London and the Kingdom - Volume 1: A History Derived Mainly from the Archives at Guildhall in the Custody of the Corporation of the City of London.Sharpe, Reginald R. (Reginald Robinson)
History
London and the Kingdom - Volume 1: A History Derived Mainly from the Archives at Guildhall in the Custody of the Corporation of the City of London.
Sharpe, Reginald R. (Reginald Robinson)
London (England) -- History
In 1458 Henry tried his hand at effecting a reconciliation between the two
rival sections of the nobility, and to this end ordered a great council to
meet in St. Paul’s on the 27th January. Warwick left his post at Calais,
and came over to London to attend the meeting; but he did not arrive until
more than a month after the appointed day, and when he came it was with a
body of 600 men at his back, "all apparyled in reed jakkettes, with whyte
ragged stavis."(871) He took up his quarters within the city, where he
found the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury. The young Duke of
Somerset and other lords, who, like him, had lost their fathers at the
battle of St. Albans, were refused an entrance to the city for fear of a
breach of the peace, and had to find accommodation outside the city’s
walls.(872) During the conference the mayor patrolled the streets by day,
whilst at night a force of 3,000 men was kept in readiness to assist the
aldermen in preserving the king’s peace.(873) The times were critical, but
at length all ended well. A grand pacification took place in March, and
was solemnized by an imposing procession to St. Paul’s, in which York led
the queen by the hand. The reconciliation thus effected was more apparent
than real, and neither party relaxed their efforts to prepare for renewed
hostility.
(M464) (M465) (M466)
In August the civic companies were warned against furnishing the
confederate lords with any war material, but were to keep their arms and
harness at the disposal of the king alone.(874) It wanted very little to
kindle the smouldering embers of dissatisfaction into a flame, and this
little was soon forthcoming. In November(875) a riot occurred at
Westminster, in which the Earl of Warwick was implicated. A yeoman in his
suite picked a quarrel with one of the king’s servants and wounded him.
Thereupon others of the king’s household, finding their fellow-servant
wounded and his enemy escaped, way-laid the earl and his attendants as
they left the council to take barge on the river. By dint of hard hitting,
the earl managed to embark and to make his way to the city. But the affray
was not without bloodshed, and Warwick found it convenient to withdraw
soon afterwards to his post at Calais, which thenceforth became the
head-quarters of the disaffected lords.
(M467)
In the following April (1459) another affray broke out. This time it was
between inhabitants of the city and certain members of the Inns of Court,
and the riot was so dangerous as to result in loss of life. The king
hearing of this sent for William Tayllour, the alderman of the ward, and
kept him in confinement at Windsor until the election of the new mayor,
William Hewlyn, in October, by whose intercession he regained his
freedom.(876)
(M468)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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