History of the Company. 2)1 



In the year 1364, we learn from the City Books, 



AD 1364. ^^^^ ^^ Saddlers' Company, among 



Contribution Others, Contributed the sum of one 



towards Edward 1 , i i •n* . i .1 



III. 's French hundred shiilmgs towards the support 

 wars. q£ ^^ King in the prosecution of his 

 French wars. This is one of the earliest instances 

 of a general levy upon the Livery Companies for 

 State purposes, although, as we shall presently see, 

 the custom was destined to become more frequent 

 and extended. In return for this patriotic sup- 

 port of the Companies, but more probably with 

 a view to encourage their development — for 

 Edward III. was a thorough protectionist — the 

 King gratified them by a more liberal distribution 

 of charters. If the extent of the contributions of 

 the several Companies enumerated in the manu- 

 script is any measure of their order of importance 

 or relative wealth, the Saddlers' Company would 

 appear, at this time, to have ranked about the 

 twenty-first. 



The same year Edward III. granted the 

 Saddlers' Company the first charter or license 

 which is recorded to them on the Rolls.^ 



Boileau ; published for the first time in its entirety from the 

 Manuscripts of the King's Library and the Archives of the 

 Kingdom, by G. B. Depping (Title LXXVIII.). 



^ Patant Roll, 37 Edward III., part 2, membrane 7. The 

 original is in Latin. This, however, must not be misinter- 

 preted as a Charter of Incorporation, which, it is claimed, was 

 granted to the Company in 1272, 



Carpenter, in the " Liber Albus " (Rolls Series, i., 536), 

 has the following record of letters patent granted to the 



