[17] On the next day he supervised the setting of a man in the Cheapside pillory, with both his ears nailed to it, which were then cut off as a herald read out his offence of having uttered seditious words during the proclamation.

After singing the Te Deum in St Paul's, "the Council departed and commaunded Mr Garret the sheriffe with the Kinge of Armes and the trumpetter to see the proclamation made immedyately in other accustomed places within the City.

[21] At this time Garrard was among the original Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers to New Lands (the incipient Russia Company), for whom a royal charter was prepared under Edward VI but never sealed.

[2] According to Henry Lane, writing 33 years later, Garrard helped to finance the first voyage of the Merchant Adventurers to New Lands,[22] the expedition of April 1553 promoted by Sebastian Cabot and led by Sir Hugh Willoughby in search of a Northeast Passage to Cathay, which failed in its declared objective, but resulted in Richard Chancellor's first diplomatic contacts with Tsar Ivan IV in Moscow.

[9] The succession crisis of 1553 drove Thomas Wroth into exile in Europe and found John Yorke in the Tower of London, but Queen Mary soon grasped the importance of the Company to her rule and issued her own charter in February 1554/55.

Among the first of Queen Mary's provisions was a commission of December 1553 to the Lord Mayor and the Bishop of London, together with various aldermen and others including William Garrard, to assist the poor prisoners in the Ludgate gaol by inspecting the cases of the debtors and their creditors and reaching equitable terms.

In March 1556 the Henry Dudley conspiracy to depose Mary was discovered, leading to a series of trials for high treason at the Guildhall over which the mayors presided as justices for oyer and terminer.

[32] Edmund and Francis Verney were indicted on 11 June before Garrard, sitting with William Laxton, Martin Bowes, Andrew Judd and Ralph Cholmley.

[34] Sir Anthony Kingston is thought to have taken his own life in April, and Edward Lewknor, condemned with Francis Verney on 9 June, died a prisoner in the Tower of London in September.

[42][43] The former commission for the City and Diocese to regulate the grievances of the poor debtors in Ludgate was renewed in 1558, naming Garrard, Roger Cholmeley and William Chester among the principal commissioners.

Henry Machyn records Garrard's presence as a senior mourner at several civic funerals of this time, notably as chief mourner for Dame Alice Barne, widow of Sir George Barne, at St Bartholomew-the-Less in June 1559; and, together with Sir William Chester, Thomas Lodge and others at the June 1560 funeral of Anthony Hussey at St Martin, Ludgate.

In March 1563 he was with Thomas Offley, William Chester and Christopher Draper among the mourners to St Andrew Undershaft for Alderman David Woodroffe, all original promoters of the Company.

[49] In 1563 one of the lenders, Thomas Lodge (then Lord Mayor), caused a scandal by falling heavily into debt[50] "through losses by sea and land and evil debtors and otherwise", and, having his offers to negotiate repayment to his creditors refused, made petition to have his affairs determined by commission (effectively filing for bankruptcy).

[52] In November 1561 Garrard received a commission to work with Edward Warner (Lieutenant of the Tower), Sir William Hewett (Lord Mayor 1559–1560) and Thomas Seckford (Master of Requests) to restore to their proper uses the archery practise grounds within two miles of London (which were being unlawfully enclosed), with powers of enforcement.

[54] In July 1562 he was enlisted in a great commission, under the bishops and chancellors, for the putting into effect of the new Acts of Uniformity (1558) and of Supremacy in the Church, to establish the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.

They received powers to seek out and deal with heresy and sedition, with disrupters of divine service, absenters, vagrants and quarrelsome or suspicious types, and people using matrimony or religious pleadings unjustly to deprive others of their rights and property, and with notorious adulterers and fornicators.

The commissioners were empowered to gather evidence, make investigations, to summon, examine and punish offenders, to inspect the statutes and ordinances of all religious foundations including cathedrals, colleges and grammar schools founded since the time of Henry VIII and to amend them as necessary, and to certificate their defects.

They successfully captured 83 of the pirates and delivered them with a letter to the Emperor of Russia, reserving only one, Captain Haunce Snarke, who had shown leniency towards the English mariners.

[70] The meeting at Garrard's house in 1564 was to top-up funds for the Guinea expedition, which lost a number of men to hostile action but limped home with a cargo of gold and ivory.

Hawkins himself, who openly denied any such intention, had laid in a very great quantity of dried beans suitable to feed a human cargo for the transatlantic crossing, and dainty textiles more suited to the Hispanic than to the African trade.

[75] Hawkins, by his testimony, stated that the "articulate" (i.e. contracting) Sir William Garrard, Rowland Hayward and others of their Society and Company furnished a fleet of six ships for a voyage to the coast of Guinea and other foreign regions, for merchandize to be had with the inhabitants of those countries.

[3] By a letter of September 1567, waiting to depart from Plymouth, Hawkins notified the queen of his intention to "lade negroes in Genoya and sell them in the West Indyes, in truck of gold, perles and esmeraldes".

[76] Hawkins arrived on the Guinea coast in November 1567, and, with other merchants appointed by the Company, captured and purchased "a good quantity of Negroes" and set off with them for the West Indies.

In February 1565/66 there was a meeting at Sir John Rivers's residence to witness and celebrate the finalization of the plans for the exchange, at which Gresham personally shook hands with Garrard before the assembled company.

Garrard sat with Alexander Avenon, John Southcote and Thomas Wroth in an inquisition at the Guildhall into a case of coin-clipping in January 1570/71;[81] and as Governor of the Muscovy Company he received a royal licence for certain freights for urgent causes on 6 August 1571.

The main body of his will is concerned with the distribution and entail of his lands and properties, principally his London and Dorney residences and his estates at Sittingbourne, Longfield, Southfleet, Bermondsey, Bexley and in the Isle of Sheppey, between his wife, his four sons and his daughter.

[88] A portrait from life of Sir William Garrard in oil on canvas, dated c. 1568 (artist unknown), shows him in his fur-trimmed robe and wearing a long gold chain.

It is held in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, and measures about 3 ft by 2 ft.[89] Arthur Collins cited for John Garrard, father of Sir William, arms as follows: "Argent, on a fess sable a lion passant of the first.

"[6] The 1634 Visitation of Buckinghamshire shows for Sir William the same arms, adding a Crest awarded by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux, on 26 October 1570: "A leopard seijant proper".