It was contended before the Commissioners in 1882 that the whole of the charters of the Companies are bad because the King parted with his right to grant charters conferring the right of search. Without attempting to enter into the question, or debate the correctness of such an assertion, as only a lawyer could and would in “the good old times,” upon the power of the sovereign to make a grant which has stood the test of centuries, no such right is to be found in either of the Ironmongers’ charters. The records of the Company show that statutory legislation for the protection and regulation of the iron trade was enacted in the reign of Henry IV., Richard III., Henry VIII., and Edward VI., and that on certain occasions this Company have laid abuses of the trade before the Common Council that they might deal therewith, this company not having the power in itself. Amongst its own commonalty only the Ironmongers’ exercised supervision and control of trading, but as none of the trade joined the Company other than of their own free will and for their own good, obedience to such control can only be regarded as voluntary, and not as infringing the liberty of the subject contrary to the provisions of Magna Charta. We therefore desire in the present chapter, while giving a chronicle of the Ironmongers’ progress during the past 400 years, to show that the old City Guild has a history in many respects peculiarly its own, and that since its incorporation it has frequently proved most valuable to the State, the City, and the people. And yet the Ironmongers as brethren have had their troubles. Witness the City Sheriff of 1479, Robert Byfield by name and Ironmonger by Company, who, with Sir Bartholomew James, the then Lord Mayor, attended prayers at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and had the audacity to kneel too close to his Civic Majesty. His Lordship chid him for the affront; Mr. Sheriff resented the scolding, and the end of the extraordinary squabble was that the Court of Aldermen tried the case, and fined Mr. Byfield, who, says Stow, “payd 50_l._ towards the water conduits,” one of which, the great conduit in Cheapside, was then building. Our Sheriff, who resided in Tower Street, did not long survive the trial, for he died in 1482, and by his will proved he was far from being unmindful of religious or charitable influences, for he not only founded a chapel and made many bequests, but did not forget his poorer brethren in Fenchurch Street.