A singular story belongs to the arrival of the French embassy charged with negotiating the marriage of the King’s infant daughter and the Dauphin. The ambassadors were escorted by a company of their own King’s bodyguard and another of the English King’s bodyguard. They were met at Blackheath by the Earl of Surrey, richly apparelled, and a hundred and sixty gentlemen; four hundred archers followed; they were lodged in the merchants’ houses and banqueted at Taylors’ Hall. And then, says the historian, “the French hardermen opened their wares and made Taylors’ Hall like to the paunde of a mart. At this doing many an Englishman grudged but it avayled not.” In other words, a lot of French hucksters, under cover of the embassy, brought over smuggled goods and sold them in the Taylors’ Hall at a lower price than the English makers could afford. The reception of the Emperor Charles by Henry in this year was as royally magnificent as even Henry himself could desire. The procession was like others of the same period and may be omitted. In 1524 a curious proclamation was made by the Mayor. Evidently papers or letters of importance had been lost. “My lorde the maire streihtly chargith and commaundith on the king or soveraigne lordis behalf that if any maner of person or persons that have founde a hat with certeyn lettres and other billes and writinges therin enclosed, which lettres been directed to our said sovereign from the parties of beyond the see, let hym or theym bryng the said hat, lettres, and writinges unto my saide lorde the maire in all the hast possible and they shalbe well rewarded for their labour, and that no maner of person kepe the said hat, lettres, and writinges nor noon of them after this proclamacioun made, uppon payn of deth, and God save the king.” (Sharpe, _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 373.) [Illustration: EASTCHEAP MARKET From an old drawing in British Museum.]