The conciliatory spirit of William towards the Londoners is seen in the favourable terms he was ready to concede them. Soon after his coronation— the precise date cannot be determined—he granted them a charter,(81) by which he clearly declared his purpose not to reduce the citizens to a state of dependent vassalage, but to establish them in all the rights and privileges they had hitherto enjoyed. The charter, rendered into modern English, runs as follows:— "William, King, greets William, Bishop, and Gosfregdh, Portreeve, and all the burgesses within London, French and English, friendly. And I give you to know that I will that ye be all those laws worthy that ye were in King Eadward’s day.(82) And I will that every child be his father’s heir after his father’s day and I will not suffer that any man offer you any wrong. God keep you." The terms of the charter are worthy of study. They are primarily remarkable as indicating that the City of London was, at the time, subject to a government which combined the secular authority of the port-reeve with the ecclesiastical authority of the bishop. It was said, indeed, to have been greatly due to the latter’s intercession that the charter was granted at all, and, in this belief, the mayor and aldermen were long accustomed to pay a solemn visit to the bishop’s tomb in St. Paul’s church, there to hear a _De profundis_ on the day when the new mayor took his oath of office before the Barons of the Exchequer.(83) (M56) As regards the port-reeve—the _port-gerefa_, _i.e._, reeve of the port or town of London(84)—the nature and extent of his duties and authority, much uncertainty exists. Whilst, in many respects, his position in a borough was analogous no doubt to the shire-reeve or sheriff of a county, there were, on the other hand, duties belonging to and exercised by the one which were not exercised by the other. Thus, for instance, the port-reeve, unlike the sheriff, exercised no judicial functions in a criminal court, nor presided over court-leets in the city as the sheriff did in his county by _turn_, the latter being held independently by the alderman of each ward.(85) (M57) (M58) (M59)