The history of the guilds is such a long one that their beginning is lost in Time’s mist. Mr. Muirhead says that “the chief object of their foundation was to afford religious and temporal and social fellowship, and trade supervision and help to the members of their fraternity or mystery,”--but they were not incorporated till the reign of Edward. Most of their halls date from the days of Henry VIII., when, grown rich and powerful, they looked about them for a home and were glad to buy from the avaricious king the houses of fugitive monks or favourites fallen into disgrace. But property so acquired was doomed to perish, and in the Great Fire of 1666 the ancient halls, almost without exception, were burnt to the ground. “Strange it is to see Clothworkers’ Hall on fire, these three days and nights in one body of flame, it being the cellar full of oyle,” says Pepys, who was a Master of the company. They have a fine collection of gold plate only used at state banquets, with a gold tray presented by Pepys in 1677 and also an immense loving-cup richly chased, that is now shown in a glass case on the sideboard, as it began to show signs of much handling. The halls were rebuilt afterwards,--some, like the Vintners’ in 68 Upper Thames Street, and possibly the Haberdashers’ in Gresham Street, by Wren,--but by the beginning of the eighteen hundreds most of them seem to have fallen into such disrepair as to require rebuilding again. One at least, the Merchant Taylors’, the largest hall of all, which faces Threadneedle Street, stands as originally erected, with its little crypt beneath it, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, for though the roof and walls were damaged by the Great Fire, the main building is still intact. This is a rich and proud company, with its income of £60,000 a year, and its fine gallery of royalties and distinguished personages, numbering many kings among its freemen. Yet not so proud as the Mercers’, first on the list, which will not admit visitors to its hall in 87 Cheapside. Whittington and Sir Thomas Gresham were mercers. Within the walls is kept the famous Legh cup (1499), always used at City banquets and supposed to be one of the finest pieces of English mediæval plate in existence. The chapel adjoining the hall, whose handsome front, erected immediately after the Great Fire, you may inspect at any rate, is on the site of Thomas à Becket’s house. Close by in Prince’s Street, opposite the Bank of England, is the hall of the Grocers, once called the Pepperers, a guild with advanced notions for the Middle Ages, for they apparently believed in the equality of women. The wives of the Grocers were members as well, and were even fined if they were absent from the banquets for any avoidable reason. “Grocer” is one of those words that have grown less honourable with time, for a grocer formerly meant one who dealt _en gros_ (wholesale).