fice of Mayor should be abolished and that the Marshal of England
should hold his court in the City--in other words, that even the
liberties and Charters of the City should be swept clean away. Then the
Londoners rushed to the Savoy, the Duke's palace, and would have sacked
and destroyed it but for the Bishop. This story indicates the kind of
danger to which, in those ages, the City was liable. There were no
police; a popular tumult easily and suddenly became a rebellion: no one
knew what might happen when the folk met together and wild passions of
unreasoning fury were aroused.

Another danger of the time for the peaceful merchant. For some years the
navigation of the North Sea and the Channel was greatly impeded by a
Scottish privateer or pirate named Mercer. In vain had the City made
representations to the King. Nothing was done, and the pirate grew daily
stronger and bolder. Then Sir John Philpot, the Mayor, did a very
patriotic thing. He built certain ships of his own, equipped them with
arms, went on board as captain or admiral, and manned them with a
thousand stout fellows. He found the pirate off Scarborough, fell upon
him, slew him with all his men and returned to London Port with all his
own ships and all the pirate's ships--including fifteen Spanish vessels
which had joined Mercer.

The King pretended to be angry with this private mode of carrying on
war, but the thing was done, and it was a very good thing, and
profitable to London and to the King himself, therefore when Sir John
Philpot gave the King the arms and armour of a thousand men and all his
own ships and prize ships, the Royal clemency was not difficult to
obtain. I wish that I could state that Whittington had sailed with Sir
John on this gallant expedition.

A third trouble arose in the year 1381 on the rebellion of the peasants
under John Ball, Wat Tyler, Jack the Miller, Jack the Carter, and Jack
Trewman. The rebels held possession of the City for awhile. They
destroyed the Savoy, the Temple and the houses of the foreign merchants
(this shows that they had been joined by some of the London people).
They murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prior of St. John's
Hospital. Then the citizens roused themselves and with an army of 6,000
men stood in ranks to defend the King.

Then there happened the troubles of John of Northampton, Mayor in 1382.
You have learned how trades of all kinds were banded together each in
its own Company. Every C