ed to his discreet and able management. He was
also a spirited promoter of the infant manufactures of his country,
several of which owed to him their first establishment. By his diligence
and commercial talents he at length rendered himself the most opulent
subject in the kingdom, and the queen showed her sense of his merit and
consequence by bestowing on him the honor of knighthood.

Gresham had always made a liberal and patriotic use of his wealth; but
after the death of his only son, in 1564, he formed the resolution of
making his country his principal heir. The merchants of London had
hitherto been unprovided with any building in the nature of a burse or
exchange, such as Gresham had seen in the great commercial cities of
Flanders; and he now munificently offered, if the city would give him a
piece of ground, to build them one at his own expense. The edifice was
begun accordingly in 1566, and finished within three years. It was a
quadrangle of brick, with walks on the ground floor for the merchants,
(who now ceased to transact their business in the middle aisle of St.
Paul's cathedral,) with vaults for warehouses beneath and a range of
shops above, from the rent of which the proprietor sought some
remuneration for his great charges. But the shops did not immediately
find occupants; and it seems to have been partly with the view of
bringing them into vogue that the queen promised her countenance to the
undertaking. In January 1571, attended by a splendid train, she entered
the city; and after dining with sir Thomas at his spacious mansion in
Bishopsgate-street (still remaining), she repaired to the burse, visited
every part of it, and caused proclamation to be made by sound of trumpet
that henceforth it should bear the name of the Royal Exchange. Gresham
offered the shops rent-free for a year to such as would furnish them
with wares and wax lights against the coming of the queen; and a most
sumptuous display was made of the richest commodities and manufactures
of every quarter of the globe.

Afterwards the shops of the exchange became the favorite resort of
fashionable customers of both sexes: much money was squandered here,
and, if we are to trust the representations of satirists and comic
writers, many reputations lost. The building was destroyed in the fire
of London; and the divines of that day, according to their custom,
pronounced this catastrophe a judgement on the avarice and unfair
dealing of the merchants