n end. Their
charter, books, regalia, and all that belonged to them were given up to
the Corporation, and arrangements made at the same time for the mayor's
procession and rejoicings upon a new footing. The dragon, the fools, and
whifflers, were continued and paid by the Corporation, but instead of the
St. George's company, the sixty common councilmen attended upon the newly
elected mayor on horseback in their gowns. The mayor was to make a guild
feast at his own charge, 150 pounds being given him towards the expenses
of his mayoralty.

"Thus (using the words of the writer) fell this honourable tyrannical
company, who had lorded it over the rest of the citizens, by laws of
their own making, for an hundred and fourscore years; had made all
ranks of men submit to them; neither had they any regard to the
meanness of persons' circumstances, by which they had been the ruin
of many families, and had occasioned much rancour and uneasiness
every annual election of common-councilmen, when the conquerors
always put the vanquished on to the livery; thereby delivering them
over to the mercy of St. George, who was sure to have a pluck at them
as they assembled and met together; until this gentleman alderman
Clarke had the courage to oppose and withstand them; and having taken
a great deal of pains and time, at last effected this great work, and
brought this insolent company to a final period; for which good deed
he ought to have his name transmitted to the latest posterity."

And now it behoves us to inquire who was St. George? Shall we be content
to hear of his mighty prowess, his renowned sanctity, and his eminent
exaltation as patron saint of our country, and the most famous guilds or
fraternities that have ever flourished in Christendom, and know nothing
of his origin, history, or reality? Shall we subscribe to the heretical
belief that St. George was neither more nor less than a soldier in the
army of Diocletian, who rewarded his great military exploits by cutting
off his head for advocating the cause of the Christians, and that
therefore he was elevated into the calendar of saints and martyrs in the
early church? Shall we deny that he ever went to war with an insatiable
dragon, who, having eaten up all the sheep and cattle in the
neighbourhood, was fed upon fair youths and maidens "from a city of
Libya, called Silene, and that he did mortally wound the said dragon a