1 6 THE APOTHECARIES' GARDEN 



daily transmit ... to the great peril 

 and daily hazard of the lives of our sub- 

 jects . . . We therefore . . . weighing 

 with ourselves how to prevent the endea- 

 vours of such wicked persons . . . thought 

 necessary to disunite and dissociate the 

 Apothecaries of our City of London from 

 the Freemen of the Mystery of Grocers 

 . . . into one body Corporate and Politic 

 ... to whom in all future times the 

 management of those inconveniences might 

 be given in charge and committed . . . 

 after the manner of other Companies. 1 

 So the order came to the Apothecaries to 

 leave the Company of the Grocers, and form 

 themselves into a separate City Company. 



But the exodus of the Apothecaries was no 

 simple matter. It was full of trouble. Like 

 Pharaoh of old, the Grocers refused to let the 

 people go. The Apothecaries had no thought 

 of spoiling the Grocers. They were taking 

 neither endowments nor silver ; but the 

 Grocers disliked the prospect of having their 

 numbers reduced, and did all that was possible 

 to hinder the exodus. Some of the Apothe- 

 caries, too, seemed to prefer the flesh-pots of 

 the Grocers, and murmured against their 

 leaders, who were taking them into the wilder- 

 ness, where they had no habitation, and where 

 some day they might be heavily taxed to find 

 one. 



But King James stood by them. And so, 

 with little money and no home, the Apothe- 



1 The whole charter is quoted in Barrett's History of the Society 

 of Apothecaries, and occupies no less than 21 quarto pages. 



