omen of the future.

If credit be given to every statement made by the city alderman and
chronicler, Fitz-Thedmar, we must believe that the battle of Evesham took
place just in time to prevent a wholesale massacre of the best and
foremost men of the city, including the chronicler himself, which was
being contrived by the mayor, the popular Thomas Fitz-Thomas, the no less
popular Thomas de Piwelesdon or Puleston, and others.(258)

(M161)

The citizens of London were soon to experience the change that had taken
place in the state of affairs. The day after Michaelmas, the mayor and
citizens proceeded to Westminster to present the new sheriffs to the
Barons of the Exchequer; but finding no one there, they returned home. The
truth was that the king had resorted to his favourite measure of taking
the city into his own hands for its adherence to the late Earl of
Leicester; and for five years it so remained, being governed by a _custos_
or warden appointed by the king, in the place of a mayor elected by the
citizens.(259)

(M162)

There had been some talk of the king meditating an attack upon the city,
and treating its inhabitants as avowed enemies.(260) The very threat of
such a proceeding was sufficient to throw the city into the utmost state
of confusion. Some there were "fools and evil-minded persons," as our
chronicler describes them--who favoured resisting force by force; but the
"most discreet men" of the city, and those who had joined the Earl under
compulsion, would have none of it, preferring to solicit the king's favour
through the mediation of men of the religious orders. Henry still remained
unmoved, and the fear of the citizens increased to such an extent that it
was finally resolved that the citizens as a body should make humble
submission to the king; and that the same should be forwarded to him at
Windsor under the common seal of the city. Whilst the deputation bearing
this document was on its way it was met by Sir Roger de Leiburn, who
turned it back on the ground that he himself was on his way to the city
for the express purpose of arranging terms of submission.(261)

(M163)

That night Sir Roger lodged at the Tower, and the next morning he went to
Barking Church, on the confines of the city,(262) where he was met by the
mayor and a "countless multitude" of the citizens. The advice he had to
give the citizens was that if they wished to be reconciled to the king,
they would have to submit their lives a