evoking these Ordinances. The
elder Despenser he raised to the earldom of Winchester.(403) This was in
May, 1322; a year later (April, 1323), he deposed Chigwell, who had again
been re-elected to the mayoralty in the previous October, and put in his
place Nicholas de Farndon,(404) thus reversing the order of things in
1321, when Farndon had been deposed and his place taken by Chigwell.

The deposed mayor, however, was ordered to keep close attendance on the
Court, as were also three other London citizens, viz.: Hamo Godchep,
Edmund Lambyn, and Roger le Palmere; and in the following November he
recovered his position,(405) and held it for the rest of Edward's reign.

(M249)

The king's triumph was destined to be short-lived. In August, 1323, Roger
Mortimer, a favourite of the queen, effected his escape from the Tower,
where he had lain prisoner since January, 1322. The divided feeling of the
citizens which had been more or less apparent since the year of the great
Iter, now began to assert itself. Mortimer's escape had taken place with
the connivance, if not active assistance, of a leading citizen, Richard de
Betoyne, and he took sanctuary on the property of another leading citizen,
John Gisors.(406) In November the citizens thought fit to close their
gates, to prevent surprise.(407)

(M250)

In the following year (1324), a quarrel broke out between two of the city
guilds, the weavers and the goldsmiths. Fights took place in the streets
and lives were lost.(408) How far, if at all, such a quarrel had any
political significance it is difficult to say, but it is not unlikely, at
a time when the guilds were winning their way to chartered rights, that
occasionally their members took sides in the political struggle that was
then being carried on.

(M251)

Edward, in the meanwhile, was threatened with war by France, unless he
consented to cross the sea and do homage to the French king for the
possessions he held in that country. This the Despensers dared not allow
him to do. A compromise was therefore effected. Queen Isabel, who was not
sorry for an opportunity of quitting the side of a husband who had seized
all her property, removed her household, and put her on board wages at
twenty shillings a day,(409) undertook, with the king's assent, to revisit
her home and to bring about a settlement. Accordingly, on the 9th
March,(410) 1324, she crossed over to France, where she was afterwards
joined by Mortimer and her son.