It was undoubtedly townsfolk who were the principal founders of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The name of many an old merchant-prince is still a household word in his native place, where some institution remains as a noble record of his bounty. St. John’s, Winchester, for example, was erected by an alderman, JOHN DEVENISH, its revenues being increased by another of the family and by a later mayor; and the memory of benefactors was kept fresh by a “love-feast and merry meeting” on the Sunday after Midsummer Day. WILLIAM ELSYNG established a large almshouse near Cripplegate. He was a mercer of influential position, being given a licence to travel in the [p082] king’s service beyond seas with Henry of Lancaster; and it may have been this nobleman’s charitable work in Leicester that inspired the foundation known as “Our Lady of Elsyngspital.” A more famous London mercer, RICHARD WHITTINGTON, proved himself the “model merchant of the Middle Ages”; Lysons records his manifold beneficent deeds. Although he did not live long enough to carry out all his schemes, his executors completed them, and in particular, the almshouse attached to St. Michael Royal. In a deed drawn up after his death (1423) and now preserved in the Mercers’ Hall, is a fine pen-and-ink sketch which depicts the passing of this “father of the poor.” (Pl. IX.) John Carpenter and other friends stand round the sick man; nor are we left in doubt as to the significance of the group at the foot of the bed—evidently twelve bedemen, led by one who holds a rosary in token of his intercessory office—it being recorded in the document that:— “the foresayde worthy and notable merchaunt, Richard Whittington, the which while he leued had ryght liberal and large hands to the needy and poure people, charged streitly on his death bed us his foresayde executors to ordeyne a house of almes, after his death . . . and thereupon fully he declared his will unto us.”[59] The same benefactor not only repaired St. Bartholomew’s, but added a refuge for women to St. Thomas’, Southwark, as is set forth by William Gregory, one of Whittington’s successors in the mayoralty:— [Illustration: _PLATE IX._ THE DEATH OF RICHARD WHITTINGTON] “And that nobyl marchaunt Rycharde Whytyngdon, made a new chamby[r] with viij beddys for yong weme[n] that hadde done a-mysse in truste of a good mendement. And he [p083] commaundyd that alle the thyngys that ben don in that chambyr shulde be kepte secrete with owte forthe, yn payne of lesynge of hyr leuynge; for he wolde not shame no yonge women in noo wyse, for hyt myght be cause of hyr lettyng of hyr maryage.” “Verily,” we exclaim with Lysons, “there seems to be no end to the good deeds of this good man.”