The Politics of Stability: The Rulers of Elizabethan London

Tudor London, nominally under the control of the crown, was in reality ruled by its aldermen, who established firm civic government founded on the stabilising influence of the elitist merchant oligarchy.

By the fifteenth century, although ultimate authority over London rested in the crown's hands, the City's autonomy was no longer in dispute. The aldermen were the true rulers in London, and they further strengthened their hold oncivic government. What had seemed an emerging democracy in the mid-fourteenth century was modified and reassembled around what proved to be the stabilizing influence of an elitist merchant oligarchy.