anded.(367)

(M224)

It was not long before the king and Lancaster were preparing to join
forces for the recovery of Berwick. In the meantime, the Barons of the
Exchequer appeared at the Guildhall (25th February, 1319), and summoned
the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen to answer for certain trespasses. Several
holders of office, and among them Edmund le Lorimer, Gaoler of Newgate,
for whom Hugh le Despenser had solicited the Small Beam, were deposed: a
proceeding which gave rise to much bickering between mayor, aldermen and
commons. Disputes, moreover, had arisen in the city touching the election
and removal of the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen of the city, which
required some pressure from the Earl Marshal and other of the king's
ministers, sitting in the Chapter-house of St. Paul's, before peace could
be restored.(368)

(M225)

According to the writer of the French Chronicle, to which reference has
frequently been made,(369) the dissension in the city was mainly
attributable to John de Wengrave, the mayor. The citizens had lately been
busy drawing up certain "points" for a new charter. Wengrave, who was at
the time, or until quite recently, the city's Recorder, had contrived, in
1318, to force himself into the mayoralty having served as mayor the two
years preceding--"against the will of the commons." He had shown no little
opposition to the "points" of the proposed charter, possibly because one
of the points precluded the mayor, for the time being, from drawing or
hearing pleas, saving only "those pleas which, as mayor, he ought to hear,
according to the custom of the city."(370) If this received the king's
approval, Wengrave's occupation as Recorder, at least so long as he was
mayor, was gone. However this may be, the mayor's opposition was rendered
futile, and the articles were confirmed by the king's letters patent.(371)
Their main feature has already been alluded to; thenceforth the direct way
to the civic franchise was to be through membership of one of the civic
guilds. A foreigner or stranger, not a member of a guild, could only
obtain it by appealing to the full body of citizens before admission
through the Court of Husting. Conscious of their newly acquired
importance, the guilds began to array themselves in liveries, and "a good
time was about to begin."(372) Edward did not give his assent to these
articles without receiving a _quid pro quo_. The citizens were mulcted in
a sum of L1,000 before the king's sea