The power of the guilds in the matter of elections to the common council was not of long duration. Before ten years had elapsed representation was made that the new system had been forced on the citizens, and in 1384 it was resolved to revert to the old system of election by and from the wards.(601) (M328) Encouraged by the success which had so far attended their efforts of reform, the good parliament next attacked Alice Perers, the king’s mistress. Of humble origin, and not even possessing the quality of good looks, this lady, for whom the mediæval chroniclers have scarcely a good word to say,(602) nevertheless gained so complete a mastery over the king as to favour the popular belief that she indulged in magic. At length her barefaced interference in public affairs led to an award against her of banishment and forfeiture. Upon the dissolution of the good parliament (6 July, 1376), and the meeting of a new parliament, elected under the direct influence of the Earl of Lancaster, who once more gained the upper hand now that the Black Prince was dead, Alice Perers was allowed to return.(603) She was again in disgrace soon after Richard’s accession, when her property, much of which consisted of real estate in the City,(604) became escheated, and the citizens of London were promised redress for any harm she might have done them.(605) She was afterwards married to Sir William de Windsor, who, in 1376, had got himself into trouble over a disturbance in Whitefriars(606)—a quarter of the city which, under the name of Alsatia, became afterwards notorious for riots, and as the resort of bad characters. Towards the close of 1379 her sentence of banishment, never strictly enforced, was revoked and pardon extended to her and her husband.(607) (M329) In December, 1376, the citizens obtained a charter from the king, with the assent of parliament, granting that no strangers (_i.e._ non-freemen) should thenceforth be allowed to sell by retail within the city and suburbs. This had always been considered a grievance, ever since free trade had been granted to merchant strangers by the parliament held at York in 1335. (M330)