In our previous chapters we have shown that the Ironmongers’ charter makes no mention of the Guild as specially incorporated for trade purposes or for the trade’s sole benefit, and that the earliest by-laws simply conferred the right of search and inspecting all weights and measures “used in the same feloshippe,” and consequently did not apply to the trade in general. In fact there was, and still remains, no compulsion upon an ironmonger to join the Company, although in ancient times, by charter-rights, he would be compelled to become a freeman of the City, which, as we have already stated, did not constitute him free of a Company as well. The Ironmongers’ charter was confirmed by Philip and Mary, June 20, 1558; by Queen Elizabeth, November 12, 1560; by James I., June 25, 1604; and by James II., November 19, 1687. The grant of this last-mentioned letters patent was made to the Companies generally after the stormy events of the previous four years, and as some reparation for the gross injustice done to his subjects by Charles II., when, under the power of the writ of _quo warranto_, he seized the City charters and disfranchised the very men who had been his best friends. This act of the “Merry Monarch,” and the shutting up of the Exchequer, the ruin of the goldsmiths and bankers, and the continuous oppression of the citizens by his brother James brought about sooner than royalty expected the destruction of the King, “the glorious Revolution of 1688,” and the accession of William III. on December 12 of that year, from which time, and by special Act in his second year, the Companies have been restored to their ancient position and privileges. And we firmly believe the lessons then learnt by the partisans of Charles and James, and handed down to their descendants, have not been forgotten by those still living in the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. In addition to these special charters there was yet another grant made, which, as regards their estates, is a complete answer to those who to-day say the Ironmongers’ property is not their own. It is “a perpetuitie” made to them and their successors for ever by James I., dated August 4, 1619. [Illustration: A CARVED WOOD OSTRICH, AS USED IN THE LORD MAYOR’S PAGEANT OF 1629. (See pages 33-35.) A BRONZE TOKEN, REPRESENTING THE GEFFERY ALMSHOUSES, ERECTED 1713-14. (See page 55.)]