On the 15th of November 1326 the Queen sent the Bishop of Winchester into the City. He met the Aldermen at Guildhall, received the freedom of the City, swore to maintain its franchise and then presented a letter from the Queen restoring to the citizens the right of electing their Mayor—a right withheld since the Iter of 1321. They showed their sense of obligation by electing two citizens, named Richard de Betoyne and John Gisors, who had been active in assisting the escape of Mortimer from the Tower in 1322. Mortimer himself, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and a large following, repaired to the Guildhall early in the year 1327, and there swore to maintain the liberties of the City. A few days later the unhappy Edward was brutally murdered. CHAPTER VII EDWARD III [Illustration: EDWARD III. (1312-1377) From a print in the British Museum.] The letter from the Queen in November 1326; the visit of Mortimer in 1327 and his oath taken before the Mayor and Chamberlain; and the first acts of the new reign—not of the new King, who was not yet of age,—all together prove the importance of the City in the minds of the new rulers. For the first acts were the grants of three simultaneous charters. The _Liber Albus_ contains a brief synopsis of the contents of the first of these charters, which Maitland rightly calls golden. It is dated 6th March 1327:— “That the citizens of London shall have their liberties according to the form of the Great Charter, etc.; and that impediments of usurpation upon them in that behalf made shall be repealed and annulled. Also, that the Mayor of London for the time being shall be one of the Justiciars for (the delivery of) the Gaol of Newgate. Also, that the citizens of London shall have Infangthef, and Outfangthef, and the chattels of all felons who shall be adjudged by them as such within the liberties of the City aforesaid. Also, that whereas the citizens of London had been charged by the Sheriffwick of London and Middlesex in the sum of four hundred pounds into the Exchequer of his lordship the King, the said citizens shall in future have one hundred pounds thereof remitted. Also, that the citizens of London may devise their tenements within the liberties as well in mortmain as in any other way. That the Sheriffs of London, so often as it shall happen that they are amerced for any offence, shall be amerced according to the extent of such offence, in the same manner as the other Sheriffs of the realm. Also, that for the escape of thieves the Sheriffs of London shall on no account be charged or amerced otherwise than other Sheriffs, on this side Trent; who for such escapes are amerced, it is said, in the sum of one hundred shillings. Also, that the citizens of London shall not be charged otherwise than as of old they have been wont to be charged, for the custody of those who flee to churches for immunity, etc.