In April of 1357, the Mayor and Aldermen of London sent a petition
to Edward III, asking for certain favours in regards to trade and preservation
of the city's liberties. To justify these requests, the city detailed
some of their efforts to support Edward III in his wars.
Whereas the good folk of the City had been charged for taxes and tallages
above all others in the Commons, and whereas they had lent the King at
Durghdreit [Dordrecht] more than £60 000, and many merchants were
in arrear and many had delivered more wool than was due owing to the difference
between the standard weight at Durghdreit and in England, to their great
loss; and whereas they had lent for the King's use at one time £5,000,
and, at another £2,000, which had not been repaid; and whereas they
had lent for the King's use when before Calais and elsewhere the sum of
£40 000, paying the same to Walter of Chiriton and his companions
on the security of two patents in the Chancery sealed with the great Seal,
and at divers other times more than £30 000, which had not been repaid;
and whereas they had been greater charges than others of the Commons in
respect of the King's expeditions to Scotland, Gascony, Brabant, Flanders,
Brittany, and France, as well as the siege of Calais, and against the Spaniards
in providing men-at-arms, archers, and ships in aid of the war; and whereas
carriages, victuals, and merchandise, both within the City and without,
have been taken by divers purveyors without payment, contrary to the liberties
of the City; and whereas by reason of death of the richer inhabitants of
the City at the time of the pestilence [the Black Death in 1348-49], and
their property having fallen into the hand of the Holy Church, the City
had become impoverished and more than one-third of it empty; they pray
to take these matters into consideration, as also the manner in which the
City had been at all times loyally kept and the peace preserved, thus setting
an example to the whole realm.
From Letter Book G, folio 60.