where the Government was too poor to do more than offer facilities for enterprise. Indeed, far from getting financial help, the English companies to some extent took the place of the foreign financiers who in earlier times had made loans to the Crown. Elizabeth got help from the Merchant Adventurers; James I. and Charles I. extracted bribes and benevolences from various companies; Parliament borrowed from them during the civil war; and the later Stewarts received handsome presents from the East India and other companies. Their fortunes were also greatly influenced by the political and financial policy of the Government. Wars naturally affected trade to a considerable extent. At the beginning of the eighteenth century business men protected themselves from the effects of decisive engagements by wagers. If they expected a gain by the successes of the allies, they would wager that their forces would not be victorious before a certain date, and so minimised their losses, though reducing their maximum gains. The attempts of James I. and Charles I. to secure income from companies which were intended to promote industry and trade interfered with the stability and growth of both. The rise in the customs under James I. led to a decline in the carrying trade; the disputes about tonnage and poundage discouraged merchants, as did the sudden changes made by Charles I. in grants of privileges. Charles II.'s stop of the Exchequer was a great blow to trade. Dr. Scott thinks that the Navigation Act of 1651 was not necessary at that time and, in fact, involved a further disorganisation of trade.'

The bearing of this volume on the questions of freedom from restrictions, of monopolies of industrial processes and of trade routes is interesting. Capital owned by other than merchants was employed at an early date, an important matter when it was as scarce as at the beginning of this period. This partly accounted for the success of the joint-stock companies over the regulated type of organisation which limited membership more strictly. The case for monopoly in distant trades, and where protection and negotiation were required, was strong, and the East India and Hudson Bay companies succeeded in maintaining theirs for long. In the former the system of terminable stocks, common in the early companies, prevented for some time the investment of capital in fortifications and buildings to secure the permanency of trade, a precaution which was not neglected by the Dutch company. This arrangement also made confusion in the division of profits and of capital. The chief differences in the constitution of English and Scottish companies was that in the former the supreme authority was vested in a governor to whom the other officials were subordinated, while in the latter affairs were managed by a group of managers. In Scotland acts were passed granting privileges to those who incorporated themselves, one of the principal being freedom from foreign competition; while in England a charter was considered necessary for the constitution of a trading corporaton. By the end of the seventeenth century the mechanism of stock exchange dealings had been developed'; and the 'pernicious art of stock jobbing' was bitterly attacked, and was held to be responsible for the collapse of 1720. The true cause of this crisis was rather the exaggerated ideas of the possibilities of a 'fund of credit,' aggravated by the venality of the ministry and the House of Commons.

Dr. Scott finds that the theory of the occurrence of commercial crises every ten years does not hold during this period; nor do the theories that they are caused by sunspots, over-speculation, over-production, apply. He finds them to be the result of failure to forecast the future-a combination of subjective and objective conditions.

This treatment of the joint-stock system, accompanied by the account of the relation of its development to the general financial, political and economic history of the period, is of great and many-sided interest and value. When a new edition of this volume is issued, perhaps Dr. Scott will expand further his summary in the last chapter, and thus discuss the subject apart from a hampering accumulation of fact and detail. We would suggest also that so useful a volume should not be allowed to suffer in value by the vagaries of the punctuation.

THEODORA KEITH.

HISTORY OF THE HAMMERMEN OF GLASGOW: A STUDY TYPICAL OF SCOTTISH CRAFT LIFE AND ORGANISATION. By Harry Lumsden, LL.B., Clerk of the Trades House of Glasgow, and Rev. P. Henderson Aitken, D.Litt. Pp. xxv, 446. 4to. Paisley: Alexander Gardner. 1912.

Of the numerous citizens of Glasgow who come in contact with the beneficent operations of one or other of its fourteen Incorporated Trades not many are likely to have intimate acquaintance with the origin of these bodies and the important part they took in the administration of municipal and industrial affairs during the bygone centuries. But for those who desire enlightenment on the subject a rare opportunity is now afforded by the publication of this book by Mr. Lumsden and Dr. Aitken, embodying the result of their collaborative investigation. Though chiefly concerned with the Hammermen of Glasgow, the authors have not confined themselves within these limits, but have extended their survey over the field of Scottish craft life and organisation in general. To the credit of the Glasgow incorporations, most of them have already issued historical sketches of their respective crafts, but the authors of the present work are the first to supply a fairly adequate account of the origin and development of a typical craft incorporation, with special reference to its relationship to the other component parts in the constitution of a burgh.

At the outset reference is made to the trade guilds of ancient Greece and Rome, resembling those of medieval Europe, which in turn were adopted by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Associations of persons exercising the same craft and united for the purpose of protecting and promoting their common interests, come into prominence in England in the fourteenth century, and it is not long after that time that their existence can also be traced in Scottish towns. Burgesses were then divided into the two classes of merchants who bought and sold, and craftsmen who manufactured the articles of sale. Other inhabitants, such as servants, journeymen and apprentices, were regarded as unfreemen, and could not carry on any trade or business within the burgh. Voluntary confederations of craftsmen evidently existed in Scotland before 1424, as an act of parliament passed in that year directed

that in every town of the realm there should be chosen a deacon of each craft for supervision of the work wrought by craftsmen, so that the King's lieges should not be defrauded as they had been in time past by 'untrue men of the craft.' But in order that the rules and regulations adopted by these associated bodies for the management of their affairs and guidance of their members might be clothed with due legality, it was considered necessary to have them formally sanctioned by the governing body of the burgh. The usual procedure was for the town council, in compliance with a petition presented by a craft, to issue a document, authenticated by affixing the common seal of the burgh, and specifying the powers and privileges sought for and granted; and this writing, variously called a charter of erection, a letter of deaconry, or a seal of cause, conferred on the persons procuring it the status of a legal incorporation.

Glasgow Hammermen, embracing blacksmiths, goldsmiths, lorimers, saddlers, bucklemakers, armourers and others, obtained their first seal of cause in 1539, but it is clear from the narrative contained in their petition that they had already been established as a voluntary association. This seal of cause was granted by the magistrates and council, with the approval of the archbishop and chapter of the cathedral, and besides prescribing the regulations for the admission of members, and the rules for securing efficiency of workmanship and exercise of the other usual powers and privileges, it contains special provision for upholding divine service at the altar of St. Eloi, the patron saint of hammermen. On the assumption that the altar here referred to had its place in the cathedral, Dr. Aitken thinks it ought to be added to the list of known altars there. In two of the Glasgow seals of cause of the pre-Reformation period, that of the Skinners in 1516, and that of the Cordiners in 1558, the altars of St. Christopher and St. Ninian, respectively, are expressly stated to be situated in the Metropolitan Kirk, but the locality of the altar of St. Eloi is not mentioned in the Hammermen's seal of cause, and it may thus have had its place in one of the chapels of the city, not improbably the old chapel of St. Mary adjoining the tolbooth.

Having described the origin, constitution and composition of the Hammermen craft, Mr. Lumsden gives a series of chapters on freemen, apprentices and servants, the management of the craft, the rights, privileges, duties and obligations of craftsmen, and the craft in relation to the Guildry, the Trades House and the Town Council-the whole forming a lucid and comprehensive narrative and commentary, enhanced by illustrative quotations from the minute books of the craft, which begin in 1616. In Dr. Aitken's section a highly instructive account is given of craft life and work in their different phases at kirk and market, at change house and hospital, and in public affairs. Here, too, the craft's minutes are skilfully woven into the narrative, the interest in which is maintained to the last, even though, in consequence of the abolition of exclusive trading privileges in 1846, the incorporation has since been chiefly concerned with the manageof its funds as a charitable institution.

The book is profusely decorated with portraits and illustrations of hammermen handiwork, and there are also facsimiles of old writings. In one

of the Appendices the charge against the Incorporation of Hammermen of having prevented James Watt from starting business in Glasgow as a mathematical instrument maker is discussed, and the conclusion is arrived at that the story is nothing more than a baseless myth.' Elsewhere, however, the mythical' story related by Spottiswood about the threatened destruction of the cathedral is repeated without qualification. It is highly improbable that the cathedral itself was ever in danger of effacement, and the tradition to that effect seems merely to have been based on a proposal made in 1588 for removing the north-west tower. The design was frustrated at the time, its accomplishment having been reserved for the ill-advised renovators of the nineteenth century.

ROBERT RENWICK.

ROSE CASTLE, THE RESIDENTIAL SEAT OF THE BISHOP OF CARLISLE. By the Rev. James Wilson, B.D., Litt.D. Pp. xx, 270. With Plans and Illustrations, and an Appendix of Original Documents. Demy 8vo. Carlisle Charles Thurnam & Sons. 1912. 6s. net.

WHEN Henry I. founded the house of Austin Canons at Carlisle in the year 1132, he endowed the body, after the fashion of the time, with churches not only in Cumberland and Westmorland, but also in Northumberland and elsewhere. In the following year a diocese was constituted, it being intended that the bishop should not only be diocesan, but also prior of the convent. This arrangement was found not to work so well as the founder expected, and in the year 1219 a letter was written by Henry III. to the Pope telling him that during the destitution of the see, lasting from 1157 to 1203, certain churches in the diocese of Durham had been alienated through the neglect of the canons. In consequence of the disputes between the bishop on the one side, and the canons on the other, their estates, under the authority of the papal legate Pandulf, were partitioned. Among the estates set aside as the patrimony of the see was the lordship of Linstock, north of Carlisle, and there, at the first, the bishop had his residence.

But Linstock was exposed to raids from the North, and in the year 1230, Walter, the fourth bishop in the succession, obtained from the king a grant of the manor of Dalston, some six or eight miles to the south-west of, and therefore protected by, the city. Here he either adapted an existing building or built himself a see-house, which, from the year 1255 to the present time, has been the official residence of the Bishop of Carlisle.

The evolution of this house, its description, and its vicissitudes, form the subject of Dr. Wilson's volume.

After an introductory chapter, in which is sketched the story of the other manor-houses and towers once held by the bishop, Dr. Wilson, with sufficient fulness, relates the story of the acquisition of Dalston-of which parish he is the vicar-and discusses the erection of the see-house on which was bestowed the name of Rose. He adduces evidence to suggest that the name may have been contemporary with the acquisition of Dalston, and sets out the different theories advanced to explain this unusual though attractive designation. In the pages that follow he weaves the warp of the history of the structure with the woof of the personal history of its succes