LITMIR.BIZ

      QUEEN ELEANOR OF CASTILE

       From the effigy in Westminster Abbey.

      In the City the contest between the two parties was continued. The old party tried to obtain the election of their man Philip le Taillour, but were beaten by the common sort who elected Walter Hervey. An appeal was made to the King: a committee of ten, five on each side, were to agree upon a Mayor. The names of the members of this committee on both sides show pretty plainly the real nature of the quarrel. For one side are Walter Merton, William le Polter, John Adrian, Henry de Coventry, and Thomas Basyng, all members of old City families; on the other side are Robert Grapefige, Alan the Capmaker, and Bartholomew the Grocer. It was while the dispute was still unsettled that the old King had died, and Walter Merton told the people at Paul’s Cross that they should have their Mayor. The new Mayor and Sheriffs set themselves to regulate the trade of the City, especially the sale of bread, meal, and provisions generally, and to pass laws for the punishment of those who gave short weight or adulterated food. The laws being passed, the City Fathers, as was customary in those times, sat down with the consciousness of having done their duty. The appointment of an executive force to insist upon the observance of the laws was an expedient not yet invented by the wit of man.

      It is, however, another illustration of the upheaval and discontent of the people that in the third year of this reign, the juries of the wards made a presentment to the King complaining that although the City ought not to be tallaged except by order of the King, yet it had been on several occasions tallaged by the Mayor; and that although all the citizens were equal as regards their freedom and privileges, yet some of the Aldermen and others had obtained charters from Henry III. exempting them from tallage: in so much that all the tallage fell upon the middle sort and the poor, to their great loss and oppression.

      The King further considered the complaints against the Jews for usury. They were forbidden to practise their trade; and it was ordained, as a mark of infamy, that every usurer should wear upon his breast a badge, the “breadth of a paveline,” in sign of his trade. This law was levelled at the Italian merchants, the men of the Pope, who traded in money and refused to obey any laws against the practice except those of the Pope. As for the unfortunate Jews, being deprived of the only trade open to them—if they were really deprived, but I think the edict was never enforced,—they took to clipping and diminishing the King’s coin—if they really did do so, but one doubts—and were all seized and imprisoned in one day: out of those so arrested in the City, two hundred and eighty were executed. Alas! poor Jews!

      It is an illustration of the melancholy condition to which London was reduced by the late disastrous reign that in the year 1281 it was reported to the King that London Bridge had become so ruinous that it might any moment fall down. This was in consequence of the Queen of Henry III. having spent the revenues and rents upon herself, and left the fabric to fall into ruin, in so much that in 1282 a great frost happening, five of the piers were carried away by the ice. Edward ordered a toll of one penny for every horseman and one halfpenny for every saleable pack of goods that crossed the bridge, the toll to continue for three years. Grants of land, made to the City by Edward I. and following kings for the repair of the Bridge, prove that the citizens had recovered their ancient rights as to its custody.

      Nor were the City Gates in much better case than the Bridge. Thus, the Hanseatic merchants enjoyed the privilege of trading in the City on the condition of keeping one of the Gates—Bishopsgate—in repair, and of defending it in case of siege. The condition was imposed by Henry III., but the merchants neglected the Gate so that it had by this time fallen into ruin. On being called upon to fulfil their contract they at first refused, but when the case was decided against them by the Court of Exchequer, they performed their duty with zeal, and a hundred and fifty years later, when the gate again fell into decay, they pulled it down and rebuilt it.

      The brutality of the time is illustrated by the reception given to the head of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales. He had fled to the castle of Builth after losing his last battle. Here he was betrayed into the hands of Roger le Strange, who cut off his head with his sword and sent it to the King. Edward ordered that it should be carried to London. Consequently the head of the dead warrior was borne on a lance, crowned with a silver chaplet, through the streets with a cavalcade of men-at-arms, with trumpets and drums, and with the shouting of the people. Then it was stuck up on the Tower, crowned with a mock diadem. One remembers also the unspeakable indignities perpetrated on the dead body of Simon de Montfort.

      All the histories of London notice the remarkable case of Lawrence Ducket mentioned by Fabyan. It occurred in the year 1284, and presents many points of mystery. Lawrence Ducket was a goldsmith who, in some kind of affray, wounded one Ralph Crepin in Westchepe. Immediately after the deed, it would seem, probably running away from the crowd, he took sanctuary in Bow Church tower. But certain friends of Crepin getting into the tower at night hanged Lawrence from one of the windows in such a manner that it seemed as if he had committed suicide. And a Coroner’s jury holding inquest on the body brought in a verdict of self-murder, whereupon the body was thrown into a cart, carried out of the City, and buried in a ditch. Then, however, a boy came forward and deposed that he was sleeping in the tower with Lawrence Ducket, and that he witnessed from a corner where he hid himself—the murder by certain persons whom he named. Arrests were made and more information obtained, in consequence of which it was discovered that a woman had contrived and designed this murder and sacrilege. She was burned alive. Sixteen were hanged; and many others, persons of consideration, were fined. A notable murder.

      One remembers the quarrel between the Goldsmiths and the Tailors fifteen years before this. Was it a renewal of that, or some other old feud? That would seem the only way of accounting for so determined and so daring a revenge.

      Two things are remarkable in the year 1285. First, the great conduit of Cheapside was set up in this year. It was a cistern of lead built round with stone and castellated. The water had been brought from Paddington fifty years before, but this was the first attempt to form a reservoir; the leaden pipes originally used were changed for wooden pipes formed by hollowing out trunks of trees. There were three sections: one of 510 rods from Paddington to “James’ Head”; one of 102 rods from “James’ Head on the hill” to the Mewsgate; from the Mewsgate to the Cross in Cheape, 484 rods. For a long time this conduit formed the sole supply of water brought in from without for the whole City excepting the foul waters of the Fleet and the Walbrook. There were, however, many private wells and springs in the City, and of water without the City there was a plentiful supply.

      The

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