like that now appropriated to the princes of Wales: the throne has a scarlet drapery, and rests on a black and yellow checquered pavement; the back ground is composed of crimson hangings elegantly figured. The livery wear a dress of two colours, red and blue, or the murrey and plunket just mentioned, "parted," or divided into equal halves, according to the peculiar fashion of the period;* it is furred at the bottom, skirts, and round the collar, and closed at the waist by a light-coloured girdle, possibly of the sort described in the statue of 15 Richard II., c. 11, as "the girdles garnished with white metal, of old time used." The figures have their hair cropped, somewhat in the monkish style, and wear scarlet pantaloons piqued at the toes.

The next engraving represents the livery dress two centuries later; and, though not exactly in place here as to date, is given for the sake of comparison. It is from illuminations in the border of a second charter granted to this company by James I. The dress at this period strongly assimilated with that now in use; the difference principally consisting in the liverymen wearing caps and hoods, and having a long furred lappet pendant from the gown-sleeves. The hoods are parted, red and black, like those of the graduates in our Universities;

Party-coloured gowns were not confined to the Livery Companies at this date. Strype had read that "in ancient times, the officers of this city wore gowns of party colours, namely, the right side of one colour and the left side of another; as, for example, he adds, "I read in books of accounts in Guildhall, that in the 19th year of Henry VI. there was bought for an officer's gown two yards of cloth, viz. coloured mustard villars, (a colour now out of use,) and two yards of cloth coloured blew, price 2s. the yard, in all 8s. More paid to John Pope, draper, for two gown cloths, eight yards of two colours, eux ambo deux de rouge, or red; medley brune and porre (or purple) colour, price, the yard, 2s. These gowns were for Piers Rider and John Buckle, clerks of the chamber."

The same writer states that, subsequently it became a custom for the mayor and the sheriff's to give liveries. That the clerks of companies returned to the former the names of members who wished for the mayor's livery; each whereof had to send 20s. at least, in a purse, with his name, as a benevolence or part payment, and for which the mayor returned him four yards of cloth for a gown, "of the mayor's livery." The cloth was rayed, or striped across, like the above worn by the brewers; and the gowns were called "ray gowns." On Sir William Bailey becoming mayor, in 1516, he requested liberty to give cloth of only one colour for these gowns, and the matter being debated in the common council, a member answered, (according to Stow,) and said, "yea, it might be permitted," and no man said nay, and so it passed." Sir William Lodge, when mayor, discontinued the use of cloth for gowns, and gave satin to make doublets instead; which latter, our author quaintly adds, "was at length turned into a silver spoon, and so it holdeth."

the gowns are black, &c., trimmed with "budge," or "foins."

The colours of the hoods, between the above periods, are particularized in the books of the merchant tailors', of the date 1568-9, about which period this part of the dress appears to have been quite arbitrary, varying from scarlet, with "puke," or "between black and russet," to "crimson and puke," and then again to "scarlet and crimson." The entries also state this company to have had a superior and inferior livery:

"1568. Agreed by the court that there shall not at any time hereafter be more livery members of the mystery that shall be of the livery of this mystery, who shall wear any other colours in their hoods at any times, but only scarlet and puke; and those colours to stand both for the best, and second liveries; and any hood or hoods made of the colours of crimson and puke, shall not hereafter be worn by any of the livery." This order is afterwards followed by another, to bring to the hall "the hoods of the livery that are scarlet and crimson," in lieu of others to be given them, and for which there should be paid "what the wardens should judge reasonable."

Such were the common liveries of the companies at the dates mentioned. On occasions of shew and triumph, and particularly when in compliment to royalty, changes were made in order to render them more splendid; as "blew

F

gowns, with red hoods;" "brown-blew, with broaderyd sleevys;" and "red, with hoods red and white." To this selection of vivid colours, the shewy effect of which can be easily imagined, there were likewise added the glittering ornament of the company's "trade conuzances," which were always "embroidered" on some conspicuous part of the dress.

Observances. The "observances" of the companies, in which we include all matters of ceremonial, cost, and custom, at their elections, funerals, and attendances on state and civic triumphs, form a part of their history especially calculated to please the general reader. They afford illustrations. of the manners, expenses, dress and state of society in former times, which interest and inform us by comparison; while at the same time they delight the imagination by the novel and romantically coloured effect of the scenes they present. We relish Lydgate's minutely faithful descriptions of the shews and processions of "the Trades," notwithstanding the uncouthness of his poetry, and like to hear him

"Tellen alle the circumstauncys

Of every thyng shewed in sentencs,
Noble devyses, diverse ordinauncys,

Conveid be scripture with ful gret excellence;
When all the peple glad of look and cher,
Ythemkyd God with alle there hertys entier,
To se there kyng repair to there citee,

Middes meir, citezeins, and al the comonte."

What confers an additional interest on the shows of this period is, that almost all the ceremonies of the companies, and indeed, every public act, was then more or less mixed up with the catholic religion; a religion which, uniting with it a peculiar splendor of worship, shed over them a lustre, which we find but faintly reflected, on its disuse. In fact, the companies, as already observed, were themselves at first half-ecclesiastical bodies, and therefore naturally partook in these respects of the order from which they sprung.*

• This demi-religious character evidenced itself in the mode of their foundation; in their choosing patron saints and chaplains; founding altars to such saints in the churches they held the advowson of, and in various other ways: none of the trades assembled to form fraternities, without ranging themselves under the banner of some saint; and, if possible, they chose a saint who either bore a relation to their trade, or to some other analogous circumstance. The fishmongers adopted St. Peter, and met, as we have seen, at St. Peter's church;

ELECTIONS more particularly displayed this ecclesiastical part of their character. Having purchased their livery cloth, cut it up to the jollity of a good dinner, and distributed and had it made up, the fraternity, en masse, on the morning of the patron saint's day, appeared at the hall in their new suits. But little refreshment, if any, was allowed; a strict attendance on religious duties uniformly preceding the indulgence of festivity. They then proceeded to church. We have no accounts of these processions being distinguished for splendor in early times. They were certainly plainer than afterwards, and derived their imposing effect chiefly, perhaps, from the freshness of the company's new dresses, a trade-banner or two, and their being headed by their domestic priest and beadle. The grocers, in 1346, are merely said to have agreed by "com'on assente, yat everie man of the brotherh, hee being yn the cytie the daie of St. Antonyne, yn the monyth of Maye, shall comen to the cherche of Seint Antonyne aforesaid, yf they bee in London, for to here the high masse, and there to abyde from the begynnyne unto the endyng of the masse, and eche of them shall offre a peny in the worshype of God, his blessed moder Marye, Seint Antonyne, and all seyntes."

the drapers chose the Virgin Mary, mother of the "Holy Lamb," or fleece, as the emblem of that trade, and appropriately assembled, in like manner, at St. Mary Bethlem church, Bishopsgate; the goldsmiths' patron was St. Dunstan, reputed to have been a brother artisan; the merchant tailors', another branch of the draping business, marked their connexion with it by selecting St. John Baptist, who was the harbinger of the Holy Lamb so adopted by the drapers, and which, as being anciently cloth-dealers, still constitutes the crest of that society. In other cases, the companies denominated themselves fraternities of the particular saint in whose church or chapel they assembled, and had their altar. Thus, the grocers called themselves "the fraternity of St. Anthony," because they had their altar in St. Anthony's church; the vintners, "the fraternity of St. Martin," from the like connexion with St. Martin's Vintry church; and the skinners, and the salters, both societies of Corpus Christi, from meeting, the one at the altar of that name in St. Laurence Poultry church; and the other at Corpus Christi chapel, in All Saints, Bread-street. The similarity of their dress to the monastic orders has been already adverted to. Like them, too, they professed their societies to be founded in honour of particular patrons, conjointly with the Deity or the Virgin, and for the promotion of piety,-or" in the hon? of God, bis meek mother (douche mere,) and of Seynt Antonyne and Alle Seynts," as the grocers profess in their ordinances of 1345; and to which their second ordinances (1379) add, "for advancing the honor of God and his holy chirche, and enlarging the hour of charity." Numerous other proofs of religious character might be adduced, were it necessary. Indeed, it has been truly observed, that "the maintenance of their arts and mysteries' during several ages, was blended with so many customs and observances, that it was not till the times subsequently to the Reformation that the fraternities could be regarded as strictly secular.”

The fishmongers, in 1426, had an ordinance to the same purport; but it only directs that every year, on the festival of St. Peter, "alle the brethren and sustern of the same frat:nite shall come in their newe lyve to the chirche of Seint Peter, and there here a solemyne masse in the worship of God and Seint Peter, and offir atte offering tyme of the same masse what at is her devocion."

At later periods, however, the fraternities made procession to their respective churches in great form. They were then accompanied by the religious orders in their rich costumes, bearing wax torches and singing, and frequently attended by the lord mayor and great civic authorities in state. The skinners' fraternity of Corpus Christi are so described by Stow to have made their procession on Corpus Christi day; having "borne before them," he tells us, "more than two hundred torches of wax, costly garnished, burning bright," (or painted and gilded with various devices, as was then the fashion;) "and above two hundred clerks and priests in surplices and copes, singing: after which came the sheriffs' servants, the clerks of the compters, chaplains to the sheriffs, the mayor's serjeants, counsell of the city, the mayor and aldermen in scarlet, and then the skinners, in their best liveries." Their return, of course, brought their great guests home to dinner, where old English hospitality was displayed in all its magnificence and profusion, as will be presently described.*

The further religious part of the ceremonies pertaining to elections were not furnished till the following Sunday. They then went again in procession to church, to hear a mass

• A temporary revival of these imposing shews took place in Mary's days, previously to their final discontinuance. Fabian, writing of that reign, in his Chronicle, says:

"The xiij daie of Maie was mondai in whitsun weke, and then came the procession of St. Peter in Cornhill, with divers other parishes, and the maier and aldermen, fishmongers and goldsmiths, vnto Powles, after the old custome, and other processions all the three daies, as they were wont to do." (p. 74.)

At the beginning of the same reign an entry in the grocers' books, (which company had, with others, before discontinued the catholic ceremonies,) notices that company's readoption of them in the following terms:

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"Senday, June 8, 1556-My maistres the aldermen, the wardeyns, and the hole leverie, assembled at their comon house, called Grocers' Havll,' and from thens they went to their churche, called St. Stevens, Walbroke, (St. Anthony's church having been destroyed with the hospital,) where they heard dirge songe; and that being ended, they returned to their sayde havll, where they drank according to their olde custome."