Old and New London, Volume I / A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places

by Walter Thornbury

"In the ayr betweene them" (or swung up above their heads) "was a gallant shippe triumphant, wherein was three menne like saylers, being eminent for voyce and skill, who in their severall songes were assisted and seconded by the cunning lutanists. There was also in the hall the musique of the cittie, and in the upper chamber the children of His Majestie's Chappell sang grace at the King's table; and also whilst the King sate at dinner John Bull, Doctor of Musique, one of the organists of His Majestie's Chapell Royall, being in a cittizen's cap and gowne, cappe and hood (i.e., as a liveryman), played most excellent melodie uppon a small payre of organes, placed there for that purpose onely."

The king seems at this time to have scarcely recovered the alarm of the Gunpowder Plot; for the entries in the Company's books show that there was great searching of rooms and inspection of walls, "to prevent villanie and danger to His Majestie." The cost of this feast was more than £1,000. The king's chamber was made by cutting a hole in the wall of the hall, and building a small room behind it.

In 1607 (James I.), before a Company's dinner, the names of the livery were called, and notice taken of the absent. Then prayer was said, every one kneeling, after which the names of benefactors and their "charitable and godly devices" were read, also the ordinances, and the orders for the grammar-school in St. Laurence Pountney. Then followed the dinner, to which were invited the assistants and the ladies, and old masters' wives and wardens' wives, the preacher, the schoolmaster, the wardens' substitutes, and the humble almsmen of the livery. Sometimes, as in 1645, the whole livery was invited.

The kindness and charity of the Company are strongly shown in an entry of May 23, 1610, when John Churchman, a past master, received a pension of £20 per annum. With true consideration, they allowed him to wear his bedesman's gown without a badge, and did not require him to appear in the hall with the other pensioners. All that was required was that he should attend Divine service and pray for the prosperity of the Company, and share his house with Roger Silverwood, clerk of the Bachellors' Company. Gifts to the Company seem to have been numerous. Thus we have (1604) Richard Dove's gift of twenty gilt spoons, marked with a dove; (1605) a basin and ewer, value £59 12s., gift of Thomas Medlicott; (1614) a standing cup, value 100 marks, from Murphy Corbett; same year, seven pictures for the parlour, from Mr. John Vernon.

In 1640 the Civil War was brewing, and the Mayor ordered the Company to provide (in their garden) forty barrels of powder and 300 hundredweight of metal and bullets. They had at this time in their armoury forty muskets and rests, forty muskets and headpieces, twelve round muskets, forty corselets with headpieces, seventy pikes, 123 swords, and twenty-three halberts. The same year they lent £5,000 towards the maintenance of the king's northern army. In the procession on the return of Charles I. from Scotland, the Merchant Taylors seem to have taken a very conspicuous part. Thirty-four of the gravest, tallest, and most comely of the Company, apparelled in velvet plush or satin, with chains of gold, each with a footman with two staff-torches, met the Lord Mayor and aldermen outside the City wall, near Moorfields, and accompanied them to Guildhall, and afterwards escorted the king from Guildhall to his palace. The footmen wore ribands of the colour of the Company, and pendants with the Company's coat-of-arms. The Company's standing extended 252 feet. There stood the livery in their best gowns and hoods, with their banners and streamers. "Eight handsome, tall, and able men" attended the king at dinner. This was the last honour shown the faithless king by the citizens of London.

The next entries are about arms, powder, and fire-engines, the defacing superstitious pictures, and the setting up the arms of the Commonwealth. In 1654 the Company was so impoverished by the frequent forced loans, that they had been obliged to sell part of their rental (£180 per annum); yet at the same date the generous Company seem to have given the poet Ogilvy £13 6s. 8d., he having presented them with bound copies of his translations of Virgil and Æsop into English metre. In 1664 the boys of Merchant Taylors' School acted in the Company's hall Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of Love's Pilgrimage.

In 1679 the Duke of York, as Captain-general of the Artillery, was entertained by the artillerymen at Merchant Taylors' Hall. It was supposed that the banquet was given to test the duke's popularity and to discomfit the Protestants and exclusionists. After a sermon at Bow Church, the artillerymen (128) mustered at dinner. Many zealous Protestants, rather than dine with a Popish duke, tore up their tickets or gave them to porters and mechanics; and as the duke returned along Cheapside, the people shouted, "No Pope, no Pope! No Papist, no Papist!"

In 1696 the Company ordered a portrait of Mr. Vernon, one of their benefactors, to be hung up in St. Michael's Church, Cornhill. In 1702 they let their hall and rooms to the East India Company for a meeting; and in 1721 they let a room to the South Sea Company for the same purpose. In 1768, when the Lord Mayor visited the King of Denmark, the Company's committee decided, "there should be no breakfast at the hall, nor pipes nor tobacco in the barge as usual, on Lord Mayor's Day." Mr. Herbert thinks that this is the last instance of a Lord Mayor sending a precept to a City company, though this is by no means certain. In 1778, Mr. Clarkson, an assistant, for having given the Company the picture, still extant, of Henry VII. delivering his charter to the Merchant Taylors, was presented with a silver waiter, value £25.

For the searching and measuring cloth, the Company kept a "silver yard," that weighed thirty-six ounces, and was graven with the Company's arms. With this measure they attended Bartholomew Fair yearly, and an annual dinner took place on the occasion. The livery hoods seem finally, in 1568, to have settled down to scarlet and puce, the gowns to blue. The Merchant Taylors' Company, though not the first in City precedence, ranks more royal and noble personages amongst its members than any other company. At King James's visit, before mentioned, no fewer than twenty-two earls and lords, besides knights, esquires, and foreign ambassadors, were enrolled. Before 1708, the Company had granted the freedom to ten kings, three princes, twenty-seven bishops, twenty-six dukes, forty-seven earls, and sixteen lord mayors. The Company is specially proud of three illustrious members—Sir John Hawkwood, a great leader of Italian Condottieri, who fought for the Dukes of Milan, and was buried with honour in the Duomo at Florence; Sir Ralph Blackwell, the supposed founder of Blackwell Hall, and one of Hawkwood's companions at arms; and Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord High Admiral to Henry VIII., and Earl of Southampton. He left to the Merchant Taylors his best standing cup, "in friendly remembrance of him for ever." They also boast of Sir William Craven, ancestor of the Earls of Craven, who came up to London a poor Yorkshire lad, and was bound apprentice to a draper. His eldest son fought for Gustavus Adolphus, and is supposed to have secretly married the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, whom he had so faithfully served.