Among the Memoranda of the Grocers’ Company, 1345, we may note “each member of the fraternity shall bring his wife or his companion to the dinner.” “And that all the wives that now are, and afterward shall become married to any of our Fraternitie; they shall be entered and esteemed as belonging to the Fraternitie _for ever_ to assist them and treat them as one of us, and after the decease of her husband the widowe shall still come to the said election dinner, and shall pay 40d. _if she be able_. And if the said widow is married to some other, who is not of our Fraternitie, she shall not come to the said dinner so long as she be ‘couverte de Baroun,’ nor ought any of us to meddle with her in anything, nor interfere on account of the Fraternitie so long as she is ‘couverte de Baroun’” (_see_ Mr. Kingdon’s translation of the Books of the Grocers’ Company, 1341-1463, printed in 1886). On a second widowhood she might return to the company. At a later date they did not seem to be so severe. One widow, interesting to me on other literary grounds, made her second and third husbands free of the company through the rights she gained from her first. Widows paid Brotherhood money, held Apprentices, traded and received all benefits of the Guild. The Company of Stationers seems to have followed similar customs. Many women carried on their husband’s business, and received apprentices, as Widow Herforde, Widow Alldee, Widow Vautrollier. (_See_ Arber’s reprint of “Stationer’s Registers” and Ames’ “Typographical Antiquities.”) In the “Journal of the House of Commons,” vol. ii., p. 331, December 3rd, 1641, we find two entries, “Ordered that the Committee for printing do meet to-morrow at eight of the clock in the Inner Court of Wards, and the printing of the Book of Queries is referred to that Committee.” “Ordered that Elizabeth Purslow, who, as this House is informed, printed the pamphlet entitled ‘Certain Queries of some Tender-Conscienced Christians,’ be summoned to attend the Committee appointed to examine the business.”