But not alone and personally have the Ironmongers suffered. Our early Monarchs appear to have considered the rich and powerful Citizens a fair field for plunder. While Royalty was privileged to run to excesses, and by extravagance spent the income their loyal subjects provided, the Citizens, because they exercised their moral and more business-like spirit of showing a balance on the right side of the ledger, were made victims of repeated extortions. It is no use denying, and unjust to deny, that our Sovereigns have so loved London as to sacrifice their comfort or their greed by visiting it for other than personal motives, and the records show but too plainly that Royalty in the past has depended upon the wealth of “a nation of shopkeepers” for a constant supply of the “needful.” The Royal draw upon the City purse commenced early in London’s existence, and great has been the loss to the Citizens; and yet to-day there are those who still clamour for the extinction of the very source which has kept the nation alive! Our remarks are not overdrawn, as our proofs are many—too many, in fact, to be detailed at large. One or two must suffice now. Beginning, then, more than 350 years ago, King Henry VIII. set a bad example to his descendants. Having asked the City for 20,000_l._—only as a loan, of course—in the year 1523, he, the more readily to raise it, “comandyed to have all the money and platt that was belonging to every hawlle or craft,” and so the poor Ironmongers had to pay up among the other Companies. The book sorrowfully records, “At the whyche comandmentt he had all oure money,” and that amounting to only 25_l._ 1_s._ 2_d._, the plate was pawned or sold, realising 46_l._ more, or a total of 71_l._ 14_s._ 2_d._; and even then, not being satisfied, twenty of the richest members of the Company “lent” him out of their own pockets something like 190_l._, “Mr. Willm Denham oure Warden” heading the list with 30_l._ We hope he was repaid, but we doubt it.