The development of other English cities and boroughs was so far like that of London that merchant guilds generally obtained control, and government by mayor, aldermen, and common council came to be the prevailing type.  Having also their own judges and sheriffs, and not being obliged to go outside of their own walls to obtain justice, to enforce contracts and punish crime, their efficiency as independent self-governing bodies was great, and in many a troubled time they served as staunch bulwarks of English liberty.  The strength of their turreted walls was more than supplemented by the length of their purses, and such immunity from the encroachments of lords and king as they could not otherwise win, they contrived to buy.  Arbitrary taxation they generally escaped by compounding with the royal exchequer in a fixed sum or quit-rent, known as the firma burgi.  We have observed the especial privilege which Henry I. 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.  Accordingly on the morrow of his decisive victory at Lewes in 1264, when for the moment he stood master of England, as Cromwell stood four centuries later Simon called a parliament to settle the affairs of the kingdom, and to this parliament he invited, along with the lords who came by hereditary custom, not only two elected representatives from each rural county, but also two elected representatives from each city and borough.  In this parliament, which met in 1265, the combination of rural with urban representatives brought all parts of England together in a grand representative body, the House of Commons, with interests in common; and thus the people presently gained power enough to defeat all attempts to establish irresponsible government, such as we call despotism, on the part of the crown.