The allusion in the State Papers was due to a letter which the Lord Mayor had written, on June 30, to the Lord Treasurer, enclosing a petition from the shopkeepers of the Royal Exchange "concerning a building in course of erection at Durham House in the Strand," which they considered was meant to be employed as "a Pawne or Exchange for the sale of things usually uttered in the Royal Exchange, and which, being situated near to Whitehall and in the highway, would be injurious not only to the shopkeepers and citizens at large," but would tend to the destruction of trade. Another authority says: "The new Bourse at Durham House goes up apace, where the Citizens, and especially the Exchange men, begin to grumble ... and thereupon have made a petition to the Lord Mayor to provide _ne quid detrimenti republica capiet_."[9] Scant notice, if any, was taken of this petition from the City, and the building of Britain's Burse proceeded without hindrance. The Exchange consisted of four separate places: the Outward Walk below Stairs; the Inner Walk below Stairs; the Outward Walk above Stairs; and the Inner Walk above Stairs. Its opening, on April 11, 1609, was graced by the presence of James I. and his queen, "when," according to Anthony Munday, the poet and playwright and literary executor of Stow, whose _Survey_ he produced in 1618, "it pleased his most excellent Majesty, because the work wanted a name, to entitle it Britain's Burse." Stow also says: "Now to speak somewhat of later time concerning this Durham House, it was well knowne and observed, for how many yeers I know not, that the outward part belonging thereto, and standing North from the houses, was but a low row of Stables, old, ruinous, ready to fall, and very unsightly, in so public a passage to the Court at Westminster. Upon which consideration, or some more especial respect in the mind of the right honourable Robert, Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer of England: it pleased him to take such order in the matter, that (at his owne cost and charges), that deformed row of Stabling was quite altered, by the erection of a very goodly and beautiful building instead thereof, and in the very same place. Some shape of the modelling, though not in all respects alike, was after the fashion of the Royall Exchange in London, with Sellers underneath, a walk fairly paved above it, and Rowes of Shops above, as also one beneath answerable in manner to the other and intended for the like trades and mysteries.