Linacre was at the sole expense of founding the college, for the crown merely granted the letters patent. These were issued in 1518, incorporating all physicians in London as one faculty and college, with power to elect a president, to use a common seal, and to hold lands not exceeding the annual value of £12. They were to hold assemblies and govern their faculty in London and within seven miles, all persons being interdicted from practice who did not hold their license. Four censors were to be chosen yearly, for the correction and government of physic and its professors, the examination of medicines, and the punishment of offenders; and physicians were to be exempt from attendance at assizes, inquests, and juries. The power of correction by fine or imprisonment occasioned some embarrassment at a subsequent period, for when some offenders were committed by the college, the gaolers would not receive them into prison, considering the college must charge itself with the custody of its own culprits. To obviate this difficulty a statute (I Mary, sess. 2, c. 9) was passed, requiring gaolers to receive persons committed by the college, and also enjoining all justices, mayors, &c., in London to assist the President of the college in searching for faulty apothecary wares. Various defects having been found in the original letters patent, they were confirmed by a statute, 14 Henry VIII. (1523), which provided among other things that no person except graduates of Oxford or Cambridge should be permitted to practise physic throughout England, unless examined and approved by the President of the College of Physicians of London, and at least three other selected members. Previous to Linacre’s time, the bishops or their vicars-general were the persons who could grant licences to practise medicine (in addition to the universities), and this power was long after this retained by them, although they called in physicians to assist them in determining to whom licences should be granted. As was but natural, Linacre was the first President of the college which owed its existence to himself, and he held that office till his death. His residence, the Stone House, in Knight-Rider Street, Paul’s Wharf, convenient for access to the Court, then kept up at Bridewell, was also the meeting-place of the college. The front portion of the house, a parlour below, and a council room and library above, were given to the college during his lifetime, and remained the property of the college until 1860.