Richard Whittington was the son of a Gloucestershire knight, and was born in 1350. The familiar stories of his roadside adventure in Highgate and of his fortune-making cat are, in common with many other delightful and picturesque incidents of history, rejected by historians; but he is certainly a great and famous man, even when his story is robbed of these interesting particulars. He was four times Mayor, and his justice and patriotism became proverbial. He vigorously opposed the admission of foreigners to the freedom of the City; he was exceedingly generous, and performed many deeds of charity. The following account of his second election to the highest dignity of the City illustrates the form and manner in which the appointment was made in the Middle Ages. =Source.=—Riley's _Memorials_, p. 565. On Wednesday, the Feast of the Translation of St. Edward the King and Confessor [October 13], in the 8th year etc., John Wodecok, Mayor of the City of London, considering that upon the same day he and all the Aldermen of the said city, and as many as possible of the wealthier and more substantial Commoners of the same city, ought to meet at the Guildhall, as the usuage is, to elect a new Mayor for the ensuing year, ordered that a Mass of the Holy Spirit should be celebrated, with solemn music, in the Chapel annexed to the said Guildhall; to the end that the same Commonalty, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, might be able peacefully and amicably to nominate two able and proper persons to be Mayor of the said city for the ensuing year, by favour of the clemency of Our Saviour, according to the customs of the said city.