At what period a Court of Assistants was created in our Company is unknown, but I am inclined to think the date is about 1480 to 1500. The four “Masters or Governors” (answering to our “Master and three Wardens”) were chosen out of the Commonalty by twelve electors yearly, and do not, as seems by the lists preserved, appear to have gone up annually by seniority as now they do, _i.e._, from third Warden to second, and so on. Those who had served as second, third, or fourth Governors, if not chosen to higher office the next year, as a general rule took their places again as simple liverymen; whilst those who had served as Prime or Chief Governor were, at the expiry of their term of office, designated “Ancient Masters,” and these, with some past Wardens, having become qualified by experience in the affairs of the Company would naturally be consulted by the ruling Governors who sought their “assistance” and advice, and thus grow up into a Court of Assistants[168] (nearly always in early time spelt “Assistance”) and be recognised to a great extent as a power in the direction of the Company’s business. [168] This theory is confirmed by the Ordinances made in 1566, whereby it was enacted that a liveryman _might_ be chosen an Assistant without having ever served the office of Governor. The earliest mention of Assistants is in the By-laws settled by Sir Thomas More in 1530, though throughout these By-laws the actual ruling power was evidently in the four Masters or Governors. The Assistants are here twice referred to, in one case where it is enacted that the Masters shall not admit a “fforen” to the freedom without the assent of the “xxiiij{ti} assistentes,” and in another place they are to have, with the Masters, the election of the Livery. The Act 32 Henry VIII is silent as to Assistants, vesting all power in the Masters or Governors. In 1557 at one of the Courts twenty-one Assistants and four Masters attended, and at a Court held 19th July, 1595, the names of twenty-five Assistants are recorded. The number seems to have varied with the times, the full Court, however, never exceeding four Masters and thirty-two Assistants. The Assistants have always been elected by the Court, and the custom became in time to choose the senior liveryman whenever a vacancy occurred, though there does not appear to have been at any time a by-law to that effect, and indeed this practice has been departed from on very many occasions. The Election of Masters prior to the year 1633 was on the Monday next before the feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle (Aug. 24); from 1633 to 1745 it was held on the third Thursday in August, and since 1745 it has been held on the second Thursday in August.