Freedom of the City of London

In my new found quest to receive the Freedom of the City of London, The Monarchist is pleased to inform our dear readers that with the generous sponsorship of a true gentleman, he has joined the Honourable Company of Freemen of the City of London in North America.



The granting of the Freedom of the City of London is one of the oldest surviving traditional ceremonies still in existence today, first presented in 1237. The medieval term 'freeman' meant someone who was not the property of a feudal lord, but enjoyed privileges such as the right to earn money and own land. Town dwellers who were protected by the charter of their town or city were often free - hence the term 'freedom of the City'. It is not to be confused with receiving the 'Key to the City', which is a tradition more prevalent in the United States and elsewhere. Furthermore, the granting of the freedom in London is not the awarding of an honour by townhall ceremony, but an actual courtroom procedure conducted by the Chamberlain of London at Guildhall, who confers the legal status of a Freeman upon those who make the Declaration and swear a solemn oath to Her Majesty promising to keep the Queen's Peace in London.

Interestingly, there are a number of ancient rights and privileges traditionally but apocryphally associated with Freemen — the right to drive sheep and cattle over London Bridge; to a silken rope, if hanged; to carry a naked sword in public; or that if the City of London Police finds a freeman drunk and incapable, they will send him home in a taxi rather than throw him into a cell. Now admittedly the right to herd sheep over London bridge, to go about the City with a drawn sword, and if convicted of a capital offence, to be hung by a silken rope, may be of questionable authenticity and more a product of collective memory than of documented evidence, but other advantages are said to have included the right to avoid being press-ganged, to be married in St Paul's Cathedral, buried in the City and, as noted, to be drunk and disorderly without fear of arrest.

All useful and valuable privileges, I'm sure you will agree, although I don't expect to put them to the test anytime soon. It may seem quaintly odd for someone to aspire to be a free Citizen of London when he doesn't even live there, but I am a Roman at heart and how fantastic it is indeed to be associated in some symbolic way with the centre of this once great civilisation!