Lord Mayors Show

[petal]

History of the Show

The original charter of King John - probably one of several copies - can still be seen at the Museum of London. It's nearly 800 years old, but the modern City of London is a direct descendant of the Commune it established.

There has been a Lord Mayor of London ever since 1189, when Henry Fitzailwyn first held office.
It wasn't until 1215, when King John granted a Charter allowing the City's citizens to elect their own mayor, that the Lord Mayor's Show actually came into being. The Charter stipulated that the new Mayor must be presented to the Sovereign for approval and to swear fealty to the Crown, so each year the newly elected Mayor had to travel from the City to Westminster to pledge allegiance.
The Lord Mayor has been making that yearly journey for 784 years, surviving plague and fire and countless wars and insurrections. The modern Lord Mayor's procession is a direct descendant of that first journey to Westminster and the pageantry of Pepys and Canaletto is recognisable today.
Over the years the Mayor's Journey became so splendid that it became known as the Lord Mayor's Show.


The origins of the Lord Mayor’s Show

The death of Wat Tyler, from Jean Froissart's chronicles. Froissart was a historian and poet whose lengthy chronicles provide the best contemporary account of chivalric society and the courtly world of the fourteenth century. He lived among the nobility, depended on his aristocratic patrons and took a very dim view of revolting peasants.
The original charter of King John - probably one of several copies - can still be seen at the Museum of London. It's nearly 800 years old, but the modern City of London is a direct descendant of the Commune it established.

The Mayor of London was originally appointed as the head of a European-style 'commune' - a sworn association of townspeople. The commune was granted by the Prince John - brother of the crusading King Richard and shortly to become King himself - in order to woo the city's support in his endless tussles with the nobility and his absent brother's representatives.
The title of Lord Mayor was not adopted until 1540, but the first Mayor of London - Henry Fitzailwyn - was appointed in 1189. He held office for 24 years, until his death in 1213.
A couple of years later, the Mayor of London became one of the earliest elected officials. In return for the support he received from the City, King John granted a Charter on May 9th 1215, confirming the citizens' right to choose their own Mayor and instituting an annual election.
The power - and independence - of the office was such that when Magna Carta was issued, six weeks later, there was only one signatory out of the 25 who was not a Baron: William Hardell, Mayor of the City of London. He is no doubt responsible for the inclusion of the following:

13. The city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs, both by land and by water. We also will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs.

The King's condition was that the man chosen by the people was to be presented to him for his approval, and had to swear an oath of allegiance. The original 'Show' was exactly that - the mayor had to go from the City to Westminster to be shown to the King.
These days the role of the monarch is carried out by the judges of the Queens Bench at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, but the oath of allegiance remains and the new Mayor must still travel from Mansion house to present himself.
After 1215, the Mayor didn't play a prominent role in history until 1381. That was the year of the great Peasant's Revolt, sparked by the taxes levied to support what came to be known as the Hundred Years' War. Its leader, Wat Tyler, and others were negotiating with the young Richard II at Smithfield: among other demands, they we seeking the abolition of serfdom. The sequence of events isn't quite clear, but it seems that the then Mayor, William Walworth, killed Wat Tyler during a confrontation and effectively put an end to the Revolt. Walworth was knighted on he spot by the King.
Finally, no survey of the early Mayors would be complete without Dick Whittington, of pantomime fame. There really was a Richard Whittington, but he was a man of well-to-do origins, a merchant and moneylender who was originally appointed by the King to replace a Lord Mayor who died in office. Whittington seems to have been a man who combined enterprise with benevolence: he won great popularity, was elected Lord Mayor three times and financed many public works including drainage and sanitation as well as the more showy reconstruction of the Guildhall.
On his death in 1423 he left a great amount of money to charity, which was used to create many almshouses and public drinking fountains as well as repairing St Bart's Hospital and Newgate Prison. It is thought that these very visible bequests were the source of a popular cult that would surface two hundred years later in the fanciful story of Dick Whittington, the penniless cat-selling vagabond who overcame despondency and rose to become Lord Mayor of London.