‘A Most Exquisite Dilemma’: Conscience, Dissent and the Limits of Civic Authority in London’s Sheriffs Case

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In 1754, the City of London Corporation began legal proceedings against Allen Evans and Alexander Sheafe to enforce payment of their fines for failing to act as the City’s sheriffs. This article argues that this was not a simple case of debt collection, or even of the City’s need to enforce the performance of such roles. Rather, it explores contemporary accusations that the City authorities were exploiting the legal and moral dilemmas faced by its dissenting liverymen to raise the necessary capital for the construction of the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House. More broadly, it argues that the matter offers a specific London context for understanding eighteenth-century discord concerning the validity — and indeed the existence — of England’s ancient constitution. London, whose cherished semi-autonomy from the fiat of the monarch relied on the performance of its own ancient liberties in its civic, commercial and municipal domains, proved a compelling arena for this debate.