Later in Queen Mary's reign Gresham was frequently displaced by rivals. He made trips to England, sharing largely in the dealings of the Mercers' Company, of which he was a member, and shipping vast quantities of cloth to sell to the Italian merchants at Antwerp, in exchange for silks. A few years later the Mercers are described as sending forth, twice a year, a fleet of 50 or 60 ships, laden with cloth, for the Low Countries. Gresham is mentioned, in 1555, as presenting Queen Mary, as a new year's gift, with "a bolt of fine Holland," receiving in return a gilt jug, weighing 16½ ounces. That the Queen considered Gresham a faithful and useful servant there can be no doubt, for she gave him, at different times, a priory, a rectory, and several manors and advowsons.
Gresham, like a prudent courtier, seems to have been one of the first persons of celebrity who visited Queen Elizabeth on her accession. She gave the wise merchant her hand to kiss, and told him that she would always keep one ear ready to hear him; "which," says Gresham, "made me a young man again, and caused me to enter on my present charge with heart and courage."
The young Queen also promised him on her faith that if he served her as well as he had done her brother Edward, and Queen Mary, her sister, she would give him as much land as ever they both had. This gracious promise Gresham reminded the Queen of years after, when he had to complain to his friend Cecil that the Marquis of Winchester had tried to injure him with the Queen.
Gresham soon resumed his visits to Flanders, to procure money, and send over powder, armour, and weapons. He was present at the funeral of Charles V., seems to have foreseen the coming troubles in the Low Countries, and commented on the rash courage of Count Egmont.
The death of Gresham's only son Richard, in the year 1564, was the cause, Mr. Burgon thinks, of Gresham's determining to devote his money to the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Lombard Street had long become too small for the business of London. Men of business were exposed there to all weathers, and had to crowd into small shops, or jostle under the pent-houses. As early as 1534 or 1535 the citizens had deliberated in common council on the necessity of a new place of resort, and Leadenhall Street had been proposed. In the year 1565 certain houses in Cornhill, in the ward of Broad Street, and three alleys—Swan Alley, Cornhill; New Alley, Cornhill, near St. Bartholomew's Lane; and St. Christopher's Alley, comprising in all fourscore householders—were purchased for £3,737 6s. 6d., and the materials sold for £478. The amount was subscribed for in small sums by about 750 citizens, the Ironmongers' Company giving £75. The first brick was laid by Sir Thomas, June 7, 1566. A Flemish architect superintended the sawing of the timber, at Gresham's estate at Ringshall, near Ipswich, and on Battisford Tye (common) traces of the old sawpits can still be seen. The slates were bought at Dort, the wainscoting and glass at Amsterdam, and other materials in Flanders. The building, pushed on too fast for final solidity, was slated in by November, 1567, and shortly after finished. The Bourse, when erected, was thought to resemble that of Antwerp, but there is also reason to believe that Gresham's architect closely followed the Bourse of Venice.
The new Bourse, Flemish in character, was a long four-storeyed building, with a high double balcony. A bell-tower, crowned by a huge grasshopper, stood on one side of the chief entrance. The bell in this tower summoned merchants to the spot at twelve o'clock at noon and six o'clock in the evening. A lofty Corinthian column, crested with a grasshopper, apparently stood outside the north entrance, overlooking the quadrangle. The brick building was afterwards stuccoed over, to imitate stone. Each corner of the building, and the peak of every dormer window, was crowned by a grasshopper. Within Gresham's Bourse were piazzas for wet weather, and the covered walks were adorned with statues of English kings. A statue of Gresham stood near the north end of the western piazza. At the Great Fire of 1666 this statue alone remained there uninjured, as Pepys and Evelyn particularly record. The piazzas were supported by marble pillars, and above were 100 small shops. The vaults dug below, for merchandise, proved dark and damp, and were comparatively valueless. Hentzner, a German traveller who visited England in the year 1598, particularly mentions the stateliness of the building, the assemblage of different nations, and the quantities of merchandise.
WREN'S PLAN FOR REBUILDING LONDON
Many of the shops in the Bourse remained unlet till Queen Elizabeth's visit, in 1570, which gave them a lustre that tended to make the new building fashionable. Gresham, anxious to have the Bourse worthy of such a visitor, went round twice in one day to all the shopkeepers in "the upper pawn," and offered them all the shops they would furnish and light up with wax rent free for a whole year. The result of this liberality was that in two years Gresham was able to raise the rent from 40s. a year to four marks, and a short time after to £4 10s. The milliners' shops at the Bourse, in Gresham's time, sold mousetraps, birdcages, shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps. There were also sellers of armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, and glass-sellers; but the shops soon grew richer and more fashionable, so that in 1631 the editor of Stow says, "Unto which place, on January 23, 1570, Queen Elizabeth came from Somerset House through Fleet Street past the north side of the Bourse to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, and there dined. After the banquet she entered the Bourse on the south side, viewed every part; especially she caused the building, by herald's trumpet, to be proclaimed 'the Royal Exchange,' so to be called from henceforth, and not otherwise."