When the poll tax of 1379 was imposed the Mayor was assessed as an earl and the aldermen as barons.[257]
On August 12, 1417, a royal mandate (5 Hen. V.) was issued to the Mayor enjoining that the aldermen shall reside within the city: 'We do therefore will, and do command and charge you that you cause your letters to be addressed unto each one of the said aldermen so absent from our said city, charging them strictly thereby on our behalf that they return unto our said city and do tarry and remain there, to support you and to administer counsel and assistance in all that may touch the preservation of the said peace and good governance of our said city.'[258] This was an irksome regulation, and in the charter of Edward IV. the aldermen were released from the obligation.
'It is well-known and manifest that those of the said city which are elected aldermen have sustained great cost and pains for the time they make their abode and residence in the same city, and for that cause oftentimes do leave their possessions and places in the country that therefore they and every of them may without fear of unquietness or molestation peaceably abide and tarry in such their houses and possessions, when they shall return thither for comfort and recreations sake.'
It has sometimes been the fashion of the wits to gird at the aldermen and other city magnates, but although some of the names on the list may be of little account there are many which are written on the page of history, and a large number of noble families owe their origin to famous aldermen.
Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, Mayor in 1457, was great-grandfather to Anne Boleyn, and therefore ancestor of Queen Elizabeth; Sir Thomas Canynge, Mayor in 1456, was ancestor of George Canning, Earl Canning, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; Sir William Loke, sheriff in 1548, the favourite of Henry VIII., who had a key of the King's private chamber so that he might come whenever he would, was the ancestor of John Locke, Lord Chancellor King, and the Earl of Lovelace; John Cowper, alderman in 1551, was the ancestor of Lord Chancellor Cowper and the poet William Cowper; Sir Edward Osborne was the ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds.
Among other distinguished men descended from aldermen may be mentioned Bacon, Beckford, Byron, Cromwell, Howe, Marlborough, Newcastle, Melbourne, Nelson, Palmerston, the two William Pitts, Raglan, Salisbury, and the Walpoles.