the City's history--its Cathedral, its religious houses, and hundred and
more parish churches, which occupied so large an extent of the City's
area. The ecclesiastical importance of the City, however, is too often
ignored. "We are prone," writes Bishop Stubbs, "in examining into the
municipal and mercantile history of London, to forget that it was a very
great ecclesiastical centre." Others, again, have confined themselves to
depicting the every-day life of the City burgess, his social condition,
his commercial pursuits, his amusements; whilst others have been content
to perpetuate the memory of streets and houses long since lost to the eye,
and thus to keep alive an interest in scenes and places which otherwise
would be forgotten.

The political aspect of the City's history has rarely been touched by
writers, and yet its geographical position combined with the innate
courage and enterprise of its citizens served to give it no small
political power and no insignificant place in the history of the Kingdom.
This being the case, the Corporation resolved to fill the void, and in
view of the year 1889 being the 700th Anniversary of the Mayoralty of
London--according to popular tradition--instructed the Library Committee to
prepare a work showing "the pre-eminent position occupied by the City of
London and the important function it exercised in the shaping and making
of England."

It is in accordance with these instructions that this and succeeding
volumes have been compiled. As the title of the work has been taken from a
chapter in Mr. Loftie's book on London ("Historic Towns" series, chap.
ix), so its main features are delineated in that chapter. "It would be
interesting"--writes Mr. Loftie--"to go over all the recorded instances in
which the City of London interfered directly in the affairs of the
Kingdom. Such a survey would be the history of England as seen from the
windows of the Guildhall." No words could better describe the character of
the work now submitted to the public. It has been compiled mainly from the
City's own archives. The City has been allowed to tell its own story. If,
therefore, its pages should appear to be too much taken up with accounts
of loans advanced by the City to impecunious monarchs or with wearisome
repetition of calls for troops to be raised in the City for foreign
service, it is because the City's records of the day are chiefly if not
wholly concerned with these matters. If, on the other ha