of Lords as Lord Packe, and from him
Sir Dennis Packe, the Peninsula general, was descended.
Sir Robert Tichborne (Skinner), mayor in 1656, sat on the trial of
Charles I., and signed the death warrant. Sir Richard Chiverton
(Skinner), mayor in 1657, was the first Cornish mayor of London. He was
knighted both by Cromwell and by Charles II., which says something for
his political dexterity. Sir John Ireton (Clothworker), mayor in 1658,
was brother of General Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law.
The period of the Commonwealth did not furnish many mayors worth
recording here. In 1644, the year of Marston Moor, the City gave a
splendid entertainment to both Houses of Parliament, the Earls of Essex,
Warwick, and Manchester, the Scotch Commissioners, Cromwell, and the
principal officers of the army. They heard a sermon at Christ Church,
Newgate Street, and went on foot to Guildhall. The Lord Mayor and
aldermen led the procession, and as they passed through Cheapside, some
Popish pictures, crucifixes, and relics were burnt on a scaffold. The
object of the banquet was to prevent a letter of the king's being read
in the Common Hall. On January 7th the Lord Mayor gave a banquet to the
House of Commons, Cromwell, and the chief officers, to commemorate the
rout of the dangerous Levellers. In 1653, the year Cromwell was chosen
Lord Protector, he dined at the Guildhall, and knighted the mayor, John
Fowke (Haberdasher).
The reign of Charles II. and the Royalist reaction brought more tyranny
and more trouble to the City. The king tried to be as despotic as his
father, and resolved to break the Whig love of freedom that prevailed
among the citizens. Loyal as some of the citizens seem to have been,
King Charles scarcely deserved much favour at their hands. A more
reckless tyrant to the City had never sat on the English throne. Because
they refused a loan of L100,000 on bad security, the king imprisoned
twenty of the principal citizens, and required the City to fit out 100
ships. For a trifling riot in the City (a mere pretext), the mayor and
aldermen were amerced in the sum of L6,000. For the pretended
mismanagement of their Irish estates, the City was condemned to the loss
of their Irish possessions and fined L50,000. Four aldermen were
imprisoned for not disclosing the names of friends who refused to
advance money to the king; and, finally, to the contempt of all
constitutional law, the citizens were forbidden to petition the king for
the redress of grievances. Did such a king deserve mercy at the hands of
the subjects he had oppressed, and time after time spurned and deceived?
In 1661, the year after the Restoration, Sir John Frederick (Grocer),
mayor, revived the old customs of Bartholomew's Fair. The first day
there was a wrestling match in Moorfields, the mayor and aldermen being
present; the second day, archery, after the usual proclamation and
challenges through the City; the third day, a hunt. The Fair people
considered the three days a great hindrance and loss to them. Pepys, the
delightful chronicler of these times, went to this Lord Mayor's dinner,
where he found "most excellent venison; but it made me almost sick, not
daring to drink wine."
Amidst the factions and the vulgar citizens of this reign, Sir John
Lawrence (Grocer), mayor in 1664, stands out a burning and a shining
light. When the dreadful plague was mowing down the terrified people of
London in great swathes, this brave man, instead of flying quietly,
remained at his house in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, enforcing wise
regulations for the sufferers, and, what is more, himself seeing them
executed. He supported during this calamity 40,000 discharged servants.
In 1666 (the Great Fire) the mayor, Sir Thomas Bludworth (Vintner),
whose daughter married Judge Jeffries, is described by Pepys as quite
losing his head during the great catastrophe, and running about
exclaiming, "Lord, what can I do?" and holding his head in an exhausted
and helpless way.
In 1671 Sir George Waterman (mayor, son of a Southwark vintner)
entertained Charles II. at his inaugural dinner. In the pageant on this
occasion, there was a forest, with animals, wood nymphs, &c., and in
front two negroes riding on panthers. Near Milk Street end was a
platform, on which Jacob Hall, the great rope-dancer of the day, and his
company danced and tumbled. There is a mention of Hall, perhaps on this
occasion, in the "State Poems:"--
"When Jacob Hall on his high rope shows tricks,
The dragon flutters, the Lord Mayor's horse kicks;
The Cheapside crowds and pageants scarcely know
Which most t'admire--Hall, hobby-horse, or Bow."
In 1674 Sir Robert Vyner (Goldsmith) was mayor, and Charles II., who was
frequently entertained by the City, dined with him. "The wine passed too
freely, the guests growing noisy, and the mayor too familiar, the king,"
says a correspondent of Steele's (_Spectator_, 462), "with a hint to the
company to disregard ceremonial, stole off to his coach, which was
waiting in Guildhall Yard. But the mayor, grown bold with wine, pursued
the 'merry monarch,' and, catching him by the hand, cried out, with a
vehement oath, 'Sir, you shall stay and take t'other bottle.' The 'merry
monarch' looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and with a smile and
graceful air (for I saw him at the time, and do now) repeated the line
of the old song, 'He that is drunk is as great as a king,' and
immediately turned back and complied with his host's request."
Sir Robert Clayton (Draper), mayor in 1679, was one of the most eminent
citizens in Charles II.'s reign. The friend of Algernon Sidney and Lord
William Russell, he sat in seven Parliaments as representative of the
City; was more than thirty years alderman of Cheap Ward, and ultimately
father of the City; the mover of the celebrated Exclusion Bill (seconded
by Lord William Russell); and eminent alike as a patriot, a statesman,
and a citizen. He projected the Mathematical School at Christ's
Hospital, built additions there, helped to rebuild the house, and left
the sum of L2,300 towards its funds. He was a director of the Bank of
England, and governor of the Irish Society. He was mayor during the
pretended Popish Plot, and was afterwards marked out for death by King
James, but saved by the intercession (of all men in the world!) of
Jeffries. This "prince of citizens," as Evelyn calls him, had been
apprenticed to a scrivener. He lived in great splendour in Old Jewry,
where Charles and the Duke of York supped with him during his mayoralty.
There is a portrait of him, worthy of Kneller, in Drapers' Hall, and
another, with carved wood frame by Gibbons, in the Guildhall Library.
In 1681, when the reaction came and the Court party triumphed, gaining a
verdict of L100,000 against Alderman Pilkington (Skinner), sheriff, for
slandering the Duke of York, Sir Patience Ward (Merchant Taylor), mayor
in 1680, was sentenced to the ignominy of the pillory. In 1682 (Sir
William Pritchard, Merchant Taylor, mayor), Dudley North, brother of
Lord Keeper North, was one of the sheriffs chosen by the Court party to
pack juries. He was celebrated for his splendid house in Basinghall
Street, and Macaulay tells us "that, in the days of judicial butchery,
carts loaded with the legs and arms of quartered Whigs were, to the
great discomposure of his lady, 'driven to his door for orders.'"
In 1688 Sir John Shorter (Goldsmith), appointed mayor by James II., met
his death in a singular manner. He was on his way to open Bartholomew
Fair, by reading the proclamation at the entrance to Cloth Fair,
Smithfield. It was the custom for the mayors to call by the way on the
Keeper of Newgate, and there partake on horseback of a "cool tankard" of
wine, spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with sugar. In receiving the
tankard Sir John let the lid flop down, his horse started, he was thrown
violently, and died the next day. This custom ceased in the second
mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood, 1817. Sir John was maternal grandfather
of Horace Walpole. Sir John Houblon (Grocer), mayor in 1695 (William
III.), is supposed by Mr. Orridge to have been a brother of Abraham
Houblon, first Governor of the Bank of England, and Lord of the
Admiralty, and great-grandfather of the late Viscount Palmerston. Sir
Humphrey Edwin (Skinner), mayor in 1697, enraged the Tories by omitting
the show on religious grounds, and riding to a conventicle with all the
insignia of office, an event ridiculed by Swift in his "Tale of a Tub,"
and Pinkethman in his comedy of _Love without Interest_ (1699), where he
talks of "my lord mayor going to Pinmakers' Hall, to hear a snivelling
and separatist divine divide and subdivide into the two-and-thirty
points of the compass." In 1700 the Mayor was Sir Thomas Abney
(Fishmonger), one of the first Directors of the Bank of England, best
known as a pious and consistent man, who for thirty-six years kept Dr.
Watts, as his guest and friend, in his mansion at Stoke Newington. "No
business or festivity," remarks Mr. Timbs, "was allowed to interrupt Sir
Thomas's religious observances. The very day he became Lord Mayor he
withdrew from the Guildhall after supper, read prayers at home, and then
returned to his guests."
In 1702, Sir Samuel Dashwood (Vintner) entertained Queen Anne at the
Guildhall, and his was the last pageant ever publicly performed, one for
the show of 1708 being stopped by the death of Prince George of Denmark
the day before. "The show," says Mr. J.G. Nicholls, "cost L737 2s., poor
Settle receiving L10 for his crambo verses." A daughter of this Dashwood
became the wife of the fifth Lord Brooke, and an ancestor of the present
Earl of Warwick. Sir John Parsons, mayor in 1704, was a remarkable
person; for he gave up his official fees towards the payment of the City
debts. It was remarked of Sir Samuel Gerrard, mayor in 1710, that three
of his name and family were Lord Mayors in three queens' reigns--Mary,
Elizabeth, and Anne. Sir Gilbert Heathcote (mayor in 1711), ancestor of
Lord Aveland and Viscount Donne, was the last mayor who rode in his
procession on horseback; for after this time, the mayors, abandoning the
noble career of horsemanship, retired into their gilt gingerbread coach.
Sir William Humphreys, mayor in 1715 (George I.), was father of the
City, and alderman of Cheap for twenty-six years. Of his Lady Mayoress
an old story is told relative to the custom of the sovereign kissing the
Lady Mayoress upon visiting Guildhall. Queen Anne broke down this
observance; but upon the accession of George I., on his first visit to
the City, from his known character for gallantry, it was expected that
once again a Lady Mayoress was to be kissed by the king on the steps of
the Guildhall. But he had no feeling of admiration for English beauty.
"It was only," says a writer in the _Athenaeum_, "after repeated
assurance that saluting a lady, on her appointment to a confidential
post near some persons of the Royal Family, was the sealing, as it were,
of her appointment, that he expressed his readiness to kiss Lady Cowper
on her nomination as lady of the bed-chamber to the Princess of Wales.
At his first appearance at Guildhall, the admirer of Madame Kielmansegge
respected the new observance established by Queen Anne; yet poor Lady
Humphreys, the mayoress, hoped, at all events, to receive the usual
tribute from royalty from the lips of the Princess of Wales. But that
strong-minded woman, Caroline Dorothea Wilhelmina, steadily looked away
from the mayor's consort. She would not do what Queen Anne had not
thought worth the doing; and Lady Humphreys, we are sorry to say, stood
upon her unstable rights, and displayed a considerable amount of bad
temper and worse behaviour. She wore a train of black velvet, then
considered one of the privileges of City royalty, and being wronged of
one, she resolved to make the best of that which she possessed--bawling,
as ladies, mayoresses, and women generally should never do--bawling to
her page to hold up her train, and sweeping away therewith before the
presence of the amused princess herself. The incident altogether seems
to have been too much for the good but irate lady's nerves; and unable
or unwilling, when dinner was announced, to carry her stupendous
bouquet, emblem of joy and welcome, she flung it to a second page who
attended on her state, with a scream of 'Boy, take my _bucket_!' In
_her_ view of things, the sun had set on the glory of mayoralty for
ever.
"The king was as much amazed as the princess had been amused; and a
well-inspired wag of the Court whispered an assurance which increased
his perplexity. It was to the effect that the angry lady was only a mock
Lady Mayoress, whom the unmarried Mayor had hired for the occasion,
borrowing her for that day only. The assurance was credited for a time,
till persons more discreet than the wag convinced the Court party that
Lady Humphreys was really no counterfeit. She was no beauty either; and
the same party, when they withdrew from the festive scene, were all of
one mind, that she must needs be what she seemed, for if the Lord Mayor
had been under the necessity of borrowing, he would have borrowed
altogether another sort of woman." This is one of the earliest stories
connecting the City with an idea of vulgarity and purse pride. The
stories commenced with the Court Tories, when the City began to resist
Court oppression.
A leap now takes us on in the City chronicles. In 1727 (the year George
I. died), the Royal Family, the Ministry, besides nobles and foreign
ministers, were entertained by Sir Edward Becher, mayor (Draper). George
II. ordered the sum of L1,000 to be paid to the sheriffs for the relief
of insolvent debtors. The feast cost L4,890. In 1733 (George II.), John
Barber--Swift, Pope, and Bolingbroke's friend--the Jacobite printer who
defeated a scheme of a general excise, was mayor. Barber erected the
monument to Butler, the poet, in Westminster Abbey, who, by the way, had
written a very sarcastic "Character of an Alderman." Barber's epitaph on
the poet's monument is in high-flown Latin, which drew from Samuel
Wesley these lines:--
"While Butler, needy wretch! was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give.
See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown--
He asked for bread, and he received a stone."
In 1739 (George II.) Sir Micajah Perry (Haberdasher) laid the first
stone of the Mansion House. Sir Samuel Pennant (mayor in 1750), kinsman
of the London historian, died of gaol fever, caught at Newgate, and
which at the same time carried off an alderman, two judges, and some
disregarded commonalty. The great bell of St. Paul's tolled on the death
of the Lord Mayor, according to custom. Sir Christopher Gascoigne
(1753), an ancestor of the present Viscount Cranbourne, was the first
Lord Mayor who resided at the Mansion House.
In that memorable year (1761) when Sir Samuel Fludyer was elected, King
George III. and Queen Charlotte (the young couple newly crowned) came to
the City to see the Lord Mayor's Show from Mr. Barclay's window, as we
have already described in our account of Cheapside; and the ancient
pageant was so far revived that the Fishmongers ventured on a St. Peter,
a dolphin, and two mermaids, and the Skinners on Indian princes dressed
in furs. Sir Samuel Fludyer was a Cloth Hall factor, and the City's
scandalous chronicle says that he originally came up to London attending
clothier's pack-horses, from the west country; his second wife was
granddaughter of a nobleman, and niece of the Earl of Cardigan. His sons
married into the Montagu and Westmoreland families, and his descendants
are connected with the Earls Onslow and Brownlow; and he was very kind
to young Romilly, his kinsman (afterwards the excellent Sir Samuel). The
"City Biography" says Fludyer died from vexation at a reprimand given
him by the Lord Chancellor, for having carried on a contraband trade in
scarlet cloth, to the prejudice of the East India Company. Sir Samuel
was the ground landlord of Fludyer Street, Westminster, cleared away for
the new Foreign Office.
In 1762 and again in 1769 that bold citizen, William Beckford, a friend
of the great Chatham, was Lord Mayor. He was descended from a Maidenhead
tailor, one of whose sons made a fortune in Jamaica. At Westminster
School he had acquired the friendship of Lord Mansfield and a rich earl.
Beckford united in himself the following apparently incongruous
characters. He was an enormously rich Jamaica planter, a merchant, a
member of Parliament, a militia officer, a provincial magistrate, a
London alderman, a man of pleasure, a man of taste, an orator, and a
country gentleman. He opposed Government on all occasions, especially in
bringing over Hessian troops, and in carrying on a German war. His great
dictum was that under the House of Hanover Englishmen for the first time
had been able to be free, and for the first time had determined to be
free. He presented to the king a remonstrance against a false return
made at the Middlesex election. The king expressed dissatisfaction at
the remonstrance, but Beckford presented another, and to the
astonishment of the Court, added the following impromptu speech:--
"Permit me, sire, to observe," are said to have been the concluding
remarks of the insolent citizen, "that whoever has already dared, or
shall hereafter endeavour by false insinuations and suggestions to
alienate your Majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general,
and from the City of London in particular, and to withdraw your
confidence in, and regard for, your people, is an enemy to your
Majesty's person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a
betrayer of our happy constitution as it was established at the
_Glorious and Necessary Revolution_." At these words the king's
countenance was observed to flush with anger. He still, however,
presented a dignified silence; and accordingly the citizens, after
having been permitted to kiss the king's hand, were forced to return
dissatisfied from the presence-chamber.
This speech, which won Lord Chatham's "admiration, thanks, and
affection," and was inscribed on the pedestal of Beckford's statue
erected in Guildhall, has been the subject of bitter disputes. Isaac
Reed boldly asserts every word was written by Horne Tooke, and that
Horne Tooke himself said so. Gifford, with his usual headlong
partisanship, says the same; but there is every reason to suppose that
the words are those uttered by Beckford with but one slight alteration.
Beckford died, a short time after making this speech, of a fever,
caught by riding from London to Fonthill, his Wiltshire estate. His son,
the novelist and voluptuary, had a long minority, and succeeded at last
to a million ready money and L100,000 a year, only to end life a
solitary, despised, exiled man. One of his daughters married the Duke of
Hamilton.
[Illustration: A LORD MAYOR AND HIS LADY (MIDDLE OF SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY). _From an Old Print._]
The Right Hon. Thomas Harley, Lord Mayor in 1768, was a brother of the
Earl of Oxford. He turned wine-merchant, and married the daughter of his
father's steward, according to the scandalous chronicles in the "City
Biography." He is said, in partnership with Mr. Drummond, to have made
L600,000 by taking a Government contract to pay the English army in
America with foreign gold. He was for many years "the father of the
City."
Harley first rendered himself famous in the City by seizing the boot and
petticoat which the mob were burning opposite the Mansion House, in
derision of Lord Bute and the princess-dowager, at the time the sheriffs
were burning the celebrated _North Briton_. The mob were throwing the
papers about as matter of diversion, and one of the bundles fell,
unfortunately, with considerable force, against the front glass of Mr.
Sheriff Harley's chariot, which it shattered to pieces. This gave the
first alarm; the sheriffs retired into the Mansion House, and a man was
taken up and brought there for examination, as a person concerned in the
riot. The man appeared to be a mere idle spectator; but the Lord Mayor
informed the court that, in order to try the temper of the mob, he had
ordered one of his own servants to be dressed in the clothes of the
supposed offender, and conveyed to the Poultry Compter, so that if a
rescue should be effected, the prisoner would still be in custody, and
the real disposition of the people discovered. However, everything was
peaceable, and the course of justice was not interrupted, nor did any
insult accompany the commitment; whereupon the prisoner was discharged.
What followed, in the actual burning of the seditious paper, the Lord
Mayor declared (according to the best information), arose from
circumstances equally foreign to any illegal or violent designs. For
these reasons his lordship concluded by declaring that, with the
greatest respect for the sheriffs, and a firm belief that they would
have done their duty in spite of any danger, he should put a negative
upon giving the thanks of the City upon a matter that was not
sufficiently important for a public and solemn acknowledgment, which
ought only to follow the most eminent exertions of duty.
[Illustration: WILKES ON HIS TRIAL. (_From a Contemporary Print._)]
In 1770 Brass Crosby (mayor) signalised himself by a patriotic
resistance to Court oppression, and the arbitrary proceedings of the
House of Commons. He was a Sunderland solicitor, who had married his
employer's widow, and settled in London. He married in all three wives,
and is said to have received L200,000 by the three. Shortly after
Crosby's election, the House of Commons issued warrants against the
printers of the _Middlesex Journal_ and the _Gazetteer_, for presuming
to give reports of the debates; but on being brought before Alderman
Wilkes, he discharged them. The House then proceeded against the printer
of the _Evening Post_, but Crosby discharged him, and committed the
messenger of the House for assault and false imprisonment. Not long
after, Crosby appeared at the bar of the House, and defended what he had
done; pleading strongly that by an Act of William and Mary no warrant
could be executed in the City but by its ministers. Wilkes also had
received an order to attend at the bar of the House, but refused to
comply with it, on the ground that no notice had been taken in the order
of his being a member. The next day the Lord Mayor's clerk attended with
the Book of Recognisances, and Lord North having carried a motion that
the recognisance be erased, the clerk was compelled to cancel it. Most
of the Opposition indignantly rose and left the House, declaring that
effacing a record was an act of the greatest despotism; and Junius, in
Letter 44, wrote: "By mere violence, and without the shadow of right,
they have expunged the record of a judicial proceeding." Soon after this
act, on the motion of Welbore Ellis, the mayor was committed to the
Tower. The people were furious; Lord North lost his cocked hat, and even
Fox had his clothes torn; and the mob obtaining a rope, but for Crosby's
entreaties, would have hung the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms. The question
was simply whether the House had the right to despotically arrest and
imprison, and to supersede trial by jury. On the 8th of May the session
terminated, and the Lord Mayor was released. The City was illuminated at
night, and there were great rejoicings. The victory was finally won.
"The great end of the contest," says Mr. Orridge, "was obtained. From
that day to the present the House of Commons has never ventured to
assail the liberty of the press, or to prevent the publication of the
Parliamentary debates."
At his inauguration dinner in Guildhall, there was a superabundance of
good things; notwithstanding which, a great number of young fellows,
after the dinner was over, being heated with liquor, got upon the
hustings, and broke all the bottles and glasses within their reach. At
this time the Court and Ministry were out of favour in the City; and
till the year 1776, when Halifax took as the legend of his mayoralty
"Justice is the ornament and protection of liberty," no member of the
Government received an invitation to dine at Guildhall.