blount's "ancient tenures," a meritorious seventeenth-century work which has been edited by mr. w. c. hazlitt, contains a description of the military and civil functions performed, and the privileges enjoyed, by the house of fitzwalter, in connexion with the city of london. the latter stand in close relation to the subject with which we have just dealt, but it will be convenient to discuss first the obligations and then the "liberties" annexed to their observance. by way of preface we may recapitulate what blount, who obtained his account from dugdale, has recorded, and, having done so, we will proceed to investigate and amplify his version of what is beyond question an important chapter in the early administration of the city.

confining ourselves to the facts as there stated, we find that the duty of providing for the safety of london devolved on the hereditary castellans, the fitzwalters, lords of wodeham, who discharged the office of chief standard-bearer in fee for the castlery of castle baynard within the city. when war loomed on the horizon fitzwalter, armed and astride his horse of service, and attended by twenty men-at-arms, who were mounted on horses harnessed with mail or iron, proceeded to the great door of the minster of st. paul with a banner of his arms displayed before him. there he was met by the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, who came armed and afoot out of the minster, the mayor bearing his banner which was gules and charged with the image of st. paul, or, the head, hands, and feet argent, and in the hands a sword also argent.

on perceiving their approach, fitzwalter dismounted, saluted the mayor as his comrade, and, addressing him, said: "sir mayor, i am come to do my service, which i owe to the city." the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen replied thereupon: "we allow you here, as our standard-bearer of this city in fee, this banner of the city to carry and govern to your power, to the honour and profit of the city."

fitzwalter then took the banner in his hand, and the mayor and the sheriffs, following him to the door, presented him with a horse of the value of ￡20, garnished with a saddle of his arms and covered with a sendal of the same. they also delivered to his chamberlain ￡20 sterling for his charges of that day. holding the banner in his hand, fitzwalter mounted the horse presented to him, and, as soon as he was seated, desired the mayor that a marshal might be chosen straightway out of the host of london. this request having been complied with, he preferred another—namely, that the common signal might be sounded through the city, when it would be the duty of the commonalty to follow the banner of st. paul, borne before them by the castellan, to aldgate.

in the event of fitzwalter marching out of the city, he chose from every ward two of the sagest inhabitants to superintend the defence of the city in his absence, and form a council of war, holding its sittings in the priory of the trinity adjoining aldgate. it was supposed that the army of london might be engaged from time to time in besieging towns or castles; and should a siege exceed a year in duration, the utmost amount fitzwalter could claim as remuneration was one hundred shillings. if such were the duties of the castellan in time of war, he had rights hardly less important in time of peace. here it should be premised that under norman rule the king's justice or the king's peace was assured by the grant of soke and soken—the former being the power of hearing and determining causes and levying fines and forfeitures, and the latter the area within which soke and other privileges were exercised. in the city of london the fitzwalters had a soken extending from the wall of the canonry of st. paul as a man went down by the "bracine" or brewhouse of st. paul to the thames; and thence to the side of the mill that stood on the water running down by the fleet bridge, by london walls, round by the friars preachers to ludgate, and by the back of the friary to the corner of the wall of the said canons of st. paul. it embraced, in fact, the whole parish of the church of st. andrew, which was in their gift.

appendant to this soken were various rights and privileges. fitzwalter might choose from the sokemanry, or inhabitants of the soken, a sokeman par excellence; and if any of the sokemanry was impleaded in the guildhall on any matter not touching the body of the mayor or any of the sheriffs for the time being, the sokeman might demand the court of fitzwalter. but while the mayor and citizens had to allow him to hold his court, his sentence was expected to coincide with that of the guildhall. he exercised, indeed, a co-ordinate rather than an appellate jurisdiction, as may be shown in the following manner:

suppose that a thief had been taken in the soken, stocks and a prison were in readiness for him; and he was thence carried before the mayor to receive his sentence, but not until he had been conveyed to fitzwalter's court and within his franchise. the nature of the sentence, to which the latter's assent was required, varied with the gravity of the offence. if the person were condemned for simple larceny, he was conducted to the elms, near smithfield—the usual place of execution before tyburn was adopted for the purpose—and there "suffered his judgment," i.e., was hanged like other common thieves. if, on the other hand, the theft was associated with treason, the crime, it was considered, called for more exemplary punishment, and the felon was bound to a pillar in the thames at wood-wharf, to which watermen fastened their boats or barges, there to remain during two successive floods and ebbs of the tide.

so important a franchise in the city was in itself a high honour, and it carried other distinctions with it. the fitzwalter of the day, when the mayor was minded to hold a great council, was invited to attend, and be a member of it; and on his arrival, the mayor or his deputy was required to rise and appoint him a place by his side. during the time he was at the hustings, all judgments were pronounced by his mouth, and such waifs as might accrue whilst he was there were presented by him to the bailiffs of the city or to whomsoever he pleased, by the advice of the mayor.

such is the story as we find it in the pages of blount, in which it appears apropos of nothing—merely as an instance of curious and picturesque usages which had long ceased to exist. blount, as we have seen, gives as his authority sir william dugdale, who alludes to the subject in his "extinct baronage of england," and dugdale seems to have owed the information to the "collection of glover, somerset herald." stow also knew of the "services and franchises," and it is thought that he had seen a copy of them in the "liber custumarum." the latter is accessible in print in riley's edition of the "munimenta gildhall? londiniensis," and corresponds in all or most respects with what we have found in blount.

so much for the antecedents of the story.

the fitzwalters are said to have come over with the conqueror, and to have been invested with the soke before mentioned by his favour and in requital of their services. that the family had at one time extraordinary rights in the city of london is shown by the evidence of the patent rolls, from which we learn that in the third year of edward i. (1275) robert fitzwalter received licence from the crown to transfer baynard castle, "adjoining the wall of the city, with all walls and fosses thereunto pertaining, as also the tourelle called montfichet," to robert kilwardley, archbishop of canterbury, for the purpose of founding the house and church of the friars preachers—"provided always that by reason of this grant nothing shall be extinguished to him and his heirs which to his barony did belong, but that whatsoever relating thereto, as well in rents, landing of vessels, and other franchises and privileges in the city of london or elsewhere, without diminution unto him the said robert, or to that barony, have recently belonged, shall henceforth be reserved."

this robert was the son of walter fitzwalter and grandson of his more illustrious namesake, the marshal of the army of god and captain of the barons in the days of king john; and it may be noted in passing that either to the last-named or his son walter, as lord of dunmow in essex, has been ascribed the institution of the flitch. thirty years after the sale of his patrimonial estate robert fitzwalter, in 1303, recited and claimed his services "and franchises" before sir john le blount, warden of the city; and as late as 1321, as shown by the "placita de quo warranto," the justiciars of the iter were inquiring into the claims of fitzwalter in relation to the city of london. one of his rights he was prepared to waive—namely, that of drowning traitors at wood-wharf. the justiciars refused to take cognizance of the matter, but the fitzwalters did not soon or easily abandon their demands, which were renewed by john, grandson of robert fitzwalter, in 1347. on the feast of st. matthew in that year it was announced to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens in common council "that john, lord fitzwalter, claims to have franchises in the ward of castle baynard wholly repugnant to the liberties of the city, and to the prejudice of the estate of his lordship the king, and of the liberties of the city aforesaid. for now of late he has made stocks for imprisonment of persons in the said ward and [has claimed] to make deliverance of persons imprisoned." thereupon it was agreed "that the said john had no franchise within the liberties of the city aforesaid, nor was he in future to intermeddle with any pleas holden in the guildhall of london or with any matters touching the liberties of the city."

probably this resolution served as a quietus of the efforts of the fitzwalters to establish or re-establish the right of jurisdiction over the citizens of london. it seems likely that these were endeavours to reinstitute ancient privileges rather than to create new. the document in the "liber custumarum," used in support of the claims of robert fitzwalter in 1303, contains a reference to the friars preachers, which would lead to the supposition that it was drawn up at the time; but riley believes that it was remodelled, perhaps only to the extent of this interpolation, and that otherwise it was a copy of an earlier pronouncement pertaining to the days of the first robert fitzwalter, who would have been the actual owner of baynard castle.

this has an important bearing on the reality of the dual or reciprocal obligations, which were apparently embodied in a compact between the mayor and citizens of london on the one part, and their military chief or champion on the other. thus it will be necessary to glance at the personal history of the elder robert fitzwalter, on which something has been already said. according to the chronicle of dunmow and other early records, the principal reason of fitzwalter's insatiable hatred of king john was that the monarch had attempted the chastity of matilda, robert's fair daughter, who, by the way, is identified by anthony munday and other elizabethan playwrights with the maid marian of robin hood. dugdale is disposed to accept this story; but, granting that it is true, it hardly suffices to explain fitzwalter's pre-eminence in the forces of the rebellious barons. this seems to have been due to his influence with the wealthy citizens of london, who were among the staunchest opponents of the astute and tyrannous sovereign. on may 24, 1215—the sunday next before ascension day, when many of the inhabitants would have been in attendance on divine service—the army of the barons, marching from ware, were permitted to enter the city, unopposed, through the gate of aldgate. fitzwalter's position as castellan, and his connexion with the priory of holy trinity at aldgate, furnish an easy and natural explanation of this proceeding. in 1217 the citizens of london raised a force of 20,000 men for the assistance of the dauphin of france against king henry and his guardian william marshal, earl of pembroke, and robert fitzwalter acted as commander. he died in 1234, and was buried before the high altar in the church of dunmow priory.

in the description of the banner delivered to fitzwalter by the mayor we have the earliest mention of the assumption of any sort of arms by the city of london. it may be noted that the sword is stated by some heraldic authorities to have been argent, whilst by others this detail is omitted. in saxon times york also had its standard-bearer. the "great gate" of st. paul's was probably the northern gate.

still keeping to the military aspects of the subject—at the commencement of the fourteenth century there was at the west end of st. paul's cathedral a waste piece of ground, which was the property of the city; and here it was the custom for the citizens to make a muster of arms under the command or inspection of the lord of baynard castle for the defence of the city, "so often as the said citizens might see fit." moreover, at the east end of the church lay a smaller plot, on which the citizens held folkmotes and made parade of arms for preserving the king's peace. this was perhaps a relic of the anglo-saxon institution of inward, which is mentioned in domesday, and was designed for the maintenance of order within the walls. adjacent to this smaller plot was the clochier or campanile of st. paul's, which was a distinct building from the cathedral proper, and contained the great bell, known as the motbelle, by which the citizens were summoned to the folkmote or an assembly of arms on occasions "when within the respective bailiwicks of the aldermen anything unexpected, doubtful, or disastrous against the realm, or the royal crown, chanced suddenly to take place." when the king required the services of the host of london against foreign enemies or outside the confines of the city, it is natural to suppose that the muster was held on the larger of the two spaces.

the musters and parades of the host probably lapsed when, by the sale of baynard castle, the fitzwalters ceased to be de facto castellans of london. this is a fair inference from the circumstance that in 1321 the citizens complained before the justiciars itinerant that the dean and chapter had unlawfully taken possession of the vacant spaces, enclosed them with walls, and even erected dwelling-houses on the eastern plot. the blazonry of the banner of st. paul, which would have been no longer used, was so far forgotten that eighty or a hundred years later nothing remained but the sword, which was supposed to stand for the dagger of that militant mayor, sir william walworth, who is said to have terminated therewith the lawlessness of wat tyler.