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.