According to the writer of the French Chronicle, to which reference has frequently been made,(369) the dissension in the city was mainly attributable to John de Wengrave, the mayor. The citizens had lately been busy drawing up certain "points" for a new charter. Wengrave, who was at the time, or until quite recently, the city’s Recorder, had contrived, in 1318, to force himself into the mayoralty having served as mayor the two years preceding—"against the will of the commons." He had shown no little opposition to the "points" of the proposed charter, possibly because one of the points precluded the mayor, for the time being, from drawing or hearing pleas, saving only "those pleas which, as mayor, he ought to hear, according to the custom of the city."(370) If this received the king’s approval, Wengrave’s occupation as Recorder, at least so long as he was mayor, was gone. However this may be, the mayor’s opposition was rendered futile, and the articles were confirmed by the king’s letters patent.(371) Their main feature has already been alluded to; thenceforth the direct way to the civic franchise was to be through membership of one of the civic guilds. A foreigner or stranger, not a member of a guild, could only obtain it by appealing to the full body of citizens before admission through the Court of Husting. Conscious of their newly acquired importance, the guilds began to array themselves in liveries, and "a good time was about to begin."(372) Edward did not give his assent to these articles without receiving a _quid pro quo_. The citizens were mulcted in a sum of £1,000 before the king’s seal was set to the letters patent.(373) They did not mind this so much as they did the annoyance caused by the king’s justiciars eighteen months later. (M226)