Now, whatever the grant of “Commune” implied, it certainly implied something, and something of importance. “Upon this point there is,” as Mr. Coote justly observed, “a cloud of contemporary evidence, clear, exact and positive.” He put together the versions of the chroniclers,[474] contemporary and well-informed, and their harmony is complete. The fact, moreover, that the Commune was extorted at a great crisis, proved that only when the government was weak could so great a concession be wrung from it. Lastly, the phrase of Richard of Devizes: “Concessa est ipsa die et instituta Communia Londinensium,” and that of Giraldus: “Communa seu Communia eis concessa,” correspond exactly with the formal phrases in the French charters of “Commune.” In the case of Senlis (1173) it was “Communiam fieri concessimus”; in that of Compiègne (1153): “Burgensibus villæ concessimus Communiam”; in that of Abbeville (1185) “concessi eis Communiam habendam”; in that which Queen Eleanor granted to Poitiers (1199): “Sciatis nos concessisse ... universis hominibus de Pictavi et eorum heredibus communiam juratam apud Pictavim.” But if any doubt were yet possible, it would be finally removed by the words of Richard of Devizes: Nunc primum, indulta sibi conjuratione, regno regem deesse cognovit Londonia, quam nec rex ipse Ricardus nec prædecessor et pater ejus Henricus pro mille millibus marcis argenti fieri permississet. There is no escaping from these words, and Mr. Loftie’s theory is, consequently, out of court.[475] But what of Mr. Coote’s? With great confidence he wrote that the “Commune,” in the case of London, which had acquired all other things, expressed for its citizens the mayoralty only; “nothing else was asked or desired by them, for it was the sole privilege which was wanting to their burghal independence” (p. 287). We find, however, that on the Continent the word ‘Commune’ did not of necessity imply a Mayor, for Beauvais and Compiègne, though constituted ‘Communes,’ appear to have had no Mayor during most of the 12th century. The chroniclers, therefore, had they only meant to speak of the privilege of electing a Mayor, would not have all employed a word which did not connote it, but would have said what they meant. Moreover, his theory rests on the assumption, common till now to all historians, that the citizens had continuously possessed, from the beginning of the 12th century, the privileges granted in the charter of Henry I. But I have shown, in my ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ that these privileges were not renewed by Henry II. or Richard I., and that this fact strikingly confirms the explicit words of Richard of Devizes, when he states that neither the one nor the other would have allowed the Londoners to form a ‘Commune’ even for a million of marcs.