[Fig. 225.]--Dice-maker.

[Fig. 226.]--Sword-maker.

[Fig. 227.]--Armourer.

[Fig. 228.]--Spur-maker.

[Fig. 229.]--Shoemaker.

[Fig. 230.]--Basin-maker.

[Fig. 231.]--Tinman.

[Fig. 232.]--Coppersmith.

[Fig. 233.]--Bell and Cannon Caster.

Apart from the privilege which these six bodies of merchants exclusively enjoyed of being called upon to appear, though at their own expense, in the civic processions and at the public ceremonials, and to carry the canopy over the heads of kings, queens, or princes on their state entry into the capital ([Fig. 234]), it would be difficult to specify the nature of the privileges which were granted to them, and of which they were so jealous. It is clear, however, that these six bodies were imbued with a kind of aristocratic spirit which made them place trading much above handicraft in their own class, and set a high value on their calling as merchants. Thus contemporary historians tell us that any merchant who compromised the dignity of the company "fell into the class of the lower orders;" that mercers boasted of excluding from their body the upholsterers, "who were but artisans;" that hatters, who were admitted into the Six Corps to replace one of the other trades, became in consequence "merchants instead of artisans, which they had been up to that time."