London

As a direct consequence of its growing political and financial prestige and the prominence of its citizens and institutions, fifteenth-century London frequently found itself at the centre of national events. The reign of Henry VI saw London drawn into the increasingly polarized dispute between Lancaster and York, and was the scene of some of the key events of the period, including Cade’s revolt and the anti-alien violence of the mid 1450s. Parliament itself played an important part in dealing with the breakdown of order, despite a tendency for it to be held away from Westminster at moments of crisis. The continued development of the role of the Commons in Parliament, and of the central courts and inns of the lawyers in Westminster and Fleet Street, emphasised the position of London and Westminster at the heart of the government of the realm.11 General surveys of London and its government in the late med. period can be found in C.M. Barron, London in the Middle Ages; eadem, ‘London 1300-1540’, Cambridge Urban History, i. 395-400; S.L. Thrupp, Merchant Class Med. London.

The population of the city did not grow appreciably in size during this period, remaining at its 1400 level of perhaps 40,000-50,000 inhabitants. Of this number, an estimated 3,000 were citizens, roughly a quarter of the adult male population, and it was these individuals who exercised trading rights in the city, had access to its courts, and could become involved in civic government.12 Barron, ‘London 1300-1540’, 396; D. Keene, ‘New Study of London’, Urban Hist. Year Bk. (1984), 11-21. Repeated outbreaks of plague from the mid fourteenth century nullified the effects of continued migration to London from elsewhere in England and from the continent. Thus, in this period, the city did not expand significantly beyond its Roman walls, although the corridor between London and Westminster, along the Strand and Holborn with their law courts, inns and aristocratic residences, was perhaps an exception. The lack of growth in the population had its effects on the market for property within the walls: in the area around Cheapside there was an increase in vacant plots and a corresponding decline in some rent receipts which continued until the early sixteenth century, but sluggish demand for property here contrasted with the more lively market to the west of the city in Westminster.13 C.M. Barron, ‘Centres of Conspicuous Consumption’, London Jnl. xx. 1-16; Keene, 20-21. Nevertheless, for London’s citizens property remained a prime investment of capital and a way of ensuring the future prosperity of their families. Secular building flourished in this period, as leading citizens constructed large residences to reflect their growing status and influence and to emulate the houses owned by prominent noblemen and clergymen in and around London.14 C.L. Kingsford, ‘A London Merchant’s House’, Archaeologia, lxxiv. 137-40; J. Schofield, The Building of London, 123-4; Atlas of Historic Towns III: London ed. Lobel, 50. The fabric of the city was altered too by benefactions to its many parish churches, the majority of them associated in some way with post obit arrangements such as chantries and anniversaries which often generated a steady stream of income. Examples include the three new chapels added to the wealthy church of St. Mary at Hill through a bequest made in 1431, and the bell-towers constructed at churches such as St. Augustine by Paul’s Gate in the 1420s and at St. Mary Aldermanbury in 1446. By contrast to this parochial activity, the cathedral church of St. Paul’s was not a principal focus for benefaction in this period, although the citizens did respond when in 1445 the 500 foot spire of the cathedral was struck by lightning, and by 1462 it had been repaired and the weather-cock reinstated.15 Atlas of Historic Towns III, 48-49; C. Burgess, ‘St. Mary at Hill, London in the 15th Cent.’, in The Cloister and the World, ed. Blair and Golding, 248-86; Med. Recs. of a London City Church (EETS, cxxv, cxxviii).

Civic projects were also very much in evidence, another consequence of the willingness of some of the leading citizens to make provision for their souls, but also of the importance ascribed to these ventures by the city government. A prime example was London’s water supply, which was piped through a system of conduits that was enlarged and extended in the 1440s and 1450s. It followed on from the enlargement of the city’s Guildhall which had begun in 1411 and was still in progress early in the reign of Henry VI when the executors of Richard Whittington† provided £35 to pay for paving the 150-foot great hall with Purbeck marble. In 1424-5 work began on a new building for the mayor’s court and the inner chamber, where the court of aldermen met. These were built over undercrofts which were used for a while as markets. The Guildhall library was built between March 1423 and September 1425, and was funded and administered by Whittington’s executors. From 1440 the adjoining Guildhall chapel (described as ‘small and ruinous’ in 1430), was also rebuilt.16 C.M. Barron, Med. Guildhall London, 25-39. The other major communal building project carried out in the reign of Henry VI was the construction in 1446-8 of the new Leadenhall, comprising a granary, market and school. This was both a reflection of London’s growing importance as a centre for the buying and selling of cloth and other goods, but also a prudent response to the grain shortages that had affected the city in the late 1430s.

The reign of Henry VI saw the city consolidate and enhance its dominant position as England’s leading centre for trade and manufacture. Wool exports to the continent were declining throughout the later Middle Ages, but London’s share of this trade increased, with the result that during this period between 40 and 60 per cent of the wool shipped to Calais passed through the port of London. The trade through London remained overwhelmingly in the hands of denizen merchants, with aliens only accounting for a small proportion of wool exports.17 Barron, ‘London 1300-1540’, 412. Men such as John Reynwell, William Estfield and William Cantelowe were among the more active exporters of wool, and, like a substantial body of London’s leading citizens, were members of the Calais staple. Their influence in many ways even outstripped the importance of the wool trade itself, principally because of the large sums of money which these men either individually, or as part of consortia, advanced to the Crown. From the late 1440s the staplers’ financial muscle came to play a part in the onset of civil war and the eventual disintegration of Lancastrian rule. A key event was the success of Richard, duke of York, while Protector in May 1456, in installing his ally Richard, earl of Warwick, as captain of Calais, a move which eventually gave the staplers a vested interest in the Yorkist cause. The ripples of the negotiations between the staplers and the Crown, and the staplers and the duke of York in the 1450s can perhaps be seen in the election of merchants of the staple as MPs for London: Cantelowe and John Walden were among those elected in 1453, while in 1455 all four of London’s MPs were staplers.18 G.L. Harriss, The Struggle for Calais’, EHR lxxv. 41-51.

Just as significant for London’s economy in the fifteenth century was the export trade in cloth, a trade which was not only expanding, but came to be increasingly dominated by the port of London. In the reign of Henry VI London accounted for approximately half of England’s export trade in this commodity, and this would subsequently rise during Edward IV’s reign to over two thirds. Although Hansards and other aliens on average accounted for around half the cloths taken through the port, involvement in the cloth trade became a sine qua non for the ambitious London merchant. The substantial proceeds of the sale of cloth on the continent were used to buy a wide range of consumer goods and raw materials to be imported into England. Some of the imported merchandise, especially in cargoes shipped by London mercers, was destined for the Great Wardrobe for which Londoners were the chief suppliers of luxuries ranging from fine linen and other mercery wares, to dyes, spices and iron for use by the King’s armourers. Most goods, however, were imported to be sold in shops and markets in London and elsewhere: brass and latten cooking pots and other vessels from the Low Countries, hemp and dyestuffs for use in manufacturing, and victuals such as garlic, cheese and, perhaps most prominent of all, wine.19 Barron, ‘London 1300-1540’, 412-13; Statutes ii. 374-5, 395-8, 472, 506.

While friendly dealings with alien merchants were vital for many Londoners, relations with the influential Italian communities in London and Southampton became badly strained in the 1450s. In the summer of 1456 serious rioting took place in London, instigated it was said by young men of the Mercers’ Company, during which a prominent Italian, Alessandro Palastrelli, was attacked. This appears to have reflected a growing climate of anger at the continued generosity of the Crown towards Italian merchants who were frequently granted licences enabling them to ship wool by routes other than through Calais. More disturbances took place the following year in the aftermath of the seizure by pirates of more than £20,000 worth of merchandise from ships that were part of an expedition organized by Robert Sturmy of Bristol. Blame fell upon the Genoese and in response to the growing agitation the Crown issued an order, later countermanded by the lords, to seize their goods in London and Southampton.20 J.L. Bolton, ‘London and the Crown’, London Jnl. xii. 12-21; P. Nightingale, A Med. Mercantile Community, 443, 507-11. Yet despite these incidents, and the prevalence of xenophobia, the city’s merchants maintained close links with the Italian community. Opposition from some groups was matched by a more conciliatory attitude elsewhere: when anti-Italian feeling was at its height in 1457-8 the Tailors’ Company admitted more than 20 Venetian, Genoese and Florentine merchants to its fraternity of St. John the Baptist.21 Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 127.

Although normally overshadowed in the political arena by their mercantile counterparts, London’s artisan crafts flourished in this period. In 1422 the clerk of the Brewers’ Company recorded the names of some 122 separate occupations known to him in the city. Not all of these were ‘organized’, in the sense of having wardens or some sort of corporate body to represent their interests, but their number and variety testified to the diversity of economic life in the capital. London’s reputation rested especially upon those trades which supplied luxury goods, both to the Great Wardrobe and to noble households. Cheapside became a noted source of high-quality goldsmiths’ work, while other specialized trades, such as the painters and embroiderers, also flourished and gained a reputation outside the city. In the case of other crafts, such as the tailors, goods were produced to suit all tastes and pockets, ranging from robes supplied to noblemen for ceremonial events, to the second-hand clothes that were repaired and sold by alien ‘botchers’ in the city. The visitor to the capital was faced with a vast range of commodities and products, sold in shops and on market stalls, vividly described by the author of the fifteenth-century poem ‘London Lyckpeny’.22 Oxf. Bk. of Late Med. Verse and Prose ed. Gray, 16-19. Rights of ‘search’ became an increasingly important issue for London’s companies, and particular concern was shown at the growth of unregulated trade in Southwark, south of the Thames, where the activities of the large numbers of alien workers was a source of worry. In 1440 the 445 aliens recorded in the return for the subsidy levied on them that year included a high proportion of workers in the cloth and clothing trades, the leather industry, and metal working. Overall it is likely that foreigners accounted for at least six per cent of the population of London and the suburbs in the mid fifteenth century. Their presence was almost certainly a stimulus to innovation within many trades, as aliens brought with them important skills from the Continent, especially the Low Countries. Yet as the century wore on they were increasingly viewed as a threat to the livelihoods of citizens: in July 1451, for instance, the Tailors and Cordwainers petitioned the court of aldermen asking for restrictions to be placed on the hiring of ‘foreyns’ (both aliens and other non-citizens), by Londoners. Although the riots of 1456 were directed specifically against the wealthy Italian community, the more numerous newcomers from the Low Countries had long been vulnerable to attack: bills against the ‘Flemings’ had been nailed to the door of the bishop of Winchester’s house in Southwark in 1425, while in 1436 more than 500 were offered royal protection at the time of the siege of Calais. The real extent of any ‘threat’ is unclear, but was undoubtedly exaggerated by chroniclers and insurgents alike at times of crisis.23 J.L. Bolton, Alien Communities in London, 1-20, 39, 141.

The government of London continued to develop during the reign of Henry VI, with innovation in some areas matched by more gradual change in emphasis elsewhere. At the head of the civic hierarchy stood the annually-elected mayor. The office increased in status during the fifteenth century, mirroring the growing importance of the city itself. The use of the term ‘lord mair’ is first recorded in 1414, while on ceremonial occasions the mayor increasingly came to have precedence over prominent churchmen and members of the nobility, at least within the city walls. In parallel, the mayor’s official household grew in number, and by the 1460s he could draw upon the services of four valets, several serjeants, the swordbearer, common huntsman and numerous lesser attendants. Over the course of Henry VI’s reign, some changes were made to the qualifications for election as mayor. An ordinance of 1424 specified that no one should serve again within seven years of being elected and another of 1435 forbade anyone from serving more than twice in the office. This did not prevent the King from trying to get his own way in the autumn of 1444, when he wrote to the then mayor, Thomas Catworth, and the aldermen asking them to have Estfield elected for a third time. The impending marriage of the King to Margaret of Anjou seems to have been the reason for his unusual request, for Estfield had been mayor at the King’s own coronation in 1429. Catworth and his fellow aldermen were not impressed, and Henry Frowyk was duly chosen as the next mayor. Another change came in the autumn of 1447 when it was agreed that the new mayor and sheriffs should travel to Westminster by barge to swear their oaths before the King and the barons of the Exchequer. In the past the procession had traditionally gone by road, but in 1453 the new custom was confirmed at the election of John Norman as mayor.24 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 301-2; C.M. Barron, ‘Govt. of London’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1970), 79.

After the mayor the key elected officers in the city government were the two sheriffs and the chamberlain. Holders of the latter position rarely went on to higher things in this period, with John Middleton the only one to rise to the rank of alderman. The shrievalty, on the other hand, had become an essential stepping-stone to higher office and by this period no-one could be chosen as mayor unless he had served a term as sheriff. The office itself involved dual, occasionally conflicting allegiances, for the sheriffs were both the servants of the City and of the King, whose writs they were responsible for returning, and their area of responsibility extended to the county of Middlesex. The City did its best to remind the holders of their responsibilities: the oath taken by the sheriff required him to show any writs concerning the franchise of the City to the mayor and his council. As servants of the City they were responsible for removing suspects from sanctuary during the prolonged dispute with the college of St. Martin le Grand; as officers of the King they were directed to restore them if the City was found to have infringed the rights of sanctuary. As a result, sheriffs sometimes sought assurances that they would be indemnified against any actions taken, and expenses incurred, in pursuance of the City’s cases. The sheriffs also had to account to the Exchequer for London’s fee farm, and submit accounts concerning tournaments held at Smithfield, executions and other matters, although there is some evidence that they did not always do so with enthusiasm: thus, the account of Cantelowe and William Marowe (sheriffs for 1448-9) was not settled until January 1451, when it was found by a jury that they owed more than £300 to the Crown.25 Barron, ‘Govt. of London’, 90-91.

Central to the day-to-day government of London were the aldermen, from whose ranks the mayor was chosen. Each alderman represented a particular ward, although their number remained fixed at 24, for the prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was included as an un-elected alderman for Portsoken Ward. Virtually all the men elected to the court of aldermen in this period came from one of just eight city companies, the Grocers’, Mercers’ and Drapers’ providing a disproportionately large number. Mercantile dominance of the court was reinforced by the stipulation that aldermen could not sell food (bread, ale, wine, fish or flesh) by retail either personally or through their apprentices. Discussions about the composition of the court took place in 1441 when it was proposed that representation from any one company should be limited, but this was not taken any further until 1446 when it was decided that there should be no more than six men from any one craft on the court. Crucially, however, the aldermen reserved the right to select a seventh representative of a company should all other candidates prove of insufficient standing.26 Ibid. 63-64; Corp. London RO, jnl. 3, f. 190. This approach was reflected also in the way in which aldermanic elections were conducted. From 1436 onwards it had become common for the ‘good men’ of a vacant ward to present the names of four candidates to the aldermen, a practice which had stabilised after a period when wardmotes might present any number of candidates up to a total of four. The aldermen nevertheless reserved the right to reject all four candidates, and did so on five occasions in this period, in 1444, 1456, 1457, 1458 and 1460, in every instance giving the reason that none of the candidates was ‘sufficient’, or wealthy enough, to hold the office. The level of wealth needed to become an alderman was not formally defined until 1469, when it was agreed that no one should be chosen as an aldermen unless he had goods, chattels and realizable debts worth £1,000.27 Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 85-86. There is also some evidence that the insufficiency of some of the candidates could lead to all being rejected out of hand: this may have occurred at the election for Lime Street Ward in 1448, when Philip Malpas was eventually chosen after messages came from the King. If there were multiple qualified candidates, the result was determined by a vote, and in 1458 a tie between Richard Fleming and Thomas Oulegrave forced the mayor to use his casting vote in favour of the latter. A peculiar feature of the court of aldermen in this period was a growing tendency of its members to switch wards during their careers. To do so, an alderman had to agree to become one of the four candidates for a vacancy, but it is clear that this was little more than a formality.28 Barron, ‘Govt. of London’, 66-69.

To some extent the common bonds of craft and mercantile status acted as a replacement for ties of family within London’s court of aldermen. Of the aldermen who were active in Henry VI’s reign, only Nicholas Wotton and Reynwell were themselves the sons of aldermen. Similarly, there were few cases throughout the century as a whole where family members served alongside each other on the court, and none in the reign of Henry VI. Yet the absence of a conventional dynastic element in London’s government perhaps served to lend greater weight to other ties, created by marriage and through business. Thomas Cook, a son-in-law of Philip Malpas like Ralph Josselyn†, arranged the marriage of his own daughter to John Forster, the son of his business partner and fellow alderman, Stephen Forster. Similar links were forged by Richard Lee with his fellow grocer George Ireland†, who married one of his friend’s daughters. Ties of apprenticeship were also vitally important for the advancement of young merchants, particularly since as many as three quarters of London aldermen were themselves first generation Londoners and thus relied heavily upon the avenues that their masters could open up for them.

One of the most important developments of the period was the growth in size and importance of the court of common council, whose members were elected from the 25 wards, the number of representatives varying at the beginning of the period from two to six. The key to its influence, comparable to that of the Commons in Parliament, was its control over financial matters, in this case the raising of taxation from Londoners. In addition, the councilmen controlled access to the freedom of the city by purchase (redemption) and oversaw the leasing of city property. The growth in size of the common council can be dated fairly precisely to the 1440s and early 1450s. In 1441, 93 councilmen attended to discuss and vote on proposals about the office of common weigher, while 104 men were present in March 1454, and by 1458 it is clear that the full strength of the common council was then 188. This was twice the size of the common council as it was constituted at the end of the fourteenth century, when summonses were sent to 93 or 94 citizens. In parallel, the frequency with which the council met also increased in this period, from about four times a year to as many as 17 times a year in the 1450s. Political events were doubtless partly to blame for this, but the growing responsibilities of the common council were equally significant. This is evident also in the establishment of numerous joint committees of the common council and aldermen to deal with particular issues, including (but not restricted to) large civic projects such as repairs to London Bridge and proposed improvements to the city’s water supply.29 Ibid. 53-58; eadem, ‘London 1300-1540’, 404.

The mayor, aldermen and common council had at their disposal an expanded civic bureaucracy. The prestige of the office of common clerk may have been enhanced by the appointment of John Carpenter who energetically set about recording the city’s customs and ordinances in the Liber Albus. The clerk’s office was counterbalanced by that of the recorder, who during this period came to supersede the common serjeant as London’s chief legal officer. The importance of the post lay in its focus on external legal matters and dealings with the Crown, and during the reign of Henry VI the City came to employ some of the country’s most prominent lawyers, such as John Fray†, Thomas Billing and Thomas Urswyk II*, all of whom eventually transferred to the recordership from the common serjeantry. An attempt by the Crown to influence the choice of recorder seems to have occurred in 1440, although it is unclear if the man appointed, John Bowes, was the Crown’s favoured candidate. The city’s two under sheriffs, usually trained lawyers charged with presiding over the courts of the two citizen-sheriffs, also gained in importance, not least after their appointments ceased to be made annually early in the reign. One indicator of the enhanced standing of London’s law officers was the fact that so many of them were chosen to represent the city in Parliament in this period.30 Barron, ‘Govt. of London’, 104, 112-15.

London’s government can be characterized in both ‘oligarchic’ and ‘representative’ terms. On the one hand, the expansion of the common council and the establishment of joint committees gave a greater say in the government of the city to those outside the ranks of the elite. Yet at the same time there were instances of the tightening of control over appointments and elections by the city’s aldermen, and the careful scrutiny and regulation of admissions to the court of aldermen itself. Power was, of course, already concentrated in few hands, with less than ten per cent of the population as a whole entitled to any political rights whatsoever, but within that ten per cent there were divergent opinions as to how far all citizens should be involved in the political processes. Debate centred on who was entitled to participate in the elections of the mayor and sheriffs. As early as 1426 a tailor, Ralph Holland, was alleged to have declared as a forgery a recently reissued royal writ of 1315, which restricted attendance to those who were specifically summoned, and not the freemen at large. Matters came to a head in the late 1430s and early 1440s as a result of agitation by large numbers of the city’s artisans, led by Holland, who by this time had become the only tailor to be elected an alderman in this period. The events of these years were precipitated and driven by an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the Tailors’ and Drapers’ Companies, focusing on rights of ‘search’ over cloth that the Tailors managed to get included in a new royal charter in 1439.31 For what follows see C.M. Barron, ‘Ralph Holland and the London Radicals’, in The Med. Town ed. Holt and Rosser, 160-83. These craft rivalries were played out on the civic stage, with Holland and some of his fellow tailors acting as a rallying point for the grievances and frustrations of other groups of artisans. Holland’s ambitions for the mayoralty enabled these voices to be heard: he was the rejected candidate in 1439 and 1440, and in October 1441 made his third bid for the office. A large crowd assembled outside the Guildhall, and when Robert Clopton, a draper, was announced as the new mayor there were cries of ‘nay, not that man but Raulyn Holland’. Disturbances ensued and at least 11 skinners and tailors were imprisoned. The following year the mayor and aldermen obtained a new royal writ which stated that because of recent disturbances no-one but the aldermen and other ‘discreet and powerful citizens’ were to attend the elections. The election of John Hatherley as mayor was conducted amidst strict security, with the names of those who attended being ticked off at the door of the Guildhall.

Further trouble arose in September 1443 when William Cottesbroke’s candidacy for the office of chamberlain was rejected by the aldermen in favour of the incumbent, John Chichele. Once again a crowd gathered, and on hearing the outcome raised their hands and cried for ‘Cottisbrook’. An investigation by the city government thwarted further disturbances planned for the mayoral election in the following month, and revealed the extent of the plotting between men such as Cottesbroke and John Leving and other middle-ranking craftsmen and merchants. Further agitation surrounded the new royal charter granted to the City in 1444 which gave the mayor and aldermen powers as j.p.s. Holland, in a typical outburst, claimed that this was a commission ‘not of peace, but of war’. The authorities reacted swiftly, both to seek out the insurgents and to punish Holland, who was removed from the aldermanic bench. While there was thus lively debate in London about the rights of freemen, it took rather longer before the growing influence of the common council and of the city companies caused modifications to be made to electoral procedure. Only in 1475 did an ordinance specify that common councilmen should be present at the elections of the mayor and sheriffs, along with the masters, wardens and liverymen of the city companies, allowing representatives of some of the poorer crafts to attend.32 Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 132.

London’s relations with the Crown were, for much of this period, defined by the Lancastrian government’s near-permanent insolvency. Loans provided by the City and its citizens were crucial to satisfy the Crown’s financial needs, and it was partly because of this that London came to play so vital a role in the struggle between Lancaster and York. By the end of the reign, winning over London was a vital part of any attempt to take control of the government of the realm, and effectively placed the city’s rulers in the position of King-makers. London’s lending to the Crown was split between those sums lent corporately by the City and loans advanced by individuals, with additional funds provided by merchants of the Calais staple, often in consortia. Requests for loans typically took the form of letters addressed by the King to the mayor, aldermen and commonalty, although in times of particularly pressing need the King’s ministers might come to London in person to solicit funds.33 Barron, ‘London and the Crown’, 91-92. Loans were rarely refused, yet the citizens never lent as much as the King requested and this process of negotiation appears to have been accepted by both parties. Between 1431 and 1450 no fewer than 22 separate corporate loans were advanced to the Crown, totalling more than £18,000, of which £3,320 had not been repaid. Only about a quarter of the total amount lent to the Crown in that period was advanced after 1442: between 1435 and 1442 more than £10,000 found its way into the Exchequer coffers. London corporately lent much less for the remainder of the 1440s, when the City was engaged in a long-running and highly sensitive series of debates about its liberties and privileges, particularly about the King’s grants of certain city offices to royal servants. John Norris* was one of six members of his Household who were sold the office of cloth-packer in the city in late 1440, while grants of the office of garbeller of spices in London, Southampton and Sandwich particularly annoyed the Grocers who complained that garbelling was now carried out by men of ‘little behaviour or value’. In 1442 the City tried, in vain, to make a royal loan conditional upon the revocation of these patents, but a partial concession was secured two years later when it was agreed that the reversion of such offices held for life was to belong to the City.34 Ibid. 90-92; A. Steel, Receipt of the Exchequer, 205-20, 261-5.

The Crown’s growing financial crisis was in evidence by the late 1440s, and with the growing political dissatisfaction the stance taken by the citizens of London became increasingly important. Yet there is no evidence that financial support for the government was significantly affected. Although several requests for loans were refused between 1448 and 1460, another 14 were successful. In addition, 83 individual Londoners advanced more than £21,500 in these years, the Calais staplers provided some £37,000 recorded in the receipt rolls of the Exchequer, and another £24,000 is known from other sources. A further 12 loans made by the City, not recorded in the Exchequer records, were noted in the city journals, adding another £2,000 to the City’s total lending. These sums represented a considerable investment in the ruling dynasty, even if by this later period the parlous state of the royal finances instilled considerable doubt in the likelihood of swift or full repayment. The decision of the Calais staplers to accede to the request of the Protector, York, to allow Warwick to take up his post as captain of Calais was clearly taken for financial reasons: the staplers reasoned that, at the very least, their chances of securing proper financing for the garrison, and the repayment of loans might be increased. They had also been incensed by the Crown’s continued policy of granting licences for alien merchants and others to ship wool to the continent by routes avoiding Calais. Thus despite the continued financial support in London for the Lancastrian government, there were certainly those in the city who had little confidence that their needs would be addressed by those currently advising the King. The cause of Calais was certainly uppermost in the minds of London’s governors: in July 1451, for example, the staplers John Harowe, Geoffrey Boleyn and John Young were chosen by the court of aldermen to supervise the raising of a large sum of money for the defence of the port.35 Bolton, ‘London and the Crown’, 12-21; London jnl. 5, f. 58v.

In the meantime the city itself had been drawn ever more into the unfolding events, which ultimately culminated in the deposition of Henry VI. The impact of Cade’s revolt in the summer of 1450 graphically demonstrated to Londoners the extent of hostility to some of the King’s counsellors. This was doubtless shared by many in the city itself, where earlier in the year a mob had gathered in Dowgate Ward, chanting ‘By this town, By this town; For this array the King shall lose his crown’.36 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 624. Negotiations with the rebels began, with Thomas Cook prominent as an emissary to the rebel camp at Blackheath. He brought back demands for weapons, horses and the sum of 1,000 marks, which Cade, evidently conscious of the xenophobia of many Londoners, suggested might be extracted from the alien population in the city. Feelings were also running high in the city against prominent individuals who were associated with the royal court: the next day, according to one chronicle, a large crowd came to the Guildhall, and ‘while the mayr satte the commons cryed fore upon Philip Malpas to haue hym discharged of his Cloke and so he was forthwith; and Robert Horn, an other alderman, by Instigacion of the people was there arrestid and commyttid to Newgate’.37 Chrons. London ed. Kingsford, 160. See also Gt. Chron . London ed. Thomas and Thornley, 183; Six Town Chrons. ed. Flenley, 106, 132-3. This did not, however, satisfy the rebels, and on 3 July they entered the city after threatening to set fire to London Bridge. Once inside, they began to loot the houses of Malpas and others, before seizing and murdering the hated royal councillor James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele, and his son-in-law, William Cromer*, the sheriff of Kent. These and other killings probably convinced the citizens of the need to eject the rebels from the city as soon as possible, and on the night of 5-6 July London Bridge was re-taken by a force of Londoners, precipitating a pitched battle in Southwark that led ultimately to the defeat and dispersal of the rebels.38 Griffiths, 628-30.

The emergence over the next decade of Richard, duke of York, as a figurehead for opposition to the policies and personnel of Henry VI’s government presented fresh challenges for the citizens. Following the King’s incapacitation in the summer of 1453, the citizens took care to honour the duke and Queen Margaret with comparable pageants on their arrival in the capital, but early the following year riots broke out in the streets of London directed against retainers of York’s key supporters, the Neville earls of Salisbury and Warwick.39 London jnl. 5, f. 152. Further disturbances in the city were narrowly prevented in the spring of 1458 when York, Salisbury and Warwick lodged in the city awaiting Henry VI’s doomed effort to reconcile them with their opponents. These, the duke of Somerset, the earl of Northumberland and the Lords Egremont and Clifford, remained outside the city with their retainers. The City went to considerable effort to avoid trouble, by imposing a curfew and by posting more than 500 men to keep watch over the potentially unruly armed retinues.40 Barron, ‘London and the Crown’, 95.

Only in the crisis of 1459-61, after last-ditch efforts to reconcile the warring lords had failed, did London eventually switch its support to the Yorkist cause. This was not a foregone conclusion. When the Yorkist lords were in armed rebellion against the Crown in the autumn of 1459, the city authorities hurriedly provided an assurance on 11 Oct. that Henry VI had London’s full support, and five days later the common council granted a loan of 1,000 marks ‘to relieve his great expenses after the recent perturbations’. This attitude continued to prevail in the spring and early summer of 1460, even when news was received of the invasion of the Yorkist earls from their stronghold at Calais, and their advance on London. After initial attempts to dissuade the invaders from passing through the city on their way to confront the Lancastrian forces proved abortive, the Londoners admitted the earls of March, Salisbury and Warwick to the city unopposed on 2 July.

The defeat of the Lancastrians at Northampton on 10 July left the garrison of the Tower vulnerable, its commander Lord Scales was killed attempting to escape by river, and after a bombardment of several days it surrendered. Its leaders, notably (Sir) Thomas Brown II*, were executed by the Yorkist victors. London now became the headquarters of the new rulers, and over the next nine months the City advanced to them loans totalling more than £11,000, while further sums of money were lent by some of the city companies, prominent among them the Grocers’.41 Ibid. 97-98; Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xxviii), 74-75; Griffiths, 863; Steel, 285, 344. Parliament was summoned to meet on 7 Oct., and when the duke of York returned from Ireland to make his bid for the throne he took over the royal apartments at Westminster, while Henry VI was moved into the bishop of London’s palace within the city walls. The lords likewise vacated their meeting place at Westminster, and continued their deliberation at London’s Dominican friary. Over the course of the following weeks, Parliament painstakingly hammered out a dynastic settlement which was promptly brought to nothing when York, who had marched north with an army to confront Queen Margaret and her supporters was killed at Wakefield on 30 Dec. In his routed force had been a contingent from London, and one of its leaders, John Harowe, also met his death. The queen’s army now marched south, and after defeating an army hurriedly assembled by the earl of Warwick at St. Albans on 17 Feb. its vanguard appeared before the gates of London. The mayor and aldermen sought to pacify the queen by offering supplies and money, but the lesser citizens had other ideas, drove some of the soldiers off by force of arms, and seized both money and victuals. Just over a week later, the governors of London considered two letters, one from Henry VI asking them to resist the earl of March, and the other from March requesting entry to the city. The latter option prevailed, and on 4 Mar., with the mayor, recorder, aldermen and other citizens in attendance, the earl was crowned as Edward IV.42 Barron, ‘London and the Crown’, 97-98; H. Kleineke, ‘Robert Bale’s Chron.’, Historical Research, lxxxvii. 744-50.

The election returns made by the sheriffs of London and Middlesex survive for 18 out of the 22 Parliaments summoned to meet in this period, and the identities of the remaining MPs for London can be established from the city’s journals. In keeping with its status as the leading city of the realm, London uniquely returned four, rather than two, Members to each Parliament. Although in accordance with the procedures laid down by the electoral statutes of the first half of the fifteenth century the sheriffs’ election return had to maintain the pretence that the elections were held in the court of husting (the city’s equivalent of the shire court), in reality the city’s MPs were chosen in the court of aldermen and the court of common council, and it was only the formal ratification of the election which was carried out in the husting court.43 Barron, ‘London and Parliament’, 344-5; M. McKisack, Parl. Repn. English Bors. 48-51; K. Houghton, ‘Theory and Practice of Bor. Elections’, Bull. IHR, xxxix. 133. This is partially confirmed by the responses to summonses to eight Parliaments (1427, 1437, 1442, 1447, 1449 (Feb.), 1449 (Nov.), 1450 and 1455) when the dates on the indentures can be compared with the dates of election recorded in the journals: only in the case of the election of 16 Jan. 1447 did the two dates correspond. There is some evidence, however, that from this point onwards there was a conscious decision to make the two occasions coincide, or even to merge them. The election of MPs to the Parliament of 1459 was noted in the journal under the heading ‘Meeting of the common council and husting court’, and subsequent elections suggest that meetings of the common council summoned to elect MPs were designated as sessions of the husting court to fulfil the legal requirement. Moreover, there were also some variations in the actual process of selecting the MPs. In theory, the common council was meant to choose the two commoner MPs while the court of aldermen chose the two drawn from its own ranks. Yet it seems that this only happened on two occasions in Henry VI’s reign, for the Parliaments of 1439 and 1449 (Feb.). By contrast, for the Parliaments of 1425, 1426 and 1437 all four of the MPs appear to have been chosen in the court of aldermen, while for those of 1442, 1447, 1449 (Nov.), 1450, 1453 and 1455 all were chosen in the court of common council. Indeed, in October 1450 the city journal recorded the aldermen’s decision to summon a meeting of the common council specifically to elect the MPs. If this pattern reflects the electoral reality, it may be taken to indicate a move towards the common council as the preferred location for the election of London’s MPs in keeping with the increasing prominence of that body in London’s government as a whole. Nevertheless, the influence of the aldermen over the city’s parliamentary representation was still very much in evidence. Thus, a meeting of the court of aldermen on 21 Jan. 1445 chose all four London MPs, although the two commoner MPs were then formally ‘chosen’ (but in reality merely confirmed) at a meeting of the common council a week later.44 Barron, ‘Govt. of London’, 327; eadem, ‘London and Parlt.’, 346-7. Beyond this, little is known of how the choice of the MPs was narrowed down. There is evidence that in January 1449 voting among the aldermen took place with the result that John Norman and Thomas Catworth received ten and nine votes respectively, while ‘F’ (perhaps Henry Frowyk, Stephen Forster or Geoffrey Feldyng) received three. Two supporters of the last candidate then switched to Norman.45 London jnl. 5, f. 4.

The increased role of the common council in the process meant that the ‘electorate’ expanded significantly in this period, to include a greater number of London’s leading citizens, while in theory the next stage of the election, the formal ratification in the court of husting, allowed an even broader cross-section of the freemen to participate. Just as those who were able to present a suit in the shire court could take part in the shire elections, so too in London the right of freemen to use the court of husting meant that they could also attest the election of the city’s MPs. The statute of 1430, designed to restrict attendance at shire elections, established a property qualification of 40s. p.a., but this was unlikely to have had much effect in London where many citizens had incomes from property well in excess of this sum. In keeping with the statutory requirement the names of a number of men said to have participated in the election were recorded on the sheriffs’ indentures, although it is doubtful that they are a complete record in any true sense. The phrase ‘and many others’ was typically inserted at the end of the list of names, and two returns in this period, those for the Parliaments of 1425 and 1453, are damaged.

The names of 346 attestors are extant on the 18 surviving returns. In terms of raw numbers, the returns point to a substantial increase over the period in the numbers of citizens who participated in the election of London’s MPs. As the number of aldermen who could attend was limited by the size of the court (that is, 24), this increase was almost entirely accounted for by the numbers of non-aldermen who participated. Of the 346 named attestors 272 only ever attested elections as commoners, although nine of them were in fact men destined for aldermanic office who never attested an election in that capacity. A further 29 attested only after they had attained aldermanic status, while 43 others attested elections both before and after they had joined the aldermanic bench. Two men, William Waldern† and John Mitchell, attested only in their capacity as mayor at the time of the election, Mitchell doing so on two occasions (1425 and 1437). In terms of the overall trend, the returns from the 1440s onwards yield an average of 45 names of non-aldermen, compared with 18 in the 1420s and 27 in the 1430s. Some qualifications need to be made to this picture. First of all, in addition to the nine who were eventually to become aldermen, it appears that a high proportion of these non-aldermen were also probably common councilmen. Surviving lists of members of the common council for 1442, 1453 and 1455 suggest that perhaps as many as two thirds were members of this body. In other words, those who attested the elections were generally the more affluent citizens,46 Barron, ‘London and Parliament’, 349. a picture confirmed by the evidence of the 1436 subsidy returns which included assessments for 92 of the attestors, 57 of whom were never elected as aldermen. Discounting the current or future aldermen, the average assessment of income from land was just short of £14 p.a., while the aldermen were on average assessed as having £27 p.a.47 Thrupp, 378-85. Naturally, the sheer numbers of non-aldermen who attested meant that only a small proportion would ever come to hold the important civic offices, and, indeed, more than three quarters (221 out of 346) never came to be chosen as auditor, warden of London Bridge, sheriff, alderman or mayor in the course of their careers. Nevertheless, a substantial number of the non-aldermen received appointments to civic committees, minor offices in the city government or the wards, or to positions of authority within their companies. For example, of the 15 members of the Tailors’ Company who attested parliamentary indentures but never held any of the chief civic offices, at least seven were elected master of their Company.

The craft affiliations of 296, or 85 per cent, of the attestors can be identified with a high degree of certainty. The companies to which the aldermen attestors belonged generally reflected the composition of the court of aldermen as a whole, with 55 out of 81 belonging to just three companies, the Mercers, Grocers and Drapers. There were also seven Fishmongers, and five representatives each from the Skinners, Goldsmiths and Ironmongers. Turning to the non-aldermen, the prominence of the Mercers and Drapers was still much in evidence: between them, the two companies provided a third (71 of 215) of the identifiable non-aldermen. This lesser degree of dominance allowed the other leading companies to provide numbers of attestors more appropriate to their status in the city.

Apart from the leading companies, the non-aldermen who attested the parliamentary indentures came from no fewer than 24 different crafts. The numbers were evenly spread between them, however, with only the Waxchandlers being represented by four men in this period. There were three each from the Saddlers and Salters: both the latter and the Haberdashers (two) were at the time relatively small crafts that were some way yet from joining the ‘Great Twelve’ companies, which they were to do later in the century.

The frequency with which individual citizens attested parliamentary elections was clearly related to their standing in the city. Men who were destined at some point in their careers to become aldermen were on average more than twice as likely to attest an election as those who never joined the court. Thirty-seven (45 per cent) of the aldermen attested five or more elections, compared with 12 (four per cent) of non-aldermen. The most active attestor was Hugh Wyche (ten elections), while William Gregory, Simon Eyre and John Hatherley each attested nine elections during their long careers. Of the non-aldermen it was perhaps not surprising that the prominent mercer Richard Rich was the leading attestor, sealing the indenture on eight occasions.

Of the 53 men returned to Parliament for the city of London in this period, 30 were only ever returned as commoners; ten were returned as both commoners and aldermen; and the remaining 13 were only returned to Parliament once they had joined the court of aldermen. Just over half the MPs (28) were elected to just one Parliament, ten to two assemblies,48 The Parl. of 1469 to which Verney was also elected did not meet.and six to three. Of the remaining MPs three (Catworth, Marowe and Reynwell) were elected for London to four Parliaments, two (Frowyk and Gawtron) to five, and four (Mitchell, Fauconer, Welles and Wotton) to six. Several other Members, notably the city’s law officers, built for themselves more impressive parliamentary careers than these figures suggest: taking into account returns for other constituencies, Billing was elected twice, Burgoyne three times, the two Needhams and Harowe four times each and Bowes five times, while Gawtron’s two returns for Middlesex brought his total parliamentary service up to an impressive seven assemblies.

The ability to return four rather than two Members to each assembly allowed the citizens to ensure that in each Parliament at least some of its representatives possessed prior experience of the Commons. In all but one Parliament of Henry VI’s reign at least one of the city’s MPs had previously sat in the Lower House, while on nine occasions two MPs had done so, and in six parliaments this was true of three of the Londoners. In 1426 and 1429 all four of London’s MPs possessed prior experience. Still further continuity was provided by the direct re-election of two London Members of each of the Parliaments of 1423, 1426, 1427 and 1429, and one of those of 1422, 1425, 1431, 1439, 1442, 1449 (Nov.), 1450 and 1455. Uniquely, only at the elections to the contentious Parliament summoned to Coventry in 1459 did the city return four complete novices – something that had not happened for over 40 years.49 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 800.

The origins of 41 of the MPs can be established with reasonable certainty and at least 32 of these came from outside London. Another five men had links with counties that suggest that they may have been born there: both William Cottesbroke and John Abbot, for instance, retained associations with Northamptonshire throughout their careers. Four MPs, Billing, Bowes, Burgoyne and John Needham, were lawyers employed by the city government and so their origins are perhaps of less significance, but nonetheless it is evident that London’s representatives in this period very much reflected the composition of the city’s governors in general, in that at least three-quarters of them seem to have been first-generation Londoners. This contrasts with the picture for 1386-1421 when just over half of the MPs were Londoners by birth.50 Ibid. 501-2; Barron, ‘Govt. of London’, 16. It was imperative for migrants to the city to secure a place within one of the leading crafts. The composition of the body of London’s MPs returned in this period reflected the balance within the court of aldermen, with 16 mercers, 11 grocers and ten drapers together making up more than two thirds of their number. Five fishmongers and five ironmongers were joined by a solitary member of the Salters’ Company (Basset). By comparison with preceding reigns, the MPs were drawn from a somewhat narrower range of crafts than before 1422, in that no-one was returned from the Skinners’, Goldsmiths’ or Vintners’ companies in this period. Yet craft affiliations by themselves do not reveal the whole picture: despite being a ‘citizen and fishmonger’ Combes was prominent in London largely because of his activities as a member of the Calais staple, while another fishmonger, Forster, also had strong links with the Grocers’ Company. Indeed, what most of the MPs had in common was an interest in overseas trade. A total of 17 were certainly merchants of the Calais staple, and it is likely that a number of others were similarly engaged in the wool trade. A majority of the men returned to Parliament appear to have been active as cloth merchants, a number of them using the profits from their ventures abroad to import luxury goods through London and Southampton. Many MPs were active as office-holders within their companies. All the mercers and nine of the 11 grocers served as wardens of their respective companies, as did at least five of the drapers. Records for the other companies are incomplete, but it is almost certain that men such as Thomas Bernewell and Stephen Forster would have been chosen at some point in their distinguished careers as wardens of the Fishmongers’.

London’s aldermanic MPs were by necessity drawn from the city’s narrow elite, but even within that small pool men of administrative experience were preferred. Thus, to every Parliament of Henry VI’s reign the city returned at least one man who had previously held the mayoralty, and in 1433 and 1445 both aldermanic Members were so qualified. Even more prominently represented were former sheriffs: in every Parliament of the period except that of 1442 both aldermanic MPs had previously served in this office, while in 1427, 1429, 1433, 1447, 1449 (Feb.), 1453 and 1460 one, and in 1431 both of the commoners also possessed this qualification. In 1453 and 1455, respectively, Walden and Young were elected to the shrievalty while sitting in the Commons, thus effectively (albeit not in terms of the strictest letter of the law) flouting the prohibition of the election of serving sheriffs. In both 1431 and 1453 all four London MPs were thus former or serving sheriffs. The usual first step on the ladder to higher office was the post of auditor of the accounts of the warden of London Bridge and the chamberlain, to which two commoners and two aldermen were elected every year. It became increasingly common for individuals to serve a term of one or two years as auditor both before and after joining the aldermanic bench. Not surprisingly, nearly two thirds of all London seats in the period were filled by former auditors: 34 out of 44 in the case of the aldermen and 26 of the 44 in that of the commoners. In 1427, 1431, 1447, 1450, 1455 and 1460 all four MPs had in the past served in the office. Moreover, on seven occasions (1422, 1423, 1426, 1432, 1439, November 1449 and 1460) the Londoners returned men who were currently serving as auditors. Their financial expertise was evidently important enough to outweigh any inconvenience that might result from their absence from the city chamber to attend parliamentary sessions. Of particular interest is the Parliament of 1423 to which London returned no fewer than three of the four auditors. The reason for this is unclear, although it could possibly have been connected with debates over the execution of Henry V’s will, and the need to recover money owed by the Crown to the City.

Two thirds (36 of 53) of the city’s MPs joined the court of aldermen at some point during their lifetimes, although it is interesting that 24 of them began their parliamentary careers as commoners and were elevated to the bench at a later point: 13 of these never sat in Parliament again. Nicholas Yeo was chosen as an alderman in late January 1437, four days before the Parliament to which he had been elected as a commoner was due to assemble. In order to avoid having three aldermen in Parliament, which would have been a breach of the city’s customs, Yeo’s formal installation as alderman was delayed until 10 Apr., by which time Parliament had been dissolved.

While serving sheriffs were prevented by statute from being elected, and the burdens of the mayoralty meant that no serving mayor was chosen as an MP, the civic law officers were not subject to such strictures. Although just five seats were filled by the city’s serving legal officials in this period, this nevertheless represented a significant development in London’s parliamentary history. John Carpenter was returned as common clerk in 1437, and elected again two years later following his retirement, when he was described as ‘nuper clericus’. The city’s recorder was elected on one occasion, when John Bowes was chosen as the second alderman MP in 1442. Thomas Burgoyne, the under sheriff, was chosen to represent the city as a commoner MP in the Parliament of 1445, while the common serjeants Thomas Billing and John Needham were returned to the Parliaments of February and November 1449 respectively.51 As well as Burgoyne, the City also considered sending the recorder Robert Danvers* to the Parl. of 1445. He and Reynwell were originally chosen by the aldermen on 21 Jan., but six days later he was replaced by Catworth: London jnl. 4, ff. 59v-60. Prior to Carpenter’s election, no legal official or common clerk had been returned by the city since 1355, when the common serjeant Adam de Acres† was elected, and before Bowes was elected no recorder had been an MP since Robert de Swalclye† served in 1322, although at that time the holders of the office were drawn from the ranks of the aldermen. The reign of Henry VI thus saw the city make a conscious decision to make greater use of its eminent legal officers in Parliament. Nevertheless, the election of the recorder or another legal official as one of the MPs was not yet the norm. Only in the reign of Edward IV did it become more firmly established that the recorder should be one of the men returned. The pattern was set by Thomas Urswyk II, who sat for London in all four of the Parliaments from 1461 to 1470, and continued by a successor as recorder, Thomas Fitzwilliam II*, elected to four consecutive assemblies in the 1480s.

The wider standing of London’s MPs was reflected in their appointments to offices under the Crown. Including the four lawyers and the common clerk, 37 of the MPs were appointed to royal commissions during their careers. In most cases the commissions were related to their mercantile concerns and experience, such as those assigned to hear appeals from the admiralty court and from the court of staple. Parliamentary service may have played its part in bringing these men to the attention of the King’s ministers, for no fewer than 24 of the 32 London merchants had already been returned to Parliament by the time they served on their first royal commissions. A total of 17 men were chosen by the Crown to act as collectors of taxes and subsidies in London, although in this instance parliamentary service was much less important; only six men were appointed to this office after being returned to Parliament for the first time. Seven were appointed as customs collectors (all but one prior to being elected as an MP), a far more onerous position, but one which might offer personal benefits to London’s merchants. Most served as collectors in their home port, but Cook, Mayneld and Young were able to secure appointments respectively to the ports of Southampton, Yarmouth and Bristol. Trading issues intermingled with political concerns throughout this period, and a number of London’s MPs were deeply concerned in the Crown’s efforts to maintain commercial links with other countries. Estfield, Frowyk, Reynwell and Young were among those prominent Londoners who, because of their membership of the Calais staple, were ideally qualifies to serve on the various embassies sent to treat with the representatives of the duke of Burgundy. Parliamentary experience may not in itself have been especially important in this respect, but the standing and general experience needed for such roles meant that only Combes had not in fact already served as an MP prior to his appointment. The war with France placed great emphasis upon the proper governance and provisioning of England’s threatened possessions overseas. Cantelowe was appointed as victualler of Calais at the time of the siege by the duke of Burgundy in 1436, and was recalled to the post in the late 1440s when the military situation in Normandy had become desperate. Forster, a fellow merchant who had long traded with south-west France, was appointed as provost of Bayonne in 1444, after he had been involved in negotiations to resolve a long-running trade dispute between the town and London.

Crown appointments aside, the offices of the mayors and constables of the staples of Calais and Westminster provide an indication of individual merchants’ standing among their peers. Both Walden and Young were chosen as mayors of the Calais staple, and seven of the London MPs were elected as mayor of that at Westminster. Of the latter staple, Frowyk had already served a term as constable, a position for which another seven of the MPs were also selected. Appointments to the post of constable were split roughly evenly between men who had already been returned to Parliament and those who had not, while the mayors of the Calais and Westminster staples were normally men at a later stage in their careers: thus, Frowyk took charge at Westminster after three of his five appearances in Parliament and having held all the chief offices in the city.

Of particular significance in this period were the loans which were made by London’s MPs to the Crown. At least 33 of the MPs advanced sums of money to Henry VI, either individually or in consortia along with fellow merchants of the Calais staple. From the mid-1430s to the mid-1440s, Estfield emerged as one of the most prominent of the Crown’s individual creditors; the likes of Walden, Harowe and Combes mainly seem to have lent as merchants of the staple; while in the late 1440s Cantelowe supplemented money advanced in this way with a number of personal loans. In the 1450s Malpas stood out as the single most important creditor of the Crown from London, with Cantelowe a poor second. By contrast, some of the MPs showed a marked lack of generosity in this respect. Boleyn only appears to have advanced money on one occasion, despite his status as one of London’s wealthiest merchants, although after his death his executors lent to Edward IV on several occasions; and Verney, Wyche and Lee were among the many other Londoners who expressed their confidence in the Yorkist dynasty by providing it with funds. There is little doubt, therefore, that the men who represented London in Parliament must have been especially concerned about the state of the Exchequer’s coffers, and the effects that over-assignment of revenues and Henry VI’s profligate granting away of lands and offices was having on the Crown’s ability to pay its debts. At times of particular crisis this may well have guided those who elected London’s representatives. The election to the Parliament of 1453 of three prominent staplers (Cantelowe, Middleton and Walden), together with the respected senior alderman Stephen Brown, may well have been partly designed to press for the repayment of loans advanced by the staplers and the City.

A number of London’s MPs maintained or in some cases built up extensive interests outside the capital. Verney was able to consolidate and expand his family’s holdings in Buckinghamshire both by investing the proceeds of business deals and by securing an ultimately highly profitable match for his son with the daughter and heiress of Robert Whittingham II* of Salden. Likewise, Lee was able to secure his family’s future by purchasing property in Kent. Perhaps the most successful of the MPs in this respect was Boleyn, who bought the manor of Blickling in Norfolk from Sir John Fastolf and acquired numerous other estates in that county and elsewhere on his marriage to a daughter and coheiress of Thomas Hoo I*, Lord Hoo and Hastings. Other MPs also made profitable marriages outside the city, including Middleton, who married a sister of Ralph Wolseley* of Staffordshire, and Stephen Brown whose second marriage brought him to manors in Huntingdonshire. Information about the income generated by the estates of London’s MPs is relatively scarce, although Boleyn’s lands in Norfolk, Sussex and Kent alone were worth more than £140 p.a., while Cook’s in Essex, Kent and Surrey were probably worth at least twice that amount. These figures do not include the substantial property portfolios in London itself which many MPs amassed during their careers, often through contracting advantageous marriages to the daughters of fellow citizens. Thus, Malpas acquired a notable amount of property on his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy chandler, while Norman came by holdings in the capital when he married the daughter of an ironmonger. Both Walden and Marowe wed daughters of the aptly-named mercer Richard Rich (d.1464). The returns for the income tax raised in 1436 reveal the assessed yearly values of the holdings in London, and elsewhere in some cases, of 22 of the 53 MPs. The assessments ranged from just £6 (Higham and Combes) to £147 (Wotton), and averaged about £51 p.a. The list included some, such as Wotton, Gedney (£120) and Reynwell (£120), whose careers were well advanced, and others such as Wyche (£21) and Thomas Canynges (£20) who were yet to accumulate most of their properties. Nevertheless, it is clear that London’s MPs were in their majority chosen from among the very wealthiest citizens.52 Thrupp, 378-85.

The political leanings of the MPs seem to have reflected those of the city’s merchant class in general. Few appear to have openly espoused any political opinions that ran counter to the prevailing policy of loyalty to the Lancastrian Crown that remainedin place right up to the Yorkist invasion of July 1460. An exception was perhaps John Harowe, whose association with the Yorkists may well have dated back to at least 1453 when he stood surety for retainers of the earl of Salisbury. A number of other London MPs had links of various kinds with the duke of York and his associates from the late 1440s onwards, but it is not necessarily the case that they were active in any capacity on the duke’s behalf. The circle around Thomas Young II* of Bristol was a case in point. His brother John and half-brother Thomas Canynges were prominent London grocers and were both returned to Parliament in this period. The two men acted with York in 1448-9 in connexion with property in Gloucestershire in which Thomas Young was subsequently to acquire an interest for life, but there is no evidence that, following Thomas’s imprisonment in the Tower in 1451 as a consequence of his outspoken support of the duke in Parliament, they were themselves ever vociferous proponents of the duke’s cause. On the other hand, it may well have been the case that any private views they held came increasingly to chime with those of their fellow Calais staplers and of elements within the Grocers’ Company that were becoming disillusioned with the Lancastrian government. Also connected at least loosely with York’s circle were Boleyn, Verney and Lee, who in August 1458 were chosen by York’s chamberlain, Sir William Oldhall*, to act as feoffees of his property in a London parish. Conversely, Malpas and Cook provide perhaps the clearest examples of men who came to be associated closely with the Lancastrian government. The looting of Malpas’s house by Cade’s rebels was a measure of his unpopularity in London, a consequence at least in part of the intervention by the Crown in 1448 to install him as the alderman for Lime Street Ward, although his sharp business practices undoubtedly also gained him enemies in the city. He emerged in the 1450s as the Crown’s greatest individual creditor in London, but by 1460 had undergone a political conversion to the Yorkist cause that forced him to flee overseas when Queen Margaret’s forces approached the capital in early 1461. His son-in-law Cook forged particularly close links with the queen and with Crown servants during the late 1440s and early 1450s, but despite this his career was initially unaffected by the change of dynasty. His relations with Edward IV’s government appeared to be good during the early and mid 1460s, but as was demonstrated during his infamous trial in 1468, and even more clearly during Henry VI’s Readeption not long after, he had retained links with the Lancastrians in exile. All of these individuals were nevertheless exceptional. A greater number of MPs, especially the Calais staplers, were undoubtedly affected by Lancastrian policies in some way, but they maintained at least an outward display of loyalty to the Crown, an approach that was instrumental in determining the City’s position during the dramatic events of the 1450s.

The City authorities were keen to ensure that its representatives were adequately provided for when attending Parliament, and that they were able to discharge their responsibilities effectively. The increased tendency from the 1440s onwards of the Lancastrian government to hold Parliaments in different venues from Westminster led the common council in April 1450, when Parliament was prorogued to Leicester, to decide that each MP should receive the very generous sum of 40s. a day when the Commons sat ‘in a place remote from the city’. In 1459 Coventry was deemed so far away that the Members were allotted even more than this daily allowance. Other considerations had to be borne in mind too: in January 1447 Henry Frowyk refused to accept election to the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds unless he was assured of appropriate lodging and heating for himself and his servants. He would already have been able to take advantage of the allowances of cloth that were available to the MPs (ten yards for aldermen and five yards for commoners). Estfield, by virtue of his status as a knight, was permitted twice the usual allowance when he was returned in 1439.53 Barron, ‘London and Parliament’, 352-3. Once the MPs had arrived in all their finery, the effectiveness of London’s representation at Parliament is difficult to assess. Relatively little is known of their activities once at Westminster, or wherever Parliament had been summoned to meet. The unflattering verdict delivered upon John Sturgeon’s service in the Parliament of 1445 by two skinners who alleged that he had done ‘much harm [multa mala] to the good of the city in Parliament’,54 London jnl. 4, f. 119v. stands in isolation. Nevertheless, it is almost certain that London’s MPs would have been listened to and have commanded respect, not least because of the financial interests which they represented as members of the city’s merchant class. Back in London it is clear that the city governors were keen to be kept abreast of what was occurring in Parliament. In 1426 all four Members came back from the first session of the Parliament held at Leicester to give an account of proceedings to the court of aldermen. When Parliament was held at Westminster it was even possible for MPs to leave the Commons and return to London to brief their fellow citizens. This happened on at least nine occasions from 1440 onwards: on 1 Feb. that year Robert Clopton attended a meeting of the court of aldermen while Parliament was still in session, and Estfield did the same in early March 1442. On five occasions both of the aldermen MPs are known to have been absent from the Commons: on 21 May 1445, 3 and 4 Feb. 1456, and 13 and 17 Oct. 1460. Conceivably, the momentous events taking place in the Parliament which met on 7 Oct. 1460 prompted the Londoners to request regular briefings, although the presence of Marowe and Cook at the court on 13 Oct. probably owed more to the timing of the mayoral election that day. Generally speaking, however, London’s MPs did not take part in civic government while they were meant to be in Parliament. Other means of communication were used to convey instructions to them and to receive the latest news. The four MPs elected in 1439 were briefed at a session of the court of aldermen before the first session of the Parliament opened at Westminster. When it was prorogued to Reading in early 1440 the City considered dispatching its recorder to help prosecute the City’s business, but instead decided to send letters to Estfield, the most senior of the Members. Once Parliament had been dissolved, Estfield and Clopton reported back to their fellow aldermen. It is not certain what lay at the heart of the city’s concerns in 1439-40, but a possible reason for lobbying in 1439 may have been the proposed extension of the powers of London to control stretches of the Thames, although there were also a number of bills put forward in the Commons concerning foreign trade. The Parliament summoned to meet in October 1460 was perhaps the most momentous of those assembled in this period, in that it was the first to be called after the successful invasion of the Yorkist lords that summer and their victory at Northampton. London had opened its gates to the earls, thereby effectively committing itself to their cause.55 Barron, ‘London and Parliament’, 356, 367.

The precise reasons for the City’s lobbying of Parliament, either through its MPs or by other means, are not always readily apparent. Few bills put forward by the City alone were entered on the parliament roll, although citizens were prominent among the merchants of the staple who increasingly came to lobby Parliament for the safe-keeping of Calais. Influence in Parliament did not come cheap: during that of 1445 the City agreed to spend the huge sum of £500 to promote the imposition of a tax (scavage) on the goods of Genoese merchants. Most of this sum had to be provided in the first instance by the city companies as a levy on the wards would take too long. Nevertheless, several bills agreed by the aldermen in advance were never recorded in the rolls of Parliament. Thus, the City’s concern at the granting of letters patent to royal servants in 1442 (conferring upon them the offices of cloth-packers and garbellers) was considered a suitable subject for a parliamentary bill by the aldermen, but in the event other means were found to press the City’s cause. It was perhaps on occasions such as these that London’s legal officials came into their own. Bowes was returned to the 1442 Parliament in his capacity as recorder but it is likely that his experience as a former Speaker of the Commons proved invaluable in making the city’s case. The promotion of their own bills aside, on other occasions the Londoners successfully thwarted the aims of others. During the Parliament summoned to Reading in 1453 the City opposed a bill concerning the process of prosecuting bills of attaint which it believed to be contrary to its liberties. In February 1454 the new Speaker, Thomas Charlton*, was sent a gift of wine for services rendered in the past and in the present Parliament, and this along with other lobbying may have helped halt the bill’s progress.56 Ibid. 357-8.

The lobbying of Parliament by the individual city companies appears to have increased significantly during the fifteenth century, and although relatively little evidence for this practice survives from the reign of Henry VI, the Brewers, who were particularly persistent in their approaches to Parliament and its officials in the 1420s and 1430s, may have been typical. The Brewers’ concern was the rising price of malt which, they argued, necessitated a rise in the price of their beer. Their request to alter their charges was denied by the mayor and aldermen, leading them to petition Parliament. With no member of the company among the leading citizens it is unlikely that London’s Members in the early Parliaments of the reign were inclined to go against the City’s policy, and this may well have prevented the Brewers’ bill from succeeding. By contrast, co-operation between the city government and the companies was evident in the Parliament of 1429 when the mayor and aldermen presented a petition calling for an exemption from a statute of 1406 which had restricted the recruitment of apprentices from the shires to those from families with annual incomes in excess of 20s. The city companies provided money to help promote their cause: the Grocers paid 40s. ‘for costes off our parte off repelyng off ye statut off prentyshodys’, and the Tailors provided a further £4. This collaboration was successful and an amended statute contained an exemption for the city.57 Ibid. 357; PROME, x. 415-16; Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 207v. As the reign continued, several companies, notably the Pewterers, began lobbying the Crown and Parliament for charters of incorporation. The greater companies, with an eye on policies relating to trade, maintained a keen eye on proceedings in Parliament. In 1457 the Mercers paid the sum of 26s. 8d. to Wyche ‘for a book of parchment containing 20 quires of divers statutes made by Parliaments’.58 H. Creaton, ‘Mercers’ accts.’ (Univ. London M.Phil. thesis, 1977), ii. 208.

The Londoners’ influence in the Commons was much strengthened by the practice of some of their number of finding seats in other constituencies. In the 1420s and 1430s this happened almost routinely at Southwark, where the London grocers Nicholas Preest*, Henry Purchase*, John Rokesley* and John Welles I*, the tailor Peter Saverey* and the vintner William Hawkesworth* were elected, but in addition in 1423 William Botreaux I*, one of the wardens of the Drapers’ Company, was returned for distant Liskeard. Similarly, the city’s law officers, like other members of their profession, were also not limited in their choice of seats. Alexander Anne* was returned for Middlesex three times while serving as London’s common serjeant and subsequently recorder; Thomas Burgoyne sat for Cambridgeshire and Bridgwater as well as London, while serving as one of the city’s under sheriffs; Thomas Billing was the city’s common serjeant by the time of his return for Northamptonshire in 1445; and some of the early returns of John Fortescue* for Tavistock also coincided with his tenure of the London under shrievalty. For much of Henry VI’s reign these were informal arrangements, and seats were procured on an ad hoc basis by individuals or perhaps their companies, but in the crisis of 1460, perhaps after it had become clear that on this occasion Parliament would play a part in the making and unmaking of Kings, the Londoners decided to strengthen their hand in the Commons. In early October the city established a committee to look into the matter, and decided that Londoners representing other constituencies should stand beside the City’s four MPs to present a common front.59 London jnl. 6, ff. 245, 249; Barron, ‘London and the Crown’, 97-98, 103-4, 107. The Members to whom this applied included the mercer John Harowe and the draper John Worsop*, both returned for the duke of Norfolk’s borough of Horsham, and the grocer and former city auditor Robert Gayton*, returned for Steyning, where the duke was also the dominant landowner.