In November of the same year (1516) the City was in difficulties with the recently erected Court of Star Chamber, and Wolsey, who practically kept the whole business of government in his own hands, came to the City’s assistance with advice. It appears that a subsidy was due on the 21st of this month and the City had not paid its quota. The mayor and aldermen were cited to appear before the cardinal and other lords of the council in the Star Chamber at Westminster. Being asked if they had "sworne for their assayng," to the king’s subsidy, the Recorder answered on their behalf that such procedure was contrary to Act of Parliament. The cardinal thereupon advised them to agree to give the king £2,000 in order to be discharged of their oaths "or ells every of theym to be sworn of and uppon the true value of their substance within the sum of 100 marks." This took place on Saturday, the 22nd, and the mayor and aldermen were to give an answer to the Star Chamber by the following Wednesday. On Tuesday, the 25th, the Court of Aldermen met to consider what was best to be done under the circumstances. The decision they arrived at was that as the present assessment was less than the last, they would, in consideration of the king’s letters, make up the sum then payable so that it should equal the last assessment.(1055) (M566) The seditious "brutes" or riots of which Wolsey had complained as daily occurring in the city were soon to assume a serious form. They were occasioned for the most part by the jealousy with which everybody who was not a freeman of the city was looked upon by the free citizen. The influx of strangers and foreigners has been daily increasing, notwithstanding the limitations and restrictions placed upon their residence and mode of trading,(1056) whilst the tendency of freemen had been to leave the city for the country.(1057)