acting upon this maxim, dined with the citizens just at that critical period of his history when a recourse to arms must have appeared to all thoughtful minds the only ultimate solution of the contest between him and the people. The long Parliament had met; Strafford had been arrested, tried, and executed: the city exhibiting its sentiments with regard to that nobleman, while his fate was yet undecided, by presenting a petition for justice against him, signed by 20,000 citizens. To arrest these and other similarly dangerous symptoms was, therefore, an object of the highest importance. The banquet took place on the very day of the king's return from Scotland, the 25th of November, 1641, the corporation having come out to meet him on the road. Its conduct was, of course, marked by every possible indication of external respect, and Charles took care to return their compliments in a truly royal manner. When the Lord Mayor, Recorder, and others met him, in the Kingsland road, with an address, he made a very gracious reply, in which he told them, that he had thought of one thing as a particular affection to them, which was the giving back unto the city that part of Londonderry (Ireland), which had been formerly evicted from them; and, in conclusion, he knighted both the Lord Mayor-Acton, and the Recorder. Then they all went on together in stately procession to Guildhall, where the dinner gave such high satisfaction to their Majesties (the Queen being also present) that, after it was over, Charles sent for Mr. John Pettus, a gentleman, says Maitland, of an ancient family in the

county of Suffolk, who had married the Lord Mayor's daughter, and knighted him too. The royal visitors were then conducted to Whitehall, where his Majesty could not part with the Lord Mayor till he had most graciously embraced and thanked him, and charged him to thank the whole city in his name. Whether enough had not been done yet to soften the harshness of the city politics, and in despair further efforts were made, or whether the first move was so successful that everything might be hoped for from a second of a like kind, we know not; but whatever the cause, not many days elapsed before the Mayor received a patent of baronetcy instead of the knighthood so recently conferred (he was a new Mayor, be it remembered, the 9th of November having only just passed); and when a deputation of the citizens, consisting of the Mayor and certain Aldermen, with the Sheriffs and the Recorder, went to Hampton Court to thank their Majesties for all favours, and to ask them to winter at Whitehall, &c., Charles agreed to their request, and "after his Majesty had ended his answer, and that Mr. Recorder and Sir George Whitmore had kissed his royal hand, the next alderman in seniority kneeled down to receive the like princely favour, when suddenly and unexpectedly his Majesty drew a sword, and instead of giving him his hand to kiss he laid his sword upon his shoulder and knighted him; the like he did to all the other aldermen and the two sheriffs, being in number seven;" whilst as an appropriate conclusion, we presume, to so much princely favour, "his Majesty commanded that they should dine before they left the court.*"

The annual feast in Guildhall, on Lord Mayor's Day, is but the suitable close to the general business of the installation of the new chief magistrate, which takes place the day before, and to the somewhat tedious honours involved in the pageantry of the procession. The twenty-six Aldermen, and two hundred and forty common-councilmen of the City, have seen with their own eyes that the existence of the Corporation has not been endangered by the bare presumption of any momentary lapse as to its possession of a head; in other words, they have seen the Lord Mayor elect and the Lord Mayor in possession sitting side by side, and then changing chairs; and the public have had their share of the enjoyment attached to the event, namely, the gilded coach and the men in armour; and now all parties, except the public, sit down comfortably to enjoy themselves after their toils, still further solaced by the fair faces and radiant eyes which glow and sparkle in every direction: the concentrated loveliness of the civic domestic world, which these occasions, with a few others of a more accidental character, as a fancy ball for the benefit of the Poles, alone adequately reveal to us. The election of the Mayor takes place on the preceding 29th of September, and the electors are the liverymen of the several companies met in Common Hall, as it is called. To these the crier reads a list of Aldermen, in the order of seniority, who have served as sheriff (who alone are eligible), and who have not already passed the chair of mayoralty. In ordinary cases the first two persons named are accepted, but the Livery, if it pleases, may depart from that order, or even select those in preference who have already been elected and served. If the decision of a show of hands be not accepted, a poll is taken, which lasts seven days. The two names finally determined upon are announced to the Mayor and Aldermen by the Common Sergeant; these also generally select the senior Alderman, but may

* Maitland, vol. i. p. 343-346.

reject him, as in a recent instance, for the other. The person elected then declares his acceptance of the office (rejection subjects him to a fine of 10007.), and the Lord Mayor, Recorder, Sheriffs, and Common Sergeant, returning to the Hall, declare the result, and proclamation accordingly is made. There remains but to present him to the Lord Chancellor, in order to receive his assent on the part of the Crown to the election; to administer the usual oaths before the Mayor and Aldermen on the morning of the 8th, after which the proceedings before alluded to take place; and lastly, the presentation to the Barons of the Exchequer, when he is again sworn, a custom that is an interesting memento of the state of things after the Conquest, when the chief municipal officers were the parties appointed by the king as the instruments of his pecuniary exactions, and who, when, in lapse of time, again elected by their respective municipalities, were sworn to pay duly into the Exchequer the crown rent then accepted in lieu of the former uncertain and arbitrary imposts: London had two of these officers, called bailiffs, and paid 3007. yearly.

The mummeries and sensual enjoyments which seem to round in and to form so large a portion of London municipal life has had one bad effect, which is as much to be regretted for the sake of its chief officers themselves, as for the institution: they have turned aside the public attention, not merely from the capacities of the one, but have made it estimate very inaccurately the real nature and amount of the services performed by the other. Looking at it as a whole, it would be difficult to find a more arduous and responsible position than that of the mayoralty of London. Consider for a moment the Mayor's duties. He presides at the sittings of the Court of Aldermen, both in their own and in what is called the Lord Mayor's Court, at the Court of Common Council, and at the Common Hall. He is Judge of the Court of Hustings, which, however, does not make any extensive demands upon his time; a Judge of the Central Criminal Court, and the same of the London Sessions held at Guildhall. He is a justice of the peace for Southwark, where he usually opens the Sessions, and continues subsequently to preside. He is escheator in London and Southwark, when there is anything escheatable, not a matter now of very frequent occurrence. He is conservator of the Thames, an office that involves, among other duties, the holding eight courts within the year, and occasionally a ninth. He has to sign affidavits to notarial documents required for transmission to the colonies, to attend, when necessary, committees of the municipal body, and the meetings of the Sewage Commissioners, of which he is a member. Then, in matters of a more general nature, in which the City is concerned, or in which it feels interested, he is expected to take the lead, and in consequence is in continual communication with the Government; he presides at public meetings; distinguished foreigners have a kind of prescriptive claim on his attention and hospitality. He attends the Privy Council on the accession of a new sovereign; at coronations he is chief butler, and receives a golden cup as his fee. And as if his time were still insufficiently occupied with his own corporate business, and the things naturally growing out of it, other institutions look to him for assistance: he is a governor of Greenwich Hospital, governor of King's College, a trustee of St. Paul's, and connected with we know not how many other schools, hospitals, and public foundations. Lastly, not that the list is exhausted, but that our

space is, he sits daily in his own justice-room at the Mansion House, for scarcely less than four hours a day on the average. We are not aware how the mere enumeration of such an overwhelming amount of business as this may affect the fancy of the sportive wits who amuse themselves at the expense of the office and the officer, but we do know that the latter need desire no better revenge than to be allowed to catch one of these said gentlemen, and place him in the civic chair for a single week.

Yet it must be owned that some of the interest formerly attached to the Mayoralty, and most of the romance, have been lost. There are no opportunities now for the incipient Walworths to show their prowess; no government, be it Whig or Tory, thinks now of making the Lord Mayor an occasional inmate of the Tower, as a mode of drawing his attention, as a wealthy and benevolent citizen, to its financial necessities. The history of the Lord Mayors of London in the nineteenth century certainly looks rather insignificant beside the history of their predecessors some four or five centuries back. Take up any tolerably full index to a history of the metropolis, and mark the expressive items enumerated under the word Mayor. Here is Maitland's, which, beginning with the first chief magistrate (after the bailiffs), Henry Fitz-Alwin, 1189, and proceeding chronologically downwards, tells us that at one time the Mayor-submits to the king's mercy, at another-is arrested, and purchases his liberty at a dear rate-is committed to prison-is, with four of the aldermen, delivered up to the prince to be fleecedis degraded-presented to the Constable of the Tower-again committed to prison-reprimanded by the privy council-flies with the other citizens-assaulted -fined; "warm work, my masters!" and this all in the first century and a half. The cause was, no doubt, to be found very much in the feelings and conduct of the Mayor and his brethren in those days; they were neither content, on the one hand, to help the monarch to fleece their fellow-citizens, nor would be fleeced themselves, without being delivered up, on the other. And, after all, one wonders why the monarch took so much trouble with men who were indignant at what he did rather than grateful for what he did not, but might have done; and seeing how much more easy it was to seize and take care of a charter than a mayor, how much more profitable its gracious restoration. Possibly the fact that the citizens of London could, if need were, use the arms with which they were then generally provided, may have had something to do with the matter, and rendered subtlety as necessary as force in dealing with them. Hence the interference of royalty in the earlier elections, and the variety of interesting events that sprang from this interference, among which is one that it is strange has not been more dwelt upon, from the high interest attached to an actor therein. It may surprise many to hear that one of the greatest of English poets, Chaucer, ought also to be looked upon as one of the most eminent on the roll of the civic illustrious: no portrait, no memorial of any kind, reminds you in Guildhall of his name, yet was he an exile in the cause of corporate freedom. Born in London, as he himself tells us, and feeling more kindly love "to that place than to any other in earth," he was not one to remain in inaction when its liberties were threatened with utter destruction by Richard II. Fortunately, we possess his own statement of what his views on this subject had been from an early period of his life. "In my youth," says the poet, "I was drawn to be assentant-and in my might

helping to certain conjuracions [confederacies], and other great matters of ruling of citizens; and thylke things being my drawers-in and exciters to these matters, were so painted and coloured, which at the prime face meseemed them noble and glorious to all the people. I then weening mickle merit [to] have deserved in furthering and maintenance of those things, busied and laboured with all my diligence, in working of thilke matters to the end. And truly to tell you the sooth, merought little of any hate of the mighty Senators* in thilke city, nor of commons' malice, for two skilles [reasons]: one was, I had comfort to be in such plight, that both profit were to me and to my friends; another was, for common profit in communalty is not, but [unless] peace and tranquillity with just governance proceedeth from thilke profit:" observations worthy of the author of the Canterbury Tales;' and presenting an interesting glimpse of the principles that guided the poet in action. Prior to the event we are about to notice, Richard had shown an almost open hostility towards the citizens, partly, it is said, on account of their manly remonstrances against the proceedings of his ministers, and partly from envy of their wealth. Accordingly, it appears, "he was accustomed," says Godwin, "when they had fallen under his displeasure, to oblige them to purchase his forgiveness with large contributions in money ;" and he had also repeatedly imposed his own creature, Sir Nicholas Brember, as Mayor, upon them, in defiance of their wishes and rights. It may be here noticed that the City records show that, in former times, the election of the Mayor was claimed by some popular and large constituency, which, no doubt, was the entire body of citizens; we shall perceive, in Chaucer's own account of the matter, that this was an element of the struggle between Richard and the Londoners. Describing (in his appeal to the government from the Tower, from which the foregoing passage is taken) the arguments used by his associates to induce him to adopt the line of conduct which had brought him into so much misery, he says, "The things which, quod they, be for common advantage, may not stand, but [unless] we be executors of these matters, and authority of execution by common election, to us be delivered; and that must enter by strength of your maintenance." Again, "The government," quod they, " of your city, left in the hands of tornencious [usurious or extortionate] citizens shall bring in pestilence and destruction to you, good men; and therefore let us have the common administration to abate such evils." We have here still more clearly pointed out the motives that actuated Chaucer in engaging in the struggle between the King and the popular party in the City, and which rose to its climax in 1392; when the latter selected John of Northampton to be the candidate for the Mayoralty in opposition to Brember, and a most exciting contest ensued. Chaucer is supposed by Godwin to have had another motive besides his regard for the liberties of the City, namely, zeal for his patron, John of Gaunt, towards whose ruin, it seems, the proceedings of the Court were looked upon as the first step. Of the details of the struggle we know very little. Chaucer says of it, "And so, when it fell that free election by great clamour of much people [who], for great disease of government, so fervently stooden in their election [of their own candidate] that

*The Aldermen probably of that day; a body that we find continually leaning towards royalty through the early struggles of the citizens against it.