42 Antiquity and Early 



wise Lords of this present Parliament Their poor 

 Heges the Saddlers of London most humbly beseech 

 and complain against Sir Nicholas Brembre, Knight, 

 that whereas the said Master Nicholas, in his Mayoralty, 

 in the first year of the reign of our said Lord the King, 

 demanded of the Wardens of the said Mystery the 

 Charter granted and confirmed to them by the noble 

 progenitors of our said Lord the King, in which Charter 

 were granted divers articles in prohibition of the deceits 

 practised by divers strangers, as plainly appears by the 

 copy annexed to this. At which time the Wardens of 

 the said Mystery answered the said Sir Nicholas, that 

 they would not deliver their said Charter to him with- 

 out command of the King or Parliament. The said 

 Nicholas grievously threatening them that he would 

 drive them out at the point of the sword and cause the 

 whole of the said City to rise upon the said Mystery. 

 For fear of which and for the safety of their lives they 

 delivered to him their Charter, which he has detained 

 and still detains to the prejudice of the Crown of our 

 said Lord the King, and the great damage and injury 

 of the said Mystery. Wherefore they pray a remedy 

 and upon that which the law demands for the sake of 

 God and as an act of charity. Also the said suppliants 

 complain against the said Sir Nicholas and others his 

 accomplices of this, that the said Sir Nicholas, with the 

 assent of others, his confederates aforesaid, usurped to 

 himself royal power in this, inasmuch as it had been 

 usual in the said City, time out of mind, and by their 

 royal charters granted and confirmed, [that] when the 

 Mayor of London shall be elected his election shall be 

 by the Commonalty and free men of the said City, 

 until the aforesaid Sir Nicholas and the others, his 

 accomplices, by their conspiracy and evil imaginings to 

 destroy the good men of the said City and oppose the 

 freedom of the same, caused certain men who were their 



