The commencement of the reign of Charles I, like his father’s, was marked by a recurrence of the plague, which greatly affected the trade of the city. Matters were made worse by an application from the Lord High Treasurer for a loan of £60,000 to the king within a few weeks of Charles ascending the throne. He promised that the money, which was wanted for fitting out the fleet which the late king was busy preparing at the time of his death, should be repaid in six months. Interest would be allowed at the rate of eight per cent., and Charles would give mortgage security for repayment of this as well as of the sum of £100,000 borrowed by James.(285) After mature deliberation the Common Council agreed (16 April) to accede to the Lord Treasurer’s request, and appointed two representatives of each ward to consult with the mayor and aldermen as to the mode of raising the amount, as well as to consider the nature of the security offered. On the 20th May the Common Council received the committee’s report on the matter.(286) It recommended that the money should be borrowed and taken up by twenty aldermen and one hundred commoners nominated for the purpose; that five commoners should be allotted to each alderman, and that they should stand bound for the sum of £3,000. Any alderman or commoner refusing to be so joined was to be forced to lend £1,000 on his own account. The assurance of the king’s lands was to be made in the names of such aldermen and commoners as the Court of Aldermen should appoint. A week later (27 May) the Court of Aldermen, in anticipation of the money being raised, ordered an advance to be made to the king out of the City’s Chamber of the sum of £14,000.(287) On the 2nd June the king’s mortgage was executed;(288) and there being no longer any necessity for keeping the bonds entered into by various aldermen for the payment of interest due to contributors to the loan of £100,000, they were ordered to be cancelled.(289) In November the lords of the council wrote to the City for an extension of time for the repayment of the £60,000.(290) (M115) On the 1st May Charles was married by proxy at Paris to Henrietta Maria. When the news of the marriage treaty between England and France reached London in the previous November the citizens showed their joy by bonfires and fireworks.(291) They forgot for a while the danger likely to arise from the heir to the throne allying himself in marriage with a Catholic princess. On her arrival in the Thames in June the citizens gave her a hearty welcome, whilst the fleet, which was about to set sail—few knew whither—fired such a salute as the queen had never heard before.(292) (M116)