The first and the most pressing difficulty which presented itself to Edward, was the re-organization of finance. Without money the barons could not be kept within legitimate bounds. Having won their cause against the usurpations of the crown, they began to turn their arms upon each other, and it required Edward's strong hand not only to impose order upon his unruly nobles, but also, to bring Scotland and Wales into submission. The country was flooded with clipt coin. This was called in, and new money minted at the Tower, under the supervision of Gregory de Rokesley as Master of the Exchange.(304) Parliament made large grants to the king; and he further increased his resources by imposing knighthood upon all freeholders of estates worth £20 a year.(305) When the Welsh war was renewed in 1282, the city sent him 6,000 marks by the hands of Waleys and Rokesley.(306)
In 1283 an extraordinary assembly--styled a parliament by some chroniclers--was summoned to meet at Shrewsbury to attend the trial of David, brother of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales. To this so-called parliament the city sent no less than six representatives, viz.: Henry le Waleys, the mayor, Gregory de Rokesley, Philip Cissor, or the tailor, Ralph Crepyn, Joce le Acatour, or merchant, and John de Gisors.(307) Their names are worthy of record, inasmuch as they are the first known representatives of the city in any assembly deserving the name of a parliament, the names of those attending Simon de Montfort's parliament not having been transmitted to us. David was convicted and barbarously executed, his head being afterwards carried to London, and set up on the Tower, where his brother's head, with a mock crown of ivy, had recently been placed.(308)
Of Ralph Crepyn, one of the city's representatives at Shrewsbury, a tragic story is told. Meeting, one day, Laurence Duket, his rival in the affections of a woman known as "Alice atte Bowe," the two came to blows, and Crepyn was wounded. The affray took place in Cheapside, and Duket, fearing he had killed his man, sought sanctuary in Bow Church. Crepyn's friends, hearing of the matter, followed and having killed Duket, disposed of their victim's body in such a way as to suggest suicide. It so happened, however, that the sacrilegious murder had been witnessed by a boy who informed against the culprits and no less than sixteen persons were hanged for the part they had taken in it. Alice, herself, was condemned to be burnt alive as being the chief instigator of the murder; others, including Ralph Crepyn, were sent to the Tower, and only released on payment of heavy fines.(309) The church was placed under interdict, the doors and windows being filled with thorns until purification had been duly made. Duket's remains, which had been interred as those of a suicide, were afterwards taken up and received the rights of Christian burial in Bow Churchyard.