sted ... and few or none were
left alive.... Such was the Valour and stoutness of these men that the
Lord Greie reported himself, that he never, in all the Wars that he had
been in, did know the like.'

In recognition of the loyalty shown by the citizens under this great
trial, Queen Elizabeth 'complimented the city with an augmentation of
arms,' and 'of her own free will added the well-known motto, _Semper
Fidelis_.' Encouraged by the Queen's protection, commerce increased and
prospered. Guilds had long flourished in Exeter, and it is recorded that
as early as 1477 there was a quarrel between the Mayor and citizens and
the Company of Taylors. A Guildhall existed even before there was a
Mayor of Exeter, but the present building dates from 1464. It has a fine
common hall, with a lofty, vaulted roof and much panelling, and the
panels are set with little shields, the arms of the Mayors, of various
companies, and certain benefactors to the city. Later was added the
cinque-cento front that projects over the footway, and has become so
essential a characteristic in the eyes of those who care for Exeter.
This front was built in 1593, and 'in its confusion of styles--English
windows between Italian columns--it has all the impress of that
transitional age.'

Many of the trades that throve in Exeter formed guilds, and in looking
casually at the names of a few of them, one finds that the bakers had
already a Master and Company in 1428-29, and that some years later the
charter of the Glovers and Skinners was renewed. In 1452 there was a
dispute as to whether the Cordwainers or Tuckers should take precedence
in the Mayor's procession, and later again the Guild of Weavers,
Sheremen, and Tuckers came still more prominently before the public.

'Trafiquing' in wool and woollen goods was the most important trade, and
though its zenith was passed in the seventeenth century, it continued to
do well till the later half of the eighteenth. Defoe speaks of the
'serge manufacture of Devonshire' as 'a trade too great to be described
in miniature,' and says he is told that at the weekly market 'sixty to
seventy to eighty, and sometimes a hundred, thousand pounds' value in
serges is sometimes sold.' Probably the account given him was a little
exaggerated, but Lysons quotes the statement that in the most prosperous
days L50,000 or L60,000 worth of woollen goods had been sold in a week.
Many were the petitions sent up to Parliament in the reign of