We have spoken of the first Mayor of London, and what we know about him has been summed up by Round for the _Dictionary of National Biography_. We do not know his parentage. It has been conjectured that he was the grandson of Leofstan, Portreeve of London before the Conquest. But there were three or four Leofstans. It is suggested by Stubbs that he was descended from Ailwin Child, who founded or endowed Bermondsey Abbey in 1082. It is also suggested that he was an hereditary Baron of London. In the “Pipe Roll” of 1165, a Henry FitzAylwin, Fitz Leofstan, with Alan his brother, pay for succeeding to land in Essex or Hertfordshire. Now FitzAylwin the Mayor did hold land in Hertfordshire by tenure of serjeantry. The name appears in four documents as Henry Fitz Ailwin, or Æthelwine, before he was Mayor, and in many documents after he was Mayor. In the former name the latest date is 30th November 1191, and under the latter the first is April 1193. It would therefore seem as if the Mayoralty was not established at first on the concession of the grant. It may well be that it took time for the citizens to assume their full organisation. We may fairly assume that his office, if not his election, dates from the day of that concession. FitzAylwin was one of the Treasurers for the King’s ransom in 1194. He was also called Henry of London Stone, because his house stood on the north side of Candlewick Street, near St. Swithin’s Church, over against London Stone. He presided over a meeting of citizens on 24th July 1212, and died a few weeks later. He left children from whom many persons can still trace descent. Among them, as the two living representatives of the first Mayor, are, I believe, Lady Beaumont and the Earl of Abingdon. Fifty years ago a learned antiquary, Stapleton, drew up a list of all the descendants of Henry FitzAylwin. King Richard took no hostile proceedings against the Mayoralty. He never recognised it; but he never tried to abolish it, and as the enemies of the Commune observed that nothing disloyal to the King, nothing dangerous to the Church, was set up in the City, they learned to regard the institution without disfavour or suspicion, so that when the Mayoralty was at last recognised by King John, there was no longer any hostility, or even any misgiving. The old order had passed, giving way to the new. How necessary this new order was; how it fitted in with the old order, so that there was revolution without dislocation, is proved by its adoption in all our towns and cities, by its long continuance, and by its present vitality. CHAPTER IV THE WARDS