Having purchased a house and garden, and regularly gone into housekeeping, the Ironmongers began their furnishing in humble style. Among the first articles purchased were the following:— x stoles iij_s._ iiij_d._ i fire forke } i pʳ tongs } xj_s._ vij_d._ i pʳ andyrons } i rake } vij candlestickes iij_s._ iiij_d._ i table and } ij tressels } iiij_s._ vj_d._ i caudron in a furneys in the kechen vij_d._ i pʳ bed bords in the chamber xx_d._ i water tankard xxij_d._ i cheste in the boterye, bounded wᵗʰ yron ij_s._ And the same accounts tell us that “the alderman and the bedill at ye possessyon takyng” received 2_s._ 6_d._ “For brede and ale at our possession takyn” 22_d._ was spent, while “barge hyre at twoo tymes” cost 14_s._, but there is no evidence what for, or where to the barges were so employed. It must not be said that the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers commenced incorporated existence extravagantly. And we shall be able to show in our next chapter that, as they began so they continued, careful in the management of their charity trusts, and frugal in all matters pertaining to their government. [Illustration: A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY COCOA-NUT CUP OR HANAP.] CHAPTER IV. FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF THE IRONMONGERS’ HISTORY.—I. Although Mr. Alderman Cotton, one of the Parliamentary City Companies’ Commissioners, reported five years ago “that the returns made to the Commission show conclusively that the members of the Livery Companies were never exclusively of the trade the name of which was borne by their Company, and that for about 400 years the larger proportion of the members have not pretended to follow the crafts of their Companies,” and that “the Livery Companies are not to be classed with friendly or benevolent societies, with monastic institutions, or with political or other clubs, but rather approached the character of a masonic body, exercising in the past and at the present time a very good and important moral influence not only upon citizens and City life, but upon public life generally,” and foremost in the promotion of education and charitable acts, we shall show that, like many other of the Companies, the Ironmongers’ has never proved indifferent to its particular trade or its kindred associations.