AN ANCIENT OFFICE

Evening Star, Issue 19552, 10 May 1927, Page 3

AN ANCIENT OFFICE

WHO WAS THE FIRST LORD MAYOR ?

Who was the first Lord Mayor? Tho question is often asked, but no one so far has been able to answer it. Tile claim of Lord Dartmouth’s family that their ancestor, Thomas Legge, who was Mayor of London in 1354, was granted the prefix of Lord by Edward 111., with the style of Right Honorable, is bare of anything resembling proof. Everyone, however, knows who was the first Mayor of London. This was Henry Fitzailwyn, who was Chief Magistrate in 1189, and was one of the treasurers for raising Richard I.’s ransom. Down to that time the Chief Magistrate had been tho “ reeve*’ or “ portreeve," as, indeed, be was called in William tho Conqueror's Charier to the city, still to be seen at the Guildhall. When William and his victorious troops arrived from Hastings the citizens of London at first made a show of resistance, but the portreeve of that.day, esteeming discretion a jewel, opened the gate and drawbridge and surrendered the keys, for he knew that William, being a militarist, with the blood of Robert the Devil in his veins, was addicted to frightfulness, and no doubt the portreeve’s prudence saved London from ugly reprisals. It was not until tho end of the fifteenth century that people began to speak of tho Lord Mayor. , The earliest evidence of it in literature is a passage in Bale (1554), in which reference is made to “Maister Harry, My Lord Mayre's fool.”

But tho Mayor’s prestige steadily grew as the 'years went by. King John required that every mayor on his election should oo presented to kirn, or in his absence to his .instioe, and in that year (1215) the first Mayor’s procession to the palace occurred. To-day the Lord Mayor’s procession to tho Law Courts is held on November 9 for precisely the same purpose—presentation to the King’s justices. Edward 111. in 1327 advanced the mayor’s dignity by making him justice of tho gaol delivery at, -Newgate, and as such he remains. That is .why at the present day visitors to the Old Bailey will find either the Lord Mayor or an alderman representing him on the bench beside the judge, with .his bouquet of flowers and bowl of sweet herbs on the desk before him. Later, in the reign of Richard 11., the poll tax of 1379 assessed the mayor as an ear! and the aldermen ns barons, and when the Sovereign enters the city the Lord Mayor wears the State robes of an earl this day. It seems likely that the custom of prefixingl lord to", the mayor’s ordinary style arose gradually, just as ii has arisen in- acoentuat-

ing such titles as Lord Justice, Lord Chamberlain, Lord Privy Seal, and Lord Chancellor, and it is probable that the reason of tie custom is to bo found in the fact that the mayor held an earl's precedence, and was the King's own judge at Newgate. The two mayors, or Lord Mayors, of London best preserved in the popular memory are undoubtedly Sir Richard Whittington and Sir Thomas Gresham, whoso careers were strangely identical, although more than a century divided them. Both were favorites with successive Sovereigns, both were mercers, both merchant, adventurers, both kept a shop, both were of good descent, both became enormously wealthy, and both wore sticklers for commercial rectitude,_ wilu standards higher than those of the majority of their_contemporaries. Gro,sham built the Exchange; Whittington by his will added-to Guildhall. Gresham founded a college for the London youth; Whittington founded a oollego for priests and ar. almshouse. Gresham restored the finances of his Sovereign, and made London the commercial centre of the world; Whittington chivalrously gave back to his Sovereign the bonds of all his debts.

The fable o! Dick Whittington has won the laurel wreath of immortality, and no amount of scepticism will over disinherit him- and his flippant cat from Ilia fealty of the nursery, but, loth aa one may be to disturb venerable beliefs, it must lw admitted that when tha Whittington tradition is examined in the cold light of recorded history, it is found to be somewhat frayed at the edges. _ For example, much as one might still wish to uphold Dick as an exemplary precedent for all poor apprentice lads, ‘ho irtuh is that he was the son of a well-to-do country gentleman, Sir William Whittington, of Pauntley, Gloucestershire, and {instead of starving on ,Mr Ktzwarren’s doorstep mid serving as a scullion he was apprenticed to his cousin, Sir John Fitzwarren, a wealthy merchant and member of Parliament. History, I regret to say, will have nothing to do with his stealing out of the house in the early morning to Highgate to be enticed back by the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow bidding him “ turn again, Lord Mayor of London,” or, worse still, with the cat that ho put into his master's ship, or that creature's hectic doings at the Court of the King of Barbary. On the other hand, ha did marry his master’s daughter, .Alice Fitzwarren, and he was three times Lord Mayor for mayor) of London, but these proved facts hardly compensate for the distressing oblieration of the cat.

That Whittington lived and deported himself majestically, and had the interests of tho city deeply at heart, is shown by the authentic incident, related by Sir Walter Besant, of his graceful cancellation of Henry V.’i war debts: ‘* He entertained Henry of Agincourt and Catherine, his bride, with a magnificence. which astonished the King. But Whittington knew what he was doing; the - banquet ■ was- not and display;, its coat was far more than repaid

by the respect for the wealth and power of the city which it nourished and maintained in the kingly mind. The memory of this and other such feasts, we may bn very sure, had its after-effect even upon those most masterful of Sovereigns, Henry VIII.; and QueeU Bess. On this occasion ft was nothing that the tables groaned with good things and glittered with gold SSA silver plate, it was nothing that the fire* were fed with cedar and perfumed , wood. For-this princely mayor fed these fires alter dinner with nothing less than the King'* bonds to the amount of £60,000. In purchasing power that sum would now be represented by a million and a-quarter pounds sterling. A truly royal gift.” A beau gesto indeed, and one typical of the full-handed munificence of the City rf London then and now.

But lam sorry about the cat.—“ F.C.Y./t in ‘ Overseas.’