confirmed to London, of electing its own sheriff. London had been
prompt in recognizing his title to the crown, and such support, in
days when the succession was not well regulated, no prudent king could
afford to pass by without some substantial acknowledgment. It was
never safe for any king to trespass upon the liberties of London, and
through the worst times that city has remained a true republic with
liberal republican sentiments. If George III. could have been guided
by the advice of London, as expressed by its great alderman Beckford,
the American colonies would not have been driven into rebellion.
[Sidenote: Simon de Montfort and the cities.]
The most signal part played by the English boroughs and cities, in
securing English freedom, dates from the thirteenth century, when
the nation was vaguely struggling for representative government on a
national scale, as a means of curbing the power of the crown. In that
memorable struggle, the issue of which to some extent prefigured
the shape that the government of the United States was to take five
hundred years afterward, the cities and boroughs supported Simon de
Montfort, the leader of the popular party and one of the foremost
among the heroes and martyrs of English liberty.
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