They were rulers; they were masters; they paid the wage; they laid their hands upon the profits. [Illustration: THE THAMES FRONT, A.D. 1540] Tradition--which is always on the side of the weak--maintains that the great merchants of the past, for the most part, made their way upward from the poorest and most penniless conditions. They came from the plough-tail or from the mechanic's shop; they entered the city paved with gold, friendless, with no more than twopence, if so much, in their pockets; they received scant favor and put up with rough fare. Then tradition makes a jump, and shows them, on the next lifting of the curtain, prosperous, rich, and in great honor. The typical London merchant is Dick Whittington, whose history was blazoned in the cheap books for all to read. One is loath to disturb venerable beliefs, but the facts of history are exactly the opposite. The merchant adventurer, diligent in his business, and therefore rewarded, as the wise man prophesied for him, by standing before princes, though he began life as a prentice, also began it as a gentleman. He belonged, at the outset, to a good family, and had good friends both in the country and the town. Piers Plowman never could and never did rise to great eminence in the city. The exceptions, which are few indeed, prove the rule. Against such a case as Sevenoke, the son of poor parents, who rose to be Lord Mayor, we have a hundred others in which the successful merchant starts with the advantage of gentle birth. Take, for example, the case of Whittington himself. He was the younger son of a Gloucestershire country gentleman, Sir William Whittington, a knight who was outlawed for some offence. His estate was at a village called Pauntley. In the church may still be seen the shield of Whittington impaling Fitzwarren--Richard's wife was Alice Fitzwarren. His mother belonged to the well-known Devonshire family of Mansell, and was a cousin of the Fitzwarrens. The Whittingtons were thus people of position and consideration, of knightly rank, _armigeri_, living on their own estates, which were sufficient but not large. For a younger son in the fourteenth century the choice of a career was limited. He might enter the service of a great lord and follow his fortunes. In that turbulent time there was fighting to be had at home as well as in France, and honor to be acquired, with rank and lands, by those who were fortunate. He might join the livery of the king. He might enter the Church: but youths of gentle blood did not in the fourteenth century flock readily to the Church. He might remain on the family estate and become a bailiff. He might go up to London and become a lawyer. There were none of the modern professions--no engineers, architects, bankers, journalists, painters, novelists, or dramatists; but there was trade.