Privileges
The lord of Castle Baynard appears to have had held a special place among the nobility of London. Robert explicitly retained all the franchises and privileges associated with the Barony of Baynard when he made the sale. He claimed them in 1303, his son Robert tried again before the King's Justices in 1327 and his brother John FitzWalter tried again in 1347 in front of the Mayor and Common Council, all without success.
These suits centred around a claim to be the chief banneret of London. Created in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), Knights banneret led troops into battle under their own banner rather than that of someone else. It seems that the castellany of Castle Baynard had entitled FitzWalter's ancestors to carry the banner of London, and hence be leaders of the London forces. In 1136 Robert Fitz Richard had claimed the lordship of the Thames from London to Staines, as the king's banner-bearer and as guardian of the whole city of London.
In times of peace, the soke of Castle Baynard had a court which sentenced criminals convicted before the mayor at the Guildhall, and maintained its own prison and stocks. Traitors were drowned by being tied to a post in the river at Wood Wharf and left there for two tides. Fitzwalter had the privilege, not only of being invited to the Great Council of the city at the Guildhall, but of sitting next to the Lord Mayor and of announcing all judgements. This may represent a combination of the post-Conquest roles of constable and local justiciar with the pre-Norman office of staller, who carried the king's banner in war and who was his spokesman at the thing, the governing assembly.
Read more about this topic: Baynard's Castle
Famous quotes containing the word privileges:
“Solomon’s ... excess became an insult upon the privileges of mankind; for by the same plan of luxury, which made it necessary to have forty thousand stalls of horses,—he had unfortunately miscalculated his other wants, and so had seven hundred wives....
Wise—deluded man!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)
“Take two kids in competition for their parents’ love and attention. Add to that the envy that one child feels for the accomplishments of the other; the resentment that each child feels for the privileges of the other; the personal frustrations that they don’t dare let out on anyone else but a brother or sister, and it’s not hard to understand why in families across the land, the sibling relationship contains enough emotional dynamite to set off rounds of daily explosions.”
—Adele Faber (20th century)