2

in Stebbehive." In a petition to Parliament at Carlisle in 35 Edward I. the Earl of Lincoln stated that in old times ten or twelve ships used often to come up to Fleet Bridge with merchandise, and some even to Holborn Bridge. Manorial records form a third source of information on this subject, and that they relate wholly to extra London and not to the city is an important fact. They give evidence of the usual kind, and where they have been examined in detail, as in the case of the manor of Tooting Bec, they yield not only topographical but historical and economic information of great value.3

One further illustration of this period must be noted. London has begun to take rank among historians with other English cities, and no longer stands alone. In the chronicle of Richard of Devizes there is a remarkable picture of English cities of the time of King John, that is, toward the end of the twelfth century, which is sufficiently useful to quote. A vile French Jew recommends an unfortunate young cobbler to pass through London quickly, since every nation has introduced into that city its vices and bad manners. He is to avoid Canterbury, because the shrine of the lately canonised archbishop attracted crowds of vagrants: "Everywhere they die in open day by the streets for want of bread and employment. 1 Report of Deputy Keeper of Public Records, xxxv. p. 16.

2 Rot. Parl., i. p. 200, No. 59, quoted in Stanley's Mem. of Westminster, p. 6.

3 The Manor Rolls of Tooting Bec, published by the London County Council

Rochester and Chichester are mere villages, and they possess nothing for which they should be called cities but the sees of their bishops. Oxford scarcely sustains its clerks. Exeter supports men and beasts with the same grain. Bath is placed, or rather buried, in the lowest parts of the valleys in a very dense atmosphere and sulphury vapour, as it were at the gates of Hell. Nor yet will you select your habitation in the northern cities-Worcester, Chester, Hereford—on account of the desperate Welshmen. York abounds in Scots, vile and faithless men, or rather rascals. The town of Ely is always putrefied by the surrounding marshes." He then goes on to advise the poor apprentice cobbler not to visit Durham, Norwich, Lincoln, Bristol, nor the rural districts— especially Cornwall-and finally directs him to Winchester, which is "the city of cities, the mother of all, the best of all."1 It is only by scraps of history like this that we can ascertain how London was regarded at this time.2

We are at a half stage here. We cannot quite understand it in its relationship to what has preceded it and what will follow it. A charter-granting sovereign, a sovereign who sends writs to the city on questions of city governance; a city which is working through a gild system as distinct from a municipal

1 Richard of Devizes, De Rebus Gestis Ricardi primi, Rolls edit., vol. iii. pp. 437-8.

2 There is an interesting description of Plantagenet London in the Introduction to the Chroniques de London 44 Henry III. to 17 Edw. III. (Camden Soc.), pp. xi-xviii.

system, a city which has its immemorial custom converted into charter grants—is evidently different from what it was in Anglo-Saxon times. The extent of such difference and its effect upon the life of London must be the subject of an additional chapter.

CHAPTER VII

CITY AND STATE

AFTER the institution of the city within the state there were still things to be worked out. It is important to bear in mind that this working-out of

the problem is by the city, and not through the commanding statecraft of the sovereign power— neither king nor parliament. It is a pure workingout between the city and the state. Our commencing point is the relationship between the city and the representative of the state, the sovereign king. Plantagenet kings took their share in the government of the kingdom, meeting difficulties of all kinds in the whirlpool of continental events. They were not men to stand much trifling, to bow to powers

within the realm which claimed, or acted as if they claimed, a sort of equality with them. And yet this is what we see going on. The strong hand of Henry II. and Edward I., the unscrupulous hand

of Henry III., took the city sadly to task, and we seem to see it bending to the sovereign will. But its time came again. Corporations never die, and kings do. The last of the Plantagenets, bold, brave, able as he was, bent the knee to London, and in his person, as Shakespeare, is shown the continuity of city polity right down to the end of the feudal period.

he is outlined by

It is quite true to say that the chief evidence for this is derived from the weak

places in English sovereignty,
but it is not true to assume
from this that London was
simply taking advantage of
these favourable opportunities
to advance unconstitutional
claims. As we are reminded
by Mr Lucas, Sir Matthew
Hale declared that he was unable to understand
the form of government anterior to Henry III.,
and Holborne, the junior counsel in Hampden's
great case, said with considerable justification that the