Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/168

 with Nicholas Brembre [q. v.], a fellow-grocer, and also connected with Kent, and William Walworth [q. v.], headed the opposition of the ruling party in London to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, who found support among the lesser traders then engaged, under the leadership of John de Northampton [q. v.], in attacking the monopoly of municipal power enjoyed by the great companies.

On the collapse of the Good parliament the Duke of Lancaster proposed in the parliament which he packed in January 1377 to replace the mayor by a captain, and give the marshal of England power of arrest within the city (19 Feb.) Philipot is said to have risen and declared that the city would never submit to such an infraction of its liberties; but this must be a mistake, as he did not sit in this parliament (Chronicon Angliæ, p. 120; Returns of Members, i. 196). The proposal, coupled with the insult inflicted on the bishop of London (William Courtenay) by Lancaster and the marshal (Henry Percy, first earl of Northumberland [q. v.]) at the trial of Wiclif a few hours later, provoked the riot of the following day, when Lancaster and Percy had to fly for their lives. Lancaster failed to prevent the deputation of the citizens, headed by Philipot, from obtaining an interview with the old king, who heard their explanations and gave them a gracious answer. But the duke was implacable, and the city officers sought to appease him by a somewhat humiliating reparation. The citizens as a body, however, would have nothing to do with it, and though the king, at Lancaster's instigation, turned out the mayor (Staple), they at once (21 March) chose Brembre in his stead (Collections of a London Citizen, p. 254; Chron. Angl. pp. 127, 133; Fœdera, iii. 1076).

As soon as the king's death, on 21 June 1377, became known in the city, an influential deputation was sent to the young prince Richard II and his mother, and Philipot, acting as spokesman, assured him of the loyalty of the city, and begged him to reconcile them with the Duke of Lancaster (Chron. Angl. p. 147). The triumph of the principles of the Good parliament in the first parliament of the new reign (October 1377) was marked by the appointment of Philipot and Walworth, at the request of the commons, to be treasurers of the moneys granted for the war with France (Rot. Parl. iii. 7, 34). They and other London merchants lent the king 10,000l. on the security of three crowns and other royal jewels (Fœdera, iv. 31–2). The capture of the Isle of Wight and burning of Hastings by the French, and the seizure by a Scot, the son of one John Mercer, with a squadron of Scottish, French, and Spanish ships, of a number of English merchant vessels at Scarborough, meanwhile threw the country into a state of great alarm, which was aggravated by vehement suspicions of the loyalty of John of Gaunt to his young nephew. Philipot rapidly fitted out a small squadron and a thousand armed men, at his own expense, pursued Mercer, and wrested from him his prizes, and fifteen Spanish vessels as well (Chron. Angl. p. 199). His patriotism and success roused those who resented the national humiliation to great enthusiasm, and were boldly contrasted with the inactivity, if not treachery, of the duke and the magnates. He thereby incurred the ill-will of the nobles, who sneered at Richard as ‘king of London,’ and declared that Philipot had no right to act as he had done on his own responsibility. But he roundly told the Earl of Stafford, who complained to him of his action, that if the nobles had not left the country exposed to invasion he would never have interfered (ib. p. 200). At the height of his popularity he was chosen mayor for 1378–9, and filled the office with his usual activity and generosity. He had the city ditch cleaned out, levying a rate of fivepence per household for the purpose, and enforced order and justice so admirably that his measures were taken as a precedent nearly forty years later (, Survey of London, bk. i. p. 12; Liber Albus, i. 522). Lord Beauchamp of Bletsho in December 1379 appointed Philipot one of his executors, bequeathing him ‘my great cup gilt which the King of Navarre gave me’ (Testamenta Vetusta, p. 104). In the year after his mayoralty he earned the effusive gratitude of the city by defraying the cost of one of two stone towers, sixty feet high, built below London Bridge, between which a chain was suspended across the river to assure the safety of the city and shipping against possible French attacks (, Memorials, p. 444). He was a member of the commission appointed in March of that year, at the request of the commons, to inquire how far the heavy taxation could be lightened by greater economy in administration (Rot. Parl. iii. 373). He may have sat in this parliament, but the London writs are wanting. In the summer he provided ships for the Earl of Buckingham's expedition to Brittany; and when the delay in starting forced many to pledge their armour, Philipot, as the St. Albans chronicler heard from his own lips, redeemed no fewer than a thousand jacks (Chron. Angl. p. 266). It was to him that the intercepted corre-