ons, and excessive taxation (the city being
called upon to pay the same amount of taxes as in its most prosperous
days), and praying the Commons to apply some timely remedy. The address
was to have been laid before the house on Monday, the 23rd February,(1398)
but no mention of it appears in the Commons Journal. On the 24th the House
was prorogued.

(M706)

In September (1674) the old question again cropt up as to the power of the
Court of Aldermen to veto matters ordained by the Common Council. The
question had arisen, it will be remembered, in January, 1649,(1399) when
Reynardson, the mayor, got up and left the Common Council, followed by the
aldermen, and the court, instead of breaking up according to custom,
proceeded to pass measures in their absence. Its action on this occasion
was reported to parliament, and the house signified its approval of the
court's proceedings and passed an ordinance which practically deprived the
Court of Aldermen of all control over the Common Council. Since that time
the matter had remained dormant, until jealousy between the two bodies was
again excited by the Common Council passing an Act (17 Sept., 1674) for
compelling the aldermen to reside within the city under the penalty of a
fine of L500.(1400) Against the passing of any such Act the Recorder, on
behalf of the Court of Aldermen, formally reported their protest to the
Common Council, and the Commons as formerly protested against that protest
(13 Nov.).(1401)

It was not that the mayor and aldermen were not fully conscious of the
mischief arising from their own non-residence in the city, for they
themselves passed an order for every alderman to return with his family
into the city before the following Easter on pain of heavy penalty,(1402)
but they objected to the court of Common Council presuming to dictate to
them.

(M707)

In the meantime the Court of Aldermen had appointed a committee (24 Sept.)
to examine the question of the right of veto, and this committee had
reported (20 Oct.) in favour of the court.(1403) "We find," said the
committee, "that the court of Common Council hath always consisted, and
still it doth, of three distinct degrees of persons, viz., of the lord
mayor in the first place as the chefe magistrate, and secondly of the
aldermen as subordinate magistrates, and thirdly of the commons, or of a
select number of the commons representing all the commoners of the said
city as now is, and for a long time bef