A.D. 1249. In this year King Henry III. made a raid upon the shopkeepers of Cheapside, who, true to their instinctive abhorrence of regal interference with their liberties, presented so formidable an opposition to his demands that he was fain to give way. Stow thus narrates the occurrence: "This year the King kept his Christmas at London, with the meanness of spirit worthy of himself, for he begged, as it were, large new year's gifts of the citizens. But the money on that occasion not being deemed sufficient, Henry soon after sent and imperiously demanded much greater sums. This message occasioned a great alarm amongst the citizens, who justly complained that no regard was had to honour, justice, conscience, nor religion; and that their liberties, which they had so often dearly bought, and had so many times been confirmed and sworn to, were not able to protect them from being treated as the worst of the slaves; yet, notwithstanding these great truths, they were compelled to pay the tyrant the sum of £2,000, a very great sum at that time. Nor did these wicked proceedings stop here, for many shopkeepers in the City were spoiled of their goods (especially those for the use of the kitchen) by the order of that iniquitous prince." We may fancy the commotion that would be excited in Cheapside when the king's officers appeared and seized the goods which were displayed on the bunks for sale, and can only wonder that the valorous 'prentices did not raise their usual war cry, seize their clubs, and drive the officers back with a sound thrashing to their master who sent them. Whether they did attempt to defend their master's property in this their usual fashion is not recorded, but Stow adds: "These diabolical oppressions caused many of the most eminent citizens to retire into the country, choosing rather to cohabit with brutes than to dwell in the capital of so wicked a tyrant.... Henry, being at last conscious of his having frequently and unjustly imposed upon the citizens of London by many heavy and intolerable exactions, resolved to reconcile himself with them; and, in order thereunto, commanded them to attend him at Westminster, where, being assembled in the great hall, he, in the presence of his nobility, solemnly promised that for the future they should live happily under his government, and not be liable to such grievous taxations as formerly." A.D. 1257. Sir Hugh Bigot, an itinerant judge, held a court in the City, although contrary to the ancient rights and liberties of the citizens, and made an example in Cheapside of certain bakers guilty of malpractices such as giving short weight and supplying an inferior article, "by setting them upon a tumbrell or dung-cart, wherein they were exposed in the streets as bawds usually were,"—a very wholesome punishment, which might be revived with advantage in the present day as an example to the adulterators of food.