In the reign of Elizabeth we find the Horners’ Company carrying on its work as a Joint Stock Company. The stock being held in shares or half-shares, it therefore became necessary to place the Wardens, who alone had under the Act just mentioned, power to purchase horns, under some agreement to do so only for and on behalf of the members of the Gild. No doubt many such deeds were executed, but amongst the archives of the Company there are still two extant, the one dated 1590 and the other 1599. The parties to the deed are the Wardens and the rest of the members. The Wardens therein bind themselves to buy, and the other members not to buy, horns in London or twenty-four miles round. The horns bought by the Wardens are to be purchased for the use of the whole Company and to be divided equally between them by the Wardens. In the deed of 1599 the limit within which the purchase and sale of horns was prohibited was altered from twenty-four to one hundred miles “next in and about the City of London.”
Horn industry an English secret.
From a document in the possession of the Company it would appear that the horn industry was, during the fifteenth century at least, an English monopoly, and from the official documents of Germany, Holland and France the writer has been unable to discover a single record of such an industry existing before 1600. The following interesting sentence from a document which is dated 1455 (thirty-third year of Henry VI), illustrates the contention:—
“Inasmuch as the making of Hornes and other workes perteyning unto the said mystery be not perfectly had nor knowne in any region or place of the world, except in this land only: which causeth the people of other lands & places to resort & repaire unto this Citie for Hornes yeerly, unto the great proffitt & worship of the same Citie, whereas if such people of strange lands might cleerly & perfectly understand the cunning & feat of making of such English Hornes, would not heder repaire yeerly to buy such English chaffer,” etc.
Consequently, the Wardens were expressly authorized the same year by the Mayor and Aldermen to punish any who should reveal the secret of the Craft to any stranger.
Exportation of Horns.
So valuable a trade, however, could not remain long unknown to the Continental nations, who were, in other respects, far in advance of England, and consequently the demand for English horns on the Continent became so great that, in spite of the Act forbidding the export of horns, the members of the Gild seem to have done a considerable trade in exporting horns, on the excuse that they were refuse horns. Indeed, so profitable did they find this traffic that, about 1590, two City men, the one a merchant and the other a scrivenour, entered into competition with them and managed to secure from Queen Elizabeth,—no doubt for a substantial payment,—permission to export horns to the Continent, though not themselves members of the Horners’ Company.
Competition by Furner and Crayford.
The controversy which this occasioned between the Horners and their opponents, Symon Furner and John Crayford, is to be found amongst the records in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum.
Lord Burleigh attempted to bring about a compromise, and instructed a Mr. Carmarthen to endeavour to arrive at some arrangement between the contending parties, but in vain. The issue at stake was a vital one. The Horners claimed exclusive privileges under some Charter which they were evidently able to produce, accorded them by one of the Kings of England, whilst Messrs. Furner and Crayford argued their privileges under the “letters patent” granted by the Queen.