If further illustration were required, to demonstrate how great is the right of the Horners’ Company to rank amongst the earliest of the acknowledged Trade Gilds, that proof is to be found in the study of what are known as “Adulterine” Gilds. These were unwarranted or unlicensed Gilds, and from time to time were heavily fined. There is no mention, however, of the Horners having been among such Gilds thus swooped down upon by the King, though lists are given of those who were mulcted from the twelfth century. The Horners could not have escaped had they been unwarranted at the time, and must, therefore, have possessed indisputable rights. Reference has been made to Richard Baroun and William Karlile. [Sidenote: Royal Grants must have existed.] Richard Baroun, we read, was one “whom the King retained to serve him with Horns & other things pertaining to his Mistery, & to whom was granted the King’s livery of clothing every year, in the great wardrobe, as other Horners of his condition had been wont to receive.” Thus William Karlile was a man of considerable importance in his own time, and a man of great wealth. To suppose that so important a Craft Gild, under the patronage of such influential persons, would neglect to arm itself with every possible weapon of defence, such as Grants and Charters, is to suppose the impossible, and, indeed, in the year 1455, towards the end of the reign of Henry VI, on petitioning to have further powers of administration conferred upon it, this Gild is expressly mentioned as having been already “enfranchised in the City of London,” a proceeding which could not possibly have been accomplished without something in the nature of a Royal grant. It would seem that owing to the very great antiquity of the Horners’ Company it held certain prescriptive privileges originally obtained by it or its “Guardianus” in exchange for certain goods from time to time supplied to the Royal household, and on this point further light may still be thrown. One such instance has come to light. Either the Company or the Guardianus in his official capacity as Horner to the King, would provide the Horn Comb used at the Coronation of every Sovereign until the time of Charles II. We have evidence that amongst the Coronation relics connected with Charles I which were sold, was a “Horn Comb.” This, in accordance with the practice even now in vogue at the Consecration of Roman Catholic Bishops, was used ceremonially after anointing the King’s head with oil. [Sidenote: Proof of earlier Charter.] As a culminating proof that the Caroline Charter was not the first and only Royal grant held by the Horners’ Company, we have but to turn to the Correspondence recently found in the British Museum, and it will at once become evident that the Horners were possessed of a Charter long before 1638. Mr. Carmarthen, writing to Lord Burghley in 1597, says: