It is a tale told around the Livery equivalent of camp fires every year. As with all history the interpretation of the story of the City and Northern Ireland shifts with time but the grievance is always there.
In May the Mercers’ Master Christopher Vermont reminded junior partners in the ill-starred venture – the Cooks, Broderers and Masons – of the “uneasy relationship between the City and the Monarch”
And the Broderers new master Jonathan Murphy went so far as to say that the financial arm twisting in the early 17th century which paved the way for the clearances and colonisation of the region that became Londonderry led directly to the Civil War.
The Mercers, whose extensive hall in Ironmonger Lane a few hundred yards north of the Innholders Hall is a reflection of their status as the greatest of the 12 ‘Great’ companies despite being burned down in the Fire of London and then destroyed in the Blitz, have various reasons to be wary. Less than 80 years before they were coopted to fund the Irish development one of their most famous members – Thomas More, whose extended family portrait is in the main hall – had his head chopped off for refusing to help Henry VII with his divorce.
And in 1609 they were drafted to pay £2,680 – the equivalent of just shy of £500,000 in todays money according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator although probably a lot more in terms of compound interest – as a down payment with more to come so that the Crown could appropriate some 33 squares miles of Northern Ireland and ship off undesirables from an overpopulated capital to a distant and hostile land. At the time it could have been Rwanda.
In contrast the Cooks only had to stump up £200 – the equivalent of just under £35,000, with the Broderers paying £153 and the Masons £100.
The companies balked and the Wardens of the Cooks and Mercers both had a spell in prison before they paid up.
Financially, the involvement with The Honourable Irish Company – which was a shareholder operation similar to the East India Company – paid off but politically it was a mess leading to persistent wrangles with the Crown and a hands-off absentee landlord operation which according to the Company’s 1982 history by Peter Herbage meant that “conditions on the Irish Estate were very unsatisfactory”.
Alan Borg, in his 2011 update put it more bluntly: “The King’s action [Charles 1 confiscated the Estates in 1641 and levied a £70,000 fine] turned much of the City against him and was a contributory factory to his downfall and execution after the Civil War. It also allowed the Irish to rise in rebellion against their English masters and Cromwell only crushed the rebellion with much bloodshed.”
It is possible that the “uneasy relationship” is one reason why the Mercers appear even more reluctant to put their heads above the parapet than many other Livery Companies.
They are Fabulously wealthy as a result of big endowments, particularly from the most famous member – four-times-Mayor Dick Whittington – and a Financial Times article a few years quoted assets of £500m compared with the Cooks £20m (ish). And they are keen to showcase the heavy charitable commitments, especially to education. John Colet, a Mercer and former Dean of St Paul’s established St Paul’s school and the Company is closely linked to 16 schools and colleges.
However the Company is shy of discussing its operations to the extent that it does not allow any photography in its hall and it was reluctant to endorse its own Past Master’s recent drive to create a pan Livery organisation despite his links with the Company. The initiative had to be taken over by William Russell, the Lord Mayor and a Haberdasher.
And while they have recently appointed a development officer to inject new blood to the current 460 members insiders hint that the initiative is very much on the drawing board and could stay there for some time.
Nevertheless the links with their three junior partners remain and when their turn to entertain them for the first time in three years rolled round on May 26 they didn’t hold back. And they still toasted the reigning Monarch
