9. Anyone elected a Warden must serve the office or pay a fine of 20 shillings.
10. None shall sue or arrest another without permission from the Wardens.
11. The Wardens may commit offenders to prison with the consent of the Mayor.
For two years the Company exercised their powers under these new rules, but still harder times were in store for the Company.
Further troubles.
Whether as the result of an information laid by some member who was suffering under these stringent regulations, or, as would appear most probable, the King’s growing need of money to carry on the coming political struggle between himself and his people, the Horners were suddenly discovered to be acting illegally. Under the powers conferred by the Act of 19 Henry VII, which was no doubt revived for the purpose, no Master, Wardens, or Companies could make any acts or ordinances except such as should be approved by the Chancellor and Treasurer of England or Chief Justice of either Bench, or three of them.
The Legal Plight of the Company.
Though doubtless this Act was never intended to apply to alterations or additions to regulations already in force, but rather to the establishment of new Companies, it became necessary for the Horners to comply with the regulations, and though it does not transpire whether they were compelled to pay any fines or not, they finally obtained confirmation of their new rules under the hands of Thomas Coventrie, Lord Chancellor, and Chief Justices John Branston and John Finch, but not until after they applied for and obtained a Royal Charter, and as Charles I, in order to assert Sovereign rights, was unwilling to admit ancient prescriptive claims, care was taken to justify this subversion of the ancient rights of the Gild, by stating in the Charter that the Horners had never been “incorporated.”
Grave peril.
Difficulty evaded by purchase of new Charter.
The examination of the New Rules by the Judges just mentioned, had revealed the fact that the Horners were a Joint Stock Company holding property in perpetuity in opposition to the Statute of Mortmain. Here was a splendid opportunity for the King to reap a harvest, and nothing remained for the authorities of the Company but to obtain a Charter as soon as possible and to avoid the heavy penalties to which they would otherwise be subjected by assenting to the legal fiction that they had not acted as a corporation, and never had been one, but merely an association in existence from year to year, acting under ancient and well-recognized privileges. Whether this claim was technically correct or not, the antiquity of the Company was so great and the process of proving any breach so lengthy and difficult that no doubt Charles I thought it best to take the cash payment which always accompanied grants and so close the matter. Thus the Charter of 1638, which is the only one now extant, was obtained, and the proceedings of the Company as a joint stock concern holding property in perpetuity were again legalized, though doubtless long before that time the right to hold property and to do all that was required of them as a Craft Gild had been regularly accorded to the members in the persons of their several “Guardians.”