Sir William Walworth, the most famous of Mayors, died in 1385, after a full and strenuous life. He is said to have suppressed usury in the city, and we have seen how important a figure he was during Wat Tyler's insurrection. He was a prominent member of the Fishmongers' Company, and improved the old Church of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane (in which parish he lived), adding the Fishmongers' aisle.[227]
The end of the fourteenth century was, perhaps, the most stirring period in the history of the London municipality. There was a deadly feud between the leaders, who were men of strong character, endued with courage to carry out their views to the extreme. These feuds were no matters of merely local interest, but the incidents were followed with the greatest attention by the Court and the whole country.
The feuds arose from the increased power of the livery companies and the antagonism between the victualling and clothing trades. This division existed in most of the towns of the land, but the battle was fought out with deadly effect in the City of London. Walworth, a fishmonger, was the chief of the victualling party, but the two prominent leaders of the two parties were Nicholas Brembre and John of Northampton.
Doubtless the victualling companies had obtained a preponderating influence, and it is recorded that at one time sixteen of the aldermen belonged to the Grocers' Company, of which Brembre was a member.[228]
When John of Northampton, a draper, was elected Mayor in 1381, in succession to Walworth, he set himself to crush the victualling party. The Act of Edward II. having been evaded, another was passed in 1382 (6 Richard II. cap. 9), by which it was ordained that 'no victualler shall execute a judicial place in a city or town corporate.'[229] (_See_ p. 305.)
He forced Sir John Philipot, a public-spirited man and ex-Mayor, but a friend of Walworth's and of the King's, to resign his aldermanry. On 7th November 1382, John Filiol, a fishmonger, was brought before the Mayor and aldermen on a charge of having 'said that John Norhamptone, the Mayor, had falsely and maliciously deprived the fishmongers of their bread.' For this offence Filiol was adjudged to be 'imprisoned at Newgate, in a place then called "Bocardo," for one year then next ensuing, unless he should deserve more extended favour in the meantime.'