may sometimes have occurred which abridged the franchise of particular cities: we cannot conclude that the Portgeréfa was always freely elected by the citizens; for in some places we hear of “royal” portreeves[822], from which it may be argued either that the king had made the appointment by his own authority, or, what is far from improbable, that he had concurred with the citizens in the election. Moreover the direction of writs to noblemen of high rank, even in London, seems to imply that, on some occasions, either the king had succeeded in seizing the liberties of the city into his own hand, or that the elected officers were sometimes taken from the class of powerful ministerials, having high rank and station in the royal household[823]. Where there existed clubs or gylds of the free citizens, we may also believe that similar associations were established by the lords and their dependents, either as a means of balancing the popular power, or at least of sharing in the benefits of an association which secured the rights and position of the free men; and thus, the same document which reveals to us the existence of the “Ingang burhware” or “burghers’ club” of Canterbury, tells us also of the “Cnihta gyld,” or “Sodality of young nobles” in the same city[824]. ----- Footnote 817: Leg. Hloð. § 16. Thorpe, i. 34. Footnote 818: Asser considers London to belong locally to Essex: he states that the Danes plundered it in 851. Vit. Ælfr. _in anno_. Berhtwulf of Mercia made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve it; so that it must be considered to have been a Mercian town at that period. Later it seems to have been left to itself, till Ælfred restored it in 886. Footnote 819: “Gesette Ælfred cyning Lundenburg ... and he ða befæste ða burg Æðerede aldormen tó healdanne.” Chron. Sax. an. 880. “Eodem anno Ælfred, Angulsaxonum rex, post incendia urbium, stragesque populorum, Londoniam civitatem honorifice restauravit, et habitabilem fecit: quam generi suo Æðeredo, Merciorum comiti, commendavit servandam.” Asser, Vit. Ælf. an. 886. In 880 the Danes wintered at Fulham, and may then have ruined London, if they had not done so before. Footnote 820: Chron. Sax. an. 912. Footnote 821: Swétman, portgeréfa. Cod. Dipl. No. 857. Ælfsige, ibid. Nos. 858, 861. Ulf. ibid. No. 872. The first mayor of London was elected probably in 1187. See Lib. de Ant. Legib. p. 1 _seq._ Footnote 822: “Cyninges geréfa binnan port,” the king’s reeve within the city. Leg. Æðelst. iii. § 7; iv. § 3. Canterbury appears to have had both a cyninges geréfa and a portgeréfa. The signatures of both these officers are appended to the same instrument. Cod. Dipl. No. 789. Footnote 823: