Again, from these great companies the Lord Mayor was always chosen. The first Mayor was Henry Fitzalwyn, “Draper,” near the London Stone, which is an ancient City relic still existing (but not on its original site) in Cannon Street, not many yards from the office of The Ironmonger, in which this history is first published exactly 700 years afterwards, for Fitzalwyn was first chosen in 1189, and continued to hold office twenty-four successive years. As we have said, the Lord Mayor was always “one of the Twelve”; but in 1742 Sir Robert Wilmot, “Cooper,” declining to be “translated” to the Clothworkers (as was the custom when the Mayor elect was of a minor company), and there being no law to compel him, he was consequently the first Mayor not of the great companies; and it is a curious fact that Wilmot’s predecessor in office was an ironmonger, and to this day the Coopers and the Ironmongers are associated in the Irish estate.
After a lapse of 500 years it will be interesting to many, and to those who object to oath-taking in particular, if we give in its original form the wording of the Ironmongers’ Warden’s oath required to be taken before admission in the fiftieth year of Edward III. Its quaint phraseology must be our excuse for the transcript:—“Yᵉ shall swere that yᵉ shall wele and treuly ov’see the Craft of Iremongers’ wherof yᵉ be chosen Wardeyn for the yeere. And all the goode reules and ordynces of the same craft that been approved here be the Court, and noon other, yᵉ shal kepe and doo to be kept. And all the defautes that yᵉ fynde in the same Craft ydon to the Chambleyn of yᵉ Citee for the tyme beyng, yᵉ shal wele and treuly P’sente. Sparyng noo man for favor ne grevyng noo p’sone for hate. Extorcion ne wrong under colour of your office yᵉ shall non doo, nethir to noo thing thot shalbe ayenst the State, peas, and profite of oure Sovereyn Lord the Kyng or to the Citee yᵉ shall not consente, but for the tyme that yᵉ shalbe in office in all things thot shalbe longyng unto the same craft after the lawes and ffranchises of the seide Citee welle and laufully yᵉ shal have you. So helpe you God and all Seyntes.”
In 1397, one of the years of “Dick Whittington” as Lord Mayor, a curious case came before the Court of Aldermen for decision. William Sevenoake, a native of Sevenoaks, in Kent, and who, subsequent to the date we mention, was Sheriff and Mayor of London, and founder of the schools and almshouses at Sevenoaks, prayed the Court to be enrolled on the Grocers’ Company, notwithstanding in his apprenticeship his master Hugh de Boys was called an ironmonger. The Grocers having proved the facts, William was accordingly entered as a grocer, and 40s. paid for the privilege.
Before their incorporation, the Ironmongers were represented by three Mayors of London, viz., Sir Richard Marlow, 1409-10, and again, 1417-18, and by Sir John Hatherley, 1442-43, and yet, after their incorporation, and not until the year 1566-67 did another ironmonger fill the “chair,” although several sheriffs represented the Guild both before and after their charter was granted.
Herbert, the Guildhall librarian of half a century ago, speaking of the compulsory enrolment of the Companies’ charters, “regretted exceedingly that so little could be found about the ancient state of the City Guilds among the State papers and records preserved by the nation.” If the zealous literary citizen had only known then what we know to-day he would not only have regretted, but denounced in the strongest terms (as we do now), the gross mismanagement of the State Paper Office in the past and the red-tapeism of the present time, the former losing to us for ever most valuable records, the latter placing every obstacle possible in the way of the documents now remaining being conveniently used by historians, the publication of the contents thereof greatly helping towards their future preservation. In our searches at the Public Record Office for the purpose of this history, we have experienced this inconvenience, and we certainly consider it should not exist in a Government institution supported by the public. When we find the authorities at the British Museum, and the Guildhall, and other repositories open to us, and giving every facility with their records, which, after all, embrace priceless treasures and quite as worthy of safe custody, the restrictions placed upon literary research by the Master of the Rolls and the Record Office officials is really worthy a Royal Commission of inquiry.
When Henry VII. entered the City in 1485 the Guilds supplied 435 members to meet the King, and of these ten were Ironmongers. In the year 1504 there was a subscription of the sixty-one Companies, amounting to 313l. 16s. 8d., towards the erection of the kitchen and offices at Guildhall, and 5l. was the sum the Ironmongers gave. It must be borne in mind that in those days a small sum went a long way.
We now arrive at an interesting period of the Company’s history. Eight years previous to obtaining their charter of incorporation the Ironmongers obtained a grant of arms. Both charter and grant have been repeatedly exhibited and described, and beautiful facsimiles of the two documents will be found in Mr. G. R. French’s “Catalogue of the Ironmongers’ Exhibition of Antiquities,” in 1861, a most sumptuously printed and privately circulated work, and now very scarce.
By warrant dated September 1, the thirty-fourth of Henry VI. (1455), “Lancastre, Kyng of Armes,” and the College of Arms granted “Unto the honurable Crafte and felasship of the ffraunchised men of Iremongers of the Citie of London a token of armes, that is to sey: Silver a cheveron of Gowles sitte betwene three gaddes of stele of asure, on the cheueron three swevells of golde: with two lizardes of theire owne kynde encoupled with gowlys, on the helmet.”
The two lizards on the helmet, it must be borne in mind, represent the crest. “The Crafte” and their successors were to hold and enjoy these arms “for evermore,” and the privilege of using a tabard upon all state occasions. Clarenceux, King at Arms, inspected the original grant in 1530-31, and signed its confirmation, and in 1560 William Hervy, another Clarenceux, curiously enough upon inspecting the same document, found the patent “to be without good authoryte,” and therefore, either to ease his conscience or that of the College, or for the more likely reason to be mentioned presently, confirms once again the same grant of “armes, helme, and crest” to “the Corporacon, Company, and Comynalty, and to their successors for evermore,” to use the same “in shylde banners, standardes, and otherwyse,” and “without impedyment or interuption of any person or persons,” for the confirmation of which privilege, already enjoyed for one hundred years, the Ironmongers’ books, Mr. Nicholl tells us, show that “Mayster Clarensys” received thirty-seven shillings, and “his svant for bringing them hom” twelve pence for his own use.
Notwithstanding the official granting and confirmation, another gentleman from the college, this time the Richmond Herald, inspected the same document, and he too did the Company the honour in 1634 of again “confirming” the same grants, so that it is impossible to deny to the Ironmongers the right and privilege of bearing arms; and one fact is certain, if ever a Corporation or Brotherhood possessed appropriate armorials suggestive of their trade it is this Guild, which cannot be said of the armorial shields of many other City Companies.