All these rules and ordinances the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were graciously pleased to sanction and confirm.

The records contain many entries showing the difficulties the authorities had to contend with in keeping the brewers to the legal price and qualities of ale, a subject already touched on in Chapter V. The prices being fixed by law, and no allowance being made for the natural fluctuations of the market, it is not to be supposed that the brewers would give their customers any better ale than they were absolutely compelled by law to give. As old Taylor quaintly says:—

Disputes arising between the officers of the Brewers’ Company and any members of the guild, were sometimes referred for settlement to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. In 1520 there was “variance and debate in the Court of Aldermen between the Master and Wardens of the ale-brewers and Thomas Adyson, ale-brewer, concerning the making of a growte” by the latter. The parties having submitted their case to the Court, it was adjudged that Adyson should go to the Brewers’ Hall, {143} and there, before the Master and Wardens, “with due reverence as to them apperteynyng, standing before them his hed uncovered, shall say these words: ‘Maysters, I pray you to be good masters to me, and fromhensforth I promytte you that I shall be good and obedient to you . . and obey the laws and customs of the house.’”

Foreign brewers (i.e., brewers not members of the Company) were only allowed to sell ale within the City on paying 40s. annually to the use of the City, and in default of payment the Chamberlain “shall distreyne their carts from tyme to tyme.” There was also a duty called ale-silver, which had been paid from time immemorial to the Lord Mayor by the sellers of ale within the City.

Complaints of short measure were still common, and as it is shown that the barrels were delivered to customers without being properly filled, so that “thynhabitants of the City paye for more ale and bere than they doo receive, which is agenst alle good reason and conscience,” therefore the brewers were ordered to take round “filling ale” to fill up their customers’ casks.

In the eighteenth year of Henry VIII. a striking instance of the insubordination of the Brewers is recorded. The four Wardens of the Company were ordered to produce their books of fines, “the whiche to doo they utterly denyed.” Therefore the four Wardens and their Clerk, Lawrence Anworth, “were comytted to the prisn of Newgate ther to remayne.” This seems to have awakened the Wardens to a sense of their duties, for on the same day they brought in “ij. boks inclosed in a whytte bagge.” A committee was appointed to inspect the same, “forasmuche as it is thought that mayne unreasonable fynes and other ordynannces be conteyned in theym.”

It has been already mentioned (p. 68) that from the time of Henry VI. beer had begun slowly to displace the old English ale. The Beer-brewers had gathered themselves together into a “fellowship” for the protection of their interests, and were quite distinct from the Ale-brewers, who composed the Brewers’ Company. Whatever may have been the case earlier, in the reign of Henry VIII. the Beer-brewers numbered in their fellowship a certain proportion of Dutchmen. In the twenty-first year of that reign it was ordained that “no maner Berebruer, Ducheman or other, selling any bere shall, etc.” “Also that no maner of berebruer Englise or straunger, shall have and kepe in his house above the nomber of two Coblers to amende their vessells.” Constant reference is made to the Beer-brewers as being a fellowship separate from the Ale-brewers until the reign of Edward VI., by which {144} time they had united, apparently without obtaining the sanction of any authority to the change. In the fifth year of that reign a resolution was passed by the Court of Common Council that, “forasmoche as the beare-bruers in the last commen counseyll here holden most dysobedyentlye, stubborenelye, and arrogantlye behaved theymselfes toward this honourable Courte,” the whole craft of the Beer-brewers are for ever disqualified from being elected to serve upon the Common Council; if, however, the Beer-brewers make humble submission, they may be restored to their old status, “if your lordship and the wysdomes of this Citee shall then thynke it mete.” And forasmuch as “most evydently yt hathe apperyd that this notable stobernes of the beare-bruers hath rysen by the counseyll and provocatioun of the ale-bruers, which have unyted to theym all the beare-bruers,” it is ordered that for the future the two crafts shall not unite, nor shall the Ale-brewers compel any one to come into their Company. This state of things continued till the third year of Queen Mary’s reign, when a petition was presented by the Brewers to the Common Council, which recited that the two crafts had formerly been united, “as mete and verye convenyente it was and yet is,” and prayed that the restriction might be removed. The petition ended thus: “and they with all their hartes accordinge to theire dueties shall daylye praye unto almightye god longe to prosper and preserve your honours and worshippes in moche helthe and felycytie.” This affecting appeal, which would have moved a heart of stone, had the desired effect, and from that day to the present the Beer-brewers and Ale-brewers have been united, “as mete and very convenyente it is” that they should be. Different governance, however, was applied to the former, and for long after this period four Surveyors of the Beer-brewers, being “substantyall sadd men,” were elected every year to supervise the trade.

An instance of the tyranny with which the trades were regulated in the old days has been already given; a very similar one may be taken from an order of the Star Chamber in the twenty-fourth year of Henry VIII., which commands that “in case the Maire and Aldermen of the same Citie shall hereafter knowe and perceyve or understonde that any of the saide Brewers of their frowarde and perverse myndes shall at any tyme hereafter sodenly forbere and absteyne from bruynge, whereby the King’s subjects shulde bee destitute or onprovided of Drynke,” the brewhouses of such “wilfull and obstynate” brewers shall be taken possession of by the City, who are to allow others to brew there, and provide them materials “in case their lak greynes to brew with.” {145}

Regrators and forestallers (i.e., persons who bought large stocks of provisions with the object of causing a rise in price) were in old times severely treated by the authorities, who generally checked their iniquitous dealings by ordering them to sell their stores at a reasonable price. The forestaller, indeed, might think himself lucky if he escaped so easily. In the fourth year of Edward VI. four persons who had accumulated great quantities of hops in a time of scarcity were ordered to sell their whole stock at once at a reasonable price.

All through the reign of Queen Elizabeth the unfortunate brewers were vexed with frequent and, in some cases, contradictory regulations: This beer was to be allowed; that beer was prohibited; prices were still fixed by law, and qualities must correspond to the City regulations. Even though a man be ruined, he could not leave off brewing, for fear of being held a “rebel.”

A curious ordinance, made in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth’s reign, shows the extreme newness of the ale and beer consumed by the good men of the City of London in those days. The ordinance is expressed to be for the reformation of “dyvers greate and foule abuses disorderlye bigonne by the Brewers,” and, reciting that the Brewers have begun to deliver their beer and ale but two or three hours after the same be cleansed and tunned, it provides that no beer or ale is to be delivered to customers till it has stood in the brewer’s house six hours in summer and eight in winter.

There seems to have been a smoke question in London even as early as this period, for in the twenty-first year of Elizabeth we find that John Platt was committed to prison, “for that he contrarye to my Lorde Maior’s comaundement to refraine from burninge of seacoles during her Majestie’s abode at Westminster, he did continually burn seacole notwithstanding.” A petition from the Brewers to Her Majesty’s Council about the same period recites that the Brewers understand that Her Majesty “findeth hersealfe greately greved and anoyed with the taste and smoke of the seacooles used in their furnaces.” They therefore promise to substitute wood in the brewhouses nearest to Westminster Palace. What would have been Her Majesty’s “grief” if she could have experienced a modern November in London?

In Peter Pindar’s poem on the visit of King George III. to Whitbread’s Brewery, allusion is made to the once popular belief that brewers’ horses are usually fed on grains. The origin of this idea may possibly be found in the regulations enforced in London as to the price of and the dealings in brewers’ grains. In a proclamation of Elizabeth’s {146} time it is recited that “forasmuche as brewers’ graines be victuall for horses and cattell as hey and horsebread and other provinder be,” therefore a price is to be set upon grains by the Lord Mayor, and the buying of grains to sell again is forbidden. The difficulties of enforcing the rules as to price and quality of ale and beer are shown in the frequent complaints of the brewers, and in the numerous trials that were made from time to time by the City authorities to ascertain how much drink ought to be brewed from a fixed quantity of malt. In the thirty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a large Committee was appointed to make trial, at the charges of the City, of twenty quarters of malt, to be brewed into two sorts of beer, viz., strong beer at 6s. 8d. the barrel, and “doble” beer at 3s. 4d. the barrel. As a result of the trial, the brewers promised to draw only five barrels and a half of double beer from a quarter of malt until the price of malt had fallen to 18s. the quarter; a strong proof this of the growing taste for strong ale and beer. Shortly before this time the strongest ale allowed by law had been this same “doble.” Now the “doble” had taken the place of the single, and the strong ale of twice the strength of the “doble” had stepped into its place.

A very summary way had the City authorities in the sixteenth century, of treating any drink or victual which did not come up to the required standard of excellence. In 1597 we find it ordered that two and fifty pipes of corrupt beer, “being nether fitt for man’s body, nor to be converted into sawce (i.e. vinegar) . . . shall have the heades of all the same pipes beaten owte and the beer poured out into the channells, part in Cheapside, part in Cornhill and part in Bishopsgate.”

After the reign of Elizabeth the entries concerning the Brewers and their delinquencies become fewer and farther between. The prices of ale and beer were still fixed by law, but more common-sense views on the subject of trade and trade regulation were slowly beginning to prevail, and we soon lose all traces of the tyrannous and vexatious regulations of which so many instances occur in earlier times. One more such instance may be mentioned of an arbitrary attempt to force trade out of its natural channels, and to lower prices and compel sobriety at one and the same time. In 1614 the Lord Mayor, “finding the gaols pestered with prisoners, and their bane to take root and beginning at ale-houses, and much mischief to be there plotted, with great waste of corn in brewing heady strong beer, many consuming all their time and means sucking that sweet poison,” had an exact survey taken of all victualling houses and ale-houses, which were above a thousand. As above 300 {147} barrels of beer were in some houses, the whole quantity of beer in victualling houses amounting to above 40,000 barrels, he had thought it high time to abridge their number and limit them by bonds as to the quantity of beer they should use, and as to what orders they should observe, whereby the price of corn and malt had greatly fallen. The Brewers, however, seem to have been too many for his Lordship, for though he limited the number of barrels to twenty per house, and the quality of the two sorts of beer to 4s. and 8s. a barrel, so that the price of malt and wheat was in a fortnight reduced by 5s. or 6s. per quarter, yet the Brewers brewed as before, alleging that the beer was to be used for export, and, “combining with such as kept tippling houses,” conveyed the same to the ale-houses by night, so that in a few weeks’ time the price of malt had risen to much the same figure as before.

In 1626 the Brewers’ Company was in evil case, as may be judged from a petition presented by them in that year to the City Fathers, in which they allege that they are in a decayed state and not able to govern their trade, that their Company consists of but six beer-brewers and a small number of ale-brewers, and that other brewers are free of other Companies. The petition goes on to pray that no other person than a freeman of the Company be allowed to set up a brewhouse in the City. The petition was referred to a Committee, and nothing more was heard of it. A similar petition, presented to the Common Council in the year 1752, was considered and the prayer granted.

While, however, the Brewers’ Company had been allowed to fall into decay, the City regulations of the trade had become less and less irksome, and the brewers themselves increased in wealth and prosperity. Many allusions may be found in the writers of the middle of the seventeenth century, which prove that the status of the brewers had greatly improved. The old Water Poet thus describes how the brewers “are growne rich”:—

A short space only may be devoted to a record of a few of the more remarkable brewers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jan Steen, of Delph, seems to have been a brewer famed rather for his eccentricities than for his beer. He flourished in the days of Charles II., and Arnold Hinbraken, his biographer, says that a whole book might {149} be filled with droll episodes of his life. “He was so attached to boon companions, that his Brewery came to grief. He bought wine with his money instead of malt. His wife, seeing this, said one day to him, ‘Jan, our living is vanishing, our customers call in vain, there is no beer in the cellar, nor have we malt for a Brew, what will become of us? You should bring life into the brewery.’ ‘I’ll keep it alive,’ said Jan, and walked away. He went to market and bought several live ducks, having first told his men to fill the largest kettle with water and heat it. He then threw a little malt in it, and threw in the Ducks, which, not accustomed to hot water, flew madly through the Brewery making a horrid noise, so that his wife came running in to see what the matter was, when Jan, turning to her, said, ‘My love, is it not lively now in our Brewery?’ However, he gave up brewing, and turned Painter.”

William Hicks, who died in the year 1740, was one of the most remarkable Brewers of the last century. He was brewer to the Royal household, and left behind him a well-earned reputation for honesty and loyalty. A striking proof of his loyalty may be seen to this day in the statue of George I., which he set up on the summit of Bloomsbury steeple, and of which a facetious person wrote:—

Another celebrated brewer of last century was Humphrey Parsons, twice Lord Mayor of London. This gentleman, when upon a hunting party with Louis XV., happened to be exceedingly well mounted, and, contrary to the etiquette observed in the French Court, outstripped the rest of the company, and was first in at the death. On the King asking the name of the stranger, he was indignantly informed that he “was un chevalier de malte.” The King entered into conversation with Mr. Parsons, and asked the price of his horse. The Chevalier, bowing in the most courtly style, replied that the horse was beyond any price other than his Majesty’s acceptance. The horse was delivered, and from thenceforward the chevalier Parsons had the exclusive privilege of supplying the French Court and people with his far-famed “black champagne.”

It has been the sad reflection of many an one, on wandering in a churchyard and reading the epitaphs of the departed, that certainly the most virtuous and highly-gifted of mankind have already passed {150} away—that is, if the epitaphs are absolutely to be relied on. Mr. Tipper, the Newhaven brewer, who died in 1785, and lies buried in Newhaven Churchyard, is an instance in point. Surely none but himself could have been Mr. Tipper’s parallel. His epitaph runs thus:—

The last resting place of Mr. Pepper, sometime brewer of Stamford, in Lincolnshire, bears these lines:—