All this was very distasteful to the respectable members of the company, from whose petition the above words are quoted, and henceforward the law did all it could to protect both the public from deceit and the guild from dishonor. Yet, since human law never yet reached an abuse upheld by obstinate men interested in law-breaking or law-evading, the ordinances had to be constantly renewed. As years went on the law was more and more disregarded. One order was passed in 1629 to confine the goldsmiths to Cheapside and Lombard Street; another in 1635, another in 1637, and two in 1638. Summary proceedings were taken against the intrusive shopkeepers who paraded their “mean trades” among the privileged goldsmiths. For instance, “if they should obstinately refuse and remain refractory, then to take security of them to perform the same by a certain day, or in default to commit them to prison until they conform themselves.” The arbitrary Star Chamber, whose rule under the later Stuarts became a real “Reign of Terror,” threatened that if such shops were not forthwith shut up, the alderman of the ward, or his deputy, should be committed to prison. But these were the last among the despotic threats of the terrible tribunal, which was soon after abolished, and the twenty-four common shops which were enumerated in 1638 as spoiling the fair appearance of Goldsmiths’ Row were soon reinforced by many others. The prohibitory ordinances ceased, and custom alone was not strong enough to expel intruders. Besides, the great fire soon came to sweep away almost the whole city, and the plague that preceded it did much to break up all local customs and attachments. The tide of fashion afterwards carried the jewellers with it, setting every year more and more to the west of the city, and the old landmarks and restrictions died a natural death. Lombard Street, however, originally named from the Lombard refugees who settled in London as bankers and pawnbrokers as well as jewellers, is still distinguished by the number of banks and imposing warehouses it contains, and by the comparatively stately architecture of some of its great commercial buildings.