The Yeomanry answered exactly to the class of Members who are now styled “Freemen,” and for a long period were the most numerous body in the Company. In early times the numbers of the Livery or Clothing were strictly limited, and under the Tudors and Stuarts rarely exceeded fifty, but as the persons who were compelled to take up their freedom, and those who came in voluntarily or by patrimony and servitude have always been a numerous section, it appears to have been considered politic to give a constitution to these inferior members of the Mystery, and consequently a Yeomanry, or Company within the Company was set up, and to this the new freeman was admitted after he had been presented and sworn before the Masters or Governors of the Clothing. The Court of the Company framed the Ordinances for the Yeomanry, and whilst delegating to them many of their own privileges, as, for instance, the power to levy fines, and to summarily commit offenders to prison, they always seem to have retained a very tight and jealous hand over them, and were constantly interfering with the Wardens of the Yeomanry. The Yeomanry had their own four Wardens and Court of Assistants, their Beadle and mace, common box, standing cups and other silver plate, their annual dinner, and sometimes, when in a flourishing condition, no less than four dinners in the year, their “corrector” for apprentices, and they also possessed the choice privilege of collecting the quarterage from their members. Under such auspicious circumstances, it could hardly be otherwise than that, in process of time, they should become both presumptuous and audacious and thus provoke inevitable collision with the Ruling body of the Company. The Wardens of the Yeomanry at one period had designated themselves, or certainly encouraged others to describe them, as “The Wardens of the Barber-Surgeons,” an assumption not to be tolerated, and, like their Masters on the Clothing, had been accustomed to go to their homes (after their gatherings and feasts) in state, accompanied by a “trayne or traynes”; these acts of presumption called forth the restraining order of the 15th September, 1588 (_vide post_). Later on we find that they went “in searche to see what serˀvnts some ffremen of the Companie had, w{ch} they ought not to do,” they gave way to too much feasting and arbitrarily exercised their powers of fine and imprisonment, all which offences brought them reprimands, and somewhere about the year 1604 their temporary extinguishment. They were, however, soon after re-erected, but in the year 1635 permanently “disestablished and disendowed.” Although the Constitution of the “Yeomanry” was then abolished, the appellation was retained for over 200 years after, though merely as a traditional distinctive name synonymous with that of “freemen.” Thus, the whifflers for Lord Mayor’s day were always chosen out of the “Yeomanry,” and members of the “Yeomanry” are continually spoken of as being chosen into the Livery.