8th July, 1644. Whereas by Order of the Honourable house of Comõns assembled in Parliament of the 28{th} June last the President of the Colledge of Physicians was appointed to call this Company before them and to tender the Covenaunt by them This Court conceiveing their Priviledges to be thereby infringed this Co{rt} the M{r} doe advise with Councell Doth order that a Petic͠on be framed to be preferred by all the Assistants that are now present or the major part, to the House of Comõns to have the tendring of the Covenñt themselves to theire owne Members and the Charge to be allowed out of the Comõn stock. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE COMMONALTY. The admission to membership in the Company has ever been by servitude, patrimony, or redemption, and the fines and fees payable have varied so much at different periods in our history, and have frequently been so capricious, that no attempt has been made to tabulate them, though references will be made here and there to the prevailing fees of the period. The fees for apprentices have always been of a nominal description, and generally so of freemen, though, in olden time, the Court, as became the Masters of the mystery of “bleeding,” not unfrequently bled a new member by a substantial fine on admission, but also put him to the expense of a dinner into the bargain. [Footnote: The initial letter T is reduced from one in the Audit Book 1614-15.] An ample fine, suited to the period, has always been taken from the Liverymen who were, in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts a comparatively small section of the Company, and rarely exceeded fifty in number; they were always chosen from the more substantial of the Yeomanry, and if on election they refused “to take the clothing,” as was frequently the case, a heavy penalty was imposed, which, if not paid, the unhappy yeoman was forthwith committed to the Compter, where, upon reflection, he generally came to the conclusion to submit. It is right, however, to state that at all times the Court have, in cases where the proposed Liveryman was actually a poor man, remitted the fine, and allowed him to continue a yeoman; on the other hand, contumacious refusal was invariably met in the firmest manner and conquered. The practice of calling up yeomen to the Livery was at times resorted to as a means of putting the Company into funds, and as these calls generally took place at periods of national trouble, when the coffers of the Company had been emptied by the King or the Parliament, the intended Liverymen were themselves not unfrequently in sore straits, and great contentions arose. About one hundred and fifty years ago the practice of enforcing these fines was in regular operation, but since then it has been attended with varying success; not that the Company has not by law the power of enforcement, but a prejudice had grown up against the system, and the Court has been unwilling to sanction a resort to extremities.