Your humble petitioners conceiving, that the said grievances are contrary to the Laws of the kingdom, and finding by experience that they are not redressed by the ordinary course of Justice, do therefore most humbly beseech your most sacred Majesty, to cause a Parliament to be summoned with all convenient speed, whereby they may be relieved in the premises. And your Petitioners and loyal Subjects shall ever pray, &c. LONDON UNDER THE EARLY STUARTS (1642). The following passage from Clarendon's _History_ states very clearly the relations between Charles I. and the City in 1642, when the King's general attitude was anything but conciliatory, and London was definitely attaching itself to the Parliamentary cause. The royal policy was not in the least calculated to induce a friendly feeling on the part of the metropolis; neither Charles nor his father appeared to have realised the immense importance of gaining the good-will of the citizens, and Clarendon quite fairly and impartially sets forth the facts when he refers to the wealth of the City, and the unjust treatment which it experienced at the hands of the first Stuart monarchs. =Source.=—Clarendon's _History of the Great Rebellion_, iv. 178. The city of London, as the metropolis of England, by the situation the most capable of trade, and by the not [un]usual residence of the Court, and the fixed station of the courts of justice for the public administration of justice throughout the kingdom, the chief seat of trade, was by the successive countenance and favour of princes strengthened with great charters and immunities, and was a corporation governed within itself; the mayor, recorder, aldermen, sheriffs, chosen by themselves; several companies incorporated within the great incorporation; which, besides notable privileges, enjoyed lands and perquisites to a very great revenue. By the incredible increase of trade, (which the distractions of other countries, and the peace of this, brought,) and by the great license of resort thither, it was, since the access of the crown to this King, in riches, in people, in buildings, marvellously increased, insomuch as the suburbs were almost equal to the city; a reformation of which had been often in contemplation, never pursued, wise men foreseeing that such a fulness could not be there without an emptiness in other places, and whilst so many persons of honour and estates were so delighted with the city, the government of the country must be neglected, besides the excess and ill husbandry that would be introduced thereby. But such foresight was interpreted a morosity, and too great an oppression upon the common liberty; and so, little was applied to prevent so growing a disease.