44 
behalf this warrant was issued by King Richard III, was 
one of the most ancient of the York Guilds or trade incorpora¬ 
tions, having had its customs and privileges confirmed by a 
charter, granted by King Henry the Second, whilst he was 
on a progress in the north in the year 1158. For the 
renewal of their rights and privileges the weavers were 
required by this charter to pay into the King’s exchequer an 
annual rent of £10, a very large sum according to the value 
of money at that period. Three centuries later, when the 
prosperity of the weavers of York was on the wane, the guild 
obtained from King Edward the Fourth a charter, by which 
the annual rent payable by them to the crown was reduced to 
£5, but this diminished amount they were unable to pay 
without inconvenience. It appears that persons residing in 
the Ainsty, who exercised the occupation of weavers, and who 
had been accustomed to contribute their quota of the annual 
rent the city guild was liable to pay into the exchequer, now 
refused to bear their share of the burden, and when King 
Richard was at York, in the autumn of 1483, the guild prevailed 
upon him to arm them with the warrant now produced, by 
which the sheriffs of the city were empowered to assist the 
guild in compelling the refractory weavers of the Ainsty to pay 
their due proportion of the crown-rent. This gracious act 
added one more to the many favours conferred upon the 
citizens of York by that much maligned monarch King Richard 
the Third during his memorable sojourn at his northern 
metropolis, in September, 1483, although upon that occasion 
(I will take this opportunity of again asserting) he did not 
gratify his Yorkshire subjects with the pageant of a second 
coronation. 
The autographs of Richard, as king, are exceedingly rare. 
Their scarcity is owing partly to the shortness of his reign, 
but chiefly to the pains taken by his successors in the govern¬ 
ment to destroy all evidences of his public acts. A few years 
ago, a warrant or order under the king’s sign manual was 
brought to the hammer, and produced the sum of £11. 
Only a single example of King Richard’s paraphe or monogram 
is given by Mr. J. G. Nichols, in his book of fac-similes of 
