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WALWORTH. 177
in the meantime, the prisoners were subjected to the lash, the rope, the
axe, and the pillory, in which they stood with their heads and hands
fixed in a sort of frame, while the rabble pelted them with mud and filth,
or jeered and mocked at
them.
There was some method and reason, then, in the summary justice of
those days, for Robert Colyer, of the county of York, being convicted in
J
375 before the mayor of stealing a fillet of pork and two fowls, was
sentenced to stand for one hour in the pillory, with the fillet and fowls
aforesaid round his neck; and John Bernard, of Bishops Hatfield, 1380,
who was tried before William Walworth, mayor, and the aldermen, for
selling eight sacks of charcoal, each one bushel short, was sentenced to
stand in the pillory until all the sacks were burned beneath him ;
and
another man, who had sold a stinking capon, was sentenced to stand in the
pillory for an hour, with the unsavoury fowl suspended under his nose.
John Penrose, a taverner, being found guilty of selling unsound wine, it
was ordered that " the said John Penrose shall drink a draught of the said
" wine which he sold to the common people, and the remainder of such
" wine shall then be poured on the head of the said John ; and that he
" shall forswear the calling of a vintner in the city of London for ever,
" unless he can obtain the favour of our lord the King as to the same."
But the mayor and aldermen in those days could inflict graver
punishments than these, and John Barry, 1339, being caught with the
mainour (i.e.
the stolen goods in his hand), consisting of one surcoat of
appel-blome and one coat of blanket, value one mark, burglariously stolen
in the night, was incontinently hanged. And William Hughot, 1387, having
struck John Rote, an alderman, who attempted to prevent him assaulting
one John Elyngham, and commanded
" him, as an alderman of the city
" and an officer of our lord the King, to desist from his wicked and evil
" conduct, and surrender himself to the peace of our lord the King," was
sentenced to lose his hand, and " an axe was immediately brought into
" court by an officer of the sheriffs, and the hand of the said William was
"laid upon the block, there to be cut off;" and but for the kind intercession
of the said John Rote, the sentence would have been immediately
carried out.
But I must proceed with my story. In 1380, the 4th year of Richard II.,
William Walworth was again elected mayor and during his second year
;
of office
occurred the event which has rendered his name famous throughout
posterity.
Without entering at too great length into the collateral history of
these times, I
may remind you that the weak King Richard II. sanctioned
the " demand for a great taxe," as Stowe says, " which afterwards was the
" cause of a great disturbance." The great tax was a levy or a poll-tax of