The proposed rules and tables appear at length in the minute books of the Incorporation.

On 17th April, 1848, the minute book shows that the Incorporation abandoned the proposal to convert the Incorporation into an annuity society, and, accordingly, the petition to the Court of Session and relative proceedings fell to the ground.

The minute book further shows that the Incorporation enacted bye-laws in 1848. These bye-laws were again amended, enlarged, and improved in 1868, and these latter, owing to the changes that had come about, were again amended in February, 1877, February, 1878, and February, 1881. The alteration in 1877 consisted in an entire revision, and embraced a new table of entrymoneys, providing that each member should on entry pay according to his age, and not as formerly, when young and old paid alike.

The amendments of 1878 were of an unimportant character. The chief amendment made in 1881 was a new rule to the effect that, in the case of a contested election for office-bearers, the election should be conducted according to a simple and convenient form of ballot, which has given great satisfaction on the two occasions on which it has been used, and it has totally allayed that feeling of personal irritation which had been so frequent a concomitant of the former elections of office-bearers. A print of the amended bye-laws of 1881 will be found in the Appendix.

CHAPTER XV.

LOYALTY OF CRAFTSMEN.

THE Trades' House of Glasgow, which embodied, to a certain extent, the several incorporated trades, was itself formally constituted a corporate body under the Letter Guildry of 1605 and subsequent Acts of Parliament, and may be said to have reflected the sentiments and opinions of the Incorporated Trades. It has on all public occasions and events exhibited in no unstinted manner its loyalty and devotion to the crown; but various public events arose before, and have arisen since, the Trades' House became formally a corporate body, which have given the craftsmen themselves an opportunity for evincing, as they have done, their individual loyalty fully and freely. It seems unnecessary to trouble the reader with a recapitulation of these numerous individual loyal expressions in so far as the Incorporation of Cordiners is concerned. A selection of two modern incidents will, we think, suffice for this object. One of these events was in connection with the address voted to William IV. on the Green of Glasgow in 1831, and dealt with in Chapter VI., and the other on the occasion of the visit of Her present Majesty to Glasgow in 1849, when the Incorporation presented a loyal address to the Queen. The following is the minute

agreeing to present the address, and the address itself:

"At a meeting of the Master Court, held within the clerk's office the 10th day of August, 1849, at 3 o'clock afternoon.

"Met-The Deacon, Mr. Lochore, jun., Mr. George Smith, Mr. D. Macnicol, Mr. Peter McGregor, and Mr. John Craig.

"Mr. Lochore moved that the Incorporation present an address to Her Majesty on the occasion of her visit to this city, which was seconded by Mr. Macnicol, and unanimously agreed to, and authority given accordingly.

"To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty.

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'We, the Deacon, Collector, Masters, and Members of the Incorporation of Cordiners in the City of Glasgow, enfranchised by charter granted centuries ago by one of your royal ancestors on the throne of Scotland, participating in the joyous and grateful feelings inspired by your Majesty's gracious condescension in honouring this ancient seat of commerce and learning with a royal visit, beg to approach your august presence with the expression of our devoted loyalty and attachment to the British Crown, and reverential esteem and admiration of your Majesty's person, consort, and family.

"We humbly solicit your most Gracious Majesty to accept this expression of our hearty thanks and lively

gratitude, and our prayers that all happiness may attend your Majesty in your person, family, and government.

"Signed in name, presence, and by appointment of the said Incorporation, and the Seal of the Incorporation is affixed the tenth day of August, Eighteen hundred and forty-nine.

(Signed)

"JAMES CRAIG, Deacon."

Glasgow has not, like Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth, had the good fortune to have been a seat for a royal residence, and thus its craftsmen have not had an opportunity of assisting in the protection and preservation of royal personages; but had Glasgow been so favoured, it may, with safety, be affirmed that her craftsmen would not have been behind their brethren of Edinburgh in the loyalty shown by the latter, as given in the following story:

During the strife betwixt James V. and the Earl of Northumberland, John Armstrong, chief of a band of Mosstroopers, was enticed by the king, on the suggestion of his officers, to come to the king, who had written a letter to Armstrong with his royal hand to attend at the palace of Holyrood. The king, hearing a distinct account of the crimes John was guilty of, ordained Armstrong to be committed to gaol, and suffer, with his accomplices, according to law. This notorious freebooter, along with his followers, drew upon the king in his chamber of audience, and the king was with much difficulty rescued by his courtiers. Armstrong and his attendants continued their hostilities, designing to

kill every soul in the royal palace; but it being noised in the city of Edinburgh that the king was in imminent danger of being cut off by the hands of these bandits, the crafts of the city rose, came to the rescue, and slew "fourscore and ten" of the freebooters. This story is preserved in memory, not so much by our historians, who give but a faint account of it, as in the following quaint ballad written by one of the greatest poets of that age:—

"There dwelt ai man in fair Westmoreland,

John Armstrong men did him call;
He hd neither lands nor rents coming in,
Yet he kept eightscore men in his hall.

"The king he wrote an a letter then,

An a letter which was large and long;
He sign'd with his own hand,

And he promised to do him no wrong.
When this letter came John him till,

His heart was as blyth as birds on a tree;
Never was I sent for before any king,

My father, my grandfather, nor none but me.

"By the morrow morning at ten of the clock
Toward Edinburgh gone was he;

And with him all his eightscore of men,
Good Lord, an it was a goodly sight to see.

When John came before the king,

He fell down low upon his knee;

O pardon, my sovereign liege, he said,
O pardon my eightscore men and me.

"Thou shalt have no pardon, thou traitor Strong,
Nae for thy eightscore men and thee;

For to-morrow morning by ten of the clock

Both thou and them shall hang on the gallow tree.