City,
accepting a transfer of the Treasury Bills in the hands of the City
Chamberlain. The Common Council was only too ready to accept the
offer.(1381) Edward Backwell, alderman of Bishopsgate Ward, was one of
those city princes whose wealth brought them into close relation with the
Crown. A goldsmith by trade, he, like others of his class, took to keeping
"running cashes" and transacting generally the business of a banker at his
house known as the "Unicorn" in Lombard Street. Pepys mentions him
frequently in his Diary. In the days of the Commonwealth he was paymaster
of the garrison at Dunkirk, and continued to act as financial agent in all
matters connected with that town until it was sold to the French king. His
house in Lombard Street having perished in the Great Fire, he was, by the
king's special command, accommodated with lodgings in Gresham College, in
order that his business relations with the king might not be interrupted
pending the re-building of his premises.(1382)

(M696)

In March, 1669, a riot occurred in the Temple on the occasion of the mayor
and aldermen going to dine with the reader of the Inner Temple. The
question whether the Temple is situate within the city and liberties or
not was then a debateable one, whatever it may be at the present day. The
lord mayor of that time (William Turner) evidently thought that it lay
within his jurisdiction, and insisted upon being preceded by the city's
sword-bearer carrying the sword up. To this the students strongly
objected. The story, as told by Pepys, is to the effect that on Wednesday,
3rd March, "my lord mayor being invited this day to dinner at the readers
at the Temple, and endeavouring to carry his sword up, the students did
pull it down, and forced him to go and stay all the day in a private
counsellor's chamber until the reader himself could get the young
gentlemen to dinner; and then my lord mayor did retreat out of the Temple
by stealth with his sword up. This do make great heat among the students,
and my lord mayor did send to the king, and also I hear that Sir Richard
Browne did cause the drums to beat for the trained bands; but all is over,
only I hear that the students do resolve to try the charter of the city."
From a draft report(1383) of the incident which was probably made for the
purpose of being laid before the Council Board,(1384) we learn that as
soon as the civic procession entered the Temple cloisters it was met by a
man named Hodges