One more point to illustrate the uncertainty introduced by the new order. In the year 1200, according to the book which will form the text of this chapter, a Council of twenty-five “of the more discreet men of the City” were sworn to assist the Mayor. Round, as we have seen (p. 18), shows that the number was not twenty-five, but twenty-four; he has discovered their oath, which did not in any way resemble the oath of an Alderman; and he has adduced other instances of such a Council. So that there can be no doubt whatever as to its existence. Now in the same book, which records its creation and carries the chronicle of the City down to the year 1273, there is not a single word said about this Council. We hear of the Aldermen, the more discreet citizens, and the principal citizens. But not one word about the Council. Either, therefore, which one can hardly believe, the Council was allowed to drop out of existence, or, which is much more likely, it was a purely civic body, not recognised by the Charters and with no legal powers; a body which acquired its importance from the Mayor of the year, and was more in evidence a kind of private advisory committee with which the Mayor could take counsel if he wished, or which he could neglect if he wished. The book, which I have called the Text-book of the present chapter, is the Chronicle printed by the Camden Society from the _Liber de Antiquis Legibus_, by Arnold FitzThedmar. This book is, of all the mediæval documents connected with the history of London, perhaps the most important. For it is the work of a contemporary, one who took part in the events which he describes, a strong partisan yet fair to his enemies; evidently a man of the highest honour and principle, and as much a condemner of the common people as any old Tory of 1832. His family history shows the ease with which foreigners were admitted in the twelfth century to reside in, to trade in, and to become citizens of, the City of London.