the records of the said Guildhall; and the waifes
that come while he stayeth, he ought to give them to the town bailiff,
or to whom he will, by the counsel of the mayor."

This old record seems to us especially quaint and picturesque. The right
of banner-bearer to the City of London was evidently a privilege not to
be despised by even the proudest Norman baron, however numerous were his
men-at-arms, however thick the forest of lances that followed at his
back. At the gates of many a refractory Essex or Hertfordshire castle,
no doubt, the Fitz-Walters flaunted that great banner, that was
emblazoned with the image of St. Paul, with golden face and silver feet;
and the horse valued at L20, and the pouch with twenty golden pieces,
must by no means have lessened the zeal and pride of the City castellan
as he led on his trusty archers, or urged forward the half-stripped,
sinewy men, who toiled at the catapult, or bent down the mighty springs
of the terrible mangonel. Many a time through Aldgate must the castellan
have passed with glittering armour and flaunting plume, eager to earn
his hundred shillings by the siege of a rebellious town.

Then Robert was knighted by Edward I., and the family continued in high
honour and reputation through many troubles and public calamities. In
the reign of Henry VI., when the male branch died out, Anne, the
heiress, married into the Ratcliffe family, who revived the title of
Fitz-Walter.

It is not known how this castle came to the Crown, but certain it is
that on its being consumed by fire in 1428 (Henry VI.), it was rebuilt
by Humphrey, the good duke of Gloucester. On his death it was made a
royal residence by Henry VI., and by him granted to the Duke of York,
his luckless rival, who lodged here with his factious retainers during
the lulls in the wars of York and Lancaster. In the year 1460, the Earl
of March, lodging in Castle Baynard, was informed that his army and the
Earl of Warwick had declared that Henry VI. was no longer worthy to
reign, and had chosen him for their king. The earl coquetted, as
usurpers often do, with these offers of the crown, declaring his
insufficiency for so great a charge, till yielding to the exhortations
of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Exeter, he at last
consented. On the next day he went to St. Paul's in procession, to hear
the _Te Deum_, and was then conveyed in state to Westminster, and there,
in the Hall, invested with the sceptre by