United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It ended in disaster; many Cornishmen were killed either in the field or by hanging afterwards; among whom was John Payne, mayor or portreeve of St. Ives. It did not die at once, but it speedily began to languish, and two centuries later was practically extinct. During the Civil War St.
And apparently at this time, certainly not long afterwards, he issued to the bishop and the portreeve his famous charter for the city, probably drawn up originally in the English language, or if not, certainly with an English translation attached for immediate effect.
It would seem, however, that he was born in London about the year 1118 or 1119, and that his father, Gilbert Becket, was probably a respectable merchant and sheriff, or portreeve, of London, and was a Norman. His parents died young, leaving him not well provided for; but being beautiful and bright he was sent to school in an abbey, and afterwards to Oxford.
And whereas of old the chief magistrate was a portreeve, I.E., governor of the city, Richard I. appointed two bailiffs; instead of which King John gave a power by grant of choosing annually a mayor from any of the twelve principal companies, and to name two sheriffs, one of whom to be called the king's, the other the city's.
His father, a Norman merchant who had settled by the Thames, had prospered in the world; he had been portreeve of London, the predecessor of the modern mayor, and visitors of all kinds gathered at his house, London merchants and Norman nobles and learned clerks of Italy and Gaul His son was first taught by the Augustinian canons of Merton Priory, afterwards he attended schools in London, and at twenty was sent to Paris for a year's study.
The king however still nominated in London as elsewhere the portreeve, or magistrate of the town, nor were the citizens as yet united together in a commune or corporation.
Other names we do not know, unless it be that of Esegar, Harold's staller and portreeve of London, the hero of a doubtful story of negotiations with the approaching enemy. But other nobles and men of influence in the state were certainly there, though their names are not recorded.
Martin Ball was known as 'the busy man of Little Silver, and none but had a good word for him. He was a yellow-whiskered, stout, red-faced and blue-eyed chap with enough energy to drive a steamship. The folk marvelled how he found time for all he undertook. He was Portreeve of the district an ancient title without much to it nowadays and he was huckster to a dozen farms for Okehampton Market.
The reigns of Richard and John mark the date in our municipal history at which towns began to acquire the right of electing their own chief magistrate, the Portreeve or Mayor, who had till then been a nominee of the crown. But with the close of this outer struggle opened an inner struggle between the various classes of the townsmen themselves.
Theobald's ablest agent and adviser was Thomas, the son of Gilbert Beket, a leading citizen and, it is said, Portreeve of London, the site of whose house is still marked by the Mercers' chapel in Cheapside. His mother Rohese was a type of the devout woman of her day; she weighed her boy every year on his birthday against money, clothes, and provisions which she gave to the poor.
Word Of The Day