London and the Kingdom - Volume 2: 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 2: 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
The election of a successor to Kendricke on Michaelmas-day in the person
of Simon Edmonds was made the occasion of fixing the amount of profits the
new mayor was to enjoy from the various offices of package, scavage,
metage and others.(1036) Edmonds, like his predecessor in office, had
reported to the Court of Aldermen soon after his election that he could
not undertake the charge of the mayoralty without those "encouragements
and allowances" which former lord mayors had enjoyed.(1037) Finding that
Edmonds could not be brought to accept their terms,(1038) the Common
Council discharged him from service (19 Oct.) on the plea of old age and
ill-health, but fined him £600.(1039) The Court of Aldermen subsequently
discharged him from his aldermanry.(1040)
(M533)
John Fowke, who succeeded to the mayoralty in place of Edmonds,(1041)
always insisted upon his right to know for what purpose a Common Council
was required before he would accede to a request to summon one,(1042) and
upon quitting office he made a speech in Common Hall reflecting upon the
proceedings of the Common Council. His speech was referred to a committee,
with instructions to consider at the same time his grievances and to
endeavour to bring matters to a peaceful issue.(1043) The committee
presented their report to the council on the 24th October (1653). Fowke,
who still occupied the mayoralty chair, got up and left the court as soon
as the report had been read.(1044) He was found by the committee to have
been guilty of various misdemeanours, such as withholding the common seal
and refusing to allow leases to be stamped with it, appointing his own son
to various places, making an open assault upon the custom-house and
seizing the rights and profits of the city to his own use.(1045) Thereupon
the court resolved to appeal to parliament—not the Rump, for that had been
sent to the right about(1046) by Cromwell six months before (20 April,
1653), but to "Barebones parliament," the parliament composed of
Cromwell’s own nominees—to take in hand Fowke’s conduct and to restore to
the citizens those rights of which he had deprived them.(1047) Nothing
appears, however, to have come of the petition. On the 22nd September
(1653) the Common Council resolved that Fowke’s successor should enjoy
"all the perquisites and profits which any lord mayor hath enjoyed for
twenty years last past, before the yeare of our Lord one thousand six
hundred and forty and nine."(1048)
(M534)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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