Again, from these great companies the Lord Mayor was always chosen. The first Mayor was Henry Fitzalwyn, “Draper,” near the London Stone, which is an ancient City relic still existing (but not on its original site) in Cannon Street, not many yards from the office of THE IRONMONGER, in which this history is first published exactly 700 years afterwards, for Fitzalwyn was first chosen in 1189, and continued to hold office twenty-four successive years. As we have said, the Lord Mayor was always “one of the Twelve”; but in 1742 Sir Robert Wilmot, “Cooper,” declining to be “translated” to the Clothworkers (as was the custom when the Mayor elect was of a minor company), and there being no law to compel him, he was consequently the first Mayor not of the great companies; and it is a curious fact that Wilmot’s predecessor in office was an ironmonger, and to this day the Coopers and the Ironmongers are associated in the Irish estate. After a lapse of 500 years it will be interesting to many, and to those who object to oath-taking in particular, if we give in its original form the wording of the Ironmongers’ Warden’s oath required to be taken before admission in the fiftieth year of Edward III. Its quaint phraseology must be our excuse for the transcript:—“Yᵉ shall swere that yᵉ shall wele and treuly ov’see the Craft of Iremongers’ wherof yᵉ be chosen Wardeyn for the yeere. And all the goode reules and ordynces of the same craft that been approved here be the Court, and noon other, yᵉ shal kepe and doo to be kept. And all the defautes that yᵉ fynde in the same Craft ydon to the Chambleyn of yᵉ Citee for the tyme beyng, yᵉ shal wele and treuly P’sente. Sparyng noo man for favor ne grevyng noo p’sone for hate. Extorcion ne wrong under colour of your office yᵉ shall non doo, nethir to noo thing thot shalbe ayenst the State, peas, and profite of oure Sovereyn Lord the Kyng or to the Citee yᵉ shall not consente, but for the tyme that yᵉ shalbe in office in all things thot shalbe longyng unto the same craft after the lawes and ffranchises of the seide Citee welle and laufully yᵉ shal have you. So helpe you God and all Seyntes.” In 1397, one of the years of “Dick Whittington” as Lord Mayor, a curious case came before the Court of Aldermen for decision. William Sevenoake, a native of Sevenoaks, in Kent, and who, subsequent to the date we mention, was Sheriff and Mayor of London, and founder of the schools and almshouses at Sevenoaks, prayed the Court to be enrolled on the Grocers’ Company, notwithstanding in his apprenticeship his master Hugh de Boys was called an ironmonger. The Grocers having proved the facts, William was accordingly entered as a grocer, and 40_s._ paid for the privilege.