CHAPTER V

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FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF THE IRONMONGERS’ HISTORY.—II.

It has been asserted by some of the most violent opposers to the Corporation of London and the City Guilds that the Companies are part and parcel of the Corporation, that they were incorporated for the special benefit of the trades the names of which they are known by, that they once were, and should still be, solely composed of such trades’ members, and their property devoted to the artisans of such trades. Now, with all due respect to such arguments and those who may argue on these grounds, we must at once point out what is always considered to be the most sensible view of the question—that circumstances alter cases, and the merits of each case deserve to be considered separately. Were it otherwise there would be at once an end of our freedom and birthright, Magna Charta, and everything else.

In our previous chapters we have shown that the Ironmongers’ charter makes no mention of the Guild as specially incorporated for trade purposes or for the trade’s sole benefit, and that the earliest by-laws simply conferred the right of search and inspecting all weights and measures “used in the same feloshippe,” and consequently did not apply to the trade in general. In fact there was, and still remains, no compulsion upon an ironmonger to join the Company, although in ancient times, by charter-rights, he would be compelled to become a freeman of the City, which, as we have already stated, did not constitute him free of a Company as well. The Ironmongers’ charter was confirmed by Philip and Mary, June 20, 1558; by Queen Elizabeth, November 12, 1560; by James I., June 25, 1604; and by James II., November 19, 1687. The grant of this last-mentioned letters patent was made to the Companies generally after the stormy events of the previous four years, and as some reparation for the gross injustice done to his subjects by Charles II., when, under the power of the writ of _quo warranto_, he seized the City charters and disfranchised the very men who had been his best friends. This act of the “Merry Monarch,” and the shutting up of the Exchequer, the ruin of the goldsmiths and bankers, and the continuous oppression of the citizens by his brother James brought about sooner than royalty expected the destruction of the King, “the glorious Revolution of 1688,” and the accession of William III. on December 12 of that year, from which time, and by special Act in his second year, the Companies have been restored to their ancient position and privileges. And we firmly believe the lessons then learnt by the partisans of Charles and James, and handed down to their descendants, have not been forgotten by those still living in the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. In addition to these special charters there was yet another grant made, which, as regards their estates, is a complete answer to those who to-day say the Ironmongers’ property is not their own. It is “a perpetuitie” made to them and their successors for ever by James I., dated August 4, 1619.

[Illustration: A CARVED WOOD OSTRICH, AS USED IN THE LORD MAYOR’S PAGEANT OF 1629. (See pages 33-35.)

A BRONZE TOKEN, REPRESENTING THE GEFFERY ALMSHOUSES, ERECTED 1713-14. (See page 55.)]

Exactly 300 years ago the ancient City of Chester was represented in its Mayoralty chair by an ironmonger, whose son upset the good people of the City by retailing ironmongers’ wares, to the prejudice of the Citizens, who, by a grant from Queen Elizabeth in 1561, had been exempted from a duty of 2_s._ per ton upon iron imported there. And in the same year of 1589 one Peter Newall, or Newgall, an assistant to his father-in-law, Mr. Bavand, who appears to have enjoyed the distinction of being “an ironmonger, a vintner, a mercer, and a retayler of manye comodities,” complained that David Lloyd, “a retaylinge draper,” had “usurped the name of merchant,” for which wrongdoing the Privy Council, the Secretary of State, the Master of the Rolls, and all the machinery of the law was set in motion that “the drifte of the said Lloyd shalbe ripte upp and viewed into,” and the injury to the Citizens repaired. In Buckingham, both in 1691 and 1706, two members of the Blunt family were admitted into the Mercers’ Company “to follow the trade of an ironmonger,” and both gentlemen were subsequently Wardens of their Company. Others, too, were admitted to follow other trades.

Mr. Herbert, the Guildhall Librarian, in his Historical Essay on the City Companies, published fifty years ago, sums up the exactions on the Guilds by the reigning powers in these words:—“Contributions towards setting the poor to work, towards erecting the Royal Exchange, towards cleansing the City ditch, and towards projects of discovering new countries; money for furnishing military and naval armaments; for men, arms, and ammunition to protect the City; for State and City pageants and attendances; for provision of coal and corn, compulsory loans, State lotteries, monopolous patents, concealments, seditious publications and practices, and twenty other sponging expedients were among the more prominent of the engines by which that ‘mother of her people,’ Elizabeth, and afterwards James and Charles, contrived to screw from the Companies their wealth.” And J. P. Malcolm, in the second volume of his “Londinium Redivivum,” 1803, when giving his most valuable extracts from the Ironmongers’ books (and who speaks of Mr. Sumner, the then clerk of the Guild’s “politeness and attention worthy of an enlightened man,” and so totally different to some other of the Companies’ clerks), remarks “that specie in their hands possessed the faculty of attracting clouds of precepts, and that, if the Company were lavish, the Crown was always ready to receive.” Our last chapter proves the case, but a few more entries of another kind will confirm the views expressed.

In 1562 the Ironmongers were called upon to provide without delay nineteen “good appte and talle persones to be souldiers,” each of whom was to be provided with “corsletts and weaponed with pykes and billes.” This demand meant that if none of the Company’s members cared to serve, then they were to find some other men that would, and accordingly liverymen and yeomen had to assist out of their own pockets to meet the charge. Four years later three more soldiers were provided by the Company out of the 100 fully-armed ordered away from the City for service in Ireland; and, in 1569, no less than twenty-eight “men of honeste behaviour” had to be found “to march against the rebells in the north.” A few years later, in 1577, the demand increased, for an order came for 100 “able men, apprentices, journeymen, or others free of the City, of agilitie or honest behaviour,” between nineteen and forty years of age, and fully armed, for, says Malcolm in his quaint way, “the noble art of man-killing.” The instructions issued out to these “volunteers” are extremely curious to read, for nothing is said in them about evolutions, advancing, retreating, or formation into columns or squares or divisions; and, what is more notable, each man must have been in danger every moment of being blown into the air by his own powder! In 1579 the Ironmongers’ proportion of the 3,000 men wanted of the City for the defence of the realm was 110, of which 72 were to be provided with “shott, calvyʳ, flask, toche, murryn, sword, and dagger, and a pound of powder,” and 38 with “pikes, corslett, sword, and daggʳ.” The Armada year of 1588, and the call to arms upon that occasion will be found fully described in the “Historical Essay,” printed in 1886; but in 1591, in order to provide the 7,000_l._ required for manning the navy, the Ironmongers lent 344_l._, having two years previous received notice to have ready 1,920 lbs. of powder. In 1643, when the Committee at Guildhall sent a polite request to Ironmongers’ Hall desiring that fifty barrels of gunpowder should be stored there as “a place of safety,” the Company politely returned answer that they could not oblige, for not only want of room, but that their tenants next door, having Spaniards, Dutchmen, and Frenchmen lodging in the house, might be placed in danger of no ordinary kind.

In 1596 the Companies were charged with 3,500_l._ for providing twelve ships, two pinnaces, and 1,200 men, and the Ironmongers lent 172_l._ The next demand made for ships or men was in the year 1639, when 1,000_l._ was raised. Readers of history will recollect the case of John Hampden and the “Ship Money” impost, and the Companies’ books prove too truly the repeated extortions. The demand on the Ironmongers’ for men alone in the forty years previous to 1600 was something like 300, besides their full equipments, and when we reckon the money lent, the powder provided the other calls upon their purse, it will be fully understood that the good old times with this Company were none of the happiest.

We will now mention another branch of the City Companies’ “business”—the coal and corn custom. The object was twofold: to supply the poor in times of scarcity at a cheap rate, and to defeat the combinations of dealers. And yet, laudable as the custom was, it is astonishing to find from the results that much imposition was inflicted upon the Companies, and that the demands for storage poured in as fast as the money precepts did. As early as 1605 the Ironmongers agreed “to provide a shipp to fetch sea coles from Newcastle, as other of the twelve Companies intende”; and in 1665 (the Plague year) they laid up 255 chaldrons, all the other Companies laying in quantities in proportion. And here we cannot omit to mention one of the bequests made by a worthy benefactor to the Ironmongers’ Company. Margaret Dane, the wife of Alderman William Dane (Sheriff 1569, and twice Master of his Company), by her will, dated in 1579, left in trust to the Company (among other munificent bequests) sufficient money to provide every year 12,000 faggots to be distributed among the poor of each of the twenty-four City Wards, to be used by such poor persons “as fuel to keep them warm.” To this day this bequest of three centuries ago is carried out by the company, a certain sum being distributed to each ward. But it will hardly be believed when we state that the opponents to the City Companies have gone out of their way to magnify this praiseworthy bequest into the horrible tale that this good lady left 12,000 faggots yearly to be used for the burning of heretics!

The provision of corn commenced as early as 1521, and continued until the period of the Great Fire in 1666, when, the Companies’ mills and granaries being destroyed, the custom ceased, and was not afterwards renewed. In 1579 eight ironmongers were deputed to go to all the City markets and “set the price of meale”; in 1608 the Company was assessed at 88_l._ towards erecting the granaries at Bridewell, and another 88_l._ the following year. Yearly provisioning the markets at Leadenhall, at Queenhithe, and elsewhere continued until 1649, when the Company pleaded that, through being “disabled in their estate,” they really were unable to meet the Lord Mayor’s demand. A complete summary of this City corn custom will be found in Herbert’s “History of the Companies,” vol. i., pp. 132-150.

We will mention a few of the “Miscellaneous” precepts which the company were favoured with from time to time. In 1565-66 they subscribed among themselves 100_l._ towards “the building of the new Burse”—the first Royal Exchange. They made loans to Yarmouth (1577), Bury St. Edmunds (1637), and Gloucester (1643) to help those places in their difficulties. They made a benevolence in 1604 of 40_s._ to Messrs. Chandler & Parkhurst, for having procured the passing in Parliament of the Bankruptcy Act, “a matter verie beneficiall to yᵉ comonwealth.” In 1631 they agreed to subscribe 20_l._ a year for five years towards the repairing of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and again on the rebuilding, after the fire of London, in 1666, they, as individual members, were benefactors. In 1694 they gave 40_s._ to a Greek presbyter of Larissa to help him to get back to his country; in fact, such donations frequently occur in the books. Mr. Nicholl remarks: “Not only are the City Companies called upon to relieve the necessities of private indigence, but there is scarcely any public charity whatever whose petitions for aid are not laid before them.”

In the beginning of the reign of James I. (1608-14) the Company, with others, adventured in the New Virginia Plantation Scheme, “to ease the Cittie and suburbs of a swarme of unnecessarie inmates as a continuall cause of dearth and famine, and the verie origenall of all plagues.” In 1609 the King offered to the City of London the waste lands in Ulster as another plantation scheme. This, the wisest act of His Majesty, was accepted, and the Ironmongers (among other City Companies) became thus possessed by actual purchase (as shall be shown hereafter) of their Irish estate—the Manor of Lizard. In 1625-27 the Company lent, or advanced, money to the East India Company, and in 1633 to the Greenland Company. It must be mentioned here that, having subscribed to the Virginia Lottery, Captain John Smith subsequently presented to the Company copies of four of his books, all of which, unfortunately, are now missing. As the copies contained dedications (in MS.?) the loss is to be much deplored.

We now turn to more joyful matters—pageantry. The Ironmongers were not behind in any of these. So long ago as 1483 ten of the Company (with proportions from other companies), dressed in murrey-coloured coats, rode to meet the King on his entering the City, and at the subsequent coronation, when the Lord Mayor (Sir Edmund Shaa, goldsmith, and Alderman of Cheap Ward, the same ward over which the present Lord Mayor in 1889 presides) acted as chief butler at the feast, and received from the King and Queen the wine-cups used by them as his fee, Alderman Thomas Breten, Ironmonger, assisted his lordship in his duties. At most of the Royal visits and coronations, and such like festivities, the Company, with others, always had their “standing” and precedency, and in this respect the “place” was much contested. A proof occurs in the history of the dispute between the Skinners and Merchant Taylors in 1484. Upon appeal to the Lord Mayor “for norishing of peas and love,” he decreed that from henceforth the Skinners should dine with the Merchant Taylors at their hall one year, and the Merchant Taylors at Skinners’ Hall the next year, and so yearly alternately for ever should each company have precedence. And for 400 years has this most excellent decree been celebrated yearly, each Company toasting in the other’s hall their “root and branch,” and wishing them “to flourish for ever.”

In 1541, when Queen Anne Bullen came from Greenwich by water to Westminster, the Company of Ironmongers spent no less than 9_l._ on the festivity. Their barge cost 26_s._ 8_d._, and their provisions included gurnets, fresh salmon, eels, bread and cheese, wine, claret, and a kilderkin of ale. A reference to Nichols’s “London Pageants,” or his “Progresses” of Queen Elizabeth and James I., will tell in full the interesting character of these City shows, and the gorgeous displays made by the citizens, who then, as now, never were niggardly in their tokens of welcome. One of the most curious of these outdoor scenes was “the setting of the marching watch,” when 2,000 persons, apparelled in holiday costume, with 700 lighted cressets, borne aloft, paraded the City. A description of a visit by Henry VIII., dressed in the costume of one of his own guards, will be found in the first volume of Knight’s “London.” The last entry in the Ironmongers’ books is dated 1567, but an account of expenses a quarter of a century earlier shows that 800 cresset lights cost 2_s._ 4_d._ per 100; a dozen straw hats, 12_d._; armourer, 6_s._ The Company’s banquet cost 36_s._ Among the items of the feast were: A peece of beef, 4_d._; a breast of veel, 7_d._; a neck and breast of mutton, 6_d._; a goose, 9_d._; four rabbits, 1_s._; bread, 6_d._; butter, 1½_d._; water, 1_d._ The cook and two assistants, 7_d._; six gallons of wine, 7_s._; and a gallon of ale, 2_d._

Lord Mayor’s Day and the Lord Mayor’s Show was another City festival red letter day from early times. Until the year 1752, when the Act for altering the calendar came into force, the presentation of the Lord Mayor took place on October 29, but since that year it has been November 9. Sir John Norman, “Draper,” in 1452, was the first chief magistrate to go to Westminster by water; Lord Mayor Finnis, in 1856, the last. Most of the Lord Mayors have had their shows, the pageantry at which has been most elaborate, especially during the seventeenth century. The following is a complete list of the “Ironmonger” Lord Mayors:—

1409-10 } Sir Richard Marlow 1417-18 } 1442-43 Sir John Hatherley 1566-67 Sir Christopher Draper 1569-70 Sir Alexander Avenon 1581-82 Sir James Harvey 1592-93 Sir William Rowe 1609-10 Sir Thomas Cambell 1618-19 Sir Sebastian Harvey 1629-30 Sir James Cambell 1635-36 Sir Christopher Cletherow 1685-86 Sir Robert Geffery 1714-15 Sir William Humfreys, Bart. 1719-20 Sir George Thorold, Bart. 1741-42 Sir Robert Godschall (who died in his mayoralty on June 26, 1742) 1749-50 Sir Samuel Pennant (who died in his mayoralty on May 20, 1750) 1751-52 Robert Alsop (elected upon the death of Thomas Winterbottom, June 4, 1751) 1762-63 } William Beckford (died June 21, 1770; see his monument 1769-70 } in Guildhall) 1802-03 Sir Charles Price, Bart. 1810-11 J. J. Smith, Esq. (Lord Nelson’s executor) 1828-29 William Thompson, Esq.

As we have already stated, some of the early Lord Mayor’s Shows were elaborate, and illustrative of the Company’s trade name. They will be found chronicled in Nichols’s “Pageants” and in Fairholt’s “Lord Mayor’s Day Pageants” (Percy Society, 1843-45). The Guildhall Banquet tickets during the past 100 years have been exceedingly interesting as specimens of design and printing, the early ones being by Bartolozzi and his school. A nearly complete set is in our own collection, those at Guildhall, strangely enough, only dating back some fifty years, the reason being that the show and banquet has always been the private and personal festival of the Lord Mayor and two Sheriffs, the former paying a moiety of the expenses, the total generally ranging from 2,000_l._ to 3,000_l._ It is, therefore, a vulgar error to suppose that the Citizens and ratepayers are taxed a penny.

The earliest notice of the Pageantry in the Ironmongers’ books is 1566, but the most complete account is that at the inauguration of Sir James Cambell, 1629, which was compiled by Thomas Dekker, and entitled “London’s Tempe.” It cost the Company 180_l._ There were six elaborately “got up” pageants representing: for the water a sea lion and two sea horses, and for the land an estridge, Lemnion’s Forge, Tempe or the Field of Hapines, and Apollo’s Palace representing the seven liberal sciences. The fourth or trade pageant is worth quoting. It is described as “The Lemnion Forge.” In it are Vulcan the Smith of Lemnos, with his servants (the Cyclopes), whose names are Pyracmon, Brontes, and Sceropes, working at the anvile. “Their habite are wastcoates and leather aprons, their hair black and shaggy, in knotted curles. A fire is seene in the forge, bellowes blowing, some filing, some at other workes; thunder and lightning on occasion. As the smithes are at worke they singe in praise of iron, the anvile, and hammer, by the concordant stroakes and soundes of which Tuball Cayne became the first inventor of musicke.”

Brave iron! brave hammer! from your sound The art of Musicke has her ground; On the anvile thou keep’st time, Thy knick-a-knock is a smithes best chyme.

In proper places sit Cupid and Jove, Vulcan and Jove alternately singing praises, the song ending thus:—

Brave Iron! what praise Deserves it! more tis beate more it obeyes; The more it suffers, more it smoothes offence; In drudgery it shines with patience. This fellowshipp was then with judging eyes United to the Twelve great Companies: It being farre more worthy than to fill A file inferiour. Yon’s the Sun’s guilt hill; On to’ot! Love guardes you on! Cyclopes, a ring Make with your hammers, to whose musicke sing.

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