he Civil
War, when wealthy citizens, afraid of what might happen, entrusted their
money to their goldsmiths to take care of till the troubles had blown
over. In the reign of Charles I., Francis Child, an industrious
apprentice of the old school, married the daughter of his master,
William Wheeler, a goldsmith, who lived one door west of Temple Bar, and
in due time succeeded to his estate and business. In the first London
Directory (1677), among the fifty-eight goldsmiths, thirty-eight of whom
lived in Lombard Street, "Blanchard & Child," at the "Marygold," Fleet
Street, figure conspicuously as "keeping running cashes." The original
Marygold (sometimes mistaken for a rising sun), with the motto, "Ainsi
mon ame," gilt upon a green ground, elegantly designed in the French
manner, is still to be seen in the front office, and a marigold in full
bloom still blossoms on the bank cheques. In the year 1678 it was at Mr.
Blanchard's, the goldsmith's, next door to Temple Bar, that Dryden the
poet, bruised and angry, deposited L50 as a reward for any one who would
discover the bullies of Lord Rochester who had beaten him in Rose Alley
for some scurrilous verses really written by the Earl of Dorset. The
advertisement promises, if the discoverer be himself one of the actors,
he shall still have the L50, without letting his name be known or
receiving the least trouble by any prosecution. Black Will's cudgel was,
after all, a clumsy way of making a repartee. Late in Charles II.'s
reign Alderman Backwell entered the wealthy firm; but he was ruined by
the iniquitous and arbitrary closing of the Exchequer in 1672, when the
needy and unprincipled king pocketed at one swoop more than a million
and a half of money, which he soon squandered on his shameless
mistresses and unworthy favourites. In that quaint room over Temple Bar
the firm still preserve the dusty books of the unfortunate alderman, who
fled to Holland. There, on the sallow leaves over which the poor
alderman once groaned, you can read the items of our sale of Dunkirk to
the French, the dishonourable surrender of which drove the nation almost
to madness, and hastened the downfall of Lord Clarendon, who was
supposed to have built a magnificent house (on the site of Albemarle
Street, Piccadilly) with some of the very money. Charles II. himself
banked here, and drew his thousands with all the careless nonchalance of
his nature. Nell Gwynne, Pepys, of the "Diary," and Prince Rupert als