body to fetch in the new Queen, Anne
of Cleves, "the Flemish mare," as her disappointed bridegroom called
her. The six goldsmiths must have looked very gallant in their black
velvet coats, gold chains, and velvet caps with brooches of gold; and
their servants in plain russet coats. Sir Martin Bowes was the great
goldsmith in this reign; he is the man whom Stow accused, when Lord
Mayor, of rooting up all the gravestones and monuments in the Grey
Friars, and selling them for L50. He left almshouses at Woolwich, and
two houses in Lombard Street, to the Company.

In 1546 (same reign) the Company sent twenty-four men, by royal order,
to the king's army. They were to be "honest, comely, and well-harnessed
persons--four of them bowmen, and twelve billmen. They were arrayed in
blue and red (after my Lord Norfolk's fashion), hats and hose red and
blue, and with doublets of white fustian." This same year, the greedy
despot Henry having discovered some slight inaccuracy in the assay,
contrived to extort from the poor abject goldsmiths a mighty fine of
3,000 marks. The year this English Ahab died, the Goldsmiths resolved,
in compliment to the Reformation, to break up the image of their patron
saint, and also a great standing cup with an image of the same saint
upon the top. Among the Company's plate there still exists a goodly cup
given by Sir Martin Bowes, and which is said to be the same from which
Queen Elizabeth drank at her coronation.

The government of the Company has been seen to have been vested in an
alderman in the reign of Henry II., and in four wardens as early as 28
Edward I. The wardens were divided, at a later period, into a prime
warden (always an alderman of London), a second warden, and two renter
wardens. The clerk, under the name of "clerk-comptroller," is not
mentioned till 1494; but a similar officer must have been established
much earlier. Four auditors and two porters are named in the reign of
Henry VI. The assayer, or as he is now called, assay warden (to whom
were afterwards joined two assistants), is peculiar to the Goldsmiths.

The Company's assay of the coin, or trial of the pix, a curious
proceeding of great solemnity, now takes place every year. "It is," says
Herbert, in his "City Companies," "an investigation or inquiry into the
purity and weight of the money coined, before the Lords of the Council,
and is aided by the professional knowledge of a jury of the Goldsmiths'
Company; and in a writ dire