1

memorandum that, owing to frequent pageants, the banners of the 'Fellyship' have to be renewed.

These facts are chronicled because they touched the revenues of the Fellowship. But other equally important events are either not noticed at all or noticed so cursorily that, had we no other information, we should not appreciate the leading part which the Drapers took in the vicissitudes of the City, though once more rather as individuals than in their corporate capacity. Fortunately the chroniclers Holinshed and Fabyan, who was himself a Draper, and more especially the Journals of the City at the Guildhall, come to our rescue.3

1 Wardens' Accounts, 403, fo. 48 a, a banner and two 'stremers' cost £4 13s. 6d. The most important notices are:

1. Coronation of Elizabeth of York, Nov. 1487. 403, fo. 41 a.

2. Fetching the King after the capture of Lambert Simnel, 1487. The Drapers sent 30 horsemen. The cost, £15 6s. 2d., was raised by an assessment on members of the Fellowship. The Mercers, the Grocers, the Fishmongers, and the Taylors sent the same number of horsemen, and the other Livery Companies' contingents varied from 24 to 1. Sharpe, London and Kingdom, i. 329, quoting from the Journals.

Creacion of Arthur, Prince of Wales.' 403, fo. 48 a.

4. 80 stand in Livery in Chepeat comyng of Princess Dame Kateryn oute of Spayn', the betrothed wife of Prince Arthur (1501). 403, fo. 72 a.

5. Standing in Poulys in our lady's chapel' at the requiem Mass for Prince Arthur (1502). 403, fo. 72 a.

6. Attendance at Queen Elizabeth's funeral (1503), ib. 74 b, expenses £11 6s. 9d. The manner of receiving the corps of the most noble Princess' is given in Archaeologia, xxxii. 126, from the City Journal.

7. 1507-8. Fellowship sessed 40s. towards the 300 soldiers demanded from the City to go to France. 403, fo. 88 a.

2 Robert Fabyan entered the Fraternity by apprenticeship in 1476. He was Alderman of Farringdon Without. In 1493 he was Sheriff, Warden for the first time in 1485-6, and twice Master in 1495-6, 1501-2. In 1502 he surrendered his Aldermanry on the ground of poverty, because he did not wish to become Mayor. Ellis, Introd. to Fabyan's Chronicle; Letter Book L, fos. 236 b, 304 b; Wardens' Accounts for years 1476, 1501-2; Stow, ed. Kingsford, ii. 179.

3 The Journals are the continuation of the Letter Books which have been published up to 1498 (Letter Book L) by the late Mr. Sharpe. The Journals are still in manuscript at the Guildhall, and in 1495 The Repertories' containing the Minutes of the proceedings of the Court of Aldermen, as distinct from those of the Common Council, also commence. Neither of these have been published. My references to them are chiefly taken from Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, although I have occasionally consulted the MS.

From these authorities we learn that when, in September 1485, that terrible scourge of Tudor times, the sweating sickness, first fell on the City, William Stokker, the Draper, was appointed to fill the place of the previous Mayor, Sir Thomas Hille, who had succumbed to the plague. Within four days Stokker himself fell a victim, and another person, John Warde, was elected for the short period which remained till the next election-day on October 28. Thus John Stokker enjoys the unenviable fame of having held the office for the shortest time recorded in history.' To the various loans and benevolences which Henry VII demanded of the City the Drapers contributed largely. Yet inasmuch as they did it as individuals, there is no record of it in the Accounts. To the loan of £2,000, which was granted in 1485, the Mercers, the Grocers, and the Drapers contributed £937 65. od. When, in 1487, a further loan of £4,000 was asked for, the same companies lent £1,616; and to the benevolence of 1491, the Drapers, according to Fabyan, granted more than any other Fellyship'. Nor were these the only exactions which the members of the Company suffered at the hands of the notorious Empson and Dudley, the financial agents of the King. Sir William Capell was first heavily fined under an obsolete statute in 1494 and again in 1507 by the sute of the King for things done in the tyme of his Mayoralty', 1503-4.3 On his refusal to pay the second fine, he was thrown into prison, where, with Sir Lawrence Aylmer, the Mayor of 1507-8, who had also been the victim of Henry's tyranny, he remained until the accession of Henry VIII.

The hand of Henry VII was indeed a heavy one, but at least the money he extorted was not idly spent. The troubles caused by the pretenders to his throne entailed much expense. He gave

I

Fabyan, ed. 1811, p. 673. Six Aldermen as well died within a week. Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, i. 327.

2 Fabyan, pp. 683, 684; Holinshed, iii. 482, 483.

3 Fabyan, pp. 685-9; Holinshed, ed. 1586, iii. 795, 1. 70. He was accused of not duly punishing a person charged with false coining. Empson and

Dudley lived in two houses in Walbrook close to the Drapers' Hall in St. Swithin's Lane. They were therefore near neighbours.

Fabyan, ed. 1811, p. 686. Immediately after the death of Henry VII, Capell was re-elected Mayor (Jan. 1509-Oct. 1510).

the

country rest after a long period of disturbance and adopted a protective policy which favoured the industries of the City.' The citizens were not unmindful of the benefits which resulted from his masterful rule, and during the time of the conspiracy of Perkin Warbeck, when the Cornishmen thought of marching on London, they not only volunteered a further loan of £4,000 but prepared to defend the City (November 1496). In this action the Drapers took part with the other Livery Companies, and John Stokker, the Draper, who held the office of Common Hunt' or master of the City pack of hounds, was ordered to act as a messenger between the City and the King, while Robert Fabyan the Chronicler, also a Draper, was one of those entrusted with the guardianship of the gates of Ludgate and Newgate and the Temple. The only reference in the accounts to this affair is Item for brede and ale when the Fellyship mustered at Drapers' Hall for Blackheath Field', where the rebels were finally defeated in June 1497. The Drapers, it is evident, were something more than mere traders or manufacturers. They took their share in the politics of their City and their Country; they contributed to its annals and they shared in the pastimes of the day.

The reference in the Wardens' Accounts to the watche after The Riot at the Ryot at the Styllard' requires some explanation. Henry VII, the Steelto avenge himself on the Archduke Philip for supporting the yard. pretender Perkin Warbeck, had, in 1493, forbidden all exports to Flanders and removed the mart kept by the Merchant Adventurers in Antwerp to Calais. The Archduke retaliated by closing the Low Countries to English merchants, and forbidding the importation of English cloth. The English merchants being

: The export duties were so arranged as to encourage the export of cloth rather than of wool. Schanz, Handelspolitik, i. 441, and Statutes quoted there. The citizens of London had rights of hunting in Middlesex, Herts, the Chilterns, and in Kent as far as the River Cray; cf. Charter of Henry I. The kennels were on the site of the present Finsbury Charity School in Tabernacle Row, E.C. The Common Hunt' received £10 and the office lasted till 1807. Cf. Riley, Memorials, p. 427; Allen, London, ii. 288.

3 Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, i. 332; Ellis, Introduction to Fabyan, Chronicle, p. ii, Preface.

403, fo. 63 a.

5 Wardens' Accounts, 1493-4, 403, fo. 58 a.

6 The Archduke Philip was the son of Mary of Burgundy and the Emperor

destitute of sale and traffique, neyther reteyned so many covenant servants and apprentices as they were before accustomed, and in especiall, mercers, haberdashers, and cloth workers, nor yet gave to their servants so great stipend and salarie as before that restraynt they were used to do. For this cause the sayde servants entending to worke their malice on the Easterlyngs, the Tuesday before Saint Edwardes day, came to the Stiliard (Steelyard)' in London, and began to rifle and spoyle such Chambers and Warehouses as they could get into; so that the Easterlyngs had much ado to withstand and repulse them out of their gates, and when their gates were shut and made fast, the multitude rushed and beate at the gates with clubbes and leavers to have entered.' The journeymen and the apprentices of the Drapers took no part in the riot probably because they were extensive buyers of Flemish cloth, the import of which by the Easterlings had not been forbidden. They accordingly gave the Mayor substantial assistance in putting down the riot, and subsequently sent a force to guard the Steelyard for the seventeen following days.3 The riot being thus quieted, the King exacted a monetary guarantee from the Easterlings that they would not carry on any trade between England and the Netherlands until the dispute with the Archduke had been settled. The interruption of the trade with the Netherlands was, however, too serious a matter to be neglected either by Henry VII or the Archduke, and shortly after negotiations began which led to the treaty of February 1496. By this treaty Philip undertook to abandon the cause of the pretender, and the commercial relations of the two countries were placed on their old footing. No further burdens beyond the customary ones were to be laid on the merchants of either country; traders

Maximilian, and therefore grandson of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Margaret, the second wife of Charles, was sister of Edward IV. That lady and her stepson, the Archduke, were the chief supporters of the Yorkist claimants and pretenders.

The Steelyard was the London house of the members of the Hanseatic League. Cf. Pauli, Pictures of Old London, and Encyclopaedia Brit., articles on Hanseatic League and Steelyard and authorities quoted there.

2

Herbert, i. 406, quoting from Grafton's Chronicle.

3

403, fo. 58 a: Payd for cresset stuf and bere and bred ale and candyll during XVII days the watche after the Ryot at the Styllard 12/9.'

were to enjoy mutual protection, and piracy was to be suppressed as far as possible.'

In spite of this treaty, the Archduke shortly after imposed the duty of a florin on English cloth landed at Antwerp. Henry forthwith removed the market to Calais and levied a special duty on English wool at the staple at Calais.

This brought the Archduke to terms. He promised to abandon the duty at Antwerp though not in Flanders, while Henry consented to consider the question as to the duty on the wool at Calais. Finally, in May 1499, Henry reduced the duty on the wool, while the Archduke removed the duty on English cloth at Bruges and further allowed English merchants to export coin and worked gold and silver.3

In all these negotiations the Drapers, as we should expect, took part. In 1494-5 we are told of a deputation consisting of Warden Hawkins and others going to the King in the West Country, probably on this matter. In 1495-6 we read of 'a Bill made and considerations engrossed against the Archduke of Burgoyne', and of a payment of £6 towards 'Ambassador's charges to Archduchess by the Maire's commandment', while in September 1496 Robert Fabyan, the Chronicler, was one of a Committee appointed to ride to the King for redress of the new impositions levied on English cloths in the Archduke's lands.*

The aim of Henry VII throughout these transactions had been to encourage the English cloth industry. He had already, in 1487, renewed an Act of Edward IV (1467) which had forbidden foreigners to export wool, except to Venice, unwoven worsted or unfulled cloth, and at the same time ordered shearing and

1 The name of 'The Intercursus Magnus' given to this treaty by Bacon in his History of Henry VII is a creation of the writer. It appears in no contemporary authority. On the whole question of the relations of Henry VII with the Netherlands, cf. Busch, England under the Tudors, English translation, pp. 88, 126, 148; Rymer, Foedera, xii. 579, 581, 655, 714-18.

2

Rymer, Foedera, xii. 655. The towns of Flanders were the centres of the cloth industry and were jealous of the English cloth, while Antwerp in Brabant depended on its trade, and welcomed the English cloth. The protective policy adopted by Flanders was one cause of the decline of Bruges at this time. 3 Rymer, xii. 714-18.

4 403, fos. 59 b, 61 b, 77 a; Ellis, Chronicle of Fabyan, Preface, p. 11. 5 The policy was continued in later reigns, e.g. 33 H. VIII, c. 19; 8 Eliz.,