rongs of the several parties of Northampton and Brembre on pain of
imprisonment.(706) Four more years elapsed before Northampton was
re-instated in the freedom of the city.(707)

(M380)

For some years Richard governed not unwisely. In 1392, however, he
quarrelled with the city. Early in that year he called upon every
inhabitant, whose property for the last three years was worth L40 in land
or rent, to take upon himself the honour of knighthood. The sheriffs,
Henry Vanner and John Shadworth, made a return that all tenements and
rents in the city were held of the king _in capite_ as fee burgage at a
fee farm (_ad feodi firmam_); that by reason of the value of tenements
varying from time to time, and many of them requiring repair from damage
by fire and tempest, their true annual value could not be ascertained, and
that, therefore, it was impossible to make a return of those who possessed
L40 of land or rent as desired.(708)

(M381)

This answer was anything but agreeable to the king. But he had other cause
just now for being offended with the city. Being in want of money, he had
offered a valuable jewel to the citizens as security for a loan, and the
citizens had excused themselves on the plea that they were not so well off
as they used to be, since foreigners had been allowed to enjoy the same
privileges in the city as themselves. Having failed in this quarter, the
king had resorted to a Lombard, who soon was able to accommodate him; but
when the king learnt on enquiry that the money so obtained had been
advanced to the Lombard merchant by the very citizens who had refused to
lend it to the king himself, his anger knew no bounds,(709) and he
summoned John Hende, the mayor, the sheriffs, the aldermen, and
twenty-four of the chief citizens(710) of the City to attend him in June,
at Nottingham. They accordingly set out on their journey on the 19th June,
and arrived in Nottingham on the 23rd; the government of the city being
left in the meanwhile in the hands of William Staundon. On the 25th they
appeared before the lords of the council, when the chancellor rated them
roundly for paying so little attention to the king's writ--the writ
touching knighthood--and complained of the defective manner in which the
city was governed.(711)

(M382)

He thereupon dismissed the mayor from office, committing him to Windsor
Castle. The sheriffs were likewise dismissed, one being sent to Odyham
Castle, and the other to the Castle of