'For once I'le new appareld bee, To-morrow I'le to towne and spend, For I'le have a new cloake about mee.'
But the wife's plea for thrift, and her statement--
'Itt's pride that putts this countrye downe,'
succeeds in the end, and the ballad ends,--
'As wee began wee now will leave, And I'le take mine old cloake about mee.'
The aid of the shearman was not merely called in by the poor, for we learn that the Countess of Leicester (Eleanor, third daughter of King John, and wife of Simon de Montfort) in 1265 sent Hicque the tailor to London to get her robes re-shorn.[322]
The date of the ballad was probably early, although the King alluded to in the printed text is King Stephen, in that of the Scotch version Robert, and in the Percy MS. a vague King Henry. The ballad must have had a wide popularity, for Shakespeare alludes to it twice. Iago quotes a whole stanza (_Othello_, act ii.), and Trinculo evidently alludes to it when he says:--
'O King Stephano, O Peere: O worthy Stephano, Looke what a wardrobe here is for thee.' (_Tempest_, act iv. sc. i.).
The number of trades connected with clothing were singularly numerous. Besides the shearman (or tondour) there were the feliper, pheliper or fripperer, who dealt in second-hand clothes, and the furbur or furbisher of old clothes.
Dr. Brentano points out that in all manufacturing countries, in England, Flanders and Brabant, as well as in the Rhenish towns, the most ancient gilds were those of the weavers; and Mr. Ashley writes that the first craft gilds to come into notice were the weavers and fullers of woollen cloth. No weaver or fuller might go outside the town to sell his own cloth, and so interfere with the monopoly of the merchants; nor was he allowed to sell his cloth to any save a merchant of the town.[323]
The London Gild of Weavers was recognised by Henry I., and the first charter of incorporation was granted by Henry II. in 1184, when the seal of Thomas à Becket was affixed to the document. The special privileges given to this trade created a strong jealousy among the citizens, and John was induced to suppress the gild.[324] As it had been accustomed to pay the King eighteen marks per annum, he bargained that the citizens should pay twenty marks so that he might not be out of pocket.