identify themselves in point of locality with the Mercers' Company, and are to be ranked amongst that Company's observances. Strype has described these, from an ancient MS. he met with on the subject. The new Lord Mayor, it states, "after dinner" on his inauguration day (the ceremony would have suited much better before dinner in modern days), "was wont to go from his house to the Church of St. Thomas of Aeon, those of his livery going before him; and the aldermen in like manner being there met together, they came to the Church of St. Paul, whither, when they were come, namely, in the middle place between the body of the church, between two little doors, they were wont to pray for the soul of the Bishop of London, William Norman, who was a great benefactor to the City, in obtaining the confirmation of their liberties from William the Conqueror, a priest saying the office De Profundis (called a dirge); and from thence they passed to the churchyard, where Thomas a Becket's parents were buried, and there, near their tomb, they said also, for all the faithful deceased, De Profundis again. The City procession thence returned through Cheapside Market, sometimes with wax candles burning (if it was late), to the said Church Sanctse Thomae, and there the mayor and aldermen offered single pence, which being done, every one went to his home."
On all saints' days, and various other festivals, the mayor with his family attended at this same Church of St. Thomas, and the aldermen also, and those that were " of the livery of the mayor, with the honest men of the mysteries," in their several habits, or suits, from which they went to St. Paul's to hear vespers. On the Feast of Innocents they heard vespers at St. Thomas's, and on the morrow mass and vespers. The Mercers' election cup, says Timbs, of early sixteenth century work, was silver-gilt, decorated with fret-work and female busts; the feet, flasks; and on the cover is the popular legend of an unicorn yielding its horn to a maiden. The whole is enamelled with coats of arms, and these lines —
- "To elect the Master of the Mercerie hither am I sent,
- And by Sir Thomas Leigh for the same intent."
The Company also possess a silver-gilt wagon and tun, covered with arabesques and enamels, supposed to be German, of sixteenth century work. The hall is decorated with carvings; the main stem of deal, the fruit, flowers, &c, of lime, pear, and beech. These becoming worm-eaten, were long since removed from the panelling and put aside; but they have been restored by Mr. Henry Grace, who thus describes the process : —
"The carving is of the same colour as when taken down. I merely washed it, and with a gimlet bored a number of holes in the back, and into every projecting piece of fruit and leaves on the face, and placing the whole in a long trough, fifteen inches deep, I covered it with a solution prepared in the following manner: — I took sixteen gallons of linseed oil, with 2 lbs. of litharge, finely ground, 1 lb. of camphor, and 2 lbs. of red lead, which I boiled for six hours, keeping it stirred, that every ingredient might be perfectly incorporated. I then dissolved 6 lbs. of bees'-wax in a gallon of spirits of turpentine, and mixed the whole, while warm, thoroughly together.
"In this solution the carving remained for twenty-four hours. When taken out, I kept the face downwards, that the oil might soak down to the face of the carving ; and on cutting some of the wood nearly nine inches deep, I found it had soaked through, for not any of the dust was blown out, as I considered it a valuable medium to form a substance for the future support of the wood. This has been accomplished, and, as the dust became saturated with the oil, it increased in bulk, and rendered the carving perfectly solid."
The Company is now governed by a master, three wardens, and a court of thirty-one or more assistants. The livery fine is 53s. 4d. The Mercers' Company, though not by any means the most ancient of the leading City companies, takes precedence of all. Such anomalous institutions are the City companies, that, curious to relate, the present body hardly includes one mercer among them. In Henry VIII.'s reign the Company (freemen, householders, and livery) amounted to fifty-three persons; in 1701 it had almost quadrupled. Strype (1754) only enumerates fifty-two mayors who had been mercers, from 1214 to 1701; this is below the mark. Halkins over-estimates the mercer mayors as ninety-eight up to 1708. Few monarchs have been mercers, yet Richard II. was a free brother, and Queen Elizabeth a free sister of the Company.
Half our modern nobility have sprung from the trades they now despise. Many of the great mercers became the founders of noble houses; for instance — Sir John Coventry (1425), ancestor of the present Earl of Coventry; Sir Geoffrey Bullen, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth; Sir William Hollis, ancestor of the Earls of Clare. From Sir Richard Dormer (1542) sprang the Lords Dormer; from Sir Thomas Baldry (1523) the Lords Kensington (Rich); from Sir Thomas Seymour (1527) the Dukes of Somerset ; from Sir Baptist Hicks, the great mercer of James I., who built Hicks' Hall, on Clerkenwell Green, sprang the Viscounts Campden;
