recovering himself told Kiffin that he (James) would find "a balsam for
that sore." The old man still held out, until, hearing that legal
proceedings were about to be taken against him, he took counsel's opinion
as to what was best to be done. He was told that he was running a great
risk by refusing to become an alderman, for the judges, as they then were,
might subject him to a penalty of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand pounds,
"even what they pleased." Under such circumstances he consented to be made
an alderman, rather than bring ruin on himself and family. He, however,
put off the evil day as long as he could, and was not sworn into office
until the 27th October.(1591)

Kiffin expressed himself as pleased with the reception he met with in his
ward, where he was almost a stranger. But much of the business which the
Court of Aldermen was called upon to execute in those days was distasteful
to him. "We had frequently orders from the king" (he writes) "to send to
the several companies to put out great numbers of liverymen out of the
privilege of being liverymen, and others to be put in their rooms; most of
which that were so turned out were Protestants of the Church of England.
There has been a list of seven hundred at a time to be discharged,
although no crime laid to their charge." The royal commission which
appointed him an alderman also created him a justice of the peace and a
member of the Court of Lieutenancy, but to use his own words, "I never
meddled with either of those places, neither in any act of power in that
court [_i.e._, Court of Aldermen] touching causes between man and man, but
only such things as concerned the welfare of the city and good of the
orphans, whose distressed condition called for help, although we were able
to do little towards it." He was not called upon to discharge his
invidious duties for any great length of time; for after being in office
only nine months he obtained his discharge, to his "very great
satisfaction." He continued to live for another thirteen years, dying on
the 29th December, 1701, in his 86th year, and he was buried in Bunhill
Fields--that "God's acre" which holds the dust of so many of his fellow
non-conformists.

(M821)

In September the king had issued a patent for Sir John Shorter to be lord
mayor for the year ensuing. Shorter was a dissenter--"an Anabaptist, a very
odd ignorant person, a mechanic, I think," wrote Evelyn(1592) of him--and
on that account a clause