After the Bishop's murder there was no pretence of government in the city. The mob did exactly as they liked. They sacked the houses of Baldock, the Chancellor, and carried off the treasure he had laid up in St. Paul's. The property of the Earl of Arundel, recently executed at Hereford, which lay in the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, shared the same fate. The banking house of the Bardi, containing the wealth accumulated by the younger Despenser, was sacked under cover of night. The Tower was entered, the prisoners set free, and new officers appointed.(418) All this was done in the face of a proclamation, calling upon the citizens to sink their differences and to settle their disputes by lawful means.(419)
When the Feast of St. Simon and Jude again came round, and Chigwell's term of office expired by efflux of time, no election of a successor took place, but on the 15th November, the Bishop of Winchester paid a visit to the Guildhall, where, after receiving the freedom of the city, and swearing "to live and die with them in the cause, and to maintain the franchise," he presented a letter from the queen, permitting the citizens freely to elect their mayor as in the days before the Iter of 1321, for since that time no mayor had been elected, save only by the king's favour.(420) They at once elected Richard de Betoyne, whom the queen had that day appointed Warden of the Tower, conjointly with John de Gisors.(421) Thus were these two aldermen recompensed for the assistance they had rendered Mortimer in his escape from the Tower.
On the 13th January, 1327--exactly one week before the king met his wretched end in Berkeley Castle--Mortimer came to the Guildhall with a large company including the Archbishop of Canterbury and several bishops, and one and all made oath to maintain the cause of the queen and of her son, and to preserve the liberties of the City of London. This was solemnly done in the presence of the mayor, the chamberlain, Andrew Horn, and a vast concourse of citizens. The Archbishop, who had offended many of the citizens by annulling the decree of exile passed against the Despensers in 1321, now sought their favour by the public offer of a gift to the commonalty of 50 tuns of wine.(422)