The Great City of London, known for its financial prowess, historical landmarks, modern skyscrapers, ancient markets and famous bridges. It's arguably the financial capital of the world and home to over 7000 people and has 900 of its own police, called the metropolitan police. When you look at a map of London crafted by a careful cartographer that map will have a one-square mile hole near the middle -- it's here where the City of London lives inside of the city named London and it is not subject to British law but its own laws. Despite these confusingly close names the two Londons have separate city halls and elect separate mayors, who collect separate taxes to fund separate police who enforce separate laws. The Mayor of the City of London has a fancy title 'The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London' to match his fancy outfit. He also gets to ride in a golden carriage and work in a Guildhall while the mayor of London has to wear a suit, ride a bike and work in an office building. The City of London also has its own flag and its own crest and the corporation that runs the city of London is older than the United Kingdom by several hundred years.
So how did the UK end up with two Londons, one inside of the other? Because: Romans.
2,000 years ago they came to Great Britain, killed a bunch of druids, and founded a trading post on the River Thames and named it Londonimium. Being Romans they got to work doing what Romans do: enforcing laws, increasing trade, building temples, public baths, roads, bridges and a wall to defend their work which is why the current City of London exists, for though the Romans came and the Romans went and kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell, the wall endured protecting the city within. And The City, governing itself and trading with the world, grew rich. A thousand years after the Romans (yet still a thousand years ago) when William the Conqueror came to Great Britain to conqueror everything and begin modern british history he found the City of London, with its sturdy walls more challenging to defeat than farmers on open fields. So he agreed to recognize the rights and privileges City of Londoners were used to in return for the them recognizing him as the new King. Though after the negotiation, William quickly built towers around the City of London which were just as much about protecting William from the locals within as defending against the Vikings from without. This started a thousand-year long tradition whereby Monarchs always reconfirmed that 'yes' the City of London is a special, unique place best left to its own business, while simultaneously distrusting it. Many a monarch thought the City of London was too powerful and rich. And one even built a new Capital city nearby, named Westminster, to compete with the City of London and hopefully, suck power and wealth away from it. This was the start of the second London.
As the centuries passed, Westminster grew and merged with nearby towns eventually surrounding the walled-in, and still separate City of London. But, people began to call the whole urban collection 'London' and the name became official when Parliament joined towns together under a single municipal government with a Lord mayor. But, the mayor of London still doesn't have power over the tiny City of London which has rules and traditions like nowhere else in the country and possibly the world. For example, the ruling monarch doesn't just enter the City of London on a whim, but instead asks for permission from the Lord Mayor at a ceremony. While it's not required by law, the ceremony is, unusual to say the least. The City of London also has a representative in Parliament, The Remembrancer, whose job it is to protects the City's special rights. Because of this, laws passed by Parliament sometimes don't apply to the City of London: most notably voting reforms, which we'll discuss next time. But if you're curious, unlike anywhere else in the UK elections in the City of London involve Medieval Guilds and modern companies. Finally, the City of London also owns and operates land and buildings far outside its border, making it quite wealthy. Once you start looking for The City's Crest you'll find it in lots of places, but most notably on Tower Bridge which, while being in London is operated by City of London, These crests everywhere when combined with the City of London's age and wealth and quazi-independent status make it an irresistible temptation for conspiracy nuts. Add in the oldest Masonic temple and it's not long before the crazy part of the Internet yelling about secret societies controlling the world via the finance industry from inside the City-state of London. (And don't forget the reptilian alien Queen who's really behind it all.)
But conspiracy theories aside, the City of London is not an independent nation like the Vatican is, but is a corporation, sovereign from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no matter how much you might read it on the Internet, rather it's a unique place in the United Kingdom with a long and complicated history. The wall that began all this 2,000 years ago is now mostly gone -- so the border between London and its secret inner city isn't so obvious. Though, next time you're in London, if you come across a small dragon on the street, he still guards the entrance to the city in a city in a country in a country.
In the Magna Carta 1215 charter of rights between King John and the barons, not only are the rights of the “whole body” of citizens respected but the mayor of London was designated as one of two guarantors charged with ensuring that the Crown kept its side of the bargain. The Corporation of London, which announced itself as a “commune” in 1191, was recognised as one of the great institutions of the Ancient Constitution with a place only one step below the sovereign. The combination of wealth, functioning democratic and legal institutions and an effective system of civic militias meant the Crown could never subordinate the City of London to its rule. London taxed itself, judged itself and governed itself. In this way the most cosmopolitan city in England, carved out of a forest by the Romans, became the custodian of the ancient liberties of the English people and the champion of common law against state encroachment. From the 1580s, London became home to 10,000 internal refugees a year, most displaced by enclosure in the north and Midlands. By 1625 it had 400,000 inhabitants – 20 times more than any other English city.
In 1632 the crown asked the Corporation to extend its privileges and institutions to the new areas of London, but the Corporation refused. Instead of expanding and extending its democratic practices and legal protections to the new inhabitants living without civic status in the suburbs of Westminster, Clerkenwell, Whitechapel and Southwark, the City of London turned its back on London as a city. The “great refusal” of 1637 defined the modern history of London. Instead of seeking to integrate the new arrivals, the Corporation put large resources into transferring its unwanted excess population to the Ulster Plantation and the Corporation of Londonderry, which were established for that purpose. The bowler hats and umbrellas of the Orange Orders derive from their sponsorship by the Corporation of London. The Stuarts made two serious attempts at London reform. One led to the execution of the king, the other – an attempt by Charles II to establish that the monarchy was the source of the Corporation’s authority – led to the Stuarts’ replacement by William and Mary, whose Second Charter in 1690 leaves no doubt as to who were the greatest beneficiaries of the Glorious Revolution. It declared: “That the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London shall for ever hereafter remain, continue and be, and prescribe to be, a body politic, in re, facto, et nomine … and shall have and enjoy all their rights, gifts, charters, grants, liberties, privileges, franchises, customs, usages, constitutions, prescriptions, immunities, markets, duties, tolls, lands, tenements, estates and hereditaments whatsoever.”
The 18th century was a glorious time for the City. Conflict remained between the Corporation and the Crown and two different concepts of state and empire developed, one based on “free trade” and championed by the Corporation, the other based on prerogative rule and the sovereignty of the Crown. The City of London supported George Washington and provided funds and men for the cause. The citizens of London reminded the king, to the point of treason, that it was they and not he who had won the civil war. Even as Parliament displaced the Crown as the fundamental unit of sovereignty and democracy displaced the Divine Right of Kings as the principle of legitimacy, the state still refused to subordinate the Corporation of London to national laws and practices. Its assets and its ancient privileges remained untouched. The City survived each wave of Victorian municipal reform. The Corporation’s assets, its property inventory and financial portfolio remain unpublished. London as a whole was not to have city status. The County Council was ruled from County Hall. The same could be said for today’s Greater London Authority. New Labour may have given the Bank of England its independence, but its zeal for modernisation did not extend to the City of London. In terms of the EU, the city of London like Gibraltar are only part of the single market and EU so enjoy vast amounts of tax breaks, privalages and less laws than what is imposed on the rest of the UK, such as VAT, free movement of people and customs tariffs.
