CHAPTER V.guildhall.

By malice of these displeasures of the said duchess, Sir Thomas Tuddenham, and John Haydon, the Duke of Suffolk, then earl, in his person, upon many suggestions by the said Tuddenham and Haydon to him made, that the mayor, aldermen, and commonality aforesaid, should have misgoverned the city, laboured and made to be taken out of the chancery a commission of over determiner. And thereupon, at a sessions holden at Thetford, the Thursday next after the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, the saidSir Thomas and John Haydon, finding in their conceit no manner or matter of truth whereof they might cause the said mayor and commonality there to be indicted, imagined thus as ensueth: first, theysperde an inquest,then takenin a chamber, at one Spilmer’s house; in which chamber the said T.lodged,and so kept them sperde.

“And it was so, that one John Gladman, of Norwich, which was then, and at this hour, is a man of ‘sad’ dispositions, and true and faithful to God and to the king, of disport, as is and hath been accustomed in any city or borough through all this realm, on fasting Tuesday made a disport with his neighbours, having his horse trapped with tinsel, and otherwise disguising things, crowned as King of Christmas, in token that all mirth should end with the twelve months of the year; afore him went each month, disguised after the season thereof; and Lent clad in white, with red-herring’s skins, and his horse trapped with oyster shells after him, in token that sadness and abstinence of mirth should follow, and an holy time; and so rode in divers streets of the city, with other people with him disguised, making mirth, and disport, and plays.“The said Sir Thomas and John Haydon, among many other full strange and untrue presentments, made by perjury at the said inquest, caused the said mayor and commonality, and the said JohnGladman, to be indicted of that, that they should have imagined to have made a common rising, and have crowned the said John Gladman as king, with crown, sceptre and diadem, (when they never meant it), nor such a thing imagined, as in the said presentiment it showeth more plain, and by that presentiment, with many other horrible articles therein comprised, so made by perjury, thay caused the franchise of the said city to be seized into the king’s hands, to the harm and cost of the said mayor and commonality.”

“The said Sir Thomas and John Haydon, among many other full strange and untrue presentments, made by perjury at the said inquest, caused the said mayor and commonality, and the said JohnGladman, to be indicted of that, that they should have imagined to have made a common rising, and have crowned the said John Gladman as king, with crown, sceptre and diadem, (when they never meant it), nor such a thing imagined, as in the said presentiment it showeth more plain, and by that presentiment, with many other horrible articles therein comprised, so made by perjury, thay caused the franchise of the said city to be seized into the king’s hands, to the harm and cost of the said mayor and commonality.”

And now we take a long stride from the reign of Henry V. to that of Charles II., omitting the intermediate century that was marked by the royal visit of the maiden queen, chronicled at length among the “pageantries;” and passing over the troubled era of the Commonwealth, the Reformation, and “Kett’s rebellion,” all of which have found a place for notice elsewhere, we find ourselves once more in the smooth waters of peace, with the tide of prosperity at the full within the walls of the old city; and we ask no pardon for making copious extracts from the journal that furnished Macaulay with materials to serve up the rich banquet that lies condensed in the few lines devoted to this period of the city’s history, in his unrivalled work. The diary of Dr. Edward Browne gives a picture of the society and habits ofthe citizens in his time, perhaps not to be met with elsewhere. His father, Sir Thomas Browne, then tenanted the house now known by the title of the “Star,” and in the winter of 1663–4 was visited by his son Edward, who, during his stay, made the entries in his journal which we have extracted. At that time, Henry, afterwards Lord Howard, of Castle Rising, subsequently Earl of Norwich, and Marshal of England, resided in the city, at the palace of his brother, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was an invalid, on the continent, suffering from disease of the brain.

“Jan. 1st. (1663–4.) I was at Mr. Howard’s, brother to the Duke of Norfolk, who kept his Christmas this year at the Duke’s palace in Norwich, so magnificently that the like hath scarce been seen. They had dancing every night, and gave entertainments to all that would come;heebuilt up a room on purpose to dance in, very large, and hung with the bravest hangings I ever saw; his candlesticks, snuffers,tongues, fire-shovel, and and-irons, were silver; a banquet was given every night after dancing; and three coaches were employed every afternoon to fetch ladies, the greatest of which would holde fourteen persons, and coste five hundred pounde, without the harnesse, which cost six score more; I have seen of his pictures, which are admirable; he hath prints and draughts, done by most of the great masters’own hands. Stones and jewels, as onyxes, sardonyxes, jacinths, jaspers, amethysts, &c. more and better than any prince in Europe. Ringes and seales, all manner of stones, and limnings beyond compare. These things were most of them collected by the old Earl of Arundel (the Duke’s grandfather).“This Mr. Howard hath lately bought a piece of ground of Mr. Mingay, in Norwich, by the waterside in Cunisford, which hee intends for a place of walking and recreation, having made already walkes round and across it, forty feet in breadth; if the quadrangle left be spacious enough, he intends the first of them for a bowling-green, the third for a wildernesse, and the fourth for a garden. These and the like noble things he performeth, and yet hath paid 100,000 pounds of his ancestors’ debts.“Jan. 6th. I dined at my Aunt Bendish’s, and made an end of Christmas at the Duke’s palace, with dancing at night and a great banquet. His gates were opened, and such a number flocked in, that all the beer they could set out in the streets could not divert the stream of the multitude.“Jan. 7th. I opened a dog.“Jan. 9th. Mr. Osborne sent my father a calf, whereof I observed the knee joint, and the neat articulation of the put-bone, which was here very perfect.“This day Monsieur Buttet, who plays most admirablyon the flageolet, bagpipe, and sea-trumpet, a long three-square instrument, having but one string, came to see me.“Jan. 11th. This day, being Mr. Henry Howard’s birthday, we danced at Mr. Howard’s, till 2 of the clock in the morning.“Jan. 12th. Cutting up a turkey’s heart. A monkey hath 36 teeth: 23 molares, 4 canini, and 8 incisores.“Jan. 13th. This day I met Mr. Howard at my Uncle Bendish’s, where he taught me to play atl’hombre, a Spanish game at cards.“Jan. 21st. I shewed Dr. De Veau about the town; I supped with him at the Duke’s palace, where he shewed a powder against agues, which was to be given in white wine, to the quantity of three grains. He related to me many things of the Duke of Norfolk, that lives at Padua,non compos mentis, and of his travailes in France and Italy.“Jan. 23rd. Don Francisco de Melo came from London, with Mr. Philip Howard (third grandson of the Earl of Arundel), to visit his honour, Mr. Henry Howard. I met them at Mr. Deyes the next day, in Madam Windham’s chamber.“I boyled the right fore-foot of a monkey, and took out all the bones, which I keep by me. In a put-bone, the unfortunate casts are outward, the fortunate inward.“Jan. 26th. I saw a little child in an ague, upon which Dr. De Veau was to try his febrifuge powder; but the ague being but moderate, and in the declension, it was thought too mean a disease to try the efficacy of his extolled powder.“Feb. 2nd. I saw cock-fighting at the White Horse, in St. Stephen’s.“Feb. 5th. I went to see aserpent, that a woman, living in St. Gregory’s church-yard, vomited up, but she had burnt it before I came.“Feb. 16th. I went to visit Mr. Edward Ward, an old man in a fever, where Mrs. Anne Ward gave me my first fee, 10s.“Feb. 22nd. I set forward for my journey to London.”

“This Mr. Howard hath lately bought a piece of ground of Mr. Mingay, in Norwich, by the waterside in Cunisford, which hee intends for a place of walking and recreation, having made already walkes round and across it, forty feet in breadth; if the quadrangle left be spacious enough, he intends the first of them for a bowling-green, the third for a wildernesse, and the fourth for a garden. These and the like noble things he performeth, and yet hath paid 100,000 pounds of his ancestors’ debts.

“Jan. 6th. I dined at my Aunt Bendish’s, and made an end of Christmas at the Duke’s palace, with dancing at night and a great banquet. His gates were opened, and such a number flocked in, that all the beer they could set out in the streets could not divert the stream of the multitude.

“Jan. 7th. I opened a dog.

“Jan. 9th. Mr. Osborne sent my father a calf, whereof I observed the knee joint, and the neat articulation of the put-bone, which was here very perfect.

“This day Monsieur Buttet, who plays most admirablyon the flageolet, bagpipe, and sea-trumpet, a long three-square instrument, having but one string, came to see me.

“Jan. 11th. This day, being Mr. Henry Howard’s birthday, we danced at Mr. Howard’s, till 2 of the clock in the morning.

“Jan. 12th. Cutting up a turkey’s heart. A monkey hath 36 teeth: 23 molares, 4 canini, and 8 incisores.

“Jan. 13th. This day I met Mr. Howard at my Uncle Bendish’s, where he taught me to play atl’hombre, a Spanish game at cards.

“Jan. 21st. I shewed Dr. De Veau about the town; I supped with him at the Duke’s palace, where he shewed a powder against agues, which was to be given in white wine, to the quantity of three grains. He related to me many things of the Duke of Norfolk, that lives at Padua,non compos mentis, and of his travailes in France and Italy.

“Jan. 23rd. Don Francisco de Melo came from London, with Mr. Philip Howard (third grandson of the Earl of Arundel), to visit his honour, Mr. Henry Howard. I met them at Mr. Deyes the next day, in Madam Windham’s chamber.

“I boyled the right fore-foot of a monkey, and took out all the bones, which I keep by me. In a put-bone, the unfortunate casts are outward, the fortunate inward.

“Jan. 26th. I saw a little child in an ague, upon which Dr. De Veau was to try his febrifuge powder; but the ague being but moderate, and in the declension, it was thought too mean a disease to try the efficacy of his extolled powder.

“Feb. 2nd. I saw cock-fighting at the White Horse, in St. Stephen’s.

“Feb. 5th. I went to see aserpent, that a woman, living in St. Gregory’s church-yard, vomited up, but she had burnt it before I came.

“Feb. 16th. I went to visit Mr. Edward Ward, an old man in a fever, where Mrs. Anne Ward gave me my first fee, 10s.

“Feb. 22nd. I set forward for my journey to London.”

This quaint admixture of scientific research, pleasure-seeking, and superstitious credulity, blended with intellectual enquiry, affords a curious picture of the domestic and professional habits of a physician of the seventeenth century. The father of the writer, the eminent Dr. Thomas Browne, received the order of knighthood from his majesty, King Charles II., on the occasion of his visiting the city in 1671, when he dined in state at the New Hall (St. Andrew’s); the same honour was pressed upon the acceptance of the mayor, who, however, ventured to decline the proffered dignity. In the reign of James II., we find record of Henry, then Duke of Norfolk, ridinginto the market-place at the head of 300 knights, to declare a free parliament, the mayor and sheriffs meeting him there, and consenting to the act. But the glory of the palace, once the scene of such regal splendour and magnificence, was not of long duration. A dispute between the grandson of the Duke Henry and the mayor of the city, concerning the entrance of some comedians into the city, playing their trumpets, &c. on the way to the palace, caused its owner, Thomas, then Duke, to destroy the greater portion of it, and leave the remainder untenanted; and among divers transmutations of property that characterized the era of Queen Anne, we find the appropriation of its vestiges to the purpose of a workhouse, when those institutions first sprang into existence—a fate shared at the same period by the cloisters of the old Black Friars monastery.

The river, that once reflected the gorgeous displays of wealth that glittered upon the margin of its waters, in the palace of the Dukes, now flows darkly and silently on, through crowded thoroughfares and gloomy wharfs, and staiths; corn and coal depots, red brick factories, with their tiers of low window-ranges and tall chimneys, have usurped the place of banquetting halls and palace gardens; a toll bridge adds silence to the gloom, by its prohibitory tax on passers-by, a stillness, oppressive by its sudden contrast to the activity of neighbouring thoroughfares,pervades the whole region round about; and the spot that once was the nucleus of wealth, riches, and grandeur, now seems the very seat and throne of melancholy.

Coeval with the rise of workhouses, in the reign of Anne, is another event of local history—the introduction of street-lighting. An act of parliament of William III., confirmed in the 10th of Anne, enacted “that every householder charged with 2d.a week to the poor, whose dwelling-house adjoined any streets, market-places, public lanes, or passages in the city, should every night, yearly, from Michaelmas to Lady-day, as it should grow dark, hang out, on the outside of their houses,a candle,or visible and convenient lights, and continue the same until eleven o’clock at night, for enlightening the streets, and convenience of passengers, under penalty of 2s.for every neglect.” Lamps, at the cost of the community in general, were soon afterwards substituted, but their shape, and distance from each other, would seem to have rendered them but indifferent substitutes for the illuminations that preceded them; and if memory is faithful to us, in recalling the progenitors of the gas-lights of the present day, we may form some slight conception of the pigmy race of ancestors from which they sprung.

Meantime, during these years of progress and prosperity, while Time was tracing its finger-marksupon the walls of men’s houses, and writing its lessons on their hearts and minds, there stood, in the centre of the old market-place, a little silent symbol of the religious feeling of the passing ages,—the market-cross, and oratory within the little octagonal structure, whose external corners bore upon all of them the emblem of hope and salvation—the crucifix. In its earliest days, its oratory was tenanted by a priest, supported by the alms of the busy market-folks, who could find means, in the midst of all their worldly callings, to pay some tribute in time and money to religion. And was it such a very foolish practice of our ignorant old forefathers, thus to bring the sanctuary into the very midst of the business of life?—was it a great proof of childish simplicity, to seek to sanctify the scenes of merchandize by the presence and teaching of Christianity? Is it indeed needful that the elements of our nature, spirit, soul, and body, should be rent asunder, and fed and nurtured in distinct and separate schools, until each one of us becomes almost conscious of two separate existences—the Sabbath-day life, within the church or meeting walls, and the week-day business life abroad in the world? Or shall the union be pronounced more beautiful and consonant with the laws of harmony, that carries the world into the sanctuary, and desecrates the house of God by the presence of sordid passions, crusted round the heart by daily exercisein the great marts of commerce, or in the intercourse of political or even social life, that not the one day’s rest in seven, spent in listening to some favourite theologian’s intellectual teachings of doctrinal truths, or controversial dogmas, can suffice to rub off, to purify, or make clean? A market-cross and priest may not be the remedies for this disease of later times, but they were outer symbols of the reality needed—Christianity, to be carried out into the every-day actions of the world, mingling with the dealings of man with man, master and workman, capitalist and consumer,—that there may no longer exist those monstrous anomalies that are to be met with in almost every phase of society in this Christian land, among a people professing to be guided by the light of “Truth,” to walk according to the law of “Charity,” and to obey the precept, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”

But the busy hands of zealous reformers long since began their work upon this little outward expression of “superstition;” the priest disappeared, the crucifixes fell beneath the murmurs of “true Protestants,” and the oratory was transferred to the “masters, and searchers, and sellers of leather;” but, in process of time, falling to decay, the little monument was pulled down, and all traces of its existence obliterated from the scene of its former dominion.

And now a word upon manufactures. The greatparent of English looms, and English weavers of wool, claims it; the city, that has for centuries robed the priesthood of Christendom in its camlets; that has invented crapes, and bombazines, and paramattas, to clothe one-half of the world in the sable “livery of woe;” that has draped the fair daughters of every clime in the graceful folds of its far-famed “filover;” that has in later years shod the feet of no small proportion of the nation’s population; whose every court and alley echoes the throw of the shuttle and rattle of the loom; whose every cellar and hovel has its winding frame for childhood and old age to earn their mite upon; whose garrets pour forth their pale sickly wool-combers, with faces blanched by the fumes of charcoal; that has its districts of “cord-wainers,” and colonies of “binders;” its hidden timber-yards, where thousands of square feet are rapidly being transformed into “vestas” and “lucifers,” and “silent lights;” and its tall factories, whose heaped-up stories send down their streams of human working bees, from the cells of their monster queen, the steam-engine, and the task of making produce to supply the rich man’s wants—has, we say, a claim upon us in her character of a manufacturing place. The venerable city, once the summit of the pyramid of our nation’s commercial glory, stands no longer in isolated grandeur, the mistress of trade, but for long has had to look up at a vast mass of capital andlabour, accumulated above her head by the energies and activities of younger rivals. India has gorged with its raw material the markets once fed with the wool of home-grown sheep, and cotton towns have risen up and outgrown the old woollen mart of the country. Fashion and its fluctuations, machinery and its progressions, iron and coal in their partial distribution, have each and all helped to lay the head of the mighty low; but there is strong vitality left within her—powerful talents and great resources; she is even now rising from the lethargy that had crept over her. Would our space permit, how fain would we trace the workings yet going on in her midst: the progress of the shearer’s wool from the wool-sack to the rich brocaded cashmere; through its “combing” with irons heated over charcoal furnaces, that poison the atmosphere around, and shorten the lives of the operatives engaged in it, forsooth, because the foreman of the manufactory has a perquisite of selling charcoal,—thence to the huge factory with giant engines, and labyrinths of spinning-wheels; away, again, to the spider-looking winding-frame, that children and old women may turn to help to fill the shuttles of the abler workers at the loom; thence to the dyers, and then to the loom itself, where manhood, youth, and woman’s feebler strength alike find exercise and room for labour. How many histories have been woven into thefabric—what tears or smiles have cast their light or shade upon the tints,—what notes of harmony or love, or wailings of sorrow and sickness have echoed the shuttle’s throw,—how many tales of stern heart griefs, pining wants, wasting penury, or disease, are wrapped in the luxurious folds that minister to the comfort and enjoyment of the unconscious wearer.

But we dare not tarry amid these scenes, richly fraught as they may be with subject for graphic sketching; we may not pause to visit the great gatherings in factory chambers, or linger amongst the home labours of the industrious artisan; can barely hint at traits of heroism, lives of gentle loving duty going on amid the rattling noise of looms that trench upon the narrow limits of the sick bed; deeds of good Samaritanism that grace the weary weaver’s home, or dwell upon the Christian lessons they have power to teach. If the anatomy of a manufacturing city does revolt the senses and sensibilities in the pictures of suffering and poverty it seldom fails to abound with, there is yet much beauty in the deep, earnest, truthful poetry to be read in the page it lays open. Mary Barton is no fiction; scarce a district in a manufacturing province that could not furnish a heroine like her; nor need we, perhaps, look to the other side of the Atlantic, to find the prototype of “Uncle Tom.”

There is little doubt that woollen manufactures ofsome kind existed in this neighbourhood from a very early period. Sheep were here in great abundance, and as soon as there were ships to send them in, were exported to other countries from these parts. Doomsday Book mentions numerous “sheep-walks,” covering many acres of ground; whether these “walks” comprised such lands as we now term “meadows or pastures,” is not explained, but most probably such is the interpretation to be put upon the term, andnot, as at first sight might seem to be implied, that the sheep had narrow strips of “esplanade,” or promenade, all to themselves, upon which they marched up and down in regimental order. About these same sheep it has been said, in these our times, that there exists strong presumptive evidence that the fine Spanish “merino” is a lineal descendant of the family, and that the wool now imported as of foreign extraction, is literally and truly the growth of the offspring of respectable English forefathers, some members of whose domestic circle were honoured by being made presents of to Spanish princes by the sovereign of England, in the days when the office and title of shepherd was coveted by nobles in that country. The hypothesis we pretend not to establish, so “revenonsà nosmoutons.”

The preparing of wool was a favourite occupation of the British ladies of rank; and soon after the settlement of the Romans, it is recorded by DionysiusAlexandrinus, that “the wool of Britain was often spun so fine, that it was in a manner comparable to a spider’s thread.” The mother of Alfred is described as being skilled in the spinning of wool, and busied in training her daughters to similar occupations. The advent of the various workmen who followed in the train of the conqueror from Normandy, caused fresh energy to be infused into this, as all other branches of manufactures; but the main stimulus was given by a colony of Dutch, who, driven from their own country by inundations in the reign of Henry the First, crossed the channel, and selecting the convenient promontory of Norfolk, settled themselves down at a little village calledWorsted, about thirteen miles from Norwich, whence the name of the wool first spun there by them.

In the reign of Stephen the woollen manufactures were so flourishing in many large towns, that the merchants petitioned for power to form themselves into distinct guilds or corporations,—the earliest development of the principle of joint stock companies, borrowed by the Normans from the free cities of Italy, where trade and manufactures had long flourished, and where this combination of mercantile influence had been employed by the Roman monarchs as a check upon the feudal power of the barons. The inconvenience, however, that attended the monopolies that sprung from this source were soon manifest;and disturbances were continually arising, until free trade was in a measure restored. The sumptuary laws of Edward the Third, and the inducements held out by him to foreigners to settle in his dominions,—the fixing of thestaples, that obliged all merchants to bring their wool and woollen cloths for sale to Norwich, forbidding any to offer such articles in any other part of Norfolk or Suffolk,—tended materially to the commercial prosperity of the city; but in the reign of Richard the Second, discontent spread itself throughout the working population of the kingdom, and the insurrection of Wat Tyler was followed by an open rebellion in Suffolk, when 80,000 men marched upon Norwich, and committed divers acts of devastation and plunder, headed by John Litester, a dyer. This, united to the jealousies that existed between the native and foreign artisans, caused a decline in the local manufactures for some time. In Elizabeth’s reign they revived, through the invitation given to the Dutch and Walloons, then fleeing from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. By the advice of the Duke of Norfolk, thirty of these, all experienced workmen, were invited to attend in Norwich, each bringing with him ten servants, to be maintained at the expense of the duke. These speedily multiplied, until their number exceeded five thousand. No matter of surprise, therefore, is it that the Old City retains so many quaint traces ofFlemish taste and Flemish architecture, or that strangers, one and all, should be struck with the peculiarly foreign outline of its quaint old market-place. Soon after the settlement of these strangers in the neighbourhood, new articles of manufacture were introduced; in addition to the “worsteds,” “saies,” and “stamins,” hitherto the sole articles of commerce, and the admixture of mohair and silk with the wool, produced a total change in the quality of the goods. Bombazine, that staple “mourning garb,” was the first result of the experiments made in silk and wool combined. The ladies of Spain were thenceforth supplied with the material for that indispensable article of their costume, the mantilla. Camlets, too, were woven for the religious orders of priests and monks, as also calimancoes, tabinets, brocaded satins, florettes, and damasks, of which the legends of our grandmothers, and occasionally their wardrobes, bear trace; crape, the celebrated Norwich crape, now almost a forgotten fabric, was of later invention; but its fame is chronicled in Ministerial mandates during Walpole’s administration, 1721, when court mourning was ordered to consist of nothing but that pre-eminent material. Long since, the paramatta cloth has superseded both bombazine and Norwich crape; nor must we be unmindful that this superfine invention owes its origin to the skill and ingenuity of a manufacturer of thesame city. Shawls of every variety have held a prominent place among the manufactures; indeed, may be considered as nominally the staple produce of the Norwich looms, though in reality such is not the fact, an infinite variety of materials, bearing as many new and fashionable titles, being in truth the result of the labour of its artisans, silk—satins, brocades, alpaccas, barèges, and many more; and of late years the shoe manufactory has so vastly increased, that it may fairly take a place henceforth among the constituents of the “fame” of the capital of Norfolk. It may not be out of place here also to give some little sketch of the rise and progress of that most important of all inventions and arts, printing, in these particular parts,—more especially as William Caxton, the first English printer, was one of the agents, and a principal one, in opening the commerce between this country and Flanders in 1464, when that port was appointed a staple for English goods as well as Calais, a measure fraught with immense advantages to the manufacturing districts of the country, and of course pre-eminently to this city. When he, the mercer’s apprentice, first stamped the “merchants’ mark” upon his master’s bales, he little thought that by this same process of stamping, carried forward by the ingenuity of many men into a new art, the whole aspect of the world’s history would be changed.The origin of these distinctive “marks,” still to be seen engraved on brasses, painted in church windows, and here and there carved on the doors and panels of old houses, is about as obscure as most of the other customs of those ages. They were undoubtedly used to distinguish the property of one merchant from another; and if their owners gave money towards the building or restoration of churches, their marks were placed in the windows, in honour of their liberality. Similar marks are to this day used by some of the merchants of Oporto and Lisbon, stamped upon their pipes of wine. Their forms seemed to depend on fancy, but a certain geometrical precision pervaded all; sometimes they were composed of a circle with a cross, or a shield with crosses laid over each other, of angles of every possible direction grouped into a figure, now and then the figure of a bird or animal added, but each differing essentially from every other, that it may retain its distinctive characteristics. Printing, however, though introduced into this country by Caxton, was for some centuries seldom, if ever, practised, save in London and the two universities. To the Dutch and Walloons, who came over at the invitation of Elizabeth, is ascribed its first introduction in this city. In 1568, a Dutch metrical version of the Psalms was issued from the press. No great progress, however, would seem to have been made during the next century, but in 1736 was printedanonymously the “Records of Norwich,” containing the monuments of the cathedral, the bishops, the plagues, friars, martyrs, hospitals, &c., in two parts, price three halfpence each; and in 1738, an “Authentic History of the Ancient City of Norwich, from its Foundation to its Present State, &c. (the like not extant), by Thomas Eldridge, T.C.N., printed for the author in St. Gregory’s ch. yd., where may be had neat Jamaica rum, fine brandy, Geneva and cordial waters, all sorts of superfine snuffs and tobaccos at the lowest price!!!” This work, the author presumes, from its bulk (thirty-two pages), to be the “completest work ever yet published.” Alas for the literature of the day! From this period, however, Norwich kept pace with other places; a newspaper had been established even earlier, a quarto foolscap, at a penny a number. Among the advertisements from this “Gazette” bearing date July 16, 1709, are these—

“This is to give notice to all persons in the city, that right over against the three Feathers in St. Peter’s of Hungate, there is one lately come from London, who teacheth all sorts of Pastry and Cookery, all sorts of jellies, creams, and pickles, also all sorts of Collering and Potting, and to make rich cakes of all sorts, and everything of that nature. She teaches for a crown down, and a crown when they are fully learned, that her teaching so cheap may encourage very many to learn.”June 5, 1708.“Mr. Augustine de Clere, of Norwich Thorpe, have nowvery good malt for retail as he formerly had; if any of his customers have a mind to take of him again, they shall be kindly used with good malt, and as cheap as any body sell.—You may leave your orders with Mr. John de Clere, Hot-presser, living right over the Ducking stool, in St. Martin’s of the palace of Norwich.”

June 5, 1708.

“Mr. Augustine de Clere, of Norwich Thorpe, have nowvery good malt for retail as he formerly had; if any of his customers have a mind to take of him again, they shall be kindly used with good malt, and as cheap as any body sell.—You may leave your orders with Mr. John de Clere, Hot-presser, living right over the Ducking stool, in St. Martin’s of the palace of Norwich.”

Among the Queries from Correspondents occur the following—

Norwich Gazette, April 9, 1709.“Mr. Crossgrove,You are desired to give an answer to this question, ‘Did the soul pre-exist in a separate state, before it came into the body, as many learned men have thought it did; and as that question in the ninth chapter of St. John’s gospel seems to insinuate. Your answer to this query will very much oblige your constant customer, T. R.”

Norwich Gazette, April 9, 1709.

“Mr. Crossgrove,

You are desired to give an answer to this question, ‘Did the soul pre-exist in a separate state, before it came into the body, as many learned men have thought it did; and as that question in the ninth chapter of St. John’s gospel seems to insinuate. Your answer to this query will very much oblige your constant customer, T. R.”

This query is replied to at some length satisfactorily by Mr. Crossgrove.

This department of the paper is headed “The Accurate Intelligencer,” and in its columns are sundry other rather peculiar interrogatories, such as—

“Mr. Crossgrove,Pray tell me where Moses was buried, and you will very much oblige your constant customer, B. S.”

“Mr. Crossgrove,

Pray tell me where Moses was buried, and you will very much oblige your constant customer, B. S.”

Answer.

“Mr. B. S.He tells you himselfthat no man knew it, even when he could not have been long buried; as you may see in the last chapter of Deuteronomy; from whence, Sir, you may infer, that if it was a secret so early, ’tis certainly so still. Your humble servant, H. C.”

“Mr. B. S.

He tells you himselfthat no man knew it, even when he could not have been long buried; as you may see in the last chapter of Deuteronomy; from whence, Sir, you may infer, that if it was a secret so early, ’tis certainly so still. Your humble servant, H. C.”

Another rich specimen runs—

Lynn, May 18, 1709.“Mr. Crossgrove,Did the Apostles use notes when they preached? I have sent this Query twice before, and if I do not find it answered in your next paper, I shall conclude you either cannot or durst not answer it.Yours unknown, &c.”

Lynn, May 18, 1709.

“Mr. Crossgrove,

Did the Apostles use notes when they preached? I have sent this Query twice before, and if I do not find it answered in your next paper, I shall conclude you either cannot or durst not answer it.

Yours unknown, &c.”

Answer

“Sir,I have a bushel of letters by me that came all to the same tune with this of yours, viz.You cannot or durst not answer it; but sometimes they see I dare do it, tho’ I neglect other letters more pertinent through want of room: I have a dozen letters come in a week, all post haste for an answer, and seldom room to insert more than one at a time, so that many must of necessity lye by. But now for your dreadful puzzling question, Did the Apostles use notes? and to this I answer positivelyNo, nor Bibles neither to hide their notes in; take notice of that; nor had they pulpits to stand in as ever I heard of, and we may observe from their sermons they took no texts: and what then? What would you infer from all this? The Apostles also never studied their sermons, for they had an extraordinary gift of preaching, as well as of speaking. But I shall say no more to your designing question than this—That those divines who read their sermons know how to improve their time much better than in getting them like schoolboys by heart; and that a good polite discourse well read, is more worthy than a Bundle of what comes uppermost tumbled out Head and Heels.Yours, H. C.”

“Sir,

I have a bushel of letters by me that came all to the same tune with this of yours, viz.You cannot or durst not answer it; but sometimes they see I dare do it, tho’ I neglect other letters more pertinent through want of room: I have a dozen letters come in a week, all post haste for an answer, and seldom room to insert more than one at a time, so that many must of necessity lye by. But now for your dreadful puzzling question, Did the Apostles use notes? and to this I answer positivelyNo, nor Bibles neither to hide their notes in; take notice of that; nor had they pulpits to stand in as ever I heard of, and we may observe from their sermons they took no texts: and what then? What would you infer from all this? The Apostles also never studied their sermons, for they had an extraordinary gift of preaching, as well as of speaking. But I shall say no more to your designing question than this—That those divines who read their sermons know how to improve their time much better than in getting them like schoolboys by heart; and that a good polite discourse well read, is more worthy than a Bundle of what comes uppermost tumbled out Head and Heels.

Yours, H. C.”

Well done, Mr. Crossgrove! say we.

In 1714, a “Courant” was established, small folio size: at the end of one occurs this notice—

“Note. An Accident happening, the reader is desired to pardon allliteralerrors, as it is not corrected.”

Papers of somewhat later date afford samples almost as quaint:—Advertisement. “James Hardy acquaints his friends, that he has lately had a large quantity of preserves. I shall be very happy to supply any gentleman with coals.” “Notice is hereby given that on Thursday and Friday next, being sixth and seventh of June, 1734, a coach and horses will set out for London, from Mr. Thomas Bateman’s, St. Giles, and perform the same in three days. Note, the coach will go either by Newmarket or Ipswich, as the passengers shall agree.” They certainly hadoneadvantage over railway travellers of the present day—that they could choose their own route.

Another specimen runs—“Whereas Mrs. Cooke at the pastry shop near the three steps has charged Mrs. Havers with embezzling to the quantity of two yards of padashway, out of her suit of clothes turned upside down two years since, and made at first for a much less person; the clothes having been viewed by several mantua makers, the same appears to be a most malicious slander,” &c.

Specimens might be multiplied, but these may suffice to place beside the elaborate and ornate productions of this present year 1853, to see what a century has done in orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody.

It must have been rather more than twenty years after the first establishment of a local newspaper, that the Rev. Francis Blomefield, the great historian of the county, first commenced printing his elaborate “Topographical Essay,” a work of five volumes folio, the materials for which he is said to have begun to collect when only fifteen years of age. Many beyond the limits of the locality more especially intended to profit by this laborious undertaking, may feel interested in the facts connected with its progress, contributing so much as they do to give a correct idea of the difficulties attending the path of an author little more than a century ago.

Blomefield was rector of the parish of Fersfield, in which also he was born; in the summer months he was in the habit of making excursions in search of materials for his work, and to test the accuracy of information he had gained, by a method he had adopted, in furtherance of his object, of distributing “queries,” to be filled up with answers concerning any historical or antiquarian subjects that may be known to the parties applied to. In reference to this plan, he says himself, in a letter to a friend, “It is impossible to tell you what great helps have come in by my queries: sometimes having twenty or thirty sheets, besides books, letters, records and papers for a single hundred;” (alluding to the divisions of the county into hundreds).

It was after one of his collating rambles that he finally determined to issue proposals for printing his work; and meeting with much encouragement, he speedily looked about for a suitable printing establishment. In a letter to Mr. Chase, a printer who lived next door to “John o’ all sorts,” Cockey Lane, Norwich, on the 1st of July, 1733, he says, “I have endeavoured to procure a set of Saxon types, but cannot do it; and upon looking over my book find a good number of Greek inscriptions, some Hebrew words, and some Gothic. So that I must print it in London; it being impossible to have those types any where in the country (!). I wish heartily I could have done it with you; for I like your terms, and could have been glad to have corrected the press myself, which I then could easily have done.”

Eventually he decided upon printing the work upon his own premises, and engaged a good workman, at a salary of £40 a year, bought a press for £7, and fitted up a printing office with all the requisite materials. The account in the papers of the “Archæological Society,” goes on to say, “At that time, distance and difficulties of intercourse made any want of punctuality most annoying, and the plan of printing at home involved the necessity of a great variety of type and other materials. Meanwhile type founders, stationers, and engravers, werebut too much given to weary him with delay, or to disgust him with fraud. Beginning a correspondence with frankness and civility, he often had to continue it, urging and reiterating entreaties of attention—alternately coaxing compliance with ‘half a piece’ to drink his health and success to his work, or with ‘promise of making amends,’ or a ‘fowl at Christmas,’ or rebuking with reluctant severity, resulting more from devotedness to his object, than anger or bitterness. A facetious engraver, who was introduced to him, and invited to his house to assist him, after remaining there three weeks, agreed for a large portion of the work, and cut several of the things, all which he ran away with. Other vexations sprang out of the patronage and assistance he most valued; but, after many interruptions, the first edition of a part of the book was brought out in 1736.”

In the midst of his labours, however, he was cut off by that virulent enemy, the small pox, on the 15th January, 1751, at the age of forty-six. His work was continued by the Rev. Charles Parkens, of whom a curious anecdote is related;—its accuracy we do not pretend to vouch; the tale runs that Mr. Parkens had a tame magpie, which had access to her master’s study, and seeing him busily employed in folding and unfolding the packets that lay before him on his desk, she thought it no harm to be busy too, until from time to time she flew awaywith thewhole borough of Yarmouth. Many of the parcels, it is added, were recovered, but others irrecoverably lost.

“I know not how the truth may be,But tell the tale as ’twas told to me.”

With this cursory glance at the work of the great historian of the district, we close our chapter on the subjects suggested by the “Old Market-place.” The sketches have been necessarily superficial, but they afford proof that its chronicles include a variety of matter and incident that may interest almost every class of mind.

The Guildhall.—Visit to its dungeons.—Bilney.—St. Barbara’s chapel.—Legend of St. Barbara.—Assize court.—Old document.—Trial by Jury.—Council chamber.—Old record room.—Guilds.—St. George’s company.—History of St. George.—Legend of St. Margaret.

Our rambles have now brought us to the threshold of that quaint, but beautiful old “studwork” chamber, the guildhall; the seat of civic honour, power, and glory, with its many appendages of courts and cells, the witnesses of those multiplied alternations of tragedy, comedy, and melodrama, that may be looked for to have been enacted during centuries, beneath a roof covering a council chamber, an assize court, and a prison. Once again, we avow that we aim not to be complete topographers, or guides to all the strange old carvings, and grotesque remains of ancient sculpture, that may be found in such rich abundance around the pathways of a venerable city, neither do we profess to furnish all the historic detailsthat may be gleaned concerning these relics of antiquity; are they not chronicled elsewhere, in many mighty tomes, readable and unreadable, in “guides,” and “tours,” and manifold “directories?” We look and think, and odd associations weave our thinkings sometimes, perhaps, into a queer mottled garb, though we would solemnly aver the woof through which the shuttle of our fancy plays is every fibre of it truth.

Such a preface is needed to our sketch of this fine old ornament of the city’s market-place, lest disappointment should attend the hopes of the inquisitive investigator of sights and relics.

The guildhall, once like the municipal body it represents, was but a tiny little thing compared with what it since has grown, and when bailiffs and burgesses were the only distinctive titles and offices, a simple chamber thatched, and commonly used to collect the market dues, sufficed for the seat of civic government; but when, in the reign of the third Henry, the citizens received from him a charter for a mayor and sheriffs, they took off the thatched roof of their little toll-booth, and built upon it, and round about it, spacious rooms and courts, to accommodate and do honour to their newly acquired municipal dignitaries; for which purpose a warrant was obtained, to press all carpenters, builders, and bricklayers, into active service, from eight o’clock in the morning untileight o’clock at night, as long as occasion might require; and by such compulsory process, the design was completed some fifty years from the date of its commencement. The tower, wherein was the treasury, fell down in Bluff King Harry’s reign, whose matrimonial exploits have given him notoriety, in addition to the grand event of history, the Reformation, with which they bore so intimate a connection. Decay, renovation, change, and reformation, have been so busy with this seat of government, from the era of its infancy until the present time, that no small degree of ingenuity must be needed to unravel the twistings and turnings, and comprehend the inharmonious groupings that have sprung up about it, the divers offsprings of various ages, that mark the progress and growth of the municipal constitution.

Without doubt, the first claim to antiquity is justly assigned to the lower dungeons and cells, some of which still serve aslock upsfor offenders awaiting magisterial examination; and a remarkably unpleasant situation must the individual find himself in, who is there for ever so brief a space in “durance vile;” the convicted transgressor certainly makes an exchange for the better, when he reaches his ultimate destination, the city prison cell; dark, damp, underground coal-cellars, may be deemedfairillustrations of the accommodation there offered to those whom the “law deems innocent”, as it professes todo all unconvicted persons. One degree darker, and more horrible, are thedungeons, which receive no light whatever, save from a jet of gas without the gratings of the doors; into these refractory guests are stowed, that their rebellious sounds may not disturb the ears of any passers-by above ground.

“Deeper, and deeper still,” down beneath the very foundations of the building, at the foot of a dark narrow winding stair, fast crumbling to decay, is yet another dungeon, long since closed for any practical purposes; the eye of curiosity alone happily is permitted to penetrate its depths. Dark and damp, however, as it is, it would seem preferable to the dismal “lock ups,” a light, of modern introduction, from the street above, giving it a less intensely black look. Here it was that poor old Bilney spent his last hours of life; and the groined and vaulted roof, constructed upon the plan of so many of the cellars of that period of civil and domestic architecture, gives to the place a strangely ecclesiastical look in these days, and imagination has little difficulty in calling up the priest of the subterranean temple, who has been pictured to our eyes as there testing the powers of his endurance, by holding his finger in the lighted flame of the candle, to satisfy his friends that he should not shrink from the bodily pangs that were on the morrow to earn for him the crown of martyrdom. Solemn and sad are the memories clusteredaround these dreary tombs of liberty, nor is their atmosphere tempting to linger in, even upon a visit of curiosity.

The winding stair fromthe dungeonleads into what is now a porch-way, but which must once have been the site of the old chapel, built for the use of the prisoners. This chapel was dedicated to St. Barbara, the prisoner’s saint, who, according to the legend of the Romish church, “was imprisoned by her father, in a high strong tower, to the end that no man should behold her,” and therefore St. Barbara is always represented with a tower. She is commemorated on the fourth of December, as St. Barbara, the Virgin and Martyr. Here, were formerly kept all the goods and chattels appertaining to the mayorality and civic feasts, in addition to the services belonging to the chapel itself; but about the era of the Reformation the chapel was pulled down, to make way for secular offices. How busy those good reformers were in abolishing every place dedicated to worship, that their judgment deemed supernumerary! When the treasury tower fell in, it crushed a prison, known by the name of “Little Ease;” the full details of whose attractions we are left in ignorance of. Upon the first floor, near the site of the chapel, was once the large chamber, where the sealing of the cloths manufactured in the city was carried on, since converted into an assize court,where the notorious lawmongers of this city, with their brother dignitaries of the bar, join forces to promote the ends of justice, their clients, and their own. There is a queer old document extant, wherein the number of learned gentlemen permitted to follow the profession of the law in this city was limited, “because,” as the preamble states, “when there were no more than six or eight attorneys at the most coming to the king’s courts, great tranquillity reigned in the city and county, and little trouble or vexation was made by untrue and foreign suits; and now, so it is, that in the said city and county there be fourscore attornies, or more, the more part having nothing to live upon but only his gain by the practice of attorneyship, and also the more part of them not being of sufficient knowledge to be an attorney, &c. &c., whereby proceed many suits more of evil will and malice than of the truth of the thing, to the manifold vexations, and no little damage of the inhabitants of the said city and county.” Wherefore it was enacted, that there should be but six attorneys in the county, and two in the city, for the future. When this admirable statute was repealed, we know not, but conceive it must have been long, long ago, for so many brass-plate signs to have sprung up in evidence of a numerous progeny taking place of the solitary two. Whether the repeal was areformcalculated to benefit the city, experience best canprove; but if the character of the “common folk” in these parts is faithfully given by the author of “English Worthies,” we may presume them to have been considerably inconvenienced by the scarcity of tools with which to play their favourite game. He says, “that the common folks of Norfolk are possessed of such skill in the law, that they are said to study the law at the plough’s tail, and some would persuade us that they will enter an action for their neighbour’s horse only looking over the fence.”

In later times, evidences of the law mania exist in manifold forms; and the fact of individuals consulting a lawyer before calling in a doctor, in physical ailments, is by no means an uncommon occurrence among a certain class. Some men think and judge with their lawyer’s heads, who, in return, of course, in justice live upon their purses.

Some few amusing facts connected with the boasted English privilege of “Trial by Jury,” may serve to illustrate the growth of “purity” in our courts of law. The jurisdiction exercised over jurors by the “Star-chamber” is a notorious matter of history; but the curious and graphic description of the nature and constitution of a jury in the thirteenth century, as given by Sir Francis Palgrave, in his “Tale of the Merchant and Friar,” may not be quite so familiar, and is far too good to be omitted.

“A trial was about to commence. ‘Sheriff, isyour inquest in court?’ said the Mayor. ‘Yes, my lord,’ replied the sheriff, ‘and, I am proud to say, it will be an excellent jury for the crown. I myself have picked and chosen every man upon the panel. I have spoken to them all; and there is not one whom I have not examined carefully, not only as to his knowledge of the offences of which the prisoner stands charged, but of all the circumstances from which his guilt can be collected, suspected, or inferred. All the jurors were acquainted with him; eight out of the twelve have often been heard to declare upon their oath, that they were sure one day he would come to the gallows; and the remainder are fully of opinion that he deserves the halter. My lord, I should ill have performed my duty, if I should have allowed my bailiffs to summon the jury at hap-hazard, and without previously ascertaining the extent of their testimony. Some perhaps know more, and some less; but the least informed of them have taken great pains to go up and down every corner of Westminster, they and their wives, and to know all that they could hear concerning his past and present life and conversation. Never had any culprit a chance of a fairer trial.’”

An extract from the archives of the Record room, gives another specimen of the mode of dealing with jurymen, if they proved refractory or obstinate. It bears the date of the 8th year of King Henry VIII.,and is to the purport that the jury that “acquitted Walter, James, and John Doo, Benet Bullok, and Edmund Stuttlie, notwithstanding that they had good and substantial evidence given against the said felons, at the last gaol delivery of Norwich; as the chief Justice of the King’s Bench, the Lord Edmund Howard, and William Ellis, one of the justices of the peace there, openly declared before the lords, in the presence of the said jury; for the which perjury so by them committed, it is by the lords’ most honourable council adjudged and decreed, that the said jury shall do the penance following, that is to say, they shall be committed to the Fleet, there to remain till to-morrow, and that then, at six of the clock, they shall be brought by the warden of the Fleet into Westminster Hall, with papers on their heads, whereon shall be written in great letters, ‘these men be wilfully perjured;’ and with the same papers on their heads they shall be led thrice about the hall of Westminster aforesaid, and then to be led by the warden of the Fleet to the Fleet again, there to remain till Monday; and on Monday, in the morning, to be had into Cheapside, and there shall go about the cross in Chepe thrice, and then they shall return to the Fleet, and there to remain till Tuesday, and then to be brought again before the lords, to be bound by recognizances to do the same penance at home, in their county at Norwich; and that a preceptshall be directed to the mayor and sheriffs of the city of Norwich aforesaid, to see the said parties do the said penance in the said city, upon Saturday, the 22d day of this present month of November, openly in the market-place there, with papers on their heads, whereupon shall be written the same words above written.”

The old mode of trial by ordeal, consisting as it did of an appeal to Heaven for judgment, either directly by miraculous interference, as in the ordeals of fire and water, or indirectly, in the ordeals of single combat, might well have had their charms in the memory of culprit and jurors both, when such a substitute alone was offered by the courts of justice that had superseded them. There are, however, two extremes that may be gone to about every thing; and we believe a little wholesome penance might, even in the nineteenth century, not come amiss to stir up the wits of many a sleepy juror. Certes, they often richly merit it.

From the assize court we bend our steps upward, to the region where we may feel at no loss in our search for objects of genuine antiquity, and find ourselves in theCouncil Chamber; and here we arrive at the very pinnacle of magisterial dignity—the zenith of municipal glory—the seat of mayoralty and aldmermanship and common councilship, once broadly separate and distinct in their grades of rank andpower, in very truth an upper and a lower house, a peerage and a commons—assembling themselves in chambers becomingly graduated in their degrees of splendour—but now, alas! in these degenerate days of reformation and democratic sovereignty, as some might please to call them, all merged into one conglomerated body corporate—shall we add, oforder Gothic composite?

The old chamber looks as if it had seen better days; two or three patched-up windows of variegated colours, still retaining many quaint and curious devices, bear witness of the taste and liberality of our forefathers; and imagination, by the aid of history’s pen, can fill up the unsophisticated plain glass lights at the side, with the old subjects that once occupied their space, but which have fallen a sacrifice to the despoiler’s barbarous hand;—one of the unjust judge, who, being flayed alive, was succeeded in office by his son, and the picture, so they tell us, was elucidated by some very characteristic specimens of antique poetry—to wit, the first two lines of general advice, addressed to all who may ever be in a position to profit by it,—

“Let alle men se, stedfast you be,Justice do ye, or else like you fle;”

and an additional verse to the unfortunate son who succeeded him in office:—

“You that sittyst now in place,See hange before thy faceThyn own Fader’s skyn,For falsehood; this ded he wyn.”

Another equally original specimen of the judgment of Solomon is thus explained:—

“The trewe and counterfeit to trye,She had rather lose her Ryght—Saying, the Soulders ware redyTo clyve, with all their myght.”

These, as I said, have disappeared; but we were unwilling in our sketch to lose sight altogether of such very interesting reliques of our ancestor’s skill, in conveying moral lessons by the light of their window-panes, as were to be found here a century or two ago. Those good old folks did not seem to be wanting in a certain kind of wit; here, as in many other parts of the city, we have traces of their love of a fair rebus—without a slight knowledge of which propensity, we might look long ere we could understand the hieroglyphical appearance of a barrel set on end, withN. E. C.written above—history, however, elucidates the mystery, by explaining it as the rebus of oneThos. Necton, who aided by his wealth the filling in of one of the little gothic windows with stained glass. The curiously carved old desk in the centre was once the reading-desk in fair St. Barbara’s chapel down below,—could it speak, we wonder whether it would glory in itselevation. But now we really can resist no longer a good hearty laughat those comical little unmakeoutable animals, seated so demurely all round the room, on the tops of the high-backed benches, with their queer little faces struggling to keep down a grin. Whatever were they put there for? Was it to chronicle up in their little wooden pates the doings and undoings, the sayings and unsayings, that they have been looking at, and listening to, so patiently and wonderingly, for these four centuries past? What would we give to hear them tell the tale of all they have seen and heard go on, since first the royal charter granted to our citizens the long-sought privilege of a realbona fidemayor! how, at first this dignitary used to sit in solemn majesty upon his throne of state, surrounded by his aristocracy of chosen peers, deliberating gravely on the affairs of their little state; how, reverently and orderly the subordinate commons used to come into their presence at their bidding, and do as they were told by the supreme authorities; and how, as time and years passed, the heads of these same commons began to lift themselves a little and a little higher, till they really seemed as muchreal menas those who occupied the chairs of state; how, when at last their struggles had gained the great municipal reform, some sixteen years ago, they took their seats in the very midst of the aldermanic autocrats, with all the coolness of precocious intellect, usurping dignities reserved for high-sounding names or well-linedpurses. Could they not tell a few more tales of how the ethereal blue and whites,—remembering the day when their opponents, clad in purple, numbered nine out of twelve of the industrious nominees who were to choose their fellow-workers in the field of city usefulness, had traded with their talents till they had gained nine and thirty more purples to sit by their side, and smile at the twelve blue-looking occupants of the opposition benches,—did, in later times, effectually turn the tables on the oppressors’ heads, and sit above them in triumph, looking down on fallen greatness; how this revolution had scarce become familiar to their little sapiencies, when from the very centre of the rival factions sprang another party; and the dogs, and dragons, and what-nots, felt ready to jump from their seats, when their ears heard a city youth avow himself an independent man, neither abluenorpurple—a man ofprinciple—didn’t they wonder what it meant, and whether he really had enough of it to buy up both the other bidders in this marketable borough, or whether it would pay the interest of all the sums that they had severally spent in the good city’s cause, and how they longed to laugh outright when he avowed that honesty and truth were all theprincipalhe traded with, and how they began by-and-bye to think there might be something in it, and to comprehend a little of the theory, but somehowthe working of it seemed to puzzle and perplex them, it seemed to be so complicated by the interference of expediency. But it will not do to tarry longer, conjecturing what might be the confessions of the little carved images; who does not, or has not read the brilliant comedies that have been, and are yet being, enacted perpetually within this chamber?

But there are more objects of interest to be examined within its walls; and among them pre-eminently stands forth the sword of Admiral Don Xavier Francisco Winthuysen, transmitted by Horatio Nelson to the mayor of the city, from the Irresistible, off Lisbon, Feb. 26th,a.d.1797. The sword, with its white vellum sheath ornamented with silver, is enclosed in a glass case, with the original letter from Admiral Nelson, relating the particulars of its capture. In these days of railways and universal travelling, the trophy might prudently, we conceive, hold less conspicuous place. No great stretch of the bounds of probability might suggest the chance of some relative or descendant of Don Xavier Francisco standing face to face with the uncomfortable memento of past misfortunes. Leading from this chamber is a door-way, that opens out upon leads, where in olden times the ladies and friends of the aldermen were wont to enjoy the various spectacles offered by the processions and pageants then so frequently displayed.

The other principal chamber, formerly used by the common-councilmen, and now appropriated to sundry legal purposes, is adorned with the various quaint and significant emblems that once figured in the guild processions, in attendance upon his majesty, Snap, who, from the dignity of his elevation upon the landing-place without, looks down with proud and silent scorn upon all the modern innovations and reformations that have swept away the glories that surrounded his throne;—but of him more by-and-bye.

Beyond the council-chamber is the way of access to the old Record room, whence, now and then, some “Old Mortality” may be seen emerging, laden with treasures rescued from the mouldering heaps of antiquarian lore, there lying buried beneath the accumulated dust and cobwebs of centuries. All praise and thanks be given, as due, to these patient and industrious workers, the fruits of whose labours so liberally are placed at the command of all less learned and recondite scribblers, who scruple not to gather of the crumbs that fall from the rich intellectual banquets they have spread before the lovers of history, antiquity, or science.

An armoury room, where weapons of divers sorts and multiform invention are stored, all bearing evidence of long disuse by rust and decay, and a treasury of gold and silver, maces and sceptres, intheir various departments, claim notice; but as such things possess neither very great intrinsic worth, or any peculiarly interesting historical interest, save the little sceptre of Queen Elizabeth, a passing word may be enough to devote to them; it is time to turn attention to the subject more intimately associated with the very name of the building itself. A Guildhall instantly suggests the question of guilds, their origin, character, and the features of history connected with those whose existence are memorialized by this particular edifice and its appendages.

Guilds were societies of persons confederated together for the common cause of trade, charity, and religion. They were very numerous; in this county alone 907 were enumerated by Taylor in his Index Monasticus, as existing at the time of the Reformation.

The Parochial guilds were often too poor to afford to hire a room for their meetings, but assembled at each other’s houses; but when such was not the case, they usually hired a house near the church, which was called a Guildhall, or church house; the situation being chosen as convenient, their business being to pray as well as to eat. The Guild consisted of an alderman, brethren and sisters, the parson of the parish and the principal persons of the neighbourhood being members. They held lands, received legacies, and frequently met; but their grand assembly was on theday of their patron saint, when they went to church and offered up prayers at his altar for all the members of the society, living and dead. From their saint they took their distinctive titles, as St. George’s, St. Luke’s Guild, &c. They bestowed alms annually upon the poor, received travelling strangers, and did other acts of charity, as far as their revenues allowed.

Their meetings were usually crowned by a dinner, and terminated often in a manner not altogether consistent with their commencement. Some of the guilds in large towns were wealthy and influential. The bill for giving their possessions to the king, when sent to the lower house in 1547, was much opposed by the burgesses, who represented that the boroughs could no longer maintain their churches and other public works, if the rents belonging to the guilds were transferred to the king. The act passed, upon a pledge that the lands should be restored. It was the last act of Henry the Eighth’s reign, and was put in execution by his successor; but the promise was ill performed, many of the revenues being seized, upon the plea of their being free chapel or chantry endowments.

This brief sketch of the nature and origin of guilds, may suffice to introduce more particularly the history of the great Guild of St. George, the most important of all the fraternities that existed in this city, and from being connected with the municipalbody from an early date, intimately associated with the history of the Guildhall. The following copious account of the company, with the copy of one of the charters granted to them, is extracted from the papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society.

copy of charter.“Henry, by the grace of God, (King) of England, France, and lord of Ireland, &c., to whom these present letters shall come greeting:“Know ye that, whereas we have understood a certain Fraternity, and Gild of the glorious martyr St. George, in our city of Norwich, for thirty years past, and more, continually have been, and are, still honestly governed, and the brethren and sisters of the Gylde aforesaid, for the same time have found a chaplain duly celebrating divine service in the Cathedral church of the said city, and diverse and great cost for the worship of God, and the same glorious martyr, have made and do purpose to do more, if we should vouchsafe to assist them in the behalf. Wee, in consideration of the premises, and for the augmentation of the same of our people, to the said glorious martyr, do, for us, our heirs (as much as in us lye), accept, ratify, and confirm the said Fraternity and Gylde, and we have granted that the said Fraternity and Gylde be perpetually acommunity in time succession for ever. And that the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid have the name of the Gylde of Saint George in Norwich, for ever. And that the brethren and sisters aforesaid, and their successors yearly by themselves, at their will choose and create one alderman and two masters successively, and make honest and reasonable ordinances and constitutions to the better government of the said Fraternity and Gylde.“Also cloath themselves with one suit of cloaths, and yearly make a feast for eating and drinking, in a convenient place within the said city, to be by them assigned.“And also the aldermen and masters, brethren and sisters of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid, and their successors, be able and capable persons to purchase land, tenements, rents and services, to have, receive, and hold to them and their successors for ever, to the aldermen, masters, brothers and sisters of the Gyld of St. George in Norwich; and may in all courts and places for ever sue and be sued, answer and be answered, and gain and lose, and have a common seal for the business of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid to be transacted.“And further of our special favour we have granted and given license for us and our heirs, (as much as in us lyes), to the aforesaid alderman, masters, brethren and sisters, that they and theirsuccessors may purchase and hold to them and their successors lands and tenements, rents and services, within the said city aforesaid, up to the value of ten pounds, which are held of us in burgage, as well for the support of one chaplain to celebrate divine service dayly in the church aforesaid, to pray for us and the said brethren and sisters, their healthful state while we shall live, and for our souls, and the souls of the said brethren and sisters when we shall die. And also for the sowlles of our renowned ancestors, and of all the faithful deceased, as for the support of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid. And other works and charges of piety made thereof, according to the ordinances of the same alderman, brethren and sisters for ever; the statute made against giving lands or tenements in mortmain, or any other statute or ordinance made to the contrary, or for that the then lands and tenements aforesaid are held of us in burgage notwithstanding.“And moreover, to the setting aside the maintenance, confederacy, and conspiracy which by means of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid we have granted to the prior of the church aforesaid and to the mayor and to the sheriffs of the said city; also to the alderman and Fraternity of the Gylde aforesaid, which shall be for the time being, sufficient power and authority of expelling, discarding and removing according to their discretion, all brethren and sistersof the Fraternity and Gylde, aforesaid, from the Fraternity and Gylde, and from all the benefits and franchises thereof for ever, who shall be the cause of supporting or upholding such like maintenance, confederacy, or conspiracy aforesaid.“In testimony whereof, we have caused these letters to be made patent. Witness myself at Reading, the ninth day of May, in the fifth year of our reign, by the King himself, and for £40 paid into the hamper, 1417.“Wyndham.”(Here was affixed the great seal of England.)

copy of charter.

“Henry, by the grace of God, (King) of England, France, and lord of Ireland, &c., to whom these present letters shall come greeting:

“Know ye that, whereas we have understood a certain Fraternity, and Gild of the glorious martyr St. George, in our city of Norwich, for thirty years past, and more, continually have been, and are, still honestly governed, and the brethren and sisters of the Gylde aforesaid, for the same time have found a chaplain duly celebrating divine service in the Cathedral church of the said city, and diverse and great cost for the worship of God, and the same glorious martyr, have made and do purpose to do more, if we should vouchsafe to assist them in the behalf. Wee, in consideration of the premises, and for the augmentation of the same of our people, to the said glorious martyr, do, for us, our heirs (as much as in us lye), accept, ratify, and confirm the said Fraternity and Gylde, and we have granted that the said Fraternity and Gylde be perpetually acommunity in time succession for ever. And that the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid have the name of the Gylde of Saint George in Norwich, for ever. And that the brethren and sisters aforesaid, and their successors yearly by themselves, at their will choose and create one alderman and two masters successively, and make honest and reasonable ordinances and constitutions to the better government of the said Fraternity and Gylde.

“Also cloath themselves with one suit of cloaths, and yearly make a feast for eating and drinking, in a convenient place within the said city, to be by them assigned.

“And also the aldermen and masters, brethren and sisters of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid, and their successors, be able and capable persons to purchase land, tenements, rents and services, to have, receive, and hold to them and their successors for ever, to the aldermen, masters, brothers and sisters of the Gyld of St. George in Norwich; and may in all courts and places for ever sue and be sued, answer and be answered, and gain and lose, and have a common seal for the business of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid to be transacted.

“And further of our special favour we have granted and given license for us and our heirs, (as much as in us lyes), to the aforesaid alderman, masters, brethren and sisters, that they and theirsuccessors may purchase and hold to them and their successors lands and tenements, rents and services, within the said city aforesaid, up to the value of ten pounds, which are held of us in burgage, as well for the support of one chaplain to celebrate divine service dayly in the church aforesaid, to pray for us and the said brethren and sisters, their healthful state while we shall live, and for our souls, and the souls of the said brethren and sisters when we shall die. And also for the sowlles of our renowned ancestors, and of all the faithful deceased, as for the support of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid. And other works and charges of piety made thereof, according to the ordinances of the same alderman, brethren and sisters for ever; the statute made against giving lands or tenements in mortmain, or any other statute or ordinance made to the contrary, or for that the then lands and tenements aforesaid are held of us in burgage notwithstanding.

“And moreover, to the setting aside the maintenance, confederacy, and conspiracy which by means of the Fraternity and Gylde aforesaid we have granted to the prior of the church aforesaid and to the mayor and to the sheriffs of the said city; also to the alderman and Fraternity of the Gylde aforesaid, which shall be for the time being, sufficient power and authority of expelling, discarding and removing according to their discretion, all brethren and sistersof the Fraternity and Gylde, aforesaid, from the Fraternity and Gylde, and from all the benefits and franchises thereof for ever, who shall be the cause of supporting or upholding such like maintenance, confederacy, or conspiracy aforesaid.

“In testimony whereof, we have caused these letters to be made patent. Witness myself at Reading, the ninth day of May, in the fifth year of our reign, by the King himself, and for £40 paid into the hamper, 1417.

“Wyndham.”(Here was affixed the great seal of England.)

Another charter of much greater length is still extant; but we pass on to the next important feature in the history of the society,—its union with the corporate body of the city,—set forth in a voluminous indenture, known as Judge Yelverton’s mediation, which we transcribe, adapting the orthography to suit the general readers of the nineteenth century.

“The Mayor, Sheriffs, and Commonality of the City first united to the Fraternity of the Gylde of St. George, by the mediation ofJudge Yelverton.“This writing indented, made the 27th day of March, the year of the reign of King Henry VI. the 30th, betwixt the mayor, sheriffs, and commonality of the city of Norwich, on the one part, and thealderman and brethren of the gylde of the glorious martyr, St. George, of the said city, of the other part, by the mediation and diligency of William Yelverton, Justice of our Lord the King, of his own place. Witnesseth that, as well the said mayor, sheriffs, and commonality, as the aforesaid aldermen and brethren of the said gylde, both according of all matters had or moved betwixt them, before this in manner and form, as in the articles hereafter shewing:—“First, for to begin to the worship of God, our Lady, and of the glorious martyr, St. George, forasmuch as the Cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, of Norwich, is the most worshipful and convenient place, that the glorious martys, St. George, be worshipped by the aldermen and brethren of the said guild, that therefore in the said place, after the forms and effect of the old use had afore this time, the said alderman and brethren be there on the feast of St. George, or some other day in the manner accustomed, there to hear the first even-song, and on the morrow following, to go in procession and hear mass, and offer there in the worship of God and the said martyr; and also there for to hear the second even-song and placebo, and dirige, for the brethren and sisters’ souls of the said guild; and on the day next following be at the mass of requiem, and offer there for the souls of all the brethren and sisters of the said guildand all Christians; and that a priest be continued there in the form accustomed, for to sing and pray for the prosperity, welfare, and honourable estate of the most Christian prince, King Henry VI., our sovereign lord, and also for the welfare of William Yelverton, Justice, by whose mediation and diligence the said accord and appointments have been advised and engrossed.“And then, for the welfare of all the brethren and sisters of the said guild and fraternity living, and also for the souls of King Henry V., first founder of the said guild, and for all other souls of all the brethren and sisters of the said guild, that be passed out of the world, and all Christian souls; and if ever afterwards the possessions of the said guild will stretch to sustain and find another priest, that then such priest shall be found for to pray in like form, and that poor men and women of the said guild be found and relieved by the said guild, as hath been accustomed, as the goods will stretch to save other charges and necessary expenses, to the worship of God and of the said martyr, and to the good conservation and continuance of the said brethren.“Also, on the morning next after the solemnity of the said guild, kept in the worship of the glorious martyr, Saint George, the brethren of the said guild, and their successors, shall yearly choose the mayor of the said city, and that time being a brother of thesaid guild, for to be alderman of the said guild for all the next year following, after his discharge of his office of mayoralty, then forthwith to take the charge and occupation of the said office of aldermanship of the said fraternity and guild; and so every person chosen to be mayor yearly, after he hath occupied mayoralty for an whole year, to occupy the said aldermanship of the said guild; and in case he refuse to occupy the said aldermanship after his mayoralty, to pay unto the said fraternity 100s.to the use of the said guild, and that the old alderman stand still alderman, unto the time another be chosen unto the said office of alderman to the said guild; and if the alderman of the said guild happen to die within the year, that then the mayor for the time being, occupy that office of alderman for his time, and so forth the next year following, according to this act.“And that all the aldermen of the said city, that now are, and shall be in time coming, shall be made brethren of the said guild, without charge of the feast.“Also, that every man that is, or shall be chosen to be, of the common council of the said city, be admitted also to be a brother of the said guild if he like; and that by great diligence and deliberation had, as well for the worship of the said city as the said guild, that no man be chosen to the said commoncouncil, but such as are and seem for to be able and sufficient of discretion and good disposition, and that every man that shall be received a brother into the said guild, shall be sworn, and receive his oath in form that followeth:—“‘This hear, ye alderman and brethren of this fraternity and guild of the glorious martyr, St. George, in this city of Norwich, that from this day forward, the honour, prosperity, worships, profits, welfare, and surety of the fraternity and guild, after my power, I shall sustain, lawfully maintain and defend, and all lawful ordinances made or to be made, with all the circumstances and dependancies thereto belonging, truly and duly pay my dues after the said ordinances, without trouble or grievance of the said brethren and sisters, or of any officer of them, and Buxum to you aldermen and all your successors in all lawful commandments, to my power and cunning, so that this oath stretch not to any thing against the laws of God, nor against the laws of the land, nor against the liberties or franchises, the welfare, good peace, and rest of this city, nor against any panel of the oath that I have made afore to the king, and to the said city.’“Also, the said aldermen and common council of the guild, shall choose when they list, from henceforward, other men and women of the said city, beside the said alderman and common council, such asthey may think convenient by their discretion, and able thereto for to be brethren and sisters of the said guild.“Also, that there be no man chosen nor received from henceforth into the said guild, dwelling out of the said city, but if he be a knight or a squire, or else notably known for a gentleman of birth, or else that he be a person of great worship by his virtue, and by his truth and great cunning, or be some great notable means and cause of great worship, and yet that all manner of thing that shall appertain to the governance of the said guild, or to any possessions or goods thereof, or choosing of any brother into the said guild, or correction of any default done to any brother, or by any brother thereof, and all other things that appertaineth to the rules of the said guild, or by the more part of them dwelling within the said city.“Also, that all the possessions and moveable goods, that now or hereafter shall appertain to the said guild, be all only employed and applied to the worship of God and our Lady, and of the glorious martyr, St. George, and to the worship of the brethren of the said guild, and for the health of the souls of all those that have been brethren and sisters of the said guild, are and shall be in time coming, and in none otherwise; and hereto every man be sworn at his coming in specially, that henceforward shall beany other brother in the said guild, that he shall here do all that is in his power, and in no wise give his assent nor his favour to the contrary.“Also, that every year be chosen surveyors, and such convenient officers as shall be thought necessary by the discretion of the aldermen and brethren of the said guild; and that every year the said alderman and four brethren of the said guild, whereof two be aldermen of the said city, be chosen for to see a reckoning, and to know the disposition and governance of all the possessions, moveables, and goods appertaining to the said guild, and to make a writing of the estate thereof, and shew that to the brethren of the said guild yearly, or else to a certain number of brethren, resident in the said city thereto named.“Also, that every four years, once be given hoods or liveries of suit to each of the brethren of the said guild, and them honestly to be kept and worn to the worship of the glorious martyr, St. George, and of the brotherhood, if it seemeth to the said alderman and common council convenient.“Also, although the aldermen of the city, and every person of common council of the same city, be brethren of the same guild, yet if it happen that any of them, or any other citizen or brother of the said guild, be discharged of his aldermanship, or put out of the said common council, ordiscomynydagainsthis will, for a great and notable cause against his worship, that then forthwith he be discharged of the said guild; or else, whosoever be once a brother of the said guild, that he be a brother still, paying his duties, till he will wilfully serve his own discharge, or else for notable causes be reasonably discharged.“Also it is ordained that the alderman and twenty of the brethren, aforesaid, be for the assembly, and the common council of the said guild, and that it needeth not to have no greater number thereto; and that the alderman name thereof six, by his oath, that he choose no person by no manner persuaded, nor private means, nor for favour nor friendship of no person, nor of no parties, but such as to his conscience are most indifferent and best disposed, and best willed to the worship and welfare, rest, peace, and profit of all the city, and the said guild; and in like form, the six so chosen shall, by their taking the same oath, choose six of such persons of the said guild, according to their said oath; then the alderman, by his said oath, such other two which be aldermen of the said guild, of which two of the aldermen, and the more part of them, shall be and make the common council, and the assembly of the said guild; and if any of them should be warned to come to the said common council, if he then be resident in the said city, and come not, but if he hath reasonable excusation, that he pay 20d.for every day.“And that all the old rules and ordinances of the said guild shall be seen by the aldermen, and the said common council of the said guild, and all those that be good, reasonable, and convenient to the worship of God, our Lady, and the glorious martyr St. George, and to the weal and peace within the said city, shall be kept, with reasonable additions put thereto, if it need; and if any ambiguity or doubt hereafterwards fall for the understanding or execution of the said article, in case that the said alderman, and more part of the said common council cannot accord therein, that then it be reformed and determined by the advice of the said William Yelverton.“And if any brother now being, or in time coming shall be, do conspire or labour to attempt to do in any thing the contrary of any of these appointments, or any other in time coming, by the aldermen or more part of the common council to be made, and that reasonably proved upon him before the said alderman, and the more part of the said common council, that then he be forthwith discharged of the said guild, and that notified by the said alderman to the mayor, in the common council of the said city, that then, it done, he be discharged of his liberties and franchises of the said city, and unable ever to be citizen of the said city, or brother of the said guild, and taken and had as a forsworn man shamed and reproved, andreunein the pain of infamy.“Also, that all these articles abovesaid, be every year, once, or oftener if it be needed, be openly read before the said alderman, and all the brethren, or the most part of them. In witness of these premises to the one part of this indenture remaining towards the said mayor and commonality, the alderman and brethren of the said fraternity and guild have set their common seal; and to the other part of the said indenture, abiding toward the said alderman and brethren of the said guild, the mayor and commonality of the said city have set their common seal. Given and done at Norwich, the day and year aforesaid, in the time of the mayoralty of Ralph Segrim, when William Baily and John Gilbert were sheriffs, Thomas Allen, alderman of the aforesaid guild, according to the tenour of this agreement.“From thenceforth, the court of mayorality, justices, alderman, sheriffs, and common councilmen, were admitted and united to the fraternity of the glorious martyr St. George. The rank and importance of the members of the society may be inferred from the fact, of their admitting from the country none beneath the rank ofnotable gentlemen. The union of the two bodies took place fourteen years after the substitution of mayor and sheriffs for bailiffs.”

“The Mayor, Sheriffs, and Commonality of the City first united to the Fraternity of the Gylde of St. George, by the mediation of

Judge Yelverton.

“This writing indented, made the 27th day of March, the year of the reign of King Henry VI. the 30th, betwixt the mayor, sheriffs, and commonality of the city of Norwich, on the one part, and thealderman and brethren of the gylde of the glorious martyr, St. George, of the said city, of the other part, by the mediation and diligency of William Yelverton, Justice of our Lord the King, of his own place. Witnesseth that, as well the said mayor, sheriffs, and commonality, as the aforesaid aldermen and brethren of the said gylde, both according of all matters had or moved betwixt them, before this in manner and form, as in the articles hereafter shewing:—

“First, for to begin to the worship of God, our Lady, and of the glorious martyr, St. George, forasmuch as the Cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, of Norwich, is the most worshipful and convenient place, that the glorious martys, St. George, be worshipped by the aldermen and brethren of the said guild, that therefore in the said place, after the forms and effect of the old use had afore this time, the said alderman and brethren be there on the feast of St. George, or some other day in the manner accustomed, there to hear the first even-song, and on the morrow following, to go in procession and hear mass, and offer there in the worship of God and the said martyr; and also there for to hear the second even-song and placebo, and dirige, for the brethren and sisters’ souls of the said guild; and on the day next following be at the mass of requiem, and offer there for the souls of all the brethren and sisters of the said guildand all Christians; and that a priest be continued there in the form accustomed, for to sing and pray for the prosperity, welfare, and honourable estate of the most Christian prince, King Henry VI., our sovereign lord, and also for the welfare of William Yelverton, Justice, by whose mediation and diligence the said accord and appointments have been advised and engrossed.

“And then, for the welfare of all the brethren and sisters of the said guild and fraternity living, and also for the souls of King Henry V., first founder of the said guild, and for all other souls of all the brethren and sisters of the said guild, that be passed out of the world, and all Christian souls; and if ever afterwards the possessions of the said guild will stretch to sustain and find another priest, that then such priest shall be found for to pray in like form, and that poor men and women of the said guild be found and relieved by the said guild, as hath been accustomed, as the goods will stretch to save other charges and necessary expenses, to the worship of God and of the said martyr, and to the good conservation and continuance of the said brethren.

“Also, on the morning next after the solemnity of the said guild, kept in the worship of the glorious martyr, Saint George, the brethren of the said guild, and their successors, shall yearly choose the mayor of the said city, and that time being a brother of thesaid guild, for to be alderman of the said guild for all the next year following, after his discharge of his office of mayoralty, then forthwith to take the charge and occupation of the said office of aldermanship of the said fraternity and guild; and so every person chosen to be mayor yearly, after he hath occupied mayoralty for an whole year, to occupy the said aldermanship of the said guild; and in case he refuse to occupy the said aldermanship after his mayoralty, to pay unto the said fraternity 100s.to the use of the said guild, and that the old alderman stand still alderman, unto the time another be chosen unto the said office of alderman to the said guild; and if the alderman of the said guild happen to die within the year, that then the mayor for the time being, occupy that office of alderman for his time, and so forth the next year following, according to this act.

“And that all the aldermen of the said city, that now are, and shall be in time coming, shall be made brethren of the said guild, without charge of the feast.

“Also, that every man that is, or shall be chosen to be, of the common council of the said city, be admitted also to be a brother of the said guild if he like; and that by great diligence and deliberation had, as well for the worship of the said city as the said guild, that no man be chosen to the said commoncouncil, but such as are and seem for to be able and sufficient of discretion and good disposition, and that every man that shall be received a brother into the said guild, shall be sworn, and receive his oath in form that followeth:—

“‘This hear, ye alderman and brethren of this fraternity and guild of the glorious martyr, St. George, in this city of Norwich, that from this day forward, the honour, prosperity, worships, profits, welfare, and surety of the fraternity and guild, after my power, I shall sustain, lawfully maintain and defend, and all lawful ordinances made or to be made, with all the circumstances and dependancies thereto belonging, truly and duly pay my dues after the said ordinances, without trouble or grievance of the said brethren and sisters, or of any officer of them, and Buxum to you aldermen and all your successors in all lawful commandments, to my power and cunning, so that this oath stretch not to any thing against the laws of God, nor against the laws of the land, nor against the liberties or franchises, the welfare, good peace, and rest of this city, nor against any panel of the oath that I have made afore to the king, and to the said city.’

“Also, the said aldermen and common council of the guild, shall choose when they list, from henceforward, other men and women of the said city, beside the said alderman and common council, such asthey may think convenient by their discretion, and able thereto for to be brethren and sisters of the said guild.

“Also, that there be no man chosen nor received from henceforth into the said guild, dwelling out of the said city, but if he be a knight or a squire, or else notably known for a gentleman of birth, or else that he be a person of great worship by his virtue, and by his truth and great cunning, or be some great notable means and cause of great worship, and yet that all manner of thing that shall appertain to the governance of the said guild, or to any possessions or goods thereof, or choosing of any brother into the said guild, or correction of any default done to any brother, or by any brother thereof, and all other things that appertaineth to the rules of the said guild, or by the more part of them dwelling within the said city.

“Also, that all the possessions and moveable goods, that now or hereafter shall appertain to the said guild, be all only employed and applied to the worship of God and our Lady, and of the glorious martyr, St. George, and to the worship of the brethren of the said guild, and for the health of the souls of all those that have been brethren and sisters of the said guild, are and shall be in time coming, and in none otherwise; and hereto every man be sworn at his coming in specially, that henceforward shall beany other brother in the said guild, that he shall here do all that is in his power, and in no wise give his assent nor his favour to the contrary.

“Also, that every year be chosen surveyors, and such convenient officers as shall be thought necessary by the discretion of the aldermen and brethren of the said guild; and that every year the said alderman and four brethren of the said guild, whereof two be aldermen of the said city, be chosen for to see a reckoning, and to know the disposition and governance of all the possessions, moveables, and goods appertaining to the said guild, and to make a writing of the estate thereof, and shew that to the brethren of the said guild yearly, or else to a certain number of brethren, resident in the said city thereto named.

“Also, that every four years, once be given hoods or liveries of suit to each of the brethren of the said guild, and them honestly to be kept and worn to the worship of the glorious martyr, St. George, and of the brotherhood, if it seemeth to the said alderman and common council convenient.

“Also, although the aldermen of the city, and every person of common council of the same city, be brethren of the same guild, yet if it happen that any of them, or any other citizen or brother of the said guild, be discharged of his aldermanship, or put out of the said common council, ordiscomynydagainsthis will, for a great and notable cause against his worship, that then forthwith he be discharged of the said guild; or else, whosoever be once a brother of the said guild, that he be a brother still, paying his duties, till he will wilfully serve his own discharge, or else for notable causes be reasonably discharged.

“Also it is ordained that the alderman and twenty of the brethren, aforesaid, be for the assembly, and the common council of the said guild, and that it needeth not to have no greater number thereto; and that the alderman name thereof six, by his oath, that he choose no person by no manner persuaded, nor private means, nor for favour nor friendship of no person, nor of no parties, but such as to his conscience are most indifferent and best disposed, and best willed to the worship and welfare, rest, peace, and profit of all the city, and the said guild; and in like form, the six so chosen shall, by their taking the same oath, choose six of such persons of the said guild, according to their said oath; then the alderman, by his said oath, such other two which be aldermen of the said guild, of which two of the aldermen, and the more part of them, shall be and make the common council, and the assembly of the said guild; and if any of them should be warned to come to the said common council, if he then be resident in the said city, and come not, but if he hath reasonable excusation, that he pay 20d.for every day.

“And that all the old rules and ordinances of the said guild shall be seen by the aldermen, and the said common council of the said guild, and all those that be good, reasonable, and convenient to the worship of God, our Lady, and the glorious martyr St. George, and to the weal and peace within the said city, shall be kept, with reasonable additions put thereto, if it need; and if any ambiguity or doubt hereafterwards fall for the understanding or execution of the said article, in case that the said alderman, and more part of the said common council cannot accord therein, that then it be reformed and determined by the advice of the said William Yelverton.

“And if any brother now being, or in time coming shall be, do conspire or labour to attempt to do in any thing the contrary of any of these appointments, or any other in time coming, by the aldermen or more part of the common council to be made, and that reasonably proved upon him before the said alderman, and the more part of the said common council, that then he be forthwith discharged of the said guild, and that notified by the said alderman to the mayor, in the common council of the said city, that then, it done, he be discharged of his liberties and franchises of the said city, and unable ever to be citizen of the said city, or brother of the said guild, and taken and had as a forsworn man shamed and reproved, andreunein the pain of infamy.

“Also, that all these articles abovesaid, be every year, once, or oftener if it be needed, be openly read before the said alderman, and all the brethren, or the most part of them. In witness of these premises to the one part of this indenture remaining towards the said mayor and commonality, the alderman and brethren of the said fraternity and guild have set their common seal; and to the other part of the said indenture, abiding toward the said alderman and brethren of the said guild, the mayor and commonality of the said city have set their common seal. Given and done at Norwich, the day and year aforesaid, in the time of the mayoralty of Ralph Segrim, when William Baily and John Gilbert were sheriffs, Thomas Allen, alderman of the aforesaid guild, according to the tenour of this agreement.

“From thenceforth, the court of mayorality, justices, alderman, sheriffs, and common councilmen, were admitted and united to the fraternity of the glorious martyr St. George. The rank and importance of the members of the society may be inferred from the fact, of their admitting from the country none beneath the rank ofnotable gentlemen. The union of the two bodies took place fourteen years after the substitution of mayor and sheriffs for bailiffs.”

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