To which the citizens made answer that they could do nothing in such a matter without the consent of the whole community. The King on learning this, as though moved to anger, made them appear before him and after much altercation had passed as to the said judgment (Henry de la Mare a kinsman of the before named Margery Vyel constantly making allegations against the citizens) counsel being at last held before the King between the Bishops and Barons, the Mayor and citizens were acquitted and took their departure.” (Riley’s edition, FitzThedmar’s _Chronicles of Old London_.) It will be observed that the King broke the Charters, first by sending his own Justiciar into the City to hear an appeal; next, by making the Mayor and citizens go to Westminster to have a City case tried; and thirdly, by granting the Abbot of Westminster rights or privileges in the County of Middlesex which was held and farmed by the City. The City, at the price of surrendering its liberties, won the case, evidently a case considered as of the very highest importance. The reward bestowed upon Symon FitzMary is related by FitzThedmar: “It should be observed, that when Symon FitzMary, for his offence, had delivered his Aldermanry into the hands of the City, as above noticed, by assent of the whole community the Mayor returned him his Aldermanry, upon condition of his conceding that if at any future time he should again contravene the franchises of the City, the Mayor might, without plea or gainsaying, take back his Aldermanry, into the hands of the City, and wholly remove him therefrom. Wherefore, in this year, because the said Symon had manifestly sided with Margery Vyel in the complaint which she had made to his lordship the King as to the judgment given by the citizens—as to which, as is already written, she herself was cast—as also, for many other evil and detestable actions of which he had secretly been guilty against the City, the Mayor took his Aldermanry into his own hands, and wholly removed him therefrom; and the men of that Ward, receiving liberty to elect on the Monday before Mid-Lent chose Alexander le Ferrun, and that too in his absence; but he, afterwards appearing at the Hustings, was on the Monday following admitted Alderman.” (_Chronicles of Old London_, pp. 16-17.) And so Symon vanishes. One would like to hear more of his political career. As regards his private history, his will, by which he founded the House of St. Mary of Bethlehem, survives, so that he is the originator of the Royal Bethlehem Hospital, which has served the City so well and so long. He may have been of humble origin, in which case he is an early example of the rise of a poor lad to wealth, an example that after his time became well-nigh impossible until the eighteenth century.