The name is absent

590               Constitutional History.             [chap.

could be made the king died, and the earl of Gloucester, who
was the leading man among the lords, seeing that the majority
of the Londoners were determined to force Walter Hervey into
office, prevailed on the royal council to advise the aidermen to
submit. They agreed thereupon that he should be mayor for a
year. The next year Henry Ie Waleys was chosen, apparently
by the aidermen ; he was speedily involved in a quarrel with
his predecessor, obtained an order for his arrest, and, with the
permission of the council, removed him from the office of
aiderman. Thus ended, not without much complication with
national politics, one phase of the communal quarrel¹. The
aidermen, in alliance with the king and council, had overcome
the party of the commons, the leaders of whom had certainly
been in alliance with Simon de Montfort and Gloucester.

The condition of the city during the next reign was anything
but easy : and the relations of the magistracy with the king
seem to show that the popular party had now got a hold on the
municipal government, or else that the reforms which Edward
had introduced into legal procedure had offended the jealous
conservatism of the governing body; from 1285 t° ¹²98 the
liberties of the city were in the king’s hands, owing to an
attempt made by the mayor to defy or to elude the jurisdiction
of the justices in Eyre : the king appointed a custos and exacted
a heavy fine when he relaxed his hold. The election of a new
mayor after so long a period of abeyance was made by the
aidermen with twelve men selected by them from each ward² ;
an important change from the old and closer system of election
by the aidermen alone, and especially interesting as it coincides
in point of time with the earliest elections of members of parlia-
ment. The efforts of Thomas Fitz-Thomas and Walter Hervey
bore, it would appear, fruit thus late. Up to this time however
no trace is discovered of trade disputes underlying the political
rivalry ; the struggle has been between the two political parties,
the magnates on the one side and the commons on the other.

ɪ Lib. de Antt. Legg. pp. 142 sq., 164 sq.

² Norton, Commentaries, p. 87 ; quoting Liber B. fol. 38 ; Fabyan,
PP- ʒɛə, 4^o°∙

It is probable that two new points, which now emerge, are Expansion
connected with a relaxation of the close government by the system <rf
mayor and aidermen. In 1285 ɪɪæ ^aIdermen began to act^goτerπme
with the aid of an elected council in each ward ; and under
Edward II we find distinct traces of the creation of a body of
freemen other than the resident householders and house-owners
who had until now engrossed the title of citizens. An article Admission
of the charter granted by Edward II to London lays down very
definite rules as to the admission of freemen ; no alien is to be
admitted except in the hustings court, and native traders only
on the manucaption or security of six good men of the mystery
or guild¹ : all so admitted are to pay lot and scot with the
commoners. To the same reign belongs the great quarrel Quarrel of ,
between the weavers’ guild and the magistracy, one of the first guild.

signs of that change in the constitution of London which placed
the supreme influence in the hands of the craft guilds or city
companies.

487. The weavers’ guild was the oldest, or one of the oldest, Growthof _
of the trade communities ; it could look back to the twelfth guild.

century, and perhaps even further, for Robert, the London citizen
who in 1130 accounted for sixteen pounds paid by this guild,
was son of Leofstan, who had been the aiderman of the still
more ancient cnihtengild. The weavers had obtained from
Henry II a very important privilege, which placed in their
hands the exclusive control of their craftsmen, and confirmed to
them the liberties which they had enjoyed under his grandfather.
Their payments for the royal protection appear regularly in
the Pipe Rolls : the annual sum of two marks of gold, or
twelve pounds of silver, fixed by their charter². With some of Itisviewed
the other wider crafts, the bakers in particular, they managed jealousy by
by these means to elude the royal jealousy which fell so heavily the citizens,
on the unauthorised or adulterine guilds. On the establish-
ment of the communal authority under Henry Fitz-Alwyn,
the weavers’ guild ran some risk of destruction, for in 1202

¹ Liber Albus, i. pp. 142, 143.

² Pipe !tolls of Henry I, p. 144 ; Hen. II, p. 4; Madox, Exch. p. 231 ;
Finna Burgi, pp. 191, 192, 284; Herbert, Livery Companies, i. 17-21;
cf. Liber ʌɪbus, i. p. 134 ; Liber Custumarum, i. pp. 33, 48, 417.

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