The Merchant Adventurers Company gradually became detached from the Mercers Company in the course of the fifteenth century, especially by the opening of the trade with Flanders in the year 1497; and yet more so in 1564, when Queen Elizabeth, by charter, constituted the Merchant Adventurers a distinct body politic or corporation in England; but the Mercers Company still kept up an intimate connection with the “Brotherhood beyond the Sea,” the last link connecting the two companies being only severed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed the office which the Merchant Adventurers held of the mercers under Mercers’ Hall. It is probable, however, that trade in former times was separated into main divisions, the staple and the miscellaneous, now known as mercery. Silk, when first imported, fell in England into the latter division, hence the combined appellation “silk mercers”; but on the Continent the word was applied to the vendors of all goods carried about for sale. Cervantes, speaking of the original history in Arabic of Don Quixote, says he purchased it of a book mercer; and Guicciardini, in his description of the Netherlands, speaks of merceries as well of silk as of other materials, and in another place says that mercery comprehends all things sold by retail or by the little balance or scales. Skinner, in his _Etymologicon_, published in 1671, says “that a mercer was _mercator peripateticus_” or an itinerant merchant. The master and wardens superintended the taking of apprentices by their members, searching the weights and measures of shopkeepers belonging to the Company, and otherwise regulating their commercial dealings. The Company appointed brokers of mercery wares, under the first charter to the City by Edward II., by which it was declared that there should be no brokers in the City but those chosen by the merchants in the mysteries in which they exercised their office, and under the charter of Edward III., which declared that none should exercise the office of broker in foreign merchandise in London unless chosen by the merchants of the mysteries in which they should act. The Company also appointed a common meter of linen cloth and silk, a common weigher of raw silk, and tackle porters to do their work at the waterside. The Company no longer appoint to any of these offices, because of the different methods of carrying on business which have obtained in modern times. In the 13th year of Edward II. the Companies had advanced towards the phase of “Livery Companies.” “_Moultz des gens de Mesters en Loundres furent vestus de suite._”