Page:Survey of London by John Stow.djvu/88

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Stow's Survey of London

the time is, or that toucheth the body of no sheriff, it is not lawful for the sokeman of the sokemanry of the said Robert Fitzwalter to demand a court of the said Robert, and the mayor, and his citizens of London, ought to grant him to have a court, and in his court he ought to bring his judgments, as it is assented and agreed upon in this Guildhall, that shall be given them. If any, therefore, be taken in his sokenly, he ought to have his stocks and imprisonment in his soken; and he shall be brought from thence to the Guildhall before the mayor, and there they shall provide him his judgment that ought to be given of him; but his judgment shall not be published till he come into the court of the said Robert, and in his liberty. And the judgment shall be such, that if he have deserved death by treason, he to be tied to a post in the Thames at a good wharf where boats are fastened, two ebbings and two flowings of the water. And if he be condemned for a common thief, he ought to be led to the Elms, and there suffer his judgment as other thieves. And so the said Robert and his heirs hath honour that he holdeth a great franchise within the city, that the mayor of the city and citizens are bound to do him of right, that is to say, that when the mayor will hold a great council, he ought to call the said Robert, and his heirs, to be with him in council of the city, and the said Robert ought to be sworn to be of council with the city against all people, saving the king and his heirs. And when the said Robert cometh to the hustings in the Guildhall of the city, the mayor, or his lieutenant, ought to rise against him, and set him down near unto him; and so long as he is in the Guildhall, all the judgment ought to be given by his mouth, according to the record of the recorders of the said Guildhall; and so many waifes as come so long as he is there, he ought to give them to the bailiffs of the town, or to whom he will, by the counsel of the mayor of the city. These be the franchises that belonged to Robert Fitzwalter in London, in time of peace; which for the antiquity thereof I have noted out of an old record.

This Robert deceased in the year 1305, leaving issue Walter Fitzrobert, who had issue Robert Fitzwalter, unto whom, in the year 1320, the citizens of London acknowledged the right which they ought to him and his heirs for the Castle Baynard; he deceased 1325; unto whom succeeded Robert Fitzrobert, Fitzwalter, etc. More of the Lord Fitzwalter may ye read in my Annals in 51st of Edward III. But how this honour of Baynard's castle, with the appurtenances, fell from the pos-