On the flight of King James II. from London in Dec. 1688, lords spiritual and temporal came to Guildhall as a place of greatest security, and there drew up the Declaration of Allegiance to the prince of Orange. The common council voted an address welcoming the prince. It was significant of the City's great posi tion and prestige, that to the authoritative assembly which met after William of Orange's arrival in London he summoned not only the members of past parliaments, but also the lord mayor, the aldermen, and 5o representatives of the common council.
The characters of the successive Georges did little to endear them to the populace, amongst which was a not inconsiderable Jacobite faction. But London, with its vast commercial and finan cial interests, had everything to gain by settled government and order, and in the crises provoked by the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 gave its weighty support to the throne. Later there came a distinct cleavage between the corporation and the court party. The only statue to a lord mayor that the City has raised in Guildhall is to William Beckford, and beneath it is set out in golden letters the strong, if still courteous, remonstrance that he addressed to King George III., touching a violated right of election.
The mayoralty in a struggle with the House of Commons per formed conspicuous service in advancing the liberty of the press. Parliament held publication of its debates to be a breach of privilege. In March, 1771, certain printers abandoned the subter fuge of giving fictitious names, date and place, and reported the debates openly. Thereupon a messenger armed with the speaker's warrant arrested Miller, the printer of The Evening Post, in the City. Aldermen John Wilkes and Oliver declared the warrant illegal, released Miller and placed the messenger under arrest and bond. Brass Crosby, the lord mayor, upheld the City's franchise to execute the laws within its jurisdiction. Great processions of citizens accompanied Crosby and Oliver (Wilkes was not mo lested) to the House of Commons, by which, after having been heard, they were committed to custody in the Tower. The proro gation of parliament six weeks later set them free, when the full common council, gowned, with the City officers and a multitude of people, attended at the Tower gates to receive the mayor and alderman, and escorted them amid tumultuous enthusiasm to the Mansion House. At night the city was illuminated. Thereafter
the ban upon reporting the debates was tacitly withdrawn.
Vast destruction was done in London during the Gordon riots in June 178o, which followed upon the act of parliament for relieving Roman Catholics of certain disabilities. The disorders were finally put down by the soldiers, with 285 dead by musket fire and 173 wounded civilian prisoners. Such was the official return, but the actual casualties were believed to exceed 700.
London lost its character as a walled city by the demolition in 1760-66 of the last City gates and the last sections of the wall. This was but a small part of the change that the Georgian era brought about. Before the century ended the historic area of the lord mayor's jurisdiction distinguished to-day by the name of "the City," was left embedded as the small nucleus of a capital that spread for miles distant on every side.
The Thames had been from time immemorial the chief high way for communications about the town and for the passage of heavy merchandise. Pepys, the diarist, records many occasions on which he took boat at the stairs for Westminster and Lambeth and to Deptford dockyard. In Queen Anne's reign the world of fashion largely adopted the sedan chair. The bridge between the City and Southwark stood alone until 175o, when an additional bridge crossing the Thames at Westminster was opened, fol lowed 19 years later by a third bridge at Blackfriars.
Architecture in the capital underwent considerable development at the hands of Chambers, Soane, Gibbs, Kent, the brothers Adam—who gave the Adelphi in the Strand—and the elder and younger Dance. Important buildings of the period are Somerset House, its river front then washed by the tide; the Bank of England, of which Soane's finely conceived encircling wall re mains in the reconstruction; the Mansion House, the Horse Guards and Lansdowne House. Bloomsbury was laid out in gar den squares which to-day bear their Georgian names, and set an example to builders farther west from which London has greatly benefited. The signs that after the great fire had been placed flat on the house fronts were withdrawn in the middle i8th century, when the numbering of houses was introduced. Oil lamps gave better lighting to the streets, though it was not until 1736 that street lighting was accepted as a municipal duty. In turn these gave place to gas, introduced in 1807, and to electricity.