CHAPTER IV

THE COMMONWEALTH

AFTER the execution of the King, the Commons, by an Act, abolished Monarchy and erected a Commonwealth in its place. Orders were sent to the Mayor and Sheriffs requiring them to make proclamation accordingly. The Mayor, however, Reynardson, who had always shown Royalist leanings, refused to obey on the ground that he had already, in entering upon the various offices which he had held, taken so many oaths of loyalty that he could not, in conscience, obey. He was therefore committed to the Tower for two months, deprived of his Mayoralty, and fined £2000 for contempt. And the City was ordered to elect a new Mayor with all convenient speed.

The City obeyed; Alderman Atkins was chosen Mayor, and on the 30th of May the proclamation was duly made, but not without hooting and groaning from the crowd. Two Aldermen, Soames and Chambers, were not present. On being questioned at the Bar of the House, Soames said boldly that the proclamation was against his judgment and conscience; Chambers that his heart was not in the business. They were therefore degraded from their position and declared incapable of filling any City office for the future.

A day of public thanksgiving was then appointed, when the City invited the House of Commons to hear a sermon at Christ Church, Newgate, and afterwards to a noble entertainment at the Grocers' Hall. The day after, the City presented Fairfax with a basin and ewer of gold, and Cromwell with a hundred pounds' worth of plate and a purse of £200 in gold.

The exchange of presents and courtesies ended, for the time, with the presentation to the City, by the House of Commons, of Richmond Park.

On the 19th of September 1650 another day of thanksgiving was held for the victory of Dunbar, and another after the victory of Worcester.

Cromwell was received on his return to London by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs, who invited him to a Banquet.

On the forcible dissolution of the old Parliament, petitions were presented to Cromwell by the City for and against the reinstatement of the Parliament. Cromwell met them both by constituting a certain number of persons the "Supreme

Authority." The City, recognising this body, presented a petition in which they prayed :

"1. That the precious Truths of the Gospel may be preserved in Purity; and the Dispensers thereof, being approved to be learned, godly, and void of Offence, may be sent forth to preach the Gospel. 2. That their settled Maintenance by Law might be confirmed, and their just Properties preserved. 3. That the Universities may be zealously countenanced and encouraged." (Maitland, vol. i. p. 421.)

The "Supreme Authority" surrendering its power, Cromwell was made Protector, a step which the City hastened to recognise by inviting him to dine at the Guildhall, and receiving him with all the honours of a sovereign.

Hackney Coachmans'

On the discovery of a conspiracy against his person, Cromwell sent for the Mayor and Aldermen, and, after acquainting them with the nature of the plot, recommended to them the safety and peace of the City, giving them at the same time, in order to strengthen their hands, the entire control of the City Militia. He also sanctioned the revival of the Honourable Artillery Company.

As regards affairs municipal, Cromwell limited the number of hackney coachmen to two hundred, under the license of the Mayor and Corporation; and for the sake of the poor he allowed the entrance into the port, free of duty, of 4000 chaldrons of coals every year.

Cromwell also renewed the attempts of Elizabeth, James, and Charles to stop the erection of new buildings; all those persons who had built houses-except on four acres of groundsince 1620 were fined one year's rent, and all those who should build after 1656 were to be fined £100. These successive Acts caused great vexation at the time, but as they were never enforced save at irregular intervals, the chief effect was to drive across the river into the Borough those of the craftsmen for whom there was no room in the City.

The Common Council proceeded to consider the allowances for the expenses of the Mayor and the Sheriffs; these were now fixed at 208: 6s. a month for the former, and £150 a month for each of the latter.

A Committee was appointed " to manage and to let to farm a number of offices, including those of garbling, package, and scavage, metage of grain, coal, salt and fruit, as well as all fines, issues, amerciaments and estreated recognizances under the greenwax."

The condition of the poor was taken in hand at this time very seriously. A project was started to raise money by establishing a post in Scotland and other parts of the country; but the House of Commons resolved that the office of postmaster in every part of the country is in the power and the disposal of the Parliament; the project, therefore, fell through; meantime the poor remained. It was decided to raise £4600 in order to find work for them; a storehouse was set apart for them in

the Minories and the King's Wardrobe, part of the Palace so-called, one court of which remained until recently-to be used as a workroom.

The weariness of civil war felt by the Londoners was further displayed in the autumn of 1650 when a contingent of recruits was marched from London to the North to join the army in Scotland. Half of them deserted by the way. In the following year the City remonstrated on the heavy taxation from which they suffered, stating that the City was assessed at a fifteenth part of the whole kingdom; that the foreign trade had suffered grievously from Prince Rupert's piracies; that the wealthier citizens were withdrawing from London to the suburbs, and so evading taxation. The last clause is remarkable. The time had not yet come when the

wealthier merchants desired to leave the City and to live outside; the practice shows simply that in this way they avoided taxation.

The battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, put an end to the Civil War. A few days later the unhappy Scottish prisoners were marched through the City, ragged, barefoot, bareheaded, starving-a terrible spectacle. Meal was collected for them from house to house; they were taken to Tothill Fields in Westminster, where they lay in the open under rain and suffering from the cold winds of autumn. Twelve hundred of them died. The rest were sent away to the Gold Coast, whence none ever came back.

War with Holland broke out in 1652 and a subscription of £1071: 9:5 for the wounded sailors and soldiers was raised in the City.

On December 16, 1653, the Lord Mayor carried the City Sword at the installation of Cromwell as Lord Protector. Two months later he dined with the Mayor and Corporation at Grocers' Hall. This interchange of courtesies continued during the rest of Cromwell's rule.

The connection of the City with the Protector offers very little of importance. When the proclamation was made, six weeks after the execution of the King, abolishing monarchy, the City made no protest either by its Common Council or by any popular movement. When a Commonwealth was proclaimed in May there were many refusals among the clergy and others to promise fidelity to the new order, but no remonstrance came from the City. When Cromwell dissolved the Rump "not a dog barked" either in the City or outside.

The Fifth Monarchy men, a small minority, gave some trouble in the City. They were fanatics of the deepest dye. They would have no King but Jesus Christ, and no Parliament but a Sanhedrin of Saints-meaning themselves.

Among all the sects which drove men mad perhaps the most mischievous was that of the "Fifth Monarchy" men. It was a sect whose adherents were principally found in London. At one time they were numerous enough to be important. They supported Cromwell's Government at first in the faith that it would become the "Fifth Monarchy," in succession, that is, to the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. During the Fifth Monarchy, they thought, Christ would reign, with the saints, for a thousand years. Their leader was one Venner, a wine cooper, but among them were certain officers, as Major-General Harrison, Colonel Rich, and others. When the proposal that Cromwell should assume the title of King was first brought forward, the Fifth Monarchy men, being disappointed in their hopes and acknowledging no King but Christ, prepared for a rising; they were to meet at Mile End Green, where they expected to be joined by thousands from the country as well as from the City. They were arrested with arms in their hands and sent to the Tower, but none were executed. The man Venner gave more trouble afterwards. There were, however, signs of Royalist disaffection,