[7] "...Divisions within the city itself, between citizens and the unenfranchised, the merchants and artisans, and the bitter economic rivalry between the different guilds, all destroyed the possibility of a united front" against the 1381 rebels.

But, they had to live with each other: the Crown depended on the wealth of London's merchants—the subsidies they paid and the loans they made—[12] and the City relied on the King to protect its trade abroad and liberties at home.

[19] London had been experiencing political tumult[20] ever since the 1376 Good Parliament (Exton attended),[21] which had caused radical constitutional change in the city, including annual aldermanic elections.

The Mayor, William Walworth (who personally killed the over-all leader of the rebels, Wat Tyler) was a fishmonger like Exton,[note 5] and also accompanying them was Nicholas Brembre.

[28] Both Walworth and Brembre, in fact, were knighted after the rebels had submitted;[29] but, although popular with the King, they and their guild were gradually losing their grip on power in the politics of London.

[32] The leading men of this prestigious company enthusiastically exercised their right as citizens to deal wholesale in any goods, especially cloth, rather than dirtying their hands with fish.

[37] Exton too was becoming of increasing importance thanks to the King's patronage, and acquired a swathe of rewarding offices, including collector of the port's wool customs and subsidies,[34] surveyor of the murage,[38] and Mayor of the Westminster Staple.

[54] The victualling guilds' desire to maintain their monopoly made them antagonistic towards foreign traders,[54] to the extent that the fishmongers were in the habit of seizing fresh fish from alien fishermen, selling at a heightened price, and only repaying when and what they liked.

[55] Northampton's mayoralty was beset by violence, with riots and running street battles being commonplace, as members and apprentices of the clothing and manufacturing guilds clashed with those of the victuallers on a regular basis.

Exton appealed to the King on behalf of his guild: Northampton immediately denounced the fishmongers for being the only thing in London that was stopping the city from existing in "unnitee amour and concorde".

[58] Exton claimed that Northampton and his party were prejudiced against them, as did Walter Sybyll; in turn the fishmongers generally and Sybill[note 9] specifically was then accused of taking part in the Peasants Revolt in London in 1381 and of assisting the rebels.

[18] The parliament opened in October 1385, to which Exton was elected in pleno parliamento, was politically tense, as the Commons laid articles of impeachment against Richard II's favourite, the Chancellor, Michael de la Pole.

In January the following year, Exton was appointed a collector of the tax, with instructions to "take, receive and keep" the subsidy, to ensure it was spent solely on military activities and then to certify the same to the Lower House.

[97][note 11] The rebels of 1381, under Walter atte Keye, had already attempted to seize and destroy the Jubilee Book as part of their campaign against writs, charters, and the other instruments of City government, but had failed in their assault of the sheriff's compters.

[note 12] He seems to have generally avoided public debate or oversight whenever possible (for example, according to a contemporary, the Jubilee Book, for example, was burned, "wyth-out counseille of trewe men"), focussing on shoring up the power of his and his allies' guilds.

[104] It was said that they learned that those who had gone to treat with the King would have been fallen upon by armed men and slain... but that Nicholas Exton, the Mayor of London, having refused to countenance the evil, a deep and wicked plot was spread about and the scandal gradually uncovered.

[57] But it was important for the King to gain the backing of the City of London, and Exton would seem to have attempted to achieve this for him by requesting that all the craft guilds swear an oath to "live and die" with Richard.

According to the St Alban's Chronicle, Exton officially distributed food and drink to the Lords' encamped retainers in an attempt at dissuading them from treating the City as the spoils of victory.

[123] Favent reports that the Duke of Gloucester, a leading Appellant, on hearing Exton's pledges of the city's loyalty, remarked, "Now I know in truth that liars tell nothing but lies, nor can anyone prevent them from being told".

[21] Just before Exton's mayoralty ended, the parliament then being held at Cambridge by the victorious Lords Appellant formally pardoned Exter—[18] at his own petition[140]—for any treasons or felonies he may have committed in previous years.

[104] This, said Walsingham, meant that the governance of London continued to be held "par conquest et maistrie",[143] which was fundamentally against the City's tradition of free and open elections of its Mayors.

[148] For his part, the rumour that he "sought the derogation and annulment" of London's liberties was probably sufficiently grave for Exton to seek the protection of the Appellant Lords.

[18] For instance, he received the wardship of a number of manors in Kent[137][150] and in 1387 the Constableship of Northampton Castle, replacing William Mores, a trusted servant of the King.

In any case, he managed to negotiate a difficult political period with little harm coming to him or the city under his mayoralty, even though this involved allying with both the crown and its opponents against the other on varying occasions.

[160] Sumption, meanwhile, has summed up the Mayor as an "astute trimmer whose main objective was to stay out of trouble",[161] whereas an earlier biographer believed that Exton remained loyal to the King, but was unable to go against the general feeling of his compatriots.

[123] Another recent historian takes a much darker view: that Exton was "a dangerous and powerful man who needed to be reminded of the consequences of placing private interests above those of the commonalty" and "every bit as fickle and unscrupulous" as Thomas Usk, whom the Appellants had themselves had executed.

[16] He was also, more broadly, illustrative of the social mobility that political turmoil could induce: In 1382 he was effectively a pariah, only just avoiding imprisonment, yet four years later holding the highest office in the City.

The King had already supported Brembre and then Exton's candidatures; this was followed by a warning to London to elect a Mayor favourable to him and culminated in Richard seizing the City's liberties in 1392.

[171] Nigel Saul has suggested that "Exton" was actually a corruption of "Bukton", as Sir Peter Buckton was Constable of Knaresborough Castle, not far from Pontefract, where the King had died.

In 1390 Nicholas and Joan received a licence to found a chantry in the local church, providing an endowment of a half-acre of land and ten marks rent.