esisted the interference of the lord mayor and his officers
who would have put a stop to their decorating a pump in Cornhill with
evergreens at Christmas, and not only did ministers who had been deprived
for malignancy occupy pulpits in various city churches on that day, but
they used the Book of Common Prayer.(840)

(M416)

The mayor, who owed his election to pressure of parliament, and who was on
that account never really popular in the city, unwittingly assisted the
royal cause by another act of injudicious meddling. On Sunday, the 9th
April, 1648, he sent a detachment of trained bands to interfere with the
amusement of some boys playing tip-cat in Moorfields. A crowd of
apprentices and others took the part of the boys, and attacked the trained
bands, getting possession of their arms and colours. With these they
marched, some three or four thousand strong, along Fleet Street and the
Strand, raising the shout of "Now for King Charles!" and intending to make
their way to Whitehall, but before they reached Charing Cross they were
scattered by a troop of cavalry quartered at the King's Mews, and for a
time the disturbance was at an end. During the night, however, the
apprentices again arose and made themselves masters of Ludgate and
Newgate. Laying their hands on whatever ammunition they could find, and
summoning their friends by drums belonging to the trained bands, they
proceeded to attack the mansion of the unpopular mayor. Whilst a messenger
was hurrying off to Fairfax for military aid, the mayor, the sheriffs and
the Committee of Militia had to repel as best they could the attacks of
the mob, who kept firing through the windows of the lord mayor's house. At
last the troops arrived, and were admitted into the city by Aldersgate.
They followed up the rioters to the Leadenhall, where arms were being
collected. Resistance to a disciplined force soon proved useless. The
ringleaders were taken and led off to prison, and the crowd was dispersed,
but not without some little bloodshed.(841) The affair made the city
poorer by the sum of L300, that amount being voted by the Court of
Aldermen out of the city's cash to the officers and soldiers sent by
Fairfax to suppress the riot.(842)

(M417)

On the 13th April the city authorities submitted to both Houses an account
of what had recently taken place, which the Houses ordered to be printed.
Parliament accepted their assurance that they were in no way responsible
for the out