St. Dunstan is the patron saint of the Goldsmiths’ Company, and he figures in their hall both in picture and in statue. The legend was a favourite one in their Lord Mayor’s Show, especially in that of 1687, when in the trade pageant the prelate seated on a chair of State, having a golden mitre on his head, a crozier in one hand and tongs in the other, surrounded by forges and anvils and blacksmith at work, taught the devil the oft-repeated lesson not to intrude on forbidden ground. We might multiply evidences of the popularity of the famous legend, but we have said enough, and must proceed with our Company’s history.
In the first year of the reign of Henry VII. (1485) both the Blacksmiths’ and Spurriers’ guilds will be found in the list given by Campbell, vol. i. p. 4; and a few years later, in 1502, standing in precedency the 36th Company, the Blacksmiths had a livery of sixteen, and the Spurriers, standing the 46th, had six. When Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine “shall pass by towards their Coronation,” the same Companies sent members to represent them, and in the eighth year of that King’s reign, 1517, it was settled that in precedency in the future the Blacksmiths should be the 41st Company and the Spurriers the 46th. There were then about sixty Companies in the City, but of these ten were not in the “clothing,” that is to say, had a livery.
[Illustration: ST. DUNSTAN GIVES A PRACTICAL REMINDER OF THE POWER OF THE HORSESHOE.]
It was by Charter, dated April 20, 1571, that the two Companies were united under the usual conditions of a body corporate and with the powers and privileges of making ordinances for the government of the Company. The Charter was confirmed by James I. in his second year, March 21, 1604-5. Meanwhile the precepts poured into the Blacksmiths as they did to other Companies, and in May, 1595, out of 12,000 quarters of corn stored at the Bridgehouse in the preceding November by the City Guilds, only some 779 quarters remained, and ten of these belonged to this Company. The Corn Custom, as described by Herbert, was a heavy tax, and often so tyrannical was the system of levy that some of the wardens were sent to prison in 1632 for neglecting to obey orders.