uraged freedom of trade,
and is said to have invented bills of exchange. In 1525 he was nearly
expelled the Common Council for trying, at Wolsey's instigation, to
obtain a benevolence from the citizens. It is greatly to Gresham's
credit that he helped Wolsey after his fall, and Henry, who with all his
faults was magnanimous, liked Gresham none the worse for that. In the
interesting "Paston Letters" (Henry VI.), there are eleven letters of
one of Gresham's Norfolk ancestors, dated from London, and the seal a
grasshopper. Sir Richard Gresham died 1548 (Edward VI.), at Bethnal
Green, and was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Gresham's
daughter married an ancestor of the Marquis of Bath, and the Duke of
Buckingham and Lord Braybrooke are said to be descendants of his brother
John, so much has good City blood enriched our proud Norman aristocracy,
and so often has the full City purse gone to fill again the exhausted
treasury of the old knighthood. In 1545, Sir Martin Bowes (Goldsmith)
was mayor, and lent Henry VIII., whose purse was a cullender, the sum of
L300. Sir Martin was butler at Elizabeth's coronation, and left the
Goldsmiths' Company his gold fee cup, out of which the Queen drank. In
our history of the Goldsmiths' Company we have mentioned his portrait in
Goldsmiths' Hall. Alderman William Fitzwilliam, in this reign, also
nobly stood by his patron, Wolsey, after his fall; for which the King,
saying he had too few such servants, knighted him and made him a Privy
Councillor. When he died, in the year 1542, he was Knight of the Garter,
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
He left L100 to dower poor maidens, and his best "standing cup" to his
brethren, the Merchant Taylors. In 1536 the King invited the Lord Mayor,
Sir Raphe Warren (an ancestor of Cromwell and Hampden, says Mr.
Orridge), the aldermen, and forty of the principal citizens, to the
christening of the Princess Elizabeth, at Greenwich; and at the ceremony
the scarlet gowns and gold chains made a gallant show.

In Edward VI.'s reign, the Greshams again came to the front. In 1547,
Sir John Gresham, brother of the Sir Richard before mentioned, obtained
from Henry VIII. the hospital of St. Mary Bethlehem as an asylum for
lunatics.

In this reign the City Corporation lands (as being given by Papists for
superstitious uses) were all claimed for the King's use, to the amount
of L1,000 per annum. The London Corporation, u