Oldal 134 [134]
112 THE CITY GOVERNMENT
commissions as such; that, like other " Lords,’ most of whom are not
privy councillors, he is entitled to the appellation “right honourable " ;
that no one but the sovereign takes precedence of him within the city
boundaries, and that in other places he ranks as an earl. At the
accession of anew king or queen, it is customary to invite him to
attend the first meeting of the
privy council, : —a reminis¬
cence, per- haps, of the
days when the voice of
the London- ers decided
the elections of English
The ori¬
hall was in
sovereigns.
ginal Guild¬
Alderman- bury. A city
cuild always met with so¬
lemnities and festivities, and
a very old writer indeed,
brensis, calls
public hall,
the resort to it
Giraldus Cam¬
it in Latin, "a
named from
of drinkers.” A newer hall
was built about 1290
behind the old
into what was
one, and faced
then the mar¬
ket-place. Of this hall a beautiful crypt remains. Ihe present
Guildhall dates from the time of Henry IV.
Within living memory great improvements have been made at the
Guildhall. Not only has the hall itself been re-roofed, and made to
look more like what it may have been in the days of Whittington, but
a new and commodious council chamber has been built in the same