I’ve been giving private walking tours in London for almost 10 years and one of the very few who have a range in the City of London, the one square mile that was once Roman Londinium.
I often tell visitors between the City and Greater or Metropolitan London. Most people visit London without even visiting the City of London and yet it is I think one of if not the best parts of this vast metropolis, well away from royal palaces, expensive shops and throngs of bemused tourists.
One of the main reasons that the City of London is so different harks back to just after the Battle of Hastings. London was already about the richest city in the Western world and William the Conqueror didn’t want to ruin the prize of his still not particularly conquered land.
After Hastings he and his army had all ready tried to conquer London but they were fought off by the men of the City and Southwark at the fortified and barricaded London Bridge which forced them to go on a long route west to where they were next able to cross the Thames. Maurading and ransacking towns as he went, he came almost back on himself and set up base at Westminster.
He threatened to besiege and ransack the City, where many of the remaining leading men of the Anglo-Saxon court had congregated. A peaceful surrender might be considered relatively good for both sides and so soon after William’s coronation in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066 the following charter was issued.
““William the king, friendly salutes William the bishop and Godfrey the portreeve and all the burgesses within London both French and English. And I declare that I grant you to be all law-worthy, as you were in the days of King Edward; And I grant that every child shall be his father’s heir, after his father’s days; And I will not suffer any person to do you wrong; God keep you”.”
It worked a treat and the subsequent peaceful surrender, for which the Charter was a reward, won the support of Londoners; the degree of autonomy which it guaranteed has been valued and defended by the City ever since. The Charter also reflects London’s already established international character by addressing both the French and English residents and treating them with equal status.
In effect William was saying that as long as he is acknowledged as the King of the England then he isn’t going to interfere in the running of the City.
It is especially significant not only for its survival, but also because it is the earliest known royal or imperial document to guarantee the collective rights of the inhabitants of any town (it is not directed to specific groups, such as merchants, or to institutions such as major churches). The Charter granted nothing new to the Londoners, but confirmed the citizens’ rights and privileges already in existence. One of their primary concerns, as expressed in this charter, was to ensure that the succession to property was not subject to arbitrary royal intervention.
This is very different from what happened elsewhere in the Kingdom where not only was everything upended and people dispossessed from their holdings and titles but particularly in the north east there was the ‘Harrying of the North’ from which to a degree the area has never properly recovered.
The document is one in a long line of charters which the Citizens of London extracted from the Sovereign; there are over a hundred royal charters in the City’s archive.
Even today the City of London has its own mayor, not the more famous London Mayor, its own police force and system of government and administration overseen by the City of London Corporation and the Sovereign has reduced authority. Even when Charles was proclaimed our new Sovereign outside St James Palaces in Westminster, a separate and in many ways more magnificent event was held outside the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England and Mansion House.
I only got to see the original document a few months ago and it is still on display at the almost completely unvisited Guildhall. It’s well worth having a look or if you come on my Roman London Walking Tour then you can see it with me!
Stephen Liddell 
1 comment