London and the Kingdom - Volume I

London and the Kingdom -
Volume I by

Reginald R. Sharpe
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Title: London and the Kingdom - Volume I
Author: Reginald R. Sharpe
Release Date: November 13, 2006 [Ebook #19800]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON
AND THE KINGDOM - VOLUME I***

[Illustration: CHARTER OF WILLIAM I TO THE CITIZENS OF
LONDON.]
CHARTER OF WILLIAM I TO THE CITIZENS OF LONDON.
[Illustration: CHARTER OF WILLIAM I GRANTING LANDS TO

DEORMAN.]
CHARTER OF WILLIAM I GRANTING LANDS TO DEORMAN.

London and the Kingdom
A HISTORY--DERIVED MAINLY FROM THE ARCHIVES AT
GUILDHALL IN THE CUSTODY OF THE CORPORATION OF
THE CITY OF LONDON.
By REGINALD R. SHARPE, D.C.L., RECORDS CLERK IN THE
OFFICE OF THE TOWN CLERK OF THE CITY OF LONDON;
EDITOR OF "CALENDAR OF WILLS ENROLLED IN THE COURT
OF HUSTING," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CORPORATION UNDER THE
DIRECTION OF THE LIBRARY COMMITTEE.
London LONGMANS, GREEN & Co. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST
16TH STREET.
1894

LONDON: PRINTED BY BLADES, EAST & BLADES, 23,
ABCHURCH LANE, E.C.

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 municipal organization of
the City. Their task has been to unfold the origin and institution 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 assembled 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 prone," writes Bishop Stubbs, "in examining into the
municipal 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 amusements; 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 title 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 repetition 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